Moon of the Circling Swallows – Cut Paper Art
11 x 14 inch paper cutting.
Swallows Progress Shot
Last progress photo before the final… almost finished… Here I am cutting colored tissue paper to size and gluing it to the back of the paper cutting so that the color shows through.
Video: Artist Maud Lewis – A World Without Shadows
“You know how you keep a [little] of your childhood inside of you, a place to go when things aren’t going right? That’s what you see when you look at one of Maud’s paintings. It’s that world from when you were a child.. with no shadows in it.”
I seriously love the National Film Board of Canada… so many quality films and animations – I’ve spent a lot of time on their website over the years. About this video (from nfb.ca): “Set against a background of her paintings and the Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, landscapes they depict, this short documentary is a portrait of the life and work of one of Canada’s foremost primitive painters, Maud Lewis. Emerging from her youth crippled with arthritis, Lewis escaped into her painting at the age of 30. She had never seen a work of art and had never attended an art class but her paintings captured the simple strength, beauty and happiness of the world she saw – a world without shadows.”
Accepted into the 2013 Cherry Creek Arts Fest!
I’ve been antsy this week awaiting word on whether or not I got in to this year’s Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver… And I just found out that I’m in! Last year it was my best show, with over 100 originals ranging from my tiny birds to my largest pieces sold. Can’t wait to go back for my third consecutive year!
Swallows paper cutting: More ‘in progress’
Geetars
A new 3/4 size Fender classical guitar has joined the family… and I borrowed a small mixer and mic from my brother, a sound engineer. I may be overly ambitious with my minimal abilities, but I’ve got nothing to lose. Trying to plot an animation & soundtrack in my head. I keep going back & forth on where to start first — the images or the music (whatever it is, it’ll be short). The Lawrence Arts Center’s Freestate Film Festival submission deadline is Mar. 1… thinking that might be a good deadline to get myself going (I said that last year too… but I’m well equipped now.)
In Progress: Moon of the Circling Swallows
Coloring and foreground coming up next…
Camera Rostrum is here!
Although I bought a merchandise unit (as mentioned before) that I had planned to modify into an animation table, I decided to order a 42 inch camera rostrum (also known as a copy stand) that I can use in conjunction with that unit. This basically holds the camera up so that it can shoot straight downward, and you can move the camera up and down with incremental measurements marked on the stand (good for zooming in and out in stop-motion animation). It will also double for photographing artwork that is too large for my scanner. Wins all around! The other unit will eventually hold this rostrum and have glass (or plexiglass) shelves that will sit between the camera and the lightbox for animations that are layered. And this saves me from having to build a piece to hold the camera. Now.. must invent more time to play.
Moon of the Circling Swallows – Paper Cutting in Progress
I pushed the pause button on a commission I’m working on because I felt the need to work on this.. I was inspired by the book I’m currently reading – Black Elk Speaks. The Lakota have their own names for the months based on the moon, such as Moon of the Popping Trees for December because of the sound the trees make when they’re frozen.
Wishing I had a compass to make the concentric circles (which I usually draw by hand after tracing the first circle from my lamp base…), I used doubled up dental floss and devised my own compass by tying knots where I wanted the circles to be and tacking it in the middle of the paper to hold it in place. By putting the pencil in each loop created by the knots and drawing as I pulled it away from the tack, I got perfect circles.
Video: Eskimo Artist: Kenojuak
Kenojuak Ashevak, a pioneer of Inuit art, died yesterday at the age of 85.
A great documentary from 1963. From nfb.ca: This documentary shows how an Inuit artist’s drawings are transferred to stone, printed and sold. Kenojuak Ashevak became the first woman involved with the printmaking co-operative in Cape Dorset.