Here’s the first time lapse video I’ve put together of my collage process. This little 7″x5″ collage took me about an hour and a half to create, but I was able to speed up the process into a 4 minute time lapse video. I’m looking forward to creating a few more of these in the future. And hopefully this gives you a better idea of how I piece together my artwork.
Artwork by the Artist When She Was a Child: Part 2
About a year ago I posted images of artwork I did as a child. Recently I was sifting through more images of artwork from my childhood that I had on my computer, and I figured I’d share them with everyone. I was amused and impressed with the imagination I had as a kid back in elementary school. These pieces were done when I was between the ages of 5 – 7.
The scuba diving piece was done on the back of a menu at a restaurant. It’s of my dad scuba diving – apparently whenever I heard he went on scuba diving trips, I assumed he was lowered into the water in a cage that was always surrounded by sharks. The image on the right shows that I might have began thinking about the story behind Duck & Fish years ago.
The image on the right is supposed to be a picture of my parents getting married. I was amused that I thought my dad wore a top hat when he got married. As a kid, it seemed like most of my drawings of men involved top hats while women always wore pearls and ribbons.
I went through a horse phase where all I drew were horses, like the one above. I also loved drawing pictures of my childhood dog (on the right).
This one made me smile – illustrations of the Ninja Turtles. Love how happy they all look.
Royalty seemed to be one of my favorite subjects – kings, queens, princesses, and princes. I like how this queen has such a long train.
Anyway, I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!
British School Caracas, Venezuela
During the past couple of months, I’ve received emails from a number of students from the British School Caracas in Venezuela. The students are working on an art project where they write about my life and also create their own collages. Below are some of the collages the students have made:
It always brightens my day to see collage work by students from around the world.
Artwork Featured on Conan O’Brien’s Website
Last week I found out that one of my collages was featured on Conan O’Brien’s official website and all of his social media sites. Apparently it was featured on the homepage of his website too, but I didn’t get around to realizing it until a couple days after it was posted.
It’s always great when your work gets a bit of attention – and it’s even better when a celebrity shares your work. Anyway, it was amusing reading over comments by people who liked and disliked the piece.
The collage itself was completed over a year ago. I made it specifically for Conan’s website when I realized there was a Coco Moca section where they posted artwork of Conan. So it was my first attempt at trying to create him in collage form.
The feature definitely made my week.
Vienna Arts Society Presentation
Last Thursday I stopped by the Vienna Arts Society in Vienna, Virginia to present and demo my “painting with paper” technique. I talked about my work for a bit, then proceeded to make a slightly abstract 12″x16″ collage. The other day I finished the collage, which you can find to the left.
The presentation was a lot of fun. Thank you to everyone who made it out that day. I enjoyed sharing my work, telling you all a little about myself, and sharing my children’s book Duck & Fish.
Artwork by the Artist When She Was a Child
The other day I stopped by my parents’ house to go through some of my old things. This included a stack of artwork that I created over the years. I got a kick out of several of my old drawings. Some were amusing and some were impressive, considering how old I was when I created them. It’s no wonder I became an artist.
The piece above was done when I was about twelve (I think). It’s interesting how I made an oil pastel drawing look a little bit like a collage of sorts.
The watercolor above was done when I was in middle school. I made a watercolor where I outlined the dogs and shapes in the background with marker. Then I cut the pieces up into strips and glued them onto a piece of black construction paper.
This drawing made me smile. Apparently when I was about six, I decided to make a series of drawings just like this one. The super tall lady wearing a long dress, holding a frilly umbrella, while walking her tiny dog on a leash was a reoccurring character in my drawings.
Above is one of the few mountainous landscapes I made as a child.
Every summer for a few years my family used to travel up to Maine. We would stay in a cottage by the ocean that didn’t have a TV, which forced my older brother and me to find ways to entertain ourselves. I decided to start creating a little world of paper critters that I would cut out of paper. Then I created different settings for them so I could move them around to act out different stories. My brother caught on to the paper world I was creating and decided to turn it into a collaboration. Above and below are all the various creatures we drew.
And below is an example of one of the settings we made. In this case it’s a restaurant, where we could move the animal character cut-outs around. It was sort of like having an elaborate set of paper dolls.
2012 Reflections
It seems as though life just gets busier and busier with each passing year. I am so grateful that I had so many amazing art opportunities in 2012. So, to celebrate the upcoming New Year, here are the top 10 highlights from 2012:
1) My artwork was accepted into a museum’s permanent collection for the first time. “Flamingo Dancers” and “Mallard Duck” are now owned by the Ward Museum.
2) Second-ever museum group exhibit. The first time my work was on display in a museum was in 2008 at the Smithsonian Ripley Center.
3) Artwork and article published in an arts anthology on DC artists. This was the first time I was part of project that was funded by a Kickstarter campaign.
4) Several collages were accepted to be in an upcoming book on Wildlife Art.
5) First group exhibit in New England – “Strange Glue.”
6) First solo show at a convention center – and first time having my name show up on a sign.
7) Had a large body of work on display in a solo show in a beautiful gallery in Manassas, VA.
8) Had my work published in several newspapers and online publications. It’s always fun to have people discover your work through unexpected press.
9) Redesigned my entire portfolio website – something that dominated my time during the month of December. It took a lot of work, but overall, I’m glad I finally did it. The last redesign happened about three years ago.
10) Decided to take a break from exhibits next year so I can take it easy, get more rest, and experiment more with my artwork. The problem with having lots of exhibitions is that you find yourself making work for upcoming shows, and not spending much time on exploring and experimenting with different projects and techniques that can help your work grow.
Anyway, I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year! 🙂
From Fur to Feathers Closing
This past weekend I drove to North Charleston, SC to uninstall the “From Fur to Feathers” exhibit.
The show was at the convention center (a part of it is pictured above).
Just about thirty collages were on display that I had to take-down and pack-up into the car.
At night we were driving by the convention center and saw this sign that was advertising different events that would take place there. And then we saw this:
I was pretty excited to see that the show was being advertised this way.
So we got out of the car and I posed a little bit in front of the sign…
Anyway, I’m a bit relieved that the long trek is now behind me. And I recently decided that this Charleston trip will be the last out-of-state exhibit for me for a while. I need to take a break from all the travel and become more of a homebody. I also need to get more rest!
I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!
British School Caracas, Venezuela
A few months ago I received emails from several students who attend the British School in Caracas, Venezuela. The students were assigned to do a project on my work. This included writing a biography on my life, analyzing three of my collages, and then making three collages – one of which had to be a copy of one of my pieces, while the other two were their own creation that used my collage technique.
In April, several of the students’ collages – that copied my work or were inspired by my technique – were published in The Circle Gazette. The Circle Gazette is a publication that prints stories and artwork by students from around the world. The collages appeared in the center-spread of their April issue, which is pictured above and below.
It was great getting to see what the students did after exchanging emails with several of them about the project.
Here are my original collages alongside the students’ copies:
It was pretty impressive how close the students were able to get to the originals – especially with collage, which is such a hard medium to copy since you can never recreate the exact textures and fragments of photographs used. But I must say, they got pretty close!
All in all, it was fun getting to see their work. One of the things I enjoy most about being an artist is being able to inspire others. And it makes my day every time I hear from students and teachers that are using my collages in their classroom.
My Artwork is Now in a Museum’s Permanent Collection
I’m pleased to announce that two of my collages, “Mallard Duck” and “Flamingo Dancers,” have been accepted into the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art‘s collection. This is the first time my work has become part of a museum’s permanent collection.
The Ward Museum is located on the Eastern Shore in Maryland. It promotes wildfowl art and celebrates the Eastern Shore decoy carvers, Lemuel and Stephen Ward – the artists that the Museum is named after.
So what does a permanent collection mean?
This means that the museum owns the accepted collages. A permanent collection doesn’t mean the work will be on display at all times – it means the artwork is part of the collection curators pull from when designing future exhibits. All museums have changing exhibits where they have a chance to rotate and share the artwork they own.
The two collages will also be in an upcoming exhibit at the Ward Museum called “Subject to Interpretation,” which runs from April 13th to July 8th, 2012. And Duck & Fish will be available for sale in their gift shop.