Week 3: Acrylic Inspiration

This week was filled with a lot of learning and inspiration, followed by bit of application. Austin Kleon's Steal Like An Artist has been a great source of motivation for me ever since I was introduced to it during my Critical Perspectives in Design class with Barbara Littman. (Check her out by the way! She's a great designer. While you're at it, check out her awesome penthouse apartment in NYC!)

Kleon advises you to steal everything that’s worth stealing. That doesn't mean you should try to imitate your favorite artists' work, but you should steal the ideas that you love. Kleon reminds us that “imitation is not flattery.”  He also goes on to quote Francis Ford Coppola with, “We want you to take from us. We want you, at first, to steal from us, because you can’t steal. You will take what we will give you and you will put it in your own voice and that’s how you will find your voice. And that’s how you begin. And then one day someone will steal from you.”

Thanks to various forms of media, I had quite a lot to steal from this week. First, I was hit with a super-cool recommendation from a coworker, Danny, called Bomb It. It’s a documentary that follows graffiti artists all over the world. From “taggers” who write their names on everything around so that they can show the world they exist, to artists creating paintings towering stories high-- the entire documentary is jam-packed with inspiration. Two of the coolest artists from the documentary (also shown to me by Danny prior to Bomb It) are called Os Gemeos, or The Twins. They're identical twin brothers who cover the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil with their yellow-skinned, squinty-eyed figures of men and women. These paintings are not only awesome looking, but they are often containing subtle social and political messages.

Doing some online browsing, I also stumbled upon an artist named Michael Lang, and wow... What a gem of a find! His work totally hit home with me, and I fell in love with his style instantly. His work usually contains faces sporting over-sized eyes and abstracted features, and the moment I saw the first painting, I knew I had to steal some ideas and do my own version.

I started experimenting with different facial expressions and emotions inspired by Lang's contemporary style, but I wanted to put my own twist on it. I let Os Gemeos inspire me a little bit with the yellow skin, but I definitely want to do some paintings allowing more of the brother's style to come through me. (Maybe next week!) 

Anyway, here are the paintings that I did the past few days. It really enjoyed making these! (From left to right: Flirtatious Business Man, The Kiss):

These seem a bit caricature-esq, cartoonish, Lang-y, and yellow... but personally, I think they're really fun. :-) I've still been committing my time to painting, but I'm loving it. We'll see what next week brings!

Committed only to creativity...

-Amber

Week 2: Musical Cups and Storytelling

Hello fellow creators,

This past week, I decided to tackle an art form that I've never been quite able to grasp: playing an instrument... while singing. I know, it shouldn't be that difficult, right? It especially shouldn't be difficult for someone who dabbled with the idea of being a music educator. (That was a high school idea which flew out the window the moment I tried to teach someone how to play some simple things on the piano. I realized that, internally, I don't react well when people don't understand me!)

I can't say that I play any instruments anymore, but I used to be an amateur pianist and I was addicted to the ukulele. (I would still be addicted to my ukulele if I didn't lose it. Don't even ask how I could lose an instrument, because I have no idea.)

Anyway, back in December on a flight to Las Vegas, the movie Pitch Perfect was streaming on the overhead screens, complimentary of United Airlines. So obviously, I watched. I fell in love with Anna Kendrick's character's performance of Cups . (Originally by Lulu and the Lampshades, which, by the way, is awesome. All of their songs are folk-y and great. Check them out!) Since then, learning "the cup song" has been in the back of my mind. I finally got around to attempting it this week! I started watching tutorials on Tuesday evening and within an hour or so, I had the cup-beat down. I just could not sing while moving the cup! No surprise there. 

I obsessed over this for two days. Literally. Then, on Thursday night, a magical thing happened... I sang. While keeping the cup beat! Like I said, that probably wouldn't be a big deal to most people, but it's always been such a challenge for me to multitask musically. But enough talk, here's the video of my artistic accomplishment this week. I'm no Lulu or Anna, but I'm dang proud. I only recorded one take, not minding the complete mess up at the end because, honestly, I make myself laugh when I watch it! :-)

Though I was committed to learning this song, I did fill up some more of my time doing a bit of painting. I haven't gotten wine painting out of my system yet, especially not when I've found new ways to apply the paint, like this awesome, unused, scrubber-brush thing I found under my kitchen sink. (Left: Tools used to apply the wine, Right: In or Out?):

I thoroughly enjoyed creating this painting. Not only was the application effect really cool, but I was able to push a story out of me that has been brewing inside lately. The story you "hear" while viewing it may not be the story I was trying to tell, but that's what is so beautiful. What makes visual art such an amazing expressive outlet is it's ability to keep your secrets while showing them to the world at the same time. As of late, my "visual diary" may hold more secrets than my journals, and that's okay with me.

Committed only to creativity...

-Amber

Week 1: Painting with Wine and Tea

Hello fellow creators,

For the past couple of months I've been doing a lot of artistic experimentation. Back in April (or was it May?) I was sitting in my apartment sketching a floor plan for a studio project, when the tea I was sipping dribbled from my mouth and made it's new home in the fibers of my bleached-white vellum. And yep, it stained. This accident inspired me to try doing intentional "staining" with the tea. Basically, I wanted to try watercolor painting using English Breakfast and Earl Grey teas. I came up with the idea to do abstracted "portraits" using the tea, ink, and some acrylic. My goal was to do between 10-12 of the paintings and create a collection titled Faces of Earl. Well... of course, that didn't happen. I'd quickly moved onto something else (immersing myself in Walden, I believe.) At any rate, I got three done: (In order from left to right: Joshua, Rippy, Cleo)

So, this past week I decided to rekindle the old flame and add a little bit more to it. I was trying to think of other things that could potentially ruin a piece of artwork if applied unintentionally. Eyeing up the wine in my pantry, I thought  "why not?" I combined Earl Grey tea, Merlot, White Zinfandel, Moscato, and ink to create some really interesting colors: (From top to bottom: Driven by Desire, Face Me)

I really love the purple pigment of the Merlot, especially combined with the brown of the tea. I feel like it gives a more modern image a bit of an old-timey feel... but maybe that's just me.  I had a lot of fun creating Driven by Desire, especially the faintly stained background-- I ditched the brush and experimented only with rubbing a semi-dry teabag on the paper.

I think I really prefer the style of my Faces of Earl paintings, but I enjoy the mix of colors with the most recent two. I want to try combining the ideas somehow, while making sure to keep the ink part of the work. Something about bold black lines is beautiful to me, so I'm going to keep experimenting. Experimentation is key to success, in my opinion. You have to experiment with new things in order to learn about who you are, what you like, what works, and what doesn't-- and that goes for everything in life.

With that being said, we'll see what I dive into next week. More beverage watercolors? Maybe. I do have a brand new easel, brushes, and acrylic paints set to arrive at my apartment no later than Wednesday. :-)

Committed only to creativity...

-Amber

An Honest Introduction

It's time to admit to the world something that those close to me may already know. It's hard to admit that you're not perfect, but I think it's time to be honest with myself. Are you ready? I'm not sure if I am. Alright, alright. Here it is:

I have commitment issues. Serious ones.

There, I said it.

I've left so many relationships behind me to move on to something hotter, better, more exciting. Luckily, my past flings always take me back, and when I return, I return with something new to bring to the table. I'm pretty good about keeping committed relationships with the people in my life, but when it comes to what I'll call "self-exploration activities", commitment always turns out to be difficult. There are so many things I love that I feel like it's literally impossible for me to focus on all of them, even a little bit, at the same time. 

If you follow either of my other two blogs, you will definitely have noticed this. Nonsense to You, I Would Suppose, my poetry blog, has been up and running for almost three years. Poetry is (was?) my passion, and for years I was filling my blog, journals, and PIPtalk Forums with all of the words I was wielding. Then, I started reading some really good books: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, various books on LSD, DMT, and other psychedelic drugs, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, and a few others. This, along with a newly-developed passion for experimental art, and a deeper interest in what I'm "officially" studying (interior design-- this is what fueled my extremely short-lived blog Design Remark), made it very difficult to focus all of my time on poetry, and it is plain to see. 

I can probably count the amount of poems I've written in 2013 on one hand. If you had told me three years ago that in the future I would be writing less than one poem a month, I would have been deeply saddened and I wouldn't have believed you. But to my pleasant surprise, I'm okay with not writing up a storm... and I believe it's because my life is filled with so many other forms of creativity that my thirst to create, experiment, and express myself is being quenched. I've come to realize that life isn't about being a master at any one thing: you can be an amateur at many things and you'll probably be happier. It's important to constantly submit yourself to a myriad of different experiences, people, and situations in order to let parts of yourself surface that you never knew were lying dormant within you. 

This blog is going to follow my journey through different experiences in art and in life. My goal is to share who I am through what I do and hopefully inspire others to search for who they are through new experiences as well. 

Hopefully my commitment issues won't invade this blog... I suppose we'll see!

I will post again later today showing what I've been committed to this past week. Check back for new updates. :-)

Committed only to creativity...

-Amber