Finally Admitting to 2013

Maybe I was just really disappointed that the world did not end back in December? Maybe I just Have A Problem with winter? Probably we will never know why there has been no blogging for three months, although most likely the fact that I find the term 'blogging' fairly distasteful, something I am supposed to do when I am not feeling well.

Oh, jeeze, I think I'm gonna blog..!

ANYWAY, there are a few haps happening.

Exhibit 1A: A Silly Afghan

This is a work in progress, and although I expect it to become considerably larger, it is unlikely that it will get any less silly. Probably more so, if I had to guess.

Exhibits 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D: These Flowers

Regular Kind Watercolor

Watercolor Pencils

Still Life of Cut Flowers And Fruit Which Keeps Getting Eaten

Sketched with 4B .05mm mechanical pencil. Ask me about my Kuru Toga!

 I decided to work more on my life drawing skills, and last week picked up a cheap model at the hippie grocery store. (The flowers, I mean, what were YOU thinking??) I also have gotten much better about taking my sketchbook with me and sketching people and things and places when I am out in the world with a few minutes to spare. I often get busted drawing people, especially in restaurants, because I am the type to look at the subject a lot and the paper very little. Eventually I'll share some of my public sketching practice, but the pictures are all you get for now.

I also joined a newly formed Urban Sketchers group here in town. I have only made it to one of their meetings so far, but I think I will get to more of them as the weather for hanging around outside becomes more enticing. In two weeks, we're planning to meet up at the central transit center in town, should be interesting.

Also working on getting studio space in order in the garage. I think I'll need to start with electricity and insulation, and then ventilation, and then furniture. Currently I am using some large cardboard boxes as a make-shift workbench, and running an extension cord from the laundry room whenever I need juice. Of course, working in the garage is another thing that becomes more interesting as the weather improves, because that space is not heated. Signed up for some studio hours at the university metal studio, but have done very little there, so far. Ideas are pouring out my ears, but my time and their availability hasn't lined up so well, so far. I think that will change this week.

Enh, what else is going on?

Went to a lovely show at the Albuquerque Museum, Deco Japan. The link I'm giving is for someone else's exhibition of this show, which is a traveling exhibit. It maybe will come to you, unless it already came past you. If you're a big fan of deco style graphics and prints, the show has a tremendous collection of magazine covers, matchbook covers, songbook covers, posters, and adverts. If you're more into the functional and 3D stuff, they had some fairly nifty containers, screens, kimonos, and smallish sculptures. My personal favorites were the flying fish themed items. A quick image search on 'deco japan' will get you a pretty solid idea of what's out there.

Did a wee bit of gallery-crawling this past week. Revisited my fixation on Travis Black's watercolor images of birds. Was gifted a lovely print of one of the hummingbird images by someone awesome. (Squee!!) Failed to get into the local artist quonset hut, but I will. Now that I know they close at 3pm. (Who does that??) Tripped over work by printer / painter Diana Stetson, who has some extremely harmonious work. Definitely nature-oriented, but it is actually the compositions and executions which are harmonious to me. There were plenty of other interesting works to see in the world, and Mariposa Gallery in Nob Hill had quite a few. In addition to Diana Stetson and some other intriguing artists, Mariposa also currently has an exhibit hanging from Amanda Banker, who seems to have a bit of a fixation with animal-headed portrait figures. That show is worth it if only for the smoking-jacket three quarter posed octopus headed portrait. (Which does not appear on her website, by the way, so if you want to see it, you need to go there and see it!)

Is that all? Well, it has to be enough for now, I suppose. There will be more posts on all these topics, I suspect. Probably the next exciting thing is going to be a mechanical pencil review. If that doesn't strike you as exciting, this probably isn't the blog for you.

Two Things

1, I still exist, and this blog WILL see more updates in the future.

2, check out this awesomesauce artist, Charles Clary. I think I'm in love.

Neato Graphic Artist!

Although I picked something else to preview for you here, I found this guy's portrait work to be awefully intense. I love it. I'm not a big fan of portraiture, but in this case, I'll allow it.
More drawings... on the Behance Network

Work in Progress

wip220211
Originally uploaded by Id Marks

There are several pieces in the works right now, nothing finished yet. That notion of getting something done every day? Not happening. Not because I don't work every day, but because I tend to parallel process, so I'll have a bunch under way and nothing finished for ages, and then a bunch finishing up all at once.

Click through to Flickr to see more works in progress.

Also, check out Mary Golay, whose color techniques for Art Nouveau illustrations are amazing.

Look Over There ---->

I've added a link over on the right side, that will take you to a slide show of available works. I will post a notice here whenever new items are added to it. It's a very simply Flickr slide show, should play for anyone. However, if you have trouble loading it, just click in the middle of the screen that comes up, and it should take you to the normal Flickr set of available art. Same pictures, no slide show.

Go See The Slide Show on Flickr!

WC11
Originally uploaded by Id Marks

With details, even. Yay!

To see the show - click on THIS picture, which will take you to the Flickr set for these things, and if you click on the first picture THERE, it brings up a nice screen where you can keep clicking next and seeing it all right there.

Let me know if you have questions or comments or are desirous of some art.

Also — I'll make a thing just for you. No need to buy stuff off the shelf. Talk to me.

Urban Sketching

I recently came across the Urban Sketchers blog, and have been inspired to haul my sketch book around town. Normally when I see a crapload of really amazing drawings and paintings that people have the nerve to refer to as "sketches", I retreat, feeling intimidated. For some reason this site fires me up about putting marks on the page. Today I sat on a cold cement bench in front of the Schwalbennest coffee shop and made a crude sketch of it for a while, 40 minutes maybe? My fun was cut short when a delivery truck rudely pulled up right in front of me. Bugger managed to block my line of site, the bike lane, AND was parked square in front of the no-parking sign. Dude was on a roll.

Anyway, I decided that it was fun, even if the sketch isn't amazing like a lot of what's on the Urban Sketchers site. I also decided that color is pretty important to these sketches. Since even a really basic watercolor kit is more crap than I want to juggle when I go out in the world, I decided to try taking the watercolor pencils with me. That should allow me to rough in the color, work dry (makes for quick get-aways!), and not worry about spilling stuff, etc. The ability to slap the notebook shut and cheese it is important to me.

Eventually I'll start posting some of these things here. Promise. The problem isn't that I hate it or anything like that, it's more that I'm too lazy to deal with the camera and the uploading and all that. Also, I'm really focused on a textile project right now, and I'd rather put the time into that instead.

And so I am. And yes, there will be pictures of that project, too! Until then, I highly recommend you hustle over to Urban Sketchers and dig the awesomeness. I've added a link to it from here in the link list on the right, so you can get to it any time you get the urge. It's that cool.

Still Not Dead

Also, still not finished with that project. Today might be the day, though. I think it's just down to fixing in those last 8 pieces of glass. You know, the ones that don't fit anymore? because the wood changed size due to moisture content, or paint, or whatever? Yeah. Those. Anyway. That.

So.

While I'm all busy cursing about that, I'll leave you with this. In Vienna, Austria last week, there was lots of art-boggling, and a purchase was made of a fine art print from Michael Ferner. This is my second M. Ferner print, the first being the two koi print from back in January.

I am now going to point you to his web site. If you do nothing else, simply reload his front page over and over, because the images there are gorgeous. The dragons, the bamboo, the seahorses, the owl. These are some of my favorites.


This is a tiny image (from his site) of the print we bought in Wien last week. Never bought a print with a pedigree before! The print itself is largish, for us, anyway, 70cm X 150cm. It's going to look very, very cool hanging in our Laubengang, which is a long hallway thing, paneled entirely in wood, with windows and doors along both sides.

everything and nothing

I have all kinds of things to post about, including current projects, some musings on making a living as a gallery artist (or not), and so on. But I slept poorly last night, and am not totally coherent. Also, my biorhythm says today, I does not brain.

So, I give you this little part of an image, which links to a gallery of some wild fantasy art. You may enjoy it, I hope you do.