Saturday 28 February 2009

Andy Warhol the computer geek



This video, and the interview re-published at artnode, seem like more proof that the brilliance of the artist is often quite distant from the brilliance of the onlooker. Surrounded by "modern technology", he might, in retrospect, appear like a child enjoying his toys. Especially in the interview, it seems like it's the journalist who has all these great ideas, and Warhol just happily agrees with what he hears...
The enthusiasm for new technologies, when watched twenty years later, has something funny, but also something eery about it.
But if you read carefuly, there is one remarkable moment: when the journalist suggests that Andy (and the other artists) can now do everything by themselves - music, video, editing, etc., the artist agrees. But when asked if he has been doing it, he answers he hasn't had time because he is still exploring the visual art side of the computer.
So beyond this enthusiasm for all that is new, lies an aproach that is at once pragmatic and somehow... healthily conservative?

(via)

Alien Insect Brushes for Adobe Illustrator

A free brush set for Adobe Illustrator from Human Nature. This pack contains four brushes that will turn your strokes into organic shapes that look a lot like alien insect creatures...

You can get more effects by experimenting with different stroke size, color and layer transparency.

To use, load the PDF file in Adobe Illustrator (Use the File>Open method, not click+drag) and open the Brushes Palette (Window>Brushes). Download

Rain

More fun stamping on Kraft paper :)
Hope you all have a sweet weekend.

WILLIAM AYLWARD (1875-1956)

William Aylward's name doesn't stand out in the annals of illustration. Yet, if you skim through old pictures in books or magazines, his work stands out from hundreds of other anonymous illustrators because he was such a master of value-- the darkness or lightness of color.



Try it yourself -- if you scroll through a hundred thumbnail images, you are likely to find that the pictures with confident use of value-- more than other artistic qualities, such as accuracy, color, detail, or technique-- are the ones that seem to pop right off the page.


Passing the line to the "Potomac" from the Dock, published in Scribners, May 1907

It is not easy to control the "value structure" of a painting, balancing blacks and whites and grays. This next picture could easily have sunken into a black hole if Aylward had not been such a virtuoso.


Night watch from the Deck, published in Scribners 1907

Very little is remembered about Aylward today. He was a student of the legendary Howard Pyle-- here he is, sitting at the great man's feet:



Aylward loved the sea and specialized in nautical themes. He illustrated very few books, primarily The Sea Wolf and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.



Most of his work appeared in magazines of the day and will never be republished, which is too bad. You won't see any coffee table books about him soon. But his work still speaks for itself with honor and dignity.

Friday 27 February 2009

Infographics with Adobe Illustrator

A comprehensive digital illustration tutoarial from Digital Arts Magazine. Wendy Ding takes you through the differents steps of translating abstract elements into a 3D, easy to understand illustrations that will enforce the visual communication in your composition. 
"Infographics, such as the one above, are great visual tools for communicating large amounts of data. Breaking down large amounts of abstract data, they place the information in context and transform it into tangible and useful knowledge." Full tutorial

Cozy

I made a quilted cozy
for Manolo's French press
using my little succulent stamps.
(When stamping on fabric always use ink pads
intended for that purpose)
I was inspired by this beautiful cozy.
That gorgeous white mug
made it all the way to Mexico from
the talented hands of Nancy Bauch of
White Forest Pottery
I've been making so many birdies lately
that I decided to challenge myself
to a month of bird-free art starting today,
let's see if I can make it ;)

Human Nature Brushes for Adobe Illustrator

A stunning brush set for Adobe Illustrator from HumanNature84. The pack contains ten art brushes which can be used for drawing organic graphics or decorating abstract compositions.

If you experiment with different stroke sizes, colors and layer opacity value, you will get a variety of eye catchy effects...

To use, load the PDF file with Adobe Illustrator (File>Open) and bring up the brush palette (Window>Brushes). Download

Thursday 26 February 2009

From the heart

This little birdie might not be the best singer,
but he sings from the heart.
Two new bird stamps I made this week.
I had the honor of making the second one
for a very talented artist from Rhode Island:
D.S. Brennan.

Wednesday 25 February 2009

Working with masks in Adobe Illustrator Tutorial

A few weeks ago, Computer Arts magazine published a PDF tutorial about various clipping and opacity masking techniques in Adobe Illustrator.
"Ben the Illustrator shows you the range of brilliant features hidden within your masking tools.
A mask might appear to be just a simple tool for covering something up, but Adobe Illustrator’s masking tools offer far more than one basic use. Along with the Compound Path, Illustrator’s Clipping and Opacity Masks can take your illustration and design onto a new level of detail, precision, texture and shape. To know when to use each tool, you simply need a clear understanding of what each one does." Full tutorial & source files.

Watching this with you would have been so much better



Here is what I imagine:
I invite all of you to my house (Warsaw, Poland), and together we sit and watch I Love Alaska. Maybe it's not because this is the perfect work to be enjoying with a group of people you've only just met. (It probably isn't). Maybe it has more to do with how surprizingly far this blog has led. In many ways.
One of them is you. Right now, there are hundreds of you coming to this blog every day. There is over a hundred people following New Art "formally" via blogger.com, plus many many others via feeds and such, plus the hundreds of people who drop by every now and then... I've been receiving your kind e-mails, and enjoy visiting all the blogs, portfolios, sites that you publish or recommend. Some of you have been coming here nearly since the beginning, but it's also very exciting for me to get feedback from newcomers. I've come to know you a little, and, so to speak, enjoy your company on this ride. Many of you are in the arts, others are students, for many of you I suppose this is more of a curious entertainment. All this means not only that you enjoy the art I showcase, but certainly, to some extent we share a common sensibility. Wouldn't it be delicious to have just a part of us meet and enjoy some of this art together? Sit down, have a glass of wine, watch the film, then talk about art and life and simplicity and complexity, and how the mountains are majestic, and America does or doesn't influence the world, and share other references (all the Brokeback Mountains, Into The Wilds, Cremasters that come to mind...), ideas, passions. (You know, meeting in real life someone you've hardly even known online ;))
Not a festival, but a get-together.
And then of course we would party all night, and probably go to the shore of the Vistula river, and maybe make a field trip the next day. But the moment of a genuine and common esthetic experience, together, would have been ours.
This is what I imagine.
And you know what? - we actually could do it.
(To be continued)

Hello!

Remember this little guy?
Well he just wanted to pop up
and say hello :)

Switching Between CMYK and RGB Color Modes in Adobe Illustrator

In the articles section of iStockphoto.com, I found a great material about using color modes when working with vectors. 
The article explains how to find out what is the color mode that you are currently using (CMYK vs RGB), how to change it and when. If you are not familiar with using color swatches in Adobe Illustrator, you may consider checking it out too. Full Article

Two works by Christiane Löhr



Oh were this the universe!
Were it but a combination of lines, a simple picture of perfection, were the universe a set of twigs and seeds with their mathematical omnipotence!
Oh were there nothing else, nothing but the point where everything meets, nothing but the shape it all embodies. And the shadow of the reflection of a shadow of the Work, just to outscore its very depth of space, just to give us the distance we need to be closer.
Oh were it all we need, the joyful meeting of vectors, the unswerving presence of fragility.

Oh were there no shadow in the top left corner, coming from elsewhere.

Both pictures are of sculptures by Christiane Löhr.

Wrap

A great use for hand carved rubber stamps
is printing your own gift wrapping paper.
I love how the white ink looks
on Kraft paper.

Tuesday 24 February 2009

Thank YOU


Thank you so much for your sweet comments,
they always make my day!

Monday 23 February 2009

Work=Play

What a great blessing it is to work
doing what you absolutely love
...and even more so
when you can do it from home.
To say I'm thankful is an understatement.

Robin Hood Above

The artist going by the name of Above made this stencil in Lisbon. (I actually know the lady sitting on the right - she is one of Lisbon's classic characters). In a gesture the artist herhimself admits robinwoodesque, Above is selling prints of this picture and will give all the profits to two charities she has previously selected. More info here.

Sunday 22 February 2009

Wonderland


Battersea Park, London



The Actors - Reconnaissance, by Wojtek Ziemilski


This is a short fragment of my work called The Actors. The first volume - Reconnaissance lasts 50 minutes. You can see this excerpt in sort-of-HD here.
Any galleries interested in showing this work, write me, and I'll send you a DVD.

Saturday 21 February 2009

KERRY JAMES MARSHALL





Artist Kerry James Marshall is a certified genius. The MacArthur Foundation confirmed it when they awarded him their $500,000 genius award.





But don't take the MacArthur Foundation's word for it. His work was also awarded places of honor in the Whitney Museum biennial, Venice Biennale, and the prestigious German Documenta show. Marshall's paintings sell for $400,000 to prominent museums and collectors.







People of great stature and prominence who pride themselves on their taste have bestowed upon Marshall almost every form of recognition that our society offers. His NY art dealer boasts, "He's kind of recession-proof." No wonder art critic Blake Gopnik writes, "Can an artist get much more successful than Kerry James Marshall?"










Marshall himself is not surprised by all these honors. He says, "Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael.... my objective is to be listed in the history among those artists."



I hope that all of you would-be Michelangelos out there who aspire to recognition, museum shows, wealth and fame are taking notes on what it takes to ascend to the top of the pyramid in our time.



A sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay somehow comes to mind:


Country of hunchbacks! — where the strong, straight spine,

Jeered at by crooked children, makes his way

Through by-streets at the kindest hour of the day,

Till he deplore his stature, and incline

To measure manhood with a gibbous line;

Till out of loneliness, being flawed with clay,

He stoop into his neighbor's house and say,

"Your roof is low for me — the fault is mine."

Dust in an urn long since, dispersed and dead

Is great Apollo; and the happier he;

Since who amongst you all would lift a head

At a god's radiance on the mean door-tree,

Saving to run and hide your dates and bread,

And cluck your children in about your knee?









Labeling

My label holders arrived yesterday!
and my sweet Manolo installed them
in perfect alignment.
I don't need to open all 16 little drawers
to find something anymore :)
It's a good thing!

Hope you're having a sweet weekend.

Friday 20 February 2009

February pages

Thank you so much for all the tips
you gave on how to care for my new orchid,
she seems to be doing really well :)
My journal's February pages.

Wednesday 18 February 2009

LOOSE DELIGHTS


"I am for those who believe in loose delights."
-- Walt Whitman
Some of my very favorite drawings are free and spontaneous. Unfortunately, so are a whole lot of crappy drawings.

Is it possible to distinguish good loose drawing from bad loose drawing? Or from random marks on paper? It seems to me that there is not only a distinction to be made but also a good reason for making it. Loose, spontaneous art can be fun, but Ernest Hemingway correctly spotted the potential danger: "All our words from loose using have lost their edge." When sloppy or careless drawing masquerades as loose drawing, it eventually dilutes the meaning and potency of drawing.

Consider the following examples of artists who engage in the "loose delights" of drawing but who still preserve that edge.

The great George Lichty had a line like an unraveled ball of yarn:



Nevetheless, look at how beautifully that line conveyed a head, or the indentation of a pillow, or the folds in clothing:



You can tell that a lot of looking and thinking took place before Lichty was able to dash off a drawing like this. We are the beneficiaries of that looking and thinking, no matter how loosely it is conveyed.



Note how he understands the different postures of people sitting in chairs, the anatomy of fingers wrapped around an arm, the shadow created by a fore arm resting on a table:



William Steig is another great example. For decades Steig churned out mediocre cartoons such as this one, where he labored for some semblance of visual accuracy.



Then, in the 1960s he managed to shed these constraints and began drawing marvelous, meaningful pictures with a free hand.



The looser his touch, the better his drawings became.




James Thurber is a third example. He drew wispy nonvertebrates with a simple line that was the perfect complement to his brilliant writing.






In each of these examples, a seemingly spontaneous, haphazard style is employed to convey important insights without being obvious or labored about it. Technical skill is important, but it can also rob a drawing of the freshness and intimacy we see here . These are drawings with wings on, and they occupy a blessed place in the pantheon of drawing.

Tuesday 17 February 2009

I *heart* Linen

I'm knitting using circular needles
for the first time.
I'm making myself a linen cowl for spring.
Those gorgeous postcards
are from Jennifer Causey,
I love them so much!
You can go to her Etsy shop
by clicking here

Monday 16 February 2009

My New Art



I've been very very busy with the opening of my video installation.
Today is the opening night
I won't tell you much, and will leave you with the small text that accompanies it instead:


THE ACTORS
Part 1: RECONNAISSANCE





reconnaissance. or: finding oneself. or: recognition. the recognition of someone else. someone is recognized. or: recognizing. you are (this) someone. this is (this) someone. or: meeting again. discovering again something one knew already. electra's paradox: electra knows, and does not know, that it is her brother standing before her.

reconnaissance. checking. how far. how far one can go. how far one needs to go to. where are the borders. when do i fall into something else. and whatwho is this something else.

i like knowing so little about them.
i like that they remain actors.
and that they are actors in a way no different from all the others.
i like what they're able to do because of how we called them: actors.
The Actors opens (link in Polish) at the TR Warszawa in Poland.
Hopefuly I'll be able to post a short excerpt of the video soon...