Saturday, December 26, 2009

currently...



This is the tracing paper pattern for "Sin Eater"...as you can see...its a little complex! (Its something like 40" x 28" or so.) I am aiming to complete this by New Years and should have images of two finished works to post shortly thereafter!
The flowers, are, for the most part made up of two to five pieces of glass (blossom, stem, leaves)--although the smallest ones are just one piece of glass (about an inch or so). Here they are tack soldered together.
The rocks...well, they range from 1/4" to about an inch and are two layers laminated. I had help with the rocks from the fantastic Anni Wilson. Mad props to Anni!! Since she doesn't have a website here's a couple of her wonderful works. I'm sorry I only have a few photos of her work to share.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Happy holidays!


Charles Addams - First published in The New Yorker on December 24, 1949

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

loose ends etc


Remember him? Mr Sin Eater?
Here's flowers for the garden he's going to be crawling out of.

And here's a provisional set up on the light table.

In the image below , I took the previous photo and composited it with a photoshop sketch in order to see if the image in my brain is remotely compatible with the physical real world. It is...(...thank goodness...) Don't be put off by the color. Its intentionally not tended to as when I do it in glass it will all change.


In other news:
Here's some of the black and white bird sketches colored in photoshop. Soon to be a digital print, glass, and perhaps...a fabric.


AND FINALLY--I doubt you remember the "Cold Genius" so here's the figure yet again.
The piece is more or less complete. The whole thing changed a million times... Photos soon!!

Thursday, November 12, 2009

UArts Students: sign up for my class!!!

Me, being all officially and teachery in Scotland with artist/student Angela Steele (whom you should all check out!)



Hey UArts students (and anyone else)--my class has only ONE person enrolled in it!
Mayday Mayday! Sign up now!!!!!!!

its CRGL221 for 3 credits W:8:30-11:20, 1-3:50 in the glass studio in Hamilton.

If you have any interest in producing imagery in glass this is the class for you!
See other blog entries to get an idea of what will be covered...in short...everything. And its an amazingly quick learning curve. The techniques are pretty simple.

Sign up now--you will not be disappointed! (And please tell your friends in Painting, Printmaking, Illustration, Graphics and Animation that they have a big gaping emptiness in their lives that can only be filled with STAINED GLASS!!)

Thank you.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009


I recently received a stack of papers from Site Santa Fe, (where my work was exhibited recently in their wonderful "Pretty is as Pretty Does" show).

Apparently their
Education Department has a program called Youth Guide Art Journal, which has worksheets available for when school children visit which helps them to engage them with the artworks. In my case they had an image of the piece (the one seen above: "Phosphenes") and they asked the children to respond to two questions...

I worry about children looking at my work sometimes and I was relieved at least one of them said it made them happy...besides that I found their comments to be insightful, intelligent, funny and very, very sweet...here are some of them below:
1. what’s going on in these pictures?
I think that the little girl is lying in an oven burning
2. What do you think the characters in the images are thinking about or how are they feeling? What makes you say that?
Because she looks kind of hot.

1. what’s going on in these pictures?
I see flowers and I see like some butterfly flying and I see the sun
2. What do you think the characters in the images are thinking about or how are they feeling? What makes you say that?
I see a girl laying on her bed thinking of something. She looks like a clown.

1. what’s going on in these pictures?
I think that the girl is sad and she’s lieing on a hammok but for some reason it is snowing in the summer
2. I think these characters are sad. I thnk they are sad because the looks on their faces.

1. I see a baby on a bed looking up at you
2. It makes me happy


1. A girl is laying in bed and I see a flower and it looks like she is ascareded.
2. It looks like if she is ascerd because I see her eyes.

1. It looks like its snowing on a baby who is sleeping on a cushion from a couch.
2. Sad and lonely they look weard they are frowning + hair +eyes look sad.

1. I think the little girl is looking up at the sky on a mattress.
2. I think she is tired and sad and maybe she is a fairy.

1. There is a baby dreaming about her mother.
2. She is feeling very sad that she is thinking about her mom. She’s in the bed.

1. It looks like she’s lifting to heaven.
2. She’s felling skerd because she blind and she’s going to heven.

1. I think she is a baby girl.
2. She is so bord.

1. She’s going to sleep in a dream with snowflakes inside.
2. She’s feeling very sad and poor on a matres. And looking at snowflakes in the sky.

1. It looks like she likes the textur.
2. It looks like she likes the feeling of the bed.

1. I see a clock. I see some corn. I see a child.
2. I think she’s dreaming about corn and clocks. Because of the colors.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

bird sketches


Composited (spellcheck wants me to change this to "composted"!!) from about 20 notebook pages. They are about 1.5" or so apop. Click image to see larger.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Mad Meg



"Mad Meg" 26" x 34"

The title was inspired by "Dulle Griet" ("Mad Meg") by Breughel:

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Educational, demo-ey stuff


Hello Ladies and Gentlemen and other interested parties. Here's the breakdown on the layers for Mr Sin Eater. Click on the image to enlarge it, if you please.
The red is Lambert's R/clb
The blue is actually a St Just turquoise flash #221
The pink is an old piece of Desag--no longer made. But it was a very sweet pale pink, machine made flash. Cheap and nice color. I, for one, don't care for screaming neon gold pink...
All pieces were:
1. sandblasted
(the red was wiped down with some paint and fired to make it more of an indian red and to ensure that the filing would produce an even wider range of tones)
2. Highlights engraved with a flex shaft...and some color removed with a 3-M diamond disk pad flex shaft attachment--customized by ripping off the useless velcro and siliconed into place. From HIS Glassworks
Using these bits can take down the flash nicely and evenly if its too intense.
3. Further tones added with diamond files
4. The red was painted with stencil black vitreous enamel and silverstain. I chose to do this to the red layer BECAUSE: both the turquoise and the pink strike in the oven. Bad, bad turquoise and pink!! But those 3-m disks can bring back some shine after the sandblasting has frosted it. So there.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Sin Eater




Still in progress...I have no idea what to do for a background...but here's the figure...
the color on the head detail is closest to reality...the yellow is less lurid in real life.


Inspiration provided by Lucas Cranach...thanks, Luke!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Opera! Not Opium!


Ok...I think pretty much everyone gets the connection between the idea of beautiful music and sadness, right? We like sad songs, a great sad song is beautiful. No one calls sad songs "depressing". Or at least not if they are beautiful sad songs-- although I think its almost solipsistic: a good sad song isn't depressing because its beautiful and its beautiful because it isn't depressing...
I think music has the right idea...sad songs help us feel our feelings deeper, make the difficult moments all the more profound and poignant.
Its almost a no-brainer. So how come people grouse about sad art work? Why do so many people want their art happy happy happy? Prettyprettypretty pictures that are sweetsweetsweetly nonoffensive?
Any thoughts?

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

working on this



Recipe:
Lambert's 1001 r/clB...tried for a nice even tone, no cords.
Cut glass and sandblast all of it evenly with no mask.
Trace image with razor pt sharpie.
Wipe with mixture of stencil black and red for flesh (3 parts blk, 1 part r/f/f aprox) and wipe off excess so paint is sticking to the texture but no more.
Paint traced line in with glass paint--I used a 00 Simmons white nylon liner. Woohoo!
Fire to 1213F--no ramp, no soak full steam ahead! Grrrrrr!
Engrave and diamond file highlights...working into the shadows oooh baby, thaaaaat's right, just like thaaaat....!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Pilchuck class

Amazing class...amazing, amazing work...here's just a small sampling....


Class Left side front to back: TA Kara Rennert, Tasha Kuring, Nikki Hillman, Sharon Peters.
Front: Sachi Fujikake, Doreen Garner
Right side front to back: Me, Barabara Nichols, Deb Wright--behind Barbara--sorry Deb!!!! :-(
Deborah Horrell, Marina Marioni
TA Tim Belliveau is leaning over the table...easily identifiable as the only male...!
Kara Rennert
Sarah Tippit

Tasha Kuring (two views--the top shows how 3-D this was...)
Tasha again
Nikki Hillman

Tim Belliveau

Sachi Fujikake
Deborah Horrell
Barbara Nichols

Sharon Peters
Marina Marioni
Deb Wright

Doreen Garner

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

latest stuff


Small (8" wide) piece. In progress--to display at Pilchuck when I'm there in July.

Bull engraving (from above--done on 1006bl/clb Lamberts)

Bull sketch--I dunno nuthin' about bulls...this was made from a composite of sources including photographs found on the net, a simple cartoon, images of the Taurus zodiac symbol and "Ferdinand the Bull" by Munro Leaf. This is all in preparation to do a piece on the theme of Minotaur.


Eyeballs before and after. The black ellipses are a second layer. I am pleased with how strangely labial they look! And when they're not labial, they look like fish or bugs...