Cricketts Inky Art Blot

Travels are over so no more napkin art on airplanes today. I am also SO over that "Day whatever" thing. There is a date stamp on the post, so that will do for me, as I am no calendar-following-deadline-loving-blah-blah-watsit lady... I know that I can't produce a new image EVERY day, some of my paintings take weeks. Sometimes I may work all day and want to scrap the work; certainly not putting it out there for others to see! The best that I can do is offer something when I can and not get stuck in some "make-an-image-a-day-or-be-a-failure" crap. So now that pressure is over here is a little something from the studio: The lighting in Chihuly's Seattle exhibition was pretty fantastic. There were also some interesting videos on Chihuly's life and working practices. He seems quite a character.

Day 2 (do I even have to write the day? I am so going to get muddled in double numbers!) Well here we go, I made something sea like in an abstract manner (watercolour and digital- Tradigital painting) and I'm proud of following up for a second day running: My paintings are currently underwater themed inspired not from a snorkeling trip, but from visiting the Dale Chihuly Museum in Seattle last summer! This is not the first time that I have made work with an underwater theme, but it is the first for at least 15 years. In the past I had an Atlantis collection which spanned printmaking, painting and ceramic sculpture. Seeing the Chihuly exhibition combined with a trip to Alaska that was filled with whale watching and Northern Lights, I started formulating mental images and colors for new experiments. The images are based less on nature's own subtle ocean colors and more on the colors found in glass such as Chihuly's and the incredible Aurora Boreal...

I have been working on a ton of tradigital pictures over the last 2 or 3 weeks. I had 145 proofs printed over the weekend and excitedly picked them up this morning. I have picked a handful out to be 20 x 30 photos and about 20 to be 8 x 10 photos. Tradigital art is where a computer generated image has been formed from a traditional fine art piece as it's base. I used some of my oil paintings and hand carved fine art prints as my foundation image and digitally altered them to make the final piece of work. I'm really excited about this work and the direction it is taking me in. My influences and inspiration for this work come from art movements from the late 19th Century and early 20th Century. Here are the sneaky peaks: These are going to be 20 x 30 prints:

After the face disaster, I started a new painting. This painting will be a sister to the fish zeppelin and will be a fish submarine! They are both obviously inspired by Jules Verne, but also the collages of Braque and Schwitters. It is still in the first stage, but the composition is pretty much down. The other painting in the series that I worked on today is of Lady Penelope's carpet bag. It also has the same composition treatments of the last few paintings and prints that I am currently working on. I used to paint one oil painting at a time, waiting days between each color before resuming work. This was very boring and I often abandoned work before completion. Now I try to work on two or three paintings at once. Working in oil paint on a number of paintings at once, helps keep the inspiration strong and encourages style similarities between each. This time around, I have 5 on the go, yay!