We Are The Contributors

Heart Sounds, 24 x 30, acrylic on canvas, 2013

Back in October I participated in a photo project through instagram, called Foliophoto. The idea was that for every day in October there would be a different word or phrase attributed like "look up","coffee" or "selfie". You would take a picture of what that meant to you and tag it #foliophoto, so that everyone involved be inspired by each other's different ideas, lives, and aesthetic. It was through this project that I became familiar with Sandra Harris who runs a blog and evening salon series called Raincoast Creative Salon. She started the foliophoto project with another gal, Christie Jones from Bedsidesign. It was just so fun to virtually meet all of these creative types and get to know a little bit about one another's work!

Sandra then asked me, along with Melanie Biehle who runs Inward Facing Girl, to be one of the inaugural artists for their collaboration...We Are The Contributors. Their idea is brilliant-to create a website for artists and photographers, bloggers and all creative types to connect and collaborate on bi-monthly projects. For the first issue (launched yesterday!) me and 9 other creatives were asked to create a piece of art of our chosen medium (poem, painting, song, even recipe!) based on the inspiration of 3 paintings shown at the 1913 Armory Show in NYC. It is, afterall, the 100th anniversary of the show that created a landscape for modern art. The three pieces were Edvard Munch's Madonna, Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending A Staircase No. 2 and John Marin's Woolworth Building No. 31. I chose Munch's Madonna as my inspiration and here's why.

Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863-1944), Madonna, 1895-1902. Color lithograph on wove, tan, mixed fiber paper, 17 5/16 x 17 ½ in.

I am currently working on a series of paintings that explore the melding of portraiture and abstract geometric shapes. The idea that the energy that surrounds us could be a completely different tangible shape. Munch's Madonna has a glowing energy around her like a halo of light. I couldn't help but think of music. I get a lot of my ideas for my paintings while running and listening to music. This series is specifically influenced by electronica music.

I imagine that when the music breaks down into fast electrifying beats, it's coming apart like an avalanche of rocks off of a mountain or swirling meteors in space. And because Munch's Madonna is so completely lost in thought I wanted my woman to be lost in sound. The idea for the heart came much later in my process. I didn't know where I wanted the headphones to lead. And then it just made sense to make it a real heart. Kind of appropriate considering my obsession with adding hearts to my art. Here's my painting on the Contributor's site and a little peak into the progression of Heart Sounds...

She got tattooed at one point...

 Adding the shapes...

 And then cleaning them up.

 Experimenting with color palette and texture...

 And whiting it out.

 Implementing the heart...

 And shocking color

 But decided that they looked like pizza...

 So back to clean bright white.

 The completed piece...

Heart Sounds, 24 x 30, acrylic and ink on canvas, 2013.

Check out all of the incredible Artists involved...everyone's got such a unique take on the original inspiration. You can follow on Twitter with the hashtag #aContributor and on the Facebook page. And request to be involved in a project at We Are The Contributors and collaborate with other creatives!

Love Grows Here

While traveling this past July through São Miguel, the largest island of the Portuguese Açores, I couldn't help but notice all of the incredible street art. You can check out my previous post featuring the amazing work by ARM COLLECTIVE  here.

This large scale fish resided right outside the apartment we were staying in Vila Franco do Campo. I loved the bright colors and whimsy of this piece and couldn't help but be intrigued by the simple symbol and tag of the artist...YVES.

And with my utter appreciation of the universal heart and incorporation of them into my own artwork you can imagine my delight at finding YVES's art everywhere!

Upon doing some digging, I came to discover that the artist's full name is Yves Decoster. His work is all over São Miguel. He is a Belgian painter that has been residing in São Miguel for 25 years. Over 200 of his signature heart paintings live on the outside of bars, restaurants, schools and private residences. Yves uses the word "positivism" when describing his work...bringing color and life to the people. 

My husband and I traveled the "old road" through all of the little villages one of our last nights there. Around every turn one of us was shouting, "There's one!", "And another!" and "There he is!"

It seemed to me that each place we found one of Yves's paintings was a landmarked memory as if to say, "Love grows here."

Yves Decoster can be contacted at yvesdeco@hotmail.com.

Throwback Time

Spring is upon us in Chicago (hooray!) and we just got back from Mom and Dad's lovely Easter brunch. 

Our contribution was homemade waffles and our simple maple syrup bacon that is featured in the post, Saturday Morning Breakfast.  

I just upgraded to a digital SLR camera for taking better photos of my art...the Nikon 3100. As my sim card just arrived yesterday I am in full test mode. Taking pictures galore trying to figure out how it all works. Waiting on the tripod, which should arrive tomorrow. This is necessary for taking crystal clear shots of my paintings.

In the meanwhile I thought I'd share some art pictures taken at Mom and Dad's today...my first attempts with this camera. 

Their beautiful house is home to many paintings of mine from back in the day. Some as far back as high school! As you will see I was working much more figuratively back then.

 Throwback time...

Painted sophomore year of high school. I never did finish the hands!

 I painted this from an old photograph of my father and my sister. It is an oil on canvas. One of the last oils I did. After this painting I switched over to acrylics...something to do with babies crawling in the house and length of drying time.

 

This was done with watercolor pencils back in high school. 

Self Portait. I believe I painted this in 2003.

Watercolor of fellow classmate in high school.

A painting of my daughter and my mother.

This is my very first painting I did when I was 14 years old. It is based on a photograph of my sister at my grandparent's farm, circa 1977.

I am so looking forward to getting this tripod and...

Prints are coming to my Etsy Shop! First prints will be of Wanderlust,

And some super exciting news about my art to be revealed soon! So stay tuned...

Thanks for going back in time a bit courtesy of Mom and Dad's private collection ;)

Happy Easter!

Fairy Garden Mural

We have been meaning to make this mural happen for a while now. Each house Derek and I lived in I have christened with some hand drawn wall art. Even before kids came along I spruced up the dingy back wall of our neighbor's garage as it was flush to our backyard deck. 

I added color  (blue, green and orange) conveniently matching my Crate and Barrel fiesta dishes, table cloth and pillows. Painting that icky yellow-tinged wall a vibrant robin's egg blue and adding our little orange tree transformed our Los Feliz yard into a garden oasis. 

Before

Freshly Painted

After

This past October Derek and I went back to our little California  abode for the first time together in 4 1/2 years since we left. The orange tree was still there. 

Upon becoming pregnant with baby # 1 we jumped on decorating the nursery. As we didn't know the sex, we went gender neutral with soft yellows, greens and a baby jungle animal theme. 

We moved cross country to Chicago when Maeve was just 3 months old. "Bummer about the mural," my friends would say. So after months of unpacking, decorating, adjusting again to Chicago and life with a baby, the mural was recreated. 

When we moved the girls got the cutest room to share. It's big and bright with nooks and crannies, lovely dormers and built-ins. We simultaneously transferred my 2 year old and 4 year old from crib and toddler bed to matching twin beds. 

The room is painted the softest lavender color (here when we moved in!) with this ingenius built-in  dresser. The knobs are  lavender polka-dotted pulls from Pottery Barn Kids.

When you have two little girls the pink and purple really DO take over through every imaginable article of clothing, toy, hair bow and tutu. And even though my oldest says her favorite color is "dark blue" and my youngest proudly shouts that "Lellow" is her fave, we all decided to go for a super pinky/lavender girly scheme...Fairy Garden style.

It all started with the banner that I got at the annual Lake Forest Antique Sale, Antiques & Treasures In The Field. Then the clouds came. They just seemed like such a fun, whimsical and somewhat graphic element added to the dormer. To lay under the cloudy dormers on my little girl's bed is dreamy.

Next we did the tree project. We painted the tree on Maeve's side of the room. I wanted some height over her bed to balance the height of the banner. Also I thought some sort of 3-D element would look cool. Thus the weeping willow rag banner tree was born. Maeve calls it her "giving tree". We read under it every night.

The design process began. The girls came up with a list of things they wanted in their mural. Here is Maeve with some preliminary designs she drew up;)

• fairies
• flowers
• hills
• butterflies
• an owl
• a cottage

It was really important for Maeve to be a major part of this project. She loves art. She did a TON of the painting. I painted outlines of flowers and strawberries and she filled in color. She did a lot of pattern work too...where I would say, "Take the blue paint and make a dot in each flower shape." She got it immediately. And if there was paint outside of the lines...oh well! That would be added charm of a hand done children's mural.

Over a 1 week period around naps and any 30 minutes we could grab, we layered color and texture. 

Notice her fairy wings...and tattoo. Perfect combo.

The girls decided that we needed a cute little owl in our tree based on one of their favorite bed time stories...Little Owl's Night by Divra Srinivasan. We would make him look kinda like this...but sleeping...

And paint him in this color scheme pulled from bed pillows.

Crazy Owl sketch...Maeve thought this was hysterical.

Our new feathered friend

Maeve's Fairy

Nina's flowers and fairy came as an afterthought. I had already done the clouds and banner on her side of the room. After doing the mural on Maeve's half, though, I saw that it needed to continue on the other side for balance.

 Nina's fairy

The girls love their Fairy Garden Room. They have been picking strawberries and playing endless fairy games. This was such a fun decorating project for both me and the kids.

We are still not done, however. Still adding little craft butterflies and possibly letters spelling their names...oh and the cottage...hmmm, where to put the cottage...?

Is more just, well, more stuff? The nice thing about a kid's room is you can really have some fun...go a little crazy with color or theme. 

Your tiny client embraces the fantasy totally. ;)

As they say in fairy land...All you need is

Faith, Trust and a little Pixie Dust!

Head/Base board: Pottery Barn Kids

Bedding: Home Goods

Rug: Pottery Barn Kids (clearance-$25!)

Hanging Shelves: Babies R'Us

Fabric for Tree: Jo-Ann Fabrics & Crafts

Paints for Mural: Blick Art

Floor Lamp: Pottery Barn Kids