Upcoming Shows

To help get me back on track, I created this triptych for an upcoming show with the Downey Arts Coalition.  This piece is called  Mizzles Creating the Seed of Life.  The seed of life is a symbol created with 7 circles.

Event: Lucky Number Seven - Opening Art Show for the “Seven and Counting” A Night at the Opera
When: Saturday, Oct. 11, 2014
Where: Downey Civic Theatre, 8435 Firestone Blvd., Downey, CA 90241
Art Exhibit: 6:30 p.m.
Concert : 8:00 p.m.

The exhibit can be viewed by patrons of The Downey Civic Theatre during business hours through
October 28, 2014.


And if you missed a chance to see Mizzle Self Portrait at the OC fair, then here is your second chance!  It will be part of The Artist Council Inaugural Exhibition running from October 10th- November 8th at the Huntington Beach Art Center,

The Art Center is located at 538 Main St, Huntington Beach, CA 92648

Opening reception is on October 10th 7-9PM

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.

Zombie Mizzles???

The drama teacher has decided on Night of the Living Dead for the first performance of the school year.  I am so excited about this!  They did this play a few years ago and I loved it!!!  For every school play, the Visual Art department puts together some student artwork for the reception/ticket room of the drama theater.  This year we were asked if it was possible to do zombie/ 50's monster movie posters.  We loved this idea and ran with it.  My Intermediate/Advanced/AP art students are creating zombie self-portraits.  The teacher who took over my Intermediate/Advanced drawing class is having his students create zombie portraits of their favorite teachers...with our permission, of course!  I was going to do a zombie self portrait as a demonstration for my students, but one of my students is in both advanced classes.  I felt it was kind of cheating since he is creating my zombie portrait.  Then I remembered the drama teacher asked me to make 3 zombie mizzles to be used as props in the play.  I then decided I need to make a Zombie Mizzle painting.

This is just one sketch that I began playing with.  I think I need to add more Mizzles.  One of my students mentioned having the cotton stuffing falling out. I love that idea.  I'm finding this idea funny, but very morbid considering my characters are so sweet and fun. This makes them extremely dark.
I'll have to come up with a few more sketches tonight before committing to one.  I'm just not sure I'll be able to use it as a portfolio piece.  

Influences- Chuck Close

Chuck Close standing next to the Big Self-Portrait, 1968

I can't remember when I fell in love with Chuck Close.  I have loved his portraits for many years.  His earlier work is amazing in detail and size.  Photorealism is my absolute favorite art movement.  What I admire most about him is that after his accident and being diagnosed parapalegic, he continued to create art. It is amazing to see him work.  His paintings are just as large as before.  They may not be as photorealistic, but they are realistic and have an optical illusion feel to it.

Mark, 1979, Acrylic on canvas

 

Every year, I show the Chuck Close video to my students as inspiration for their photorealistic assignment.  But always hope they take away from the video that no matter what life throws at you determination to keep moving forward will take you a long way.

Chuck Close working on Self-Portrait, 2000-01

In 2007, my life was complete.  Chuck Close had a exhibit at the Orange County Museum of Art.  I had never seen his work in person before.  Granted the work was not his paintings, but his prints and paper images were just as amazing.  At this exhibit I bought the book Close Reading by Martin Friedman.  I began reading it, but life got in the way and I never finished it.  Of what I read, it had great sarcastic humor and a realness to it.  As I read it, I could hear Chuck Close's voice.  My plan is to go back to reading the book the moment school lets out.

Lyle, 2000, Eight-color soft-ground etching

Self-Portrait, 1983, Pulp paper on canvas

Self-Portrait, 1980, Stamp pad ink on gray paper

Originally, I wasn't going to talk about Close today for my influence, but I began the Hero's Art Journey course with Mira Reisberg.  Our first task is exploring the self portrait.  It made me think of him.
I have no idea what I am going to do for my self-portrait, but I have to get working on it.

The Self Portrait

The Self Portrait can be a nerve wrecking assignment because you are forced to look at yourself for long periods of time.  I was nice to my students and allowed them to work from photos.  But I remember having to create dozens of self portraits using a mirror; staring at myself, watching myself breathe, and forced to see all of my flaws.  I remember not liking the drawings at all.  Perhaps it was because I didn't have the amount of focus that I have now.  It could also be that I just wasn't comfortable being the person I was. Or maybe I just didn't know who I was. 

The four blue self portraits are from my sophomore year in college.  I believe I used charcoal on blue toned paper.  The proportions are so off, but I these were my first portraits drawing form a mirror.  If I remember correctly, we had to draw ourselves from different angles: straight forward, 3/4 view, looking up, looking down, and a large portrait including the body. I never liked these drawings, but do artists ever like their own work? 

My second year teaching at Warren, I was given my Intermediate Drawing class.  It was my first time teaching an advanced level. In my ambitious excitement, I decided it would be great for students to create portraits that really explore emotions.  Each student had to choose one emotion and draw 5 people expressing that emotion.  The portraits were about 3x5 or 4x6 in size.  They used Prismacolor colored pencils on a thick vellum paper.  This is one of the last self portraits I have done in quite a long time. Here is the sample I created of the emotion confused.

It has taken some pretty big obstacles and life lessons for me to accept a lot about myself.  But I feel the journey of getting to that acceptance of oneself is vital.  Without that journey, we might never care to ask ourselves those important questions which lead to revealing answers.

I sometimes wish my students would have this same curiosity about themselves when they create their self portraits.  But I expect too much from teenagers, who spend most of their time making themselves be like those around them.  They search for a group to belong to and do what it takes to erase any individuality.  A funny occurrence that I see happening is that there is a group of students who try to maintain their individuality, but they try so hard that they just end up looking like all of the others.  And never point this out to them! They get really upset when you point it out.

I'm not exactly sure what I did this year, but my students rocked their self portraits.  Normally, I get a lot of portraits that look nothing like a human being.  But this year, my students did a great job.  Plus, there were many who pushed themselves to go beyond the typical "likes" and hobbies.  They really tried to capture something more about themselves. 

Storytelling and the Self Portrait

Yesterday, I had my students begin to share stories of their childhood.  This is an activity I began doing with my students last year in order to get them thinking about various things to incorporate into their self portrait other than the obvious "likes" and "dislikes."  It seems to help them remember the small details that they so easily overlook. Self Portraits are not an easy thing to create.  High School students have an especially difficult time with this assignment because they want to be extremely literal with no reference to history or culture.  Hopefully with all of the questions and stories they are asked to think about and share they will explore outside the boundaries of the literal. 

The self portrait can effectively tell one's story visually when done with thought, insight, and honesty.

Today I was going over my calendar of events and lesson plans.  I exhausted myself just looking at it.  I could think of nothing more than making time to relax, although, I'm not exactly sure when that will be.  At least I can live vicariously through my drawings.