Print Making

Day 12: Most Recent Accomplishment

Day 11: Turning Point In Life

Day 10: Favorite Candy

Day 9: Favorite TV Show

Day 8: Favorite Animated Character

Day 7: Favorite Movie

Day 6: favorite book(s)

Day 5: best friend

Day 4: favorite place

Day 3: Favorite Food

Day 2: favorite animal

30 Days of Drawing Challenge

There are so many times that random "challenge lists" will go around Facebook like, book challenge, song challenge or photo challenges, all of which I have completely ignored. But today I found one (thought it's a tad old...) which I think I will accept: the 30 days of drawing challenge. But instead of posting on Facebook I'll be posting here (so take that Facebook, I'll take your challenge but not include you in it! Ha!)

Anyway...here are the challenge topics:

Day 1 - yourself

Day 2 - favorite animal

Day 3 - favorite food

Day 4 - favorite place

Day 5 - best friend

Day 6 - favorite book

Day 7 - favorite movie

Day 8 - favorite animated character

Day 9 - favorite tv show

Day 10 - favorite candy

Day 11 - turning point in your life

Day 12 - most recent accomplishment

Day 13 - comic

Day 14 - favorite fairytale

Day 15 - family picture

Day 16 - inspiration

Day 17 - favorite plant

Day 18 - just a doodle

Day 19 - something new

Day 20 - something orange

Day 21 - something you want

Day 22 - something you miss

Day 23 - something you need

Day 24 - a couple

Day 25 - scenery

Day 26 - something you don't like

Day 27 - someone you love

Day 28 - anything you'd like

Day 29 - a place you want to go

Day 30 - a congrats banner for finishing the challenge

Let's get started!

Day 1: yourself

GO PENS

Get Well Soon

Year Round Growth: part 2

Year Round Growth

DIY clutter hiding curtains!

Love Birds.

Douglas Gayeton: Photographer

The other day a friend a work showed me a picture. It was complied using a bunch of different pictures and there was writing all over it. Upon first glance I didn't know what to think, but after about 30 seconds I realized I couldn't stop looking at it - there was so much going on....

Click here to learn more about Douglas Gayeton and his work. Enjoy!

pumpkin paintin'

Halloween is just around the corner

Jeremy with Apples

Taken with a Walgreen's disposable camera.

Something I saw floatin' around facebook

It's that time of year again.

Get your pedal on.

doodles.

Quack.

trees and fish

Don't worry, it's just water.

Early American gravestones (1700s)

On out way up to Maine to visit Jon at the end of July, Jeremy and I made an unexpected stop in the town of Bennington, Vermont, where we happened upon an old chuch and cemetery. Little did we know that we would be looking at the graves of Revolutionary war soliders.

Early American gravestones are considered one of the first forms of American folk art and have a rather distinct look, tall and thin, and are riddled with motifes of angles, arrow, birds, trees, hour-glasses, skulls and winged faces, which are thought to be representative to the one that is buried there. Pretty col, huh?

Colors of Maine

photos taken in July 2010 on a crap digital camera - seriously, don't buy a Kodak EasyShare Z915, you'll hate it from day one.

Art Show

John Wilde (1919-2006)

Wisconsin Wildeworld (1953-55). Milwaukee Art Museum collection.

Wildeworld Revisited (1995). Milwaukee Art Museum collection.

Today I went to the Milwaukee Art Museum with our friend Laura. It was great! It's a amazing building, really cool exhibits, plus today we didn't have to pay to get in. Yes, you heard me, it was FREE. Every first Thursday of the month is sponsored by Target and therefor free to the public from 10am-8pm, so no excuses not to go check it out! Anyway, I was hoping to find at least one famous Wisconsin artist who would catch my eye, and I did: John Wilde.

One of the most influential artists from Wisconsin, John Wilde was a quiet leader in the contemporary art world. As a leader in the American surrealist movement known as Magic Realism, John Wilde stands out with his wonderful representation of Midwestern oddness and Renaissance perfectionism. Wilde was one of the great draftsmen of our time. He pushed formal realism into the bizarre world of the unconscious and personally intimate.

Over 100 paintings and drawings by the artist are included in the collections of numerous museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Institute of Art, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, WI, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. (http://www.toryfolliard.com/painting/John-Wilde.shtml)

For more info please visit http://www.sullivangoss.com/John_Wilde/

Here Goes Nothin'

Owl and Duck

Pooja Mehta: Indian Embroidery

Over the winter I discovered that the Erie Art Museum offered classes...yes, you heard correctly, you can take an art class at the Erie Art Museum and learn from an amazing local artist...so what are you waiting for?!? Anyway, with my work schedule there were only two classes that I would be able to enroll in and here is the description of the one I choose or rather choose me:

Indian Embroidery - Pooja Mahta

Students learn the basics of Indian embroidery as traditionally used in Indian clothing. Participants learn techniques such as aari, resham, bead, sequin, coin and zardosi work. At the end of the course, each student takes home a unique square of cloth filled with their own ornate work. In addition to scheduled class hours, an additional practice session is held every Saturday.

Honestly I wasn't sure what to expect when I signed up. I had no idea what Indian embroidery was and I had no experience in normal embroidery, so this was probably going to be a terrible idea, but I was looking forward to learning something totally new.

The first class was awful. There were four of us in the class, all not completely understanding what we were getting ourselves into, and then our amazingly talented teacher Pooja. The first thing we did was look at all her beautiful handmade designs and then listen to her tell us that we too would make something that beautiful...yeah, right... Then she gives us the world's smallest crochet hook and explains that it is the tool we must master during the next four weeks. You should have seen the look on all our faces. It's hard to explain how this tool is used, but I have found it helpful to describe it as becoming a human sewing machine. Anyway, the last 45 minutes of the class we all struggled to comprehend how to use our new tool with no success and on my way home I questioned weither of not I wanted to continue.

Needless to say I stuck with it and got totally addicted. I'm pretty sure I ignored Jeremy for a good month (if not a bit longer...)while I worked on the different stitches we learned in class. I could hardly wait to go and learn more, and I looked forward to every practice season we had on Saturday. However my embroidery was completely different than Pooja's. Traditionally Indian embroidery is meant for making intricate designs, but I made pictures instead, but none the less I ended up having a great time and learned something completely new. And I am proud to say that I was able to complete two projects which I framed: one in which was in the "First Class" show at the Erie Art Museum and the other which I submitted to the "Spring Show" at the Erie Art Museum but got rejected. (a sampling of my work can be seen in the picture below - the three small blocks in the bottle right hand side.)

Pooja lives in Erie with her husband and daughter but frequently travels to her home in India, where she owns a ladies' boutique which features her designs. Her specialty is Indian embroidery and textile design, however she is also does mixed-media painting, which can be seen in Urraro Gallary at 12th and Sass.

Sleep patterns

Experimenting with color

Wet Dog Smell.

Animal Kingdom