Check out this sweet sketchbook I found while checking out YouTube, great stuff.
YouTube find: lossennedlorwen’s sketchbook
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Category Archives: Inspiration
The Very First Cult of Stuff
Was written in my big red miquelrius gridded journal with a fountain pen, a Pelikan Go! With red noodler’s ink. It was a transformative moment for me.
Art Adventure: Boston’s MFA
After a brief hiatus the art adventures are back on! This week Jane and I headed to the MFA in Boston to see the (new to me) Art of the Americas wing. It’s pretty darn sweet. It also renewed my interest in some of the more modern American painters.
ONe of my favorites has always been Edward Hopper for his street scenes. It is directly in line with the sort of photography I’ve been doing lately as well as the paintings I’d like to produce.
From our trip Jane and I discussed a lot of things; that we miss having critiques because they push you to do more; we miss some structure of classes and assignments, to that end we’ve given ourselves an assignment (I’ll discuss this later); additionally we miss making art adventures.
We already decided that we’re going to meet again in 2 weeks.
The assignments are going to have a theme but that’s it. We can work any size and any medium as long as we stick to the theme. This week’s theme is pretty easy, “Create a piece inspired by our visit to the MFA.” It couldn’t get much more open than that, given that we looked at work on paper, sculptures, drawings, photography, and stuff from all time periods.
So far I’ve decided I’m going to go with a painting of a local business Hooper inspired, probably China River or Super Chicken and most likely work in acrylic on stretched paper. I haven’t figured out size yet, but that will come with time.
I leave you with this guy drawing in the MFA, I'll scan some of my drawings from our coffee sessions and from the train station.
Flickr Find Friday: MIlk Tea
Flickr Find Friday: Journal Pages
This journal page by This Chicken reminds me of Pinterest. Anyone else remember having a journal you stuck images from a magazine into, or an inspiration board?
Flickr Find Friday: Deadbeat Dad
Sure, the topic is crappy but the image pops like whoa! The black on the bright colors really keeps me looking. RcannonP does great things with color.
Flickr Find Friday: VicandWilliam
The title of this one is Austin Borders. I am pretty sad to see Borders go bankrupt. It was one of the first mega bookstores in the area where I went to college. I've met up with friends and dates in the cafe. I've spent hours studing and drinking coffee at the Bangor, Maine location.
Anyway, Borders closing makes me sad, Vicandwilliam serves up a poignant journal page.
For what it's worth, I also frequented the local book shops in Bangor, ME. Lippencott and Bett's Books were 2 favorites of mine, I would frequently find great deals on used books in their shelves, I think I paid about $10 (in 1997 money) for a used copy of the Apocrypha. Does anyone remember the name of that place in the basement on a backstreet in Bangor, where the guy had every issue of PlayBoy in his used magazine sales rack?
Flickr Find Friday: FakeGlue
Another journal page that resonates with my style of journaling: Collage, sketch then add a dash of color. LOVE IT. When I add the ephemera from my daily life to myjournal I'm recording my events not the events of some big company churning out what they THINK I may want to record. Nah, that ticket fromt he raffle I didn't win records the dissapointment of loosing.
Anyway FakeGlue does a great job of that with this spread.
Flickr Find Friday: LaWendula
I'm particularly in love with this image by LaWendula working in Wreck this Journal:
It emphasises why I really enjoy Wreck this Journal though I've never worked through it myself. WtJ harmonizes with my style of art journaling perfectly.
Make a Watercolor Tin
I'm obsessed with making watercolor tins. I've been looking for more and more adaptable methods since I made my first with medication blister packs. (I have a UStream about this.)
On my way home a few nights ago I had the brainstorm to try to make the pans out of moldable epoxy putty, like that Mighty Putty stuff. I have a bunch of tubes of that but can't find them so I stopped by Ocean State Job lot to look into their glue section. (They generally have a ton of weird glues.) If I hadn't found it I'd have headed to Home Depot. I found a tube of Elmer's Automotive Epoxy putty. You could also use Mighty Putty, Sugru, or JB Weld's Putty.
The key to this project is that you get MOLDABLE epoxy putty. The Elmer's has a working or open time of 2 minutes after it's fully kneaded together, which works for this project.
You cut a chunk off, knead it until it's fully mixed, roll a snake and then press it into place in your tin and then mold it into a wall. Keeping your hands damp through the process helped a lot.
Once the walls firm up you can trim them with a knife. I used a utility knife to trim the walls into a nice straight surface, well mostly. Partially hardened the putty carves pretty easily.
After I built all the walls I let it cure and then sprayed it with a kind of even coat of white spray paint. I also sprayed the outside with a little gray spray paint.
This little adventure cost me the $2.50 for the gum and $2.99 for the epoxy putty. If I were chewing the gum anyway (which I do) it's sort of an even sum thing. If you have a friend who chews gum or is a mint addict this could be even cheaper. I used approximately 1/3rd of the putty. A larger tin like an altoids tin would use more and a mini altoids tin less.
I made myself 6 areas for paint and a small mixing area. The wells are 3/4 a full pan of a half pan and a half (this will only make sense to people who have half pan watercolor sets.) Anyway pictures:
