Moleskine Traveling Book Project

oil pastel
2" x 2"
Our traveling Moleskine book project has given me a chance to work in Loranie's book with the theme of "Close". I chose to do a suite of 4 small landscapes of Lake Michigan. I cut squares out of the pages and mounted the tiny landscapes behind the page. This echoed the theme from my recent Lake Michigan series that were done a much larger scale.

The wonderful photo was taken by Brian.

Creative Drawing Sketchbook

Scissors in Conte

I thought I'd share a peek into my Creative Drawing Sketchbook for a few reasons. One: my last class drawing was an absolute disaster and was very useful as such but NOT for prime time.

Two: I've been working on a new project with Vivien and Katherine. We are not ready for an official launch but Vivien, (founding mother of the idea and group) Katherine and I have been batting around ideas. Katherine has set up a wonderful Ning site for our group to communicate. If you are considering setting up a social net work site, you can read Katherine's post here

The project has something to do with ..... well, I can't really say yet but soon.



Spanner and sewing machine lint brush




Spanner in Oil Stick

Lake Michigan # 11

22" x 30"
oil pastel on
hp watercolor paper

And here is the last on in this series. I'm moving on to the tool drawings now if I have time between class assignments! I can hardly wait till January when I'll have some time off from school to dive in to those!

Lake Michigan I# 10

22" x 30"
oil pastel on
hot press wc paper

I've been enjoying not using any line work what so ever in this series. I'm trying to create a mood with color and value only. One more left to show you.

Lace/Wrench re visited

During crit this week, one of the students suggested I have a bit of the wrench peek out of the picture plane. I think this improves the drawing. However, I had to think carefully how to do this technically. I had placed the drawing on a 22" x 30" sheet of hot press paper and did not want to have any unwanted smudging.

I remembered how my teacher used a technique to place precise circles on a drawing he shared with us. He placed masking tape on the drawing and cut away the tape.

After shielding the rest of the drawing, I placed tape down just below the jaw of the wrench and drew the shape I wanted. then I used an exacto knife to trim away the jaw. I then used the oil stick and graphite to fill in the section and removed the tape when it dried. Worked very well and kept the rest of the drawing clean.

Wrench and Lace

oil stick and graphite
micacious iron oxide and colored pencil
17w" x 12h"

Our assignment this week was to collide 2 separate images into a diptych format. We looked at the work of Davie Salle and his teacher John Baldessari.

The great thing about taking a class is that we are exposed to artist's we each might not be naturally drawn to study.

I had been thinking alot about tools because of Vivien's paint brush and feather work. An up coming assignment ( a transformation drawing) based on the work of Jim Dine snagged my attention. Jim Dine has a whole body of work revolving around tools that are magnificent. The above diptych assignment, lace and tools will be the start of a new series for me. I'm quiet excited. This project has so much potential. I want to include not only art tools, but hand tools, law enforcement tools, tools from all walks of life. (Oh the possibilities of antique tools!!)

I was also experimenting with a new material in this drawing I'll post about that in the future.


Jim Dine tool painting

Partner Drawing

My Creative Drawing class, taught by Cory Postiglione, is a very rich experience. Each week, Corey gives us an assignment, right out of the studios of the masters. This one was based on Sol LeWitt's wall drawings. The object was to have one person write instructions and another person executed the drawing.

Jeremy's drawing of a cartoon character was 2 1/2 pages of instructions which I followed as best I could. We were allowed one question from our partners (We cheated and I asked 3 because this was a long drawing). It was like playing blind man's bluff and was a whole lot of fun.

This weeks project is to morph a man made object into something organic using a series of drawings. I'm walking around in a perpetual state of preoccupation thinking about this drawing problem. ( A delicious problem!)

Arresting Art Project

Josh Hawkins/staff photographer for Wednesday Journal


Our local papers both had very nice write ups about my project. You can read the piece in the Wednesday Journal's here.

The Oak Leaves ran a nice article too. I'm going to use the publicity to help further the project. I'm asking a hot shot photographer next week so wish me luck.

Today when I got off the train on my way home from the city, I met an Oak Park Cop. I smiled at him and he smiled me. It was one of those funny, small moments where I got to feel a bit of satisfaction directly related to the project. The Chief has been very busy so no word about the surveys yet.I hope to get them when he has a chance to see them. He's already hinted that some members of the department are "......neutral" about the project. But I'm planning on some really interesting shows and hope to snag people of different tastes.

This is lots of fun but surprisingly stressful. I'm happy, now to return to just the rich work of getting artists, researching lighting options and writing letters.
Thanks for all the support, Dear Readers. I hope to be getting into the blog-reading-swing again soon.

Lake Michigan Series # 9

222" x 30"
oil pastels on American Masters Printmaking paper


This image is a bit murkey. It does not show some of the subtle coloration in the water quiet as well as the other two, lighter value drawings.

Lake Michigan Series # 8

Oil pastel on American Masters Print making paper
22" x 30"


crop

Here is the next work on paper I'm submitting to the Bradley University Show.

Oak Park Police Department's Art Gallery

Press Release: (Yipee!)

Victoria Pierce's article made it into the Chicago Tribune . This is a very nice launch for the project and I'm very appreciative of the exposure.I'm going to use this article to help gain grant money and enlist other artist's to participate. I'm hoping some grant wielding organization will take pity on me and share money to install proper lighting.That fluorescent in the picture makes the work look green!

Chief Tanksley could not be more supportive and I'm very impressed with his open mindedness and his willingness to take a risk with this project. I'm writing a PDF file on the development of this project. It's my hope that one day the Chief's phone will ring and it will be another area Chief of Police wanting to know how we did this.

Victoria's mention of the prisoners traveling down the hall is an accurate one. I'm probably one of the few Oak Park citizens able to see the lock up without actually breaking the law. I really like that Chief Tanksley looks so official here next to the paintings. It makes for an interesting contrast.

The next show will be hung in mid November so stay tuned for more OPPD Gallery news.

(Thanks very much Victoria.)