I've been a slacker, but the wait is well worth it I promise

I can't say enough good things about Audrey Kawasaki. She does a lot of her work on wood and it's a medium choice for her that's very purposeful. She works with the integrity of the wood grain and her paintings in no way seem forced. Since canvas is now easily accessible to artists, if you're painting on another medium there should be a reason for it. Don't do it just because you want to do something different. Her girls are very lovely, sensual yet innocent, natural, and provocative, they really have a soft glow and enticing demeanor. I think it's in the eyes and mouth. Eyes are the window to the soul, so focusing on projecting all you can with eyes in a painting gives an approachable quality. The mouth of course is the part of the body that can be innocent and sensual at the same time, the tool we tease with.

Painting/drawing the essence of sensuality can be very tricky. There are always exceptions but keeping the subject classy is often a target missed. Either the subject is displayed too conservative to seem as they are sharing something personal or they are too sleazy. Audrey has impeccable perception of how much to show and some how the unconventional boundaries she uses on the wood are almost unnoticeable. The subject are simply missing body parts but the eye isn't drawn to that negative space, it stays right there in the eyes and toggles back and forth to the mouth.
I like to review work and share my thoughts with people but I have always felt composition seems like such a weird topic to analyze. For a viewer of art, it's definitely a good way to deepen your appreciation for an artist and for a piece, to look at all the elements and to really see the intentions. But we can break things apart so mathematically and I highly doubt that all great artists put these compositions together consciously adding them up in the same way. For many artists I think their vision is so intuitive that they can create without the equation. Of course sometimes things don't work or work in the way you intend, so you have to tweak it, but I really do think that Audrey is one of these artists.

Her work on canvas is just as good. This last piece for example, seems like choreography from modern dance. It's animalistic and intelligent.

Just Check him out

Usugrow. No review necessary, just purely awesome.

Turn the button with your head

Do you remember that children's song that went, "Hello my name is Joe.... my boss said to me hey Joe are you busy, I said no, he said turn the button with your right hand" Then you pantomime turning a button with your right hand and the song goes on until you're out of limbs...
Well, I guess the song is really saying, at some point you have to draw some boundaries and know when to turn down extra work you can't handle. Thing is, when I was a kid I loved that song. I thought it was so much fun and I'd actually pantomime turning buttons with every body part I could possible move seperate from my hands and feet, like my elbows. So maybe that was a signal to my parents that I was constantly going to keep myself busy. Sigh.
Ok, in short basically I haven't posted any finished projects because I have about a dozen in the works and haven't completed anything in the past week and a half. I'll probably post some other artists for you to explore later on this weekend.

Process of Paul

1. preliminary sketch 2. crap, he looks a lot like my friend Brad 3. looking kind of not english







4.-6. ok, Paul really does have kind of a lazy eye, hard to paint that on purpose










5. Alright, tired of messing w/face shape 6. makeup training helped me figure out shading


7. Finally finished, touched up Ringo a bit as well.

Topsy Turvy Design

I no longer dance or act, and so I'm really just stretching to find an excuse to make a purchase like this... But I LOVE these hats. LEFT: Mina, RIGHT: Lady Divina Top Hat from Topsy Turvy Design. I can't remember how I stumbled upon this web page but I've been hankering to create a mad hatter's costume for Halloween ever since. There are several beautiful models on the site, and the website design alone is very original.
Never the less, I'm in awe of these hand made custom hats. When I was 17 I had the lead role in A Curious Savage and went above and beyond what I needed to do for that character (an excuse to dye my hair powder blue). This was also around the time I was really into LCT and studying theater makeup and period hair styling. Never quite got finger waves down. Anyway, I made my own hat for this play and it was extremely difficult. I don't have any pictures but it looks similar to this green one, only it was egg shell and had some gaudy costume broach and feather. I had no idea what I was getting my self into, especially since at that time I had never sewn a pleat. It was incredibly frustrating but I'm also incredibly stubborn so it was completed and I'm sure you could find it somewhere in the dusty costume department in the basement of Lawton High.

1st attempts at serigraphs

Practice Cuts- Both of these are from Red Film
FYI: The film has a clear layer and a red layer. You cut the red layer like a stencil, expose it onto your screen like a photo negative, lay your silk screen on top, and pull the ink across. The Egyptian looking one I mixed a metallic in and the weird abstract one I blended the blue and green on top of the screen. Sounds simple right?
That's what I thought. I did these, yup simple, and then for my first actual assignment I thought I'd get creative and experiment.

I made the stencil using cardstock, after being advised not to. The stencils are supposed to be really thin so the ink comes through easily but I wanted something that looked really rough. I cut rough and jagged, and I used the cardstock anyway. I also mixed my own shade of reddish brown and used a really deep chocolate in the tree trunk. I liked the rough look and on my first few prints it was just the tree. But being that I had to use so much ink to get through my thick stencil, I decided to experiment further and remove the stencil. Then, the ink was on the screen in the lines of the stencil, and I finished the print by pulling thin layers over it.

Latest Ad Design

Here is my latest ad design. It'll be 1/4 page in the Gazette for the next 2 months. That's one of Jaime's paintings that are on sale. Check her out because it's way better in color!