I want to use black and white the way Cathy Connolley does. She does color, too, but here‘s a gallery of just black and white.
What not to do
Sometime when you don’t have a project that must be done, head over to 52 Projects and check out the exhaustive list of what not to do when you’ve got a project deadline.
Yes, I’ve got a project deadline. And I can’t believe how much of that list I’ve accomplished just today 🙂
Room to breathe
So often I get calls for calligraphy which has to be crammed into a space that is sometimes smaller than the typewritten original. It’s very frustrating. But this quote was required to fit a space at least 23″ tall by 32″ wide. So the x-height of these letters is 5/8″. What luxury! (That’s not a wrinkle at the top right, but a shadow from an open door. I set the piece on the floor and leaned over it to take the photo.)
Escape
I don’t draw. Okay, I used to not draw. This was more painful to do than I expected, but also satisfying to have accomplished. A baby step, but still a step.
Obsessive Drawing
The drive to doodle: compulsive therapy.
I read this review in the New York Times (click the title of this post if you’ve subscribed to NYT online), and I want to head right on over to the American Folk Art Museum. Too bad I’m 1,110.39 miles away.
A few more images of the show are here at American Folk Art Museum’s website.
So small a thing
I seem to be making bookmarks lately. No matter. I am really enjoying the little 1″ square landscapes.
Spring Haiku — 1997
Spring Haiku — an artist book I made in spring 1997. Covers of handmade paper with turnip greens inclusions, over matboard; Arches Text Wove for text. Oriental paper hinges, painted, cut into 3x-wide strips. Handmade paints — pure pigments plus gum arabic plus (in the case of Alizarin Violet) titanium-coated mica flakes for sparkle. The washes brushed with methyl cellulose — to improve the surface for fine (that is to say, small) lettering. The lettering was done with a #5 Mitchell dip pen.
Size: 2 1/2″ x 2 5/8″.
Uploaded to test software. Both photos are thumbnails to larger photos.
"Depth"
Here’s an artist I discovered through Illustration Friday. I just love her colors, shapes, symbols … everything.
Illustration Friday
Each Friday, the folks at Illustration Friday website propose a theme for illustration. And for the past two weeks I’ve enjoyed clicking through the 150+ artists who each contribute by illustrating on the topic and then linking back to the theme page at Illustration Friday.
What a variety of responses! It’s fascinating to page through them all.
Illustration Friday: Depth
My first submission to Illustration Friday is an artist book I did nearly 4 years ago. Click on the thumbnail above for a larger look. The text, an anonymous quotation, reads: “Man, despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication and many accomplishments, owes the fact of his existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”
I used this same text in the broadside done last month and uploaded to this blog on August 20.