Recreations

At the beginning of the school year, I was inspired to put Mizzles in famous paintings.  I am calling this series "recreations."  It all began with Frida Self portrait I did last year.

I thought it would be fun to create more using colored pencil.  Of course, I don't want to derail my original goals or projects, but sometimes you need another project to alternate between.  It helps prevent boredom.

So, I decided I would begin with sketches.  This way I could see if it would be a successful piece for the Mizzles to recreate.

Can you identify these famous paintings?

Not all of these will make the final cut into a colorized version, but they have been fun to sketch out.

Here are a few that I turned into color versions: 

 I'm hoping to get about 10 color versions done by the end of the year, but we'll see how that goes.  :)


What paintings would you like to see the Mizzles recreate?

Frida-like self-portrait

In January, my best friends and I went to see The Complete Frida Kahlo exhibit in San Diego (which is now extended to June 8th!)  It is an exhibit which shows 123 replicas of her work in the exact sizes and style.  I have to warn you.  It is a lot of art to look at.  I spent almost 4 hours there.  I love Frida Kahlo's work because she freely and openly told the world about her life and pain through her art.  Her portraits hold so much meaning and heart.  I left there absolutely overwhelmed and inspired.  But I didn't know how to take what I saw and incorporate it into my own art.  That is when my best friend, Lydia, gave me the idea to do a series of self-portraits in the same style and poses of Frida, and replace her pets with my Mizzles.  I loved this idea.

It kind of worked out for me that my Intermediate/ Advanced Students were about to begin a colored pencil self-portrait.  This was the perfect opportunity for me to create this artwork while creating an example for my students.  It has been a few years since I've created anything in colored pencil.  I forgot how much I love to blend and burnish. 

 I took it to my Huntington Beach Art League meeting and entered it into the drawing category.  I am happy to report that it received an Honorable Mention.

 

Instead of posting all of the progression photos I took, I thought it might be nice to watch them in a video slide show.  The song is called Beautiful Things by Gungor.  It is one of my favorite songs at the moment.

 

This has definitely been one of my most favorite projects.  I already have an idea of my next portrait, but it will have to wait a bit.  I have to get back to working on my book.

Clearprint Cross Country Collaboration

I have been following a few art supply companies(Koh-I-Noor USA, Clearprint, and AD Marker) on Facebook, which has turned out to be quite a good thing for me.   I recently won a few free art supplies just for responding to one of their questions about what city did we live it.  I have yet to play with those pigment powders, but am excited to give them a try. 

Well, Clearprint announced a Clearprint Cross Country collaborative art project.  Artists who sign up are sent a clearprint sketchbook to create an art work on one page and return to them.  In addition, they are sent a second book to keep for themselves.  I could not pass up this opportunity.  It seemed a much more do-able project for me to participate in.  I've done the sketchbook project twice.  The first time, I rushed through it to meet the deadline and the second time, I completely forgot about the project. 

I really love the Clearprint Vellum books.  I like how rapidograph ink looks on it.  Also, I love how you can play with the front and back to create depth.

My book arrived on Tuesday.  I'm the first person to draw in the book.  I feel a little pressure being the first one, but I feel inspired.  I finished the page today and will mail it out tomorrow.

This is my contribution to the front cover.  Of course, Stargazer has to be on the cover.

 

I took one of the daily drawings I did last year for my page contribution.  This is the front of the page.

This is what the back looks like.

I used a .18 rapidograph pen and prismacolor colored pencils.  I haven't worked in colored pencil in a long while.  It felt nice to work in that medium again.