inspiration – 30 day challenges
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Category Archives: inspirations
inspiration – art every day
inspiration – speed model
Awesome little video I found on youtube showing someone modeling in 3d with lightwave:
I really need to get back in to Lightwave. I might start doing some stuff with it in 30 minute bursts from time to time to get back at it a little. I’m still on version 9.6 so am a bit behind the times, but it does the job for now.
Eventually, I wouldn’t mind learning blender, but it’s got a gui that will take some getting used to. Who knows maybe there’s a online learning class for it somewhere? I have a book or two on it, but it’s still hard to learn. I’m still in the Canvas Network Social Media Class right now, and loving it. I signed up for a few other freebie classes there and at a few other similar places. I actually have http://www.class-central.com/ as a home page tab nowadays so I don’t miss sign ups. Not sure I’ll have time to do all these classes, but they are pretty fun, and free, so it’s definitely worth giving a try. Really makes you think and learn new things, even on topics you may already know a heck of a lot about.
Inspiration – Carol Nelson
Inspiration – Max Hayslette and Richard Diebenkorn
http://www.maxhayslette.com/mainhtm/generalframe.htm
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http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/richard-diebenkorn/interior-with-book
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inspirations…
Matta and Miro
Matta… Miro…
Roberto Matta and Joan Miro…
You are two inspirations for me!
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inspiration – Marshall Arisman
inspiration – painting a day blog…
http://lisadaria.blogspot.com/ – I need to start doing something like this…
I also want/need to get back in to the daily exercise routine. After the hernia surgery I’ve been taking it easy. I need to get back in to it… It’s sometimes harder than other days. The timing belt went out on one of the cars the other day so we are carpooling now… Which means up extremely early and to work a couple hours earlier than normal daily… tough to be inspired when you are tired/exhausted physically and mentally due to looooooong days.
inspirations – Tony Oursler
Odilon Redon’s “habitual state of melancholy”
I was reading a contemporary art book just a few minutes ago… In it was mentioned that Odilon Redon considered himself to be in a “habitual state of melancholy” and the book attributed that to being one of the reasons he was not suited to be in the Academy. That is a very interesting phrase… It is something that my ‘old life’ involved all too often I think… it actually describes me in a lot of ways from the past… not really ‘depressed’ all the time, but in a negative state that bordered on it and may have led to depression at times… Negativity breeds negativity. However, on the other hand, catharsis is a good thing, so not necessarily all things negative should be avoided. Without shadows light cannot be used to see anything…
right brain power is Heaven on earth!
inspiration: theosophy
inspiration: Nick Knight
Norman Rockwell used photos
a few inspirations…
Max Ernst:
Barnett Newman:
Gerhardt Richter:
Johannes Vermeer:
Bridget Riley:
Op Art:
http://www.popgive.com/2008/12/examples-of-kinetic-illusions-in-op-art.html
Boccioni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Boccioni – Umberto Boccioni is one of my ‘art heroes.’ His use of color and brush strokes I find to be very inspiring and something I aspire to do somewhat similarly in my own works on some level. 
David Thomann Memorial Painting
David Thomann Memorial Painting
Oil on Wood Panel
© 1998, Jeff Thomann
This is a work that I created about a semester before I created David Thomann Memorial Installation
This work was created just before the time that Photomosaics really became popular. The painting was basically a bunch of photos that work together to create an portrait of my Uncle Dave. However, I painted the photos individually. The images are from a variety of sources.. family photos, and a variety of other scenes, some which were not actually derived from photos, but were scenes I had lived through in person or had some knowledge of… The inability to really tell the whole story that was behind my reasons for creating this work led me to create the Installation later. I might try to get a better photo of this painting later since there appears to be some glare on this one.
After Titian
After Titian
Acrylic on Canvas Paper
© 1998, Jeff Thomann
David Thomann Memorial Installation
David Thomann Memorial
Oil Paint and Collage on Canvas and Wood
© 1999, Jeff Thomann
I added the above youtube video to this post to help show the work in a way that is somewhat close to the setup it was originally intended to have. Unfortunately, I’ve never shown this work in a gallery or anything, so this was a quick video I took recently in 2014 before putting the work in to storage.
It’s hard to display this work for me due to the emotions involved… It’s difficult to talk about the work or think about it too much for lengthy periods of time because I begin to cry every time I think about it in too big of a segment of time. Many tears were shed during the creation of this artwork.
The installation is probably the biggest work of art that I’d ever attempted. I’ve been told that I try to put too many messages in to one painting many times, and this work is probably the epitome of that sort of thing. there was a lot going on. The work consists of 8 main panels, with the main images taking up two panels each. The panels are just stretcher bars with canvas attached, and they are connected with hinges. Each panel is approximately 3 feet wide x 6 feet tall, so the whole work, when all the panels are standing together is approximately 6 feet x 6 feet, and forms a sort of x if looked at from above. This is one of the few ‘installation’ works I ever attempted to create. I’ll try to add more images of this here in the future as I get more images uploaded to give a better idea of what it looks like from various angles.
Sorry if my rendering skills are not the greatest in the world. This work was created over the process of a semester in college, so I didn’t have an infinite amount of time to work on it. I could have reworked some of it later, but have chosen not to for a variety of reasons.
This work is a memorial installation that I created in honor of an uncle of mine that died due to leukemia several years ago. The reason, that our family believes, that he got leukemia was because he was a helicopter pilot for the United States Army, stationed in Germany, during the time that the radioactive clouds from the Chernobyl “accident” occurred. Around this time many chopper pilots, and other servicesmen in the air started getting symptoms very similar to those that he had… but, as usual the government denies that such a thing occurred.
At the time that I made this installation I was trying to cope with the fact that my little brother had just joined the airforce… and was attending basic training at the same airforce base that my Uncle David died in (It’s in San Antonio, Texas). It seemed to me to be a very bizzare and vile cycle that fate had taken to lead to such circumstances… The weekend that my parents, my sister, and I went to see Danny graduate from basic was very eerie, yet beautiful in a strange sort of way…
On the picture of the panel above, in the lower register of this image is a portrait of my father’s mother, father, brothers, and sisters. My Uncle Dave is the one circled in red. The reason for this is to make his image stand out in a way, and it also sort of implies very bluntly that he was a ‘target’.
The images in the top register are metaphoric symbols of man’s stupidity in creating violence through technology. The people in this register are rendered somewhat icon-like, as they have become mythological icons of our day for the horrors which they have created. The ‘heroes’ of this register are Truman, the Manhattan Project guys, and Hitler. They stand together triumphantly in an eeire background plotting the downfall of man. The middle register is a not-too-well rendered replica of the army identification tags that my Uncle used to wear. Each of the main images are painted copies of photos that meant a lot to me and my family. One of the small images in the top register is a copy of the final photograph my father had of my uncle’s family before he died. I remember when the photo was shot as if it was yesterday. My parents said ‘wave good by to Uncle Dave.’ Tears come to my eyes even to this day as I reflect on that phrase.
One of the ideas/themes with this work was to morph words and stories in to a message that played out like a drama for the viewer. https://jeffthomann.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/img_20140612_093150.jpg?w=949
Brothers & Sisters
Brothers and Sisters happily together at home, but who is this circled?
Uncle Dave, here’s two thumbs up pal!
This is the type of helicoptor that Uncle Dave piloted.
We will cherish you always for all that you have given.
Does E=mc squared always???
Why on earth is that the the case? Why can’t things be less scientific, less destiny driven…Why does death exist??? In the upper register, not even Albert Einstein, Mr. Zeplin, the Wright Brothers, or Henry Ford, the heroes of our time, can answer this question. Remember the Alamo!
E equals mc squared not here here sisters!!!
Our technology is made only for our destruction… Logic makes no sense to us anymore. The greatest accomplishment of man is the destruction of his own. Our walls cannot protect us from ourselves. Our true heroes will sacrafice their all for vain political purposes that our real heroes, the ones that we put in our textbooks, have created for foolish worldly greed, jealously, deceit, and lies…
Brother’s not well.
Fair Well
Fair And Nobyl
Chernobyl
In the green striped areas of the painting where the words are there are some photocopied and typed out excerpts from a book that came out about a year before I created the painting which had a lot of information about how Chernobyl was not really as much of an ‘accident’ as it was made to be at the time that it happened. These texts are embeded/collaged in the painting under a layer of stand oil and linseed oil. The book these texts were taken from documents where many areas where corners were cut in regards to safety measures being taken. These were documents that were top secret and not released until shortly before the time that that book came out and became public knowledge.
5/26/2011 – 22 Minute Self Portrait
Image
5/26/2011 – 22 Minute Self Portrait © Jeff Thomann 5/26/2011
Media: Ballpoint Pen on Paper
I’m not too keen on the that big right eye and super dark area right below the chin in the neck, but that’s the sort of stuff that happens when you are doing a self portait. Actually, the eye kind of adds to that expression I think. I probably went in to too dark and harsh lines too quickly about 20 minutes in — easy to do in this type of drawing. Also, working near the edge of the paper is always a tricky thing to do, but an important thing to do.
Emotions play a big part in drawing. I had a pretty rough/stressful day at work, so I think that played in to this a little in the expressionism gestures in the line quality, etc.
I stopped it at 22 minutes instead of half an hour because I felt that if I kept going I was really going to overwork it way too much. Getting fine details in a quick sketch is always a tricky thing to do. How far is going to far. How much time is left. The clock starts to not matter much but I want to keep these below 30 minutes for now.
I ultimately want to do one quick sketch like this daily and then one longer work that takes a long time on the side after that. This is a transition in to that. Currently I’m working on some color pencil drawings for the longer drawing, but didn’t work on it yesterday or today. I want to make the quick sketches be done every single day regardless of how I feel or if I want to or don’t want to draw that day. If I keep them below half an hour, that’s a lot more possible and realistic then trying to do a masterpiece that takes hours daily, etc. Time management is an important and difficult thing to master.
http://allartists.wikispaces.com/
I have a tendency to start big projects and not get them done sometimes… especially if they are in locations I don’t visit much… I’m a visually oriented person. Out of sight, out of mind. Anyways, a while back I started a blog to list artists, and then made a wiki for it since the blog was limiting as I was the only one that could enter info on it… I will try to add more to the wiki going forward, and you should feel free too. The wiki is located at http://allartists.wikispaces.com/
working on folio
Slowly working on portfolio website (see link on right). This weekend I put together a few of the pages over there. So far the Charcoal and Ball Point Pen sections are starting to shape up.
I have not put together the other sections yet completely since those require shooting digital photos of my works. Not being the greatest photographer in the world doesn’t make getting the quality that I like out of the camera the easiest thing in the world. Also, it does not help much that I’m shooting outside when I do the shots, and it’s been fairly windy the last several days. The other day I shot some of my brother’s old artwork from highschool and the tripod fell over with the wind while I was swapping drawings with others in the house. The part of the camera that attaches to the tripod flew off of the camera when it hit the pavement. I luckily got it back together, but have not tried to attach it back to the tripod since then. Note to self – add weights of some sort to tripod the next time I try to use it.
The ball point pen drawings are mostly some of the mall small scans I took. I tried to limit it to about 30 or so images for each section. That way a nice little navigation bar table fits well in most browsers. It’s still a little too wide for the smallest screen settings, but I really don’t think most folks use the smallest screen settings usually. If so, sorry folks… I am trying to get this thing looking good, not optimized for your super low res screens… It’s tricky using the floating navigation bars I’m using because Internet Explorer is tricky. If you don’t put the dtd type up at the top of the html, it doesn’t float the css navbars where they belong, and just sticks them at the top of the page where they scroll with the rest of it.
It’s slowly coming together. I’ve been doing some cleaning around the house this weekend since we’ll likely be moving before too long… found a bunch of ol floppy disks and that reminded me that the last time I tried to put together an online web portfolio like this I was doing it on floppy and zip disks on Campus because it was like the year 2002 and I was using the free modem pool that the University of Missouri had back then… a whopping speed of 28k! No wonder I got frustrated and quit putting together the website last time, lol.
This time, things are coming together a lot smoother, and hopefully this blog will help make things work out a little better. I’ll add more to the website as I get more images put together and organized. I really like this click the image to get a bigger copy of it idea. I also like the floating nav bars with transparent backgrounds that makes it nice, clean, and easy to maneuver around in.
Got any pointers, tips, or ideas on how I can improve portfolio? Shoot away and give me some comments. I like listening to what people have to say. 🙂 😉
creative bug done bit.
================
===Caffiene=====
================
Caffiene kills.
Caffiene heals.
Opens the mind.
Shakes and Grind.
Sleepless night
filled with fright
You know your hooked.
Urine smells like coffee.
=========================
It’s a no-go without the logo
==========================
The Art bug done bit. That is it. Time to be creative.
=============================
Signs from Heaven or from Hell
Only time will tell.
=============================
I browse in my under-trousers
Blue underlines appear in my browser
leading who knows where
Clickity Click
What a virus? Oh Wowsers!
=============================
==============================
You are just being silly.
Am I?
Yes you are.
Now where’s the ham and jelly?
==============================
================================================
=========HOURGLASS==========
================================================
Hourglass, hourglass why are you here?
Duh, the network is down.
Why is it down?
I got no idear.
Hourglass, hourglass, go away please.
There ain’t no way.
You got a virus that won’t make you sneeze.
Hourglass, hourglass, 8 hours have passed.
Now I’m headed home.
I’ll hide in your email,
and give you a blast.
Hourglass, Hourglass, now why are you here?
You have passed me to your home network my dear.
================================================
Talking in circles, the man did find the lady to ask questions.
She thought he was very smart and inquisitive.
Then one day she discovered the answers were nothing more than puzzles.
She got mad, left so sad. Hearts both were broken.
Such is the story of couples who walk and talk but do not listen.
Learn to communicate. It’ll save you both.
=================================
Number has changed. I have not.
I’m still here. Nothing to fear.
Blah blah blah
bleh bleh bleh
Onwards we go.
No money to blow.
The timing just might be right.
=================================
====================
Spend your life
spinning your wheels
Everyone says chill.
but I cannot.
I WILL NOT!
====================
===========================
Language is something.
Language is nothing.
Jibber and a Jabber
Collateral Tatter.
Creative clown
done left town
following after the clatter.
He done found
No one around
===
He and you alone
Alone in the dark
in a moonlit park
Smiling at
Cheshire Cat
It’s on attack
fighting the pack
of the Zodiac.
—
You know he’ll win
in the end.
Moon cycles turn
as they spurn.
The smiling clown
will wear the crown
staring from afar
as he sits upon his star
staring you down nightly
============================
Oh Lord!
What a Ward.
Used in vain.
It’s insane.
In the night,
In a fight,
even in Church on Sunday.
new goals and organized life…
I’m going to try to get organized in my life again. I’ve created a daily spreadsheet that I will try to write too and check off as I go along that lists all the stuff I should be doing daily. Included in the list are
– walking the dog in the morning
– walking on morning break
– inhaling lunch and doing something creative during the last part of lunch breaks
– walking on afternoon breaks
– walking the dog in the afternoon after work – maybe ride a bike with the dog if I don’t walk him… possibly working up to 5 miles on the MKT trail someday?…
– working out for at least half an hour nightly either at the YMCA, with a workout video, on the wii, riding a bike, on a jump rope, or doing some other form of excercise for at least half an hour
– working on updating online places – this blog, turbosquid, entropia universe stuff, entropiaforum stuff, and whatever else needs to be updated…
– doing at least one chore a night (one chore is something like a load of laundry, mowing, working on organizing the basement, working on organizing the attic, dusting, cleaning one room of the house, working on a 3d project, working on a 2d project)
I like doing little organized excel or google document spreadsheets like this to keep myself organized. I used to do this sort of thing for 24 hour schedule back in college and a couple of years after that, when I was still in shape, healthy, and had a lot of ambitions… Well, it’s time to get my ambitions and goals set again, and not just continue to let myself be an out-of-shape old man… Time to be young, healthy, wealthy, and wise again…
Time to actually stop being a lazy bum with no direction in my life. The time has come, today is the first day in the rest of my life… an organized, orderly, and fulfilling life. A life full of vigor and life. A life worth living to the fullest!
Happy Wednesday.
Searching for Tim Burton
The search for Tim Burton took us to four Hollywood studio archives, five independent production company collections, and four private lenders, exposing us to an interesting variety of archival situations. Studio archives are traditionally housed on the lots where their films and television programs are shot, or, if their collections are large enough and the […] http://bit.ly/c3vwHP
————–
Tim Burton Items on Amazon
Inspirations – Dennis Blagg
When I was at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, I saw Dennis Blagg’s Passover.
I love this painting, and think that Dennis has a color palette that is similar to the color palette that I try to go after with my own works. The darkened purplish sky in the horizon sitting right next to the yellow wheat in the foreground that breaks up the landscape is an intense visual image that is hard to forget, not that anyone would ever want to forget it. It burns an amazing sensual one-ness with nature in to the viewer’s brain. It is not just a landscape, but a landscape that you feel as if you are a part of. There is a harmonic balance between the hills on the right and the weat on the left. There is a lot of invisible triangular compositional balance going on, but that intense splash of yellow on top of a darkened sky is something that can truly be called beautiful.
I have seen prints of this work before and loved the piece at that time, but it is far more amazing to view in person!
Fort Worth…
Last weekend, I went to Forth Worth, Texas to visit my Brother, Sister-in-law, and my niece. They live down there, and this was really the first time that I’ve had a chance to visit there or see them for over a year. It’s a great cultural city to visit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Worth,_Texas
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth has some outstanding works of art. The entry fee is a bit steep compared to some similar Museums elsewhere (that’s bad because it puts off a lot of would be Museum goers in the general public – such as my sister and parents who I was staying in a hotel room with, lol.), but when we were there, the fee was half off as half of the Museum was closed (Warhol Exhibit was in the process of being put up, so they had a lot of rooms blocked off), so it was not too bad.
Kimbell Art Museum is literally across the street from the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. It’s definitely worth a visit, especially now that they have Michelangelo’s First Painting back on display.
We did not see the Private Collection of Texas there unfortunately (as mentioned above, my parents, and sister don’t like spending too much on entry fees to museums since they don’t always understand art and find walking around in museums to be boring sometimes – Hey, like I said in previous posts, part of the reason I’m uploading scans and photos of my artwork is to protect it from mishandling by those around me, lol. Luckily, if I ever do die, my artwork will likely end up in the hands of my loving spouse, Tekla, who has a much greater appreciation of the arts than some of our other relatives…)
While in Fort Worth, we also had time to see the Amon Carter Museum which is only about 2 blocks from the other two Museums mentioned above. The view of downtown from the Amon is amazing. I might upload a photo of that that I took here if I can find it…. The exhibits on display were amazing. I loved the photo exhibit, and the Remington and Russell exhibit. I think of Remington as one of my favorites art inspirations in the wide world of illustration. His drawing technique, use of forshortning, and vivid and bright color scheme are some of the many things that I try to emulate in my own paintings and illustrations when I can. That sort of bringing the world of the painting to life in color and form is something I find very inspiring, even if some of his themes and subject matter eventually turned fairly cliche.
While in town, we also wandered around the stockyards a while. There was a major livestock show going on at the time, along with a carnival and there were horses all over the streets down there. I didn’t know this sort of thing happened regularly in the middle of January. I guess the 60 degree weather justifies it. It was sickening to come back to Missouri’s 30 degree weather and massive amount of fog…
Inspirations – Jimmy Kuehnle
I looked up Jimmy the other day on facebook after looking through a list of artists that I went to school with at Truman State U.
http://assessment.truman.edu/components/5year/Art2004.pdf is the list of artist I found. That list is far from a comprehensive list as it only names a few names, and it actually has a lot of false or half truth info. I don’t work nor ever have worked for Boone Hospital. I do work in a University Hospital in the same town though.
I remember Jimmy from back there in college as being an interesting individual, just as I was. However, he was a lot more outgoing than I was.
It looks like that has not changed much, and has actually become the focus of his work to some degree. Drawing attention to ones self is something artists must do on some level since it’s all about bringing the fragile inner psyche out for examination by the artist and those around him or her that become viewers…
Here’s an interesting article on him that is linked to from his facebook account:
Don’t be alarmed: The walking balloon is artist Jimmy Kuehnle.
Using baloons to create gigantic mobile sculptures is a very cool idea. We all expect to see this sort of stuff going down a huge parade or something, but not just out in the everyday. It is neat to see that Jimmy’s becoming the pied piper so to speak.
I guess this sort of thing might make him seem silly to those that don’t know him, but that’s actually a good thing since it opens the general public’s eyes up – makes them become aware of their environment, surroundings, and gives them the privilege to meet someone that is a great artist! 🙂 😉
Inspirations – http://www.wordsaroundtown.com/
Clarissa left me a little comment over at https://jeffthomann.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/mall-small-19-drawing/ talking about her friend’s website at http://www.wordsaroundtown.com/ so I figured I’d visit and do this Inspirations posting about it. I have not really done many (read any, lol) inspirations postings up til now that have to do with anyone’s art that I did not know about before now. Time to change that, and start exploring the art world in these here intra-web tubes.
As indicated at http://www.wordsaroundtown.com/page8.php wordsaroundtown.com is owned by Kevin McCartney Studios.
Kevin appears to be a very good photographer.
The words around town site seems to be made of various pictures that Kevin has taken and converted in to fonts to spell out words.
He’s using the forms he finds in his compositions as letters.
As stated in the site, Kevin has a real enthusiasm about this obscure typographical artform…
The challenge of finding objects around us that we normally pass by everyday without a second glance which look like letters has been exciting and fun!
Finding the hidden beauty in everyday things that we often pass by without a second glance IS, in my opinion one of the great things that exploring art does for people that get in to art.
Finding the invisible forms as Kevin is doing and making it visible is sort of a theme that has run through art for many years. It is an obscure idea that can be traced back to the Surrealist movement, especially in Salvador DalÃ’s paintings… but the idea actually goes back a lot further than that.
Trompe-l’Å“il means “fool the eye” and that phrase is what is best used to describe or categorize this form of art. Actually, almost every form of 2-dimensional work that goes back to the earliest known cave arts is somewhat in this to some degree – since after all making a window out of something that is not a window as paintings do is fooling the eye so to speak.
It’s all about hidden messages or meanings, and really being a keen observer of the world in order to see the form and the way that simple basic design principles can allow multiple things to happen in the same plane.
The idea of bringing the reality of the 2-dimensional canvas of a painting or photograph in to the viewers plain sight so that it’s simple beauty can be observed in and of itself outside of all other rules and principles of creating illusion is a very modern idea that is seen over and over and over again in 20th centrury art. That’s why I say that genres like Cubism, Op-Art, and a lot of other genres that focus on the 2-dimensional existence of the plane in an artwork are MORE REALISTIC than simple little paintings that pretend to be windows showing pretty landscapes or cityscapes that most other people classify as Realistic…
Is it realistic to pretend that the 2 dimensional surface on a wall is something other than a surface on a wall? Sure there can be little pictures in there, just like there is on that flat plane you are looking in to to see these words, or that you will view tonight as you watch Prime Time TV… but isn’t it more realistic to acknowledge that what you are looking at is really a 2 dimensional flat surface?… as Kevin has done by seeing the letters in his photographs?
Some folks even take this sort of idea in photography to a whole different level in the form of Photomosaics… After all, if a photograph is really just a bunch of dots made up of 4 colors, CYMK (Cyan Yellow, Magenta, and blacK), it makes sense that each photo is balanced more towards one of those 4, so it makes sense to use an entire photo as one small element in a larger picture… Actually, given enough time and photos, photomosaic technology could go to a whole new level and allow an infinite amount of images to exist hidden inside of a set of photos… the first level would look like something from space, then as you approach it to the airplane level it would phase and each level as you get closer and closer could phase in to a new image, hidden… only to dissolve as new ones come in to play. The hidden typography that Kevin is searching for is a little different than Photomosaics, but not completely. There is a lot of similarities there – searching for what is hidden in plain view.
It’s strange but all language and all these ideas that get thrown at us daily in these little windows that are not windows are something that connects us all as a society. People from 200 years ago would think we are crazy staring at computers and tvs and spending as much time as we do daily on these devices that are really 2 dimensional boxes producing light. Works like this make people think. They can become kitsch or cliche sometimes if overdone, but they do start to open the mind, and let people begin to question reality itself on some level, which, in my opinion is what all great art should do.
Keep looking for the hidden meanings Kevin. Your typographic photos are amazing. Keep spreading the Love.
Interesting Reading – A few Technical “Bibles”
I just wanted to throw these out here because they are amazing books that I use a lot and recommend a lot of other people to use too!
The Photoshop Bible
The JavaScript Bible
Beginning Game Programming with Flash
The Artist’s Handbook
is just about one of the best “Bibles” on traditional art methods.
Both of the books cover many of the same topics. Mayer’s is considered a little “better” by some since I think it is actually the older of the two.
They cover just about every technique that there is in the traditional arts, and gives some really neat in-depth information that you just won’t find many other places, especially in a single book. It’s actually pretty hard to believe how much information there is packed in this book…It tells you some of the little known facts about how to make pigments, what formulas to use to make your own gesso, explains in-depth information about various surfaces and how you should treat them and more importantly, why. It just has a lot of little key bits of information that are invaluable to anyone that really wants to create artwork.
Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings (California Studies in the History of Art)
Fellow Artist – Ben Mudd
Ben Mudd and I were in college together. He was a photography major and I was a painting major. We had a few classes together. He got darn lucky because I think Truman State University closed down the photo part of the Fine Arts Department about a year or two after he graduated. He may have been one of the folks that got Grandfathered in. I am not sure if they ever brought it back, but am guessing/hoping they did. It was a pretty good program. Ben shot the photos that were used in my Senior Exhibit.
Ben’s website is http://www.muddphotography.com/.
Fellow Artist – Rachel (Michael Tiger) Elliott
Rachel and I were classmates together at Truman State University in the late 1990s. We attended quite a few painting classes together. I remember fondly having some in-depth discussions with her as we both sat fatigued on the painting studio floor after having been in our own little corners of the room pulling all-nighters.
Her work has a serene beauty to it. A few of her drawings are sometimes simple on the surface, but very narrative and complex under the surface. I really enjoy her mastery of color and simple lines to evoke a lot of feeling. Her use of compositional space draws the viewer in to the little worlds that each individual painting or drawing depicts and describes. Her works may be small, and intimate since they require the viewer to get up close and personal with the work, but they pack a powerful punch.
Rachel’s Blog is located at http://michaeltiger.wordpress.com/. Her blogging is one of the many things that have inspired me to start blogging again.
Fellow Artist – Chris Mast
Chris is the webmaster for the popular gaming website http://www.merqurycity.com/
I’ve known Chris since high school. He and I were on the high school newspaper staff together at Boonville High School way back in the day (16 years ago, geesh, I feel old now). Back then, Chris lived one and a half blocks away. Chris, Chris’s brother, Sam, my brother, Danny, a few other close friends, and I used to play many video games and pen and paper role playing games together. The main games that we played were Heroes Unlimited, Beyond the Supernatural, Ninja and Superspies, Rifts, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT – no longer in publication since the Copyright and Trademark owners dumbed the TMNT down and made it in to a kid’s cartoon instead of the gritty, urban ninja comic it originally was intended to be). In my college days, we even played a few games of Nightbane, and a weird role playing world that I created using Palldium Books game system with modified versions of World of Darkness characters on occasion. (I won’t publish the conversion rules here in this post, but might in a future post – they are fairly simple).
I have many fond memories of role playing with Chris. Him and I used to take turns being the Game Master. Role Playing is one interest of mine that got me interested in taking up theater in college. Chris was one of the grooms men in my wedding. I keep in pretty close contact with him and see him about once or twice a year most years nowadays. He’s a very talented artist, and with two bachelor degrees behind his name, is about as well rounded of an artist as there can be.
Chris’s portfolio website is http://www.chrisjmast.com/.
Fellow Artists
Items tagged with the tag Fellow Artists are going to be dedicated to some of my fellow artist friends and their websites. Here, I plan to link to websites, blogs, and other interesting online projects that some of my fellow art friends have created, run, or maintain. I’ll try to keep the list narrowed down to artists that I personally know, or have some affiliation with. A copy of these postings will also be added to the Fellow Artists Page in my blog.
inspirations
Inspirations… This, and future postings that are tagged as Inspirations are postings dedicated to works of art that inspire me. The postings tagged as inspirations could be thought of as a sort of “Jeff’s favorites” list of artwork, or list of art works that Jeff thinks about somewhat when he’s creating his own works. I honestly like a lot of various artwork for different reasons – and might even go so far as to say that there is something I can find to like about any artwork in the world… at least for some reason… In inspirations tagged postings I’ll try to explain why I like or am inspired by the works of art described or linked to in the individual postings. The Inspirations postings are actually sort of a challenge to myself to think about my own habbits & thoughts, as well as force me to actually look at more artwork than I typically do today on a regular basis. I live in a city where there’s not a whole lot of art galleries or museums, and those that are here or nearby are typically opened only during hours that I have to be at work, etc. so my actual viewing of artwork is a lot more limited than it probably should. Hopefully the inspirations tagged postings here will help me get past that a a bit, and continually grow as an artist myself by looking at what others in the world around me are doing instead of only looking at myself in the mirror…
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