wednesday

i try not to just re-post things from the web as i'm sure you all prolly read some of the same blogs i do but check out these giant plastic bunnies on the streets of Portofino!

here's the original post via Modern Living

monday

here's a few pics from the Grilled Cheese Invitational this past weekend. it was super busy and tons of people showed up. I spent most of my time in the sound booth area running the timer for the heats, helping out my guy and trying to stay out of the sun.

Thanks to everybody that came out and made it such a fantastic event!

this is the line to get in about two hours before they let anybody in. i don't think the line ever went down.

here's Kraft grilling up free sammy's to hand out!

free Kraft Sammy's, yay!!!

and this ladies and gentlemen is my boyfriend on the left with Mr. Huell "California's Gold" Howser on the right. He was super nice, friendly and we think he had a great time covering the event. Crazy awesome!

friday

lots of drawings from the sketch book today. some of them have been in the works, a few i made at artwalk and one i did last night. i puttered away in the sketch book last night while watching random tv, most of these drawings start with a combination of found imagery and cut outs from vintage magazine scraps. maybe some bits of them will make their way into prints and what not.

i pretty much just putter away with the pencil because i'm really enjoying adding my touch to the source imagery i usually use- it sort of brands it as mine as opposed to simple copy and paste.

tumble polish smooth- i made this one last night and looking at it this morning i have no idea how the "t" got backwards one the word tumble...hmmm..strangeness...anyways- love the dimension of the stone!

this one started a bit ago with the collage bits on the right and then i drew in the logs this past weekend. i really like the smiling lips below the orange tree cut outs.

random collage bits with prickly symbol.

ocean collage

another random collage- i put the strips of color and the word movies on there a few weeks ago but just added the skeleton last night

saw this sketch in one of my books describing how a pencil can fit straight through the jaw line...how crazy...i kinda want to redo it with a bow and arrow...we'll see...

and some crazy shapes from another anatomy source dancing across the page.

wednesday

whooo...still catching my breath a bit after Art Walk and this heat wave is an interesting turn of events!

It's Wednesday today and I'll have some new drawings Friday to share that I worked on during the itty bitty slow moments of Art Walk. Tomorrow a quick trip down to Long Beach to deliver a painting and I've also been helping some friends get ready for The Grilled Cheese Invitational

I'm sorry...what's that you said???

"What's The Grilled Cheese Invitational?"

Holy Moly, It's only the greatest thing to happen to Grilled Cheese since Bread, Butter and Cheese!

It started with a group of like minded friends at the very loft I just spent the past weekend at (Theory Labs) and has grown to encompass multiple locations and Grilled Cheese crossing state lines! This Saturday the Cheese comes home for it's greatest showing yet and we're all busy as little bee's helping to pull it off with a league of volunteers.

Come on down to the just recently revealed secret location to sample some cheese and behold the glory that is 250 plus people manically making Grilled Cheese Sandwiches! Check out the site for further info. I'll be there, trying to snag a sample or two and loitering near the stage helping out.

http://grilledcheeseinvitational.com/

monday

thanks to everyone that came out this weekend to artwalk!
it was a great weekend, the weather was beautiful and everyone was in good spirits.

thanks again!!!

friday

it's that time again! time for Art Walk at The Brewery!

if you've never been it's a great event- tons of open studios, artist's in their natural habitat, great work- some even at affordable prices!

I just checked the weather and it's supposed to be glorious this weekend so I would suggest you have breakfast at some joint in your neighborhood with outside seating or head downtown have breakfast at The Nickel Diner! It's yummy and pretty close to The Brewery.

Then head over to Art Walk to wander around the afternoon, checking out all the work. Stop by and say hello to me and my peeps at Theory Labs- check out our new work! We'll be straight back from the restuarant with a giant roll up door and marked on the map as Theory Labs.

I can give you some heads up on other work to see at Art Walk- our gal Kasey McMahon has spent the last few months putting together an awesome dress made in the shape of a Birdcage and it has real birds chillin' out in it. I highly recommend checking that out!


THIS WEEKEND
The Brewery 2009 Spring Artwalk
April 18 & 19, 11am - 6pm
FREE and open to the public!



Directions and more info: http://BreweryArtWalk.com
Contact: Michael Salerno
323.223.6089
Website: http://BreweryArtWalk.com
E-mail: BreweryArtWalk@yahoo.com
Please direct e-mail inquiries to the colony's address (above); DO NOT use "Reply" button, it will send to ArtScene.
To view this announcement online:
http://artscenecal.com/0409/i5Gallery0409.html

The Brewery, located in Downtown Los Angeles, is the world¹s largest Art Colony. This renowned live-work complex was converted from the industrial buildings of a former Papst Blue Ribbon brewery and bottling plant. It is now home to over 300 artists and arts-related businesses.

Over 150 artists; painters, sculptors, photographers, craftsmen and designers of the Brewery Arts Colony will open the doors of their studios to the public to sell art at studio prices. The i-5 Gallery, also on the property, will host a sneak preview of the Artwalk. Starting March 20th and running through April 19th.

The Brewery
2100 N. Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90031

For further information contact: http://www.breweryartwalk.com
i-5 Gallery 323.342.0717
Barbara's At The Brewery Restaurant, 323.221.9204

wednesday

something new for Artwalk this coming weekend, a little treat for those of you that can make it!

brand spankin' new squirrel pillows! hand screen printed on 100% coffee stained reused fabric and stuffed with reused scraps. they are super cute! each one is about nine inches tall and backed with brown linen.
i only made eight of them, here they are all hanging out on the sofa :)

i also made 4 in shiny silver, two of them are already spoken for so only two will prolly make it to Artwalk- so cute.
and yes, he's wearing a sweater.
the squirrel is wearing a sweater!!!
make me smile every time.

monday

new prints.
i finished some new prints this weekend.

i've been working on these pretty hard the last few days to get them finished for Artwalk. they are a super awesome size of 16" x 20"!!! they look so great on the wall! all three have some of my original drawings incorporated in them along with my photography and found imagery.

"wall mount"
April 2009
16" x 20"
4 layer screen print on paper
edition of 8

"crystal tumor"
April 2009
16" x 20"
4 layer screen print on paper
edition of 10

"deep sleep"

April 2009
16" x 20"
4 layer screen print on paper
edition of 12

friday

technical difficulties, even when you think you have all the kinks worked out, sometimes not so much.

this week i went to expose some new screens to finish up some prints for artwalk...

oh! and that's next weekend by the way, i'll add the details below for those of you that like to plan ahead :)

...so anyways, exposing screens and my wonderful fantastic vacuum exposure unit decides stop holding compression and won't suck the rubber lid down tightly. which means ugly, blurry exposures on the screens.

SAD! :(((

after some poking, prodding and general cajoling i arrived at a semi-decent solution to get me through the next week with happy, sharp tidy screens. it involved some sheets of glass, some large heavy things and a few more screens than it normally does.

after i'm done with this round of printing i'll need to order it a new rubber mat for the lid and that will be a slightly involved process of taking the unit apart, swapping out the new mat and putting it all back together again.

ah- look how easy that just sounded, why do i have a feeling it won't go quite the easy?

the new rubber mat thing is about $75.00 which is nothing compared to how much a new vacuum exposure light table cost- i was curious and i found one that is at least a foot smaller all the way around than mine and it cost $2000.00!!! i'm lucky to have such a large unit (yes, i really did have to just write that;) mine is 55" x 41" on the outside which is pretty big for home use. yay, used equipment!!!

here's the artwalk details for those of you that like to plan ahead. it's a great weekend of art prowling- you get to see art in it's natural habitat!

April 18th & Sunday, April 19th, 2009 11AM-6PM

620 Moulton Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90031
For Directions: http://www.breweryartwalk.com/directions.html
FREE PARKING

The Brewery Artwalk is a twice-annual FREE event designed to showcase Los Angeles Fine Artists selling gallery-quality fine art at studio prices. The Brewery Art Colony has over three hundred over sized artist lofts, industrial spaces converted from the former Pabst Blue Ribbon Brewery. Zoned for live/work, the lofts house hundreds of artists working in dozens of media - from painting, sculpture and photography to industrial design, architecture and experimental new media.

The Brewery features 300 artist studios, commercial art galleries and a restaurant/bar that will be open for your perusal and enjoyment. Artists whose work is in the collections of local and national museums share the stage with new talents fresh out of art school and avant-garde experimentalists pushing the boundaries of the very definition of art.

wednesday

This is the necklace I started a few weeks ago.
I finished it up last night and it turned out just right!
I started with 16g sterling silver wire to make all the irregular pentagon shapes. I wanted something that alluded to honey comb and to this drawing from a few weeks ago. I used pre-made jump rings this time which saved me a bunch of effort.
After soldering the whole thing and then hammering the heck out of it for a while I dunked it in a toasty bath of Liver of Sulfer. That stuff is so awesome!!! I wanted to dunk every piece of jewelry I own in it, it's like black RIT dye for jewelry. I restrained myself though and only dunked 1 pair of earrings and 1 other necklace in addition to the new piece.

Here's me wearing the new piece (wearing a striped shirt and not a stitch of make-up on, awesomely attractive!). You can see it's pretty long which I wanted. I have a slew of short necklaces and I wanted something that would be longer- I can tuck it into open neck shirts and then you'll only see it on the sides which is cool.
Later kids- I've got to get back to work and such.

monday

two new screen prints from this past Friday.

I finished one other but it's part of a trio and I'd like to share them all at once a bit later in the week.

Both of these images are photographs i took last year and both prints are experiments in half tones.I really like the way they turned out and i totally dig the double color layer i laid down for the back ground.

One of the things that's a bit different about my process, i often take more time to make the prints all look different and unique from one another. i do enjoy making an edition of all exactly alike prints but i also really enjoy tweaking the process so that each print is different and unusual within the same edition. These two prints are all a bit different in the back ground- some more blue than green and some more green than blue. The ink is also full bleed all the way to the edges.

"By the Road"April 2009

11" x 14" 3 layer screen print on paper
edition of 9

"By the Water" April 2009
11"x 14" 3 layer screen print on paper
edition of 9

Friday

The wind is blowing and I'm screen printing!

It's been a great day so far- I took a bit of time today to get some prints started and so far they are all going well, the wind is blowing slightly across the mountains which has the sky filled with tiny pods of pollen and drifts of pine needles.

Here's a few drawings from this week. Stay tuned for new prints!

Wednesday

Sorting. I really like sorting.

While sorting some old pictures recently I came across this fantastic image of a White Deer spotted in 2004 by the side of the road. JR and I were quite surprised to come across it, we tried to pull over to the road quietly and get out of the car without startling it.

I'd never seen one before, I wonder how common they are?

I took a quick video at the time and made a flip book that's pretty cool and friends get to flip through when they come to visit- it's currently with a pile of flip books on our coffee table. It's mostly of me trying to walk quietly across the meadow and then the deer sprinting away once it caught sight of us. Ah, wild life! I've never seen a White deer at our current home , though it might make me look a bit more kindly on them when they eat my plants...but then again, maybe not.