For this week's Illustration Friday's challenge, "Nose," I used my watercolor paintings as my collage material. It was my first time doing so, and I really liked incorporating both of my techniques into one. I definitely plan to explore this further.
I call this piece Portrait of a Woman with Flowers.
Crabs, Lace and Mashups
In Lilla Rogers' Make Art That Sells Bootcamp this month, our mini assignment began with drawing two seemingly unrelated subjects: black & white crustaceans and colorful patterns. After spending a week drawing various crabs and lobsters, as well as creating several floral motifs, we were given our main assignment: to "mashup" the two on a plate.
For many of these assignments, drawing helps me understand the proportions of the subject, but for final art, I tend to want to work in collage. With a photo of a rusty Brooklyn manhole and and a scanned watercolor, I created a chunky crab collage. For my pattern, I went with this lace, which also reminds me of a fishing net and a bubbly shoreline.
In the end, it's not a very successful mashup for me. I love the crab, but it clashes with this one-color lace, and it's visually confusing. I will be trying a version with texture in the lace, and also one with less texture in the crab.
As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome!
Glazing bowls for the Empty Bowls fundraiser
Although we moved out of Brooklyn almost two years ago, I was thrilled to be able to participate in Bay Ridge's annual Empty Bowls fundraiser again, which is coming up on May 2nd. I didn't make it to the Brooklyn glazing party, but I went to a nearby DIY shop, had these fired there, and just shipped my bowls to the event.
We recently lost an incredibly special little girl in our community, and my son has been frequently asking questions about the afterlife. These questions were on my mind too when I glazed these bowls, and I've tried to incorporate a feeling of expansion and optimism.