Art All Night Pittsburgh

This year was my first at Art All Night, as a visitor and as a participating artist. I went with a group from Confluence Arts, the new art collective for women. The sounds, the crowds, the art! It was sensory overload in the best way possible. If you’re unfamiliar with Art All Night, it’s a local 22 hour long festival of art that usually takes place in a warehouse. It’s free to enter, and everyone gets one piece in the show, whether you are five years old or 500. Both 2D and 3D art is accepted, and this year they had some installations, which I’m not sure were included in previous years. The whole thing is volunteer run, and they install and take down the show within 24 hours.

In addition to physical artwork, they also had musicians and a film screening. There were improv groups, comics, poets, and other performance art. Live painting was also included. Every painting created during Art All Night is auctioned off the next day to pay for the next Art All Night. This year I submitted my collage, Waterbear Parade, for the show, and live painted. My two hour painting time slot was from 10pm-12am, but I needed a little extra time as my canvas was 2x3ft, and unprimed. Next year, I will bring a blow dryer to hasten the drying time. I will also bring a chair and a lil table to set my supplies, and sign up for a longer time slot: some people painted for eight hours!

I love animals, and I settled on a penguin before the event due to the hockey team. Also, you can pet a penguin at the National Aviary, and that is on my bucket list. I painted this gentlepenguin in the top hat, but the original idea was for it to be raining penguins. When I saw how much time and energy I had left, I realized I needed a new plan. I decided to paint one penguin, but realized he needed a lil sumthin more. The top hat was the answer.

Live painting for Art All Night made me realize how much I miss drawing and painting with acrylic, standing at an easel and dancing to my jams in my headphones. So, I will continue to pursue that joy in other projects like this. Thank you, Art All Night!

Update: New Things on the Way!

It has been too long, dear readers! I hope you are all well, and have experienced some form of sunshine in the past few days. The gray of winter really puts a damper on things, so I am glad spring is upon us in the Northern Hemisphere.

I just wanted to update everyone on what I have been working on:

1. I will be moving from RedBubble to Threadless Artist Shops because the user interface is more friendly, so stay tuned for a new shop link here and in my LinkTree on Instagram.

2. I am also finalizing a journal/sketchbook for people aged 7-700. It’s super cute, so I hope artists big and small enjoy using their imagination and having some fun:)

3. The National Collage Society’s Small Format Show features collages that all measure 4x6 inches. I won an award for my entry, Astronaut in the Ocean! The show will be online and run from May 14-September 30th. You can access the show here.

4. Finally, more painting. I really wish I were a vampire so that I could stay up all night painting. And learning the piano. But oh, well. As I said in my last post, rest and play are essential for optimal productivity and living itself. So in addition to sunshine, I hope you all take that nap or color in your coloring book, because those are important things, too.

Enjoy your day today, and I’ll see you next time!

Five Painting Tips For Beginners

So I’ve been working on a portrait of a human being and his noble canine (whose identities I cannot reveal because it’s Christmas related), and I’ve had so many Hagrid moments (“Oop. Shouldna [done] that”) that I thought I would write this post to help others on their painting journeys. I feel like I’ve had time to reflect on the process now that I’ve done so many in the Bella Bright style, so I will share these insights for any other poor soul who is trying to paint something realistically and may not have a lot of experience with it. Here goes:

1. Whatever you’re painting will look horrible for about 80% of the time you’re working on it because you’re building up all those layers, and it’s best to think of that 80% as adding muscles to the basic structures of your subject. And everyone knows how ghastly naked muscles look without skin over them. Ghastly!

2. To make something look three dimensional, you’ll need lots of layers that include a range of light, medium, and dark tones. Also, highlights don’t always have to be white. Sometimes they can be pale blue or pink or yellow. This brings me to my next point.

3. Purple is great for shading skin because it doesn’t make it look dirty like pure black or mixing brown and blue does. Sometimes I’ll use Payne’s Gray to shade, but it’s very rare. (Thank you, Sarah Mattingly Benson, for sharing this secret with me back in college:)

4. If you’re painting something complex like a human face, which I think is challenging no matter what your skill level, you’ll need to paint for shorter durations than if you were painting a simplified background, say. First of all, you need to give your brain and your emotions a break. Secondly, it helps to step back from your painting and really study it to make note of how you want to fix things or just proceed in general.

5. Go ahead and seriously think about giving up. Entertain the idea. Almost do it. Then get back to painting. I have discovered that as soon as I start thinking, “Screw this!” and then rally, I make a breakthrough and the painting begins to enter the skin/last 20% stage. Then I have a Dr. Frankenstein moment as the lightning strikes and yell, “It’s working! It’s alive! IT’S ALIVE!” Which motivates me to finish.

   That is it, folks! Hopefully these five tips will save you some heartache with your painting projects. There is one caveat, though. If you start to feel like you are about to throw the painting out of the window in frustration, then a break is definitely called for! So take frequent breaks to prevent frustration burnout and muscle stress. The think-about-giving-up-then-rally tip is a save for last resort thing. Happy painting, and have a wonderful week!
   
   

These Times We Live In, Updates On the Way, Homepage URL Changed

Hello, dear readers. It has been a tumultuous few months at home and abroad, and I have been meditating on what I could possibly say that might bring reason or hope about many of the issues that have been on our collective minds. I am not exactly speechless, but I do want to choose my words carefully and not add to the noise. I have research to do, as any responsible human does, and I will not be comfortable saying anything until I have done my due diligence.

Creatively, I have been painting some wonderful things in the last few months, and doodling some silly things to make myself feel better, so I will be updating my Paintings and my Sketches and Fun Stuff soon. I changed the URL for my homepage, so if you have it bookmarked, be sure to update it so you can see all the new things!

Be well, my friends, and take comfort. Change is gonna come.

Behold new content!

I have updated, dear readers!  Enjoy the hot pink text and feast your eyes upon new things in almost every section!  There is brand new and new-to-you work in Collage, Painting, Illustration, Sculpture, and Sketches and Fun Stuff.  I have also created a Printmaking section for your viewing pleasure with prints from this summer that range from etching to lithography.  Check out my About page for an actual photo of me with updated info about what I am currently doing, and feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.  Thank you for visiting and viewing!  

P.S. Keep your eyes peeled in December/January for new Public Art work!  It's a collaboration piece...  

Whew, that was a hectic few months. Here's what's going on now.

Just started my second semester at Indiana University of Pennsylvania!  I'm taking Painting, Drawing, and Graduate Studio Critique. I am excited about all of them. For painting, we have to have a binder of 70 art historical/other images that influence our work.  We have to write a proposal for what we intend to accomplish through painting this semester.  I recently wrote an artist statement for a show in Louisiana and in it I stated that I believe that art is a documentation of an artist's experience with and ideas of a particular time and place.  So in my proposal I am going to say that I am documenting my life as it is now and as it was.  Common themes will be me doing things accompanied by my dog, dating and relationships, and serious events that have shaped me into who I am.  I will use a simplified, flat, yet realistic style like in the painting of Bella and me that I painted for my mom over Christmas break.  I have to have 14 paintings completed by the end of the semester.

In Drawing, we have to have 10 drawings per three credit hours, so that means 20 drawings for me.  I plan to continue to work on my graphic novel, my brother's graphic short story, and screen printing life events on soft storytelling objects.  (Printmaking is included in the Drawing department here.)

In Graduate Studio Critique, it's all about our experiences and how our research shapes the work that we create.  We're doing "field work" to gather fodder for our artistic endeavors.  Everything is a possible source for inspiration.  The point is to go and do and make!

It's going to be a busy semester.  I can't wait to see what I make.  In the Interlude between moving back for the semester and starting class, though, I did get the chance to watch Netflix's Jessica Jones and Narcos.  Both are great.  I will probably rewatch Jessica Jones as soon as I'm done with Narcos, which is going to take me a while longer now that school is back in session.  I also watched the Tribeca Film Festival Choice Goodbye to All That on Netflix.  It was great.  It gave me a whole new perspective on dating.  In it, Otto Wall, the main character, goes through a divorce and jumps right back into the dating pool.  It's funny and genuine and good.  I've watched it several times already.  Now to build my watch list as I make all the art!