A Snippet

I've been working a normal 9-5ish job for about 6 weeks now. I haven't made nearly as much progress with my art as I was before that time. I also haven't been keeping up with my online sites very well, like this blog, and my Etsy shops. I feel like getting back to it and accomplishing something, but I don't feel like being on my computer as much either. I am working on cleaning out my home office/studio, and I think today I will work on a couple of drawings. Lets hope I'm able to accomplish something.

Today, we stopped by the Walker and visited the Multiples Mall: A Bookish Fair. It was great to see a lot of people there. We stopped by the booth of my friends from the Good Minnesotan and picked up some of their comics. They are very original, with great artwork. Find out more about them at goodminnesotan.blogspot.com

More on repeating patterns

After I did my last post on pattern making, my friend Benjamin sent me another method of accomplishing the same thing.

The great thing about this method, is you don't have to cut your sheet of paper. I found when I did the drawing of my dog, that my cuts weren't perfectly straight, and it affected things a little. The downfall of this method is that you may find it challenging to draw/paint on a rolled surface. Both methods can help you understand the process of how to create a repeating pattern so that you can apply it to different materials and processes though. I think I will be doing most of my pattern design on the computer, but I found it helped me understand the process to first work with paper.

Thanks for sending that tutorial, Benjamin!

Etsy Treasury

Fell Painter, of fellpainter.etsy.com has made a wonderful treasury of paintings (including one of mine) check it out at http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=38522

Pattern Design

The next direction I plan to take Nikasha Designs, in addition to the digital portraits, is pattern design. I've looked at a few tutorials on using Illustrator and Photoshop to assist the pattern-making process, and I made a sample pattern tonight. I'm quite happy with the ease of use for making the pattern. I think I'll be able to do what I've envisioned in my head.

What I did here tonight, is make some quick sketches of my boy Niko. I cut the paper in half each way, and reversed the sides, essentially separating it into quadrants and taping back into a whole. After the paper is taped back together again, I drew him again, filling the new middle of the paper, so that my pattern wouldn't look like a bunch of squares lined up.

After completing the drawing, I scanned him into my computer, and used live-trace in Adobe Illustrator to turn him into a vector drawing. This was a new tool for me, but it is really cool. I brought the vectorized drawing back into Photoshop, and added colors behind it.

In Photoshop, I defined my image as a pattern, then created a larger workspace, and filled it with my pattern. All in all, it was a pretty cool process. I think it will be simpler with a fully computer-created pattern, but I am happy with my first result. Here it is:

Museum Visit

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts and The Walker co-hosted an exhibit this winter on the architect Eero Saarinen. I really wanted to attend it, because of my love of mid-century modern design, and the fact that Saarinen and I both have Finnish roots. For some reason, I thought the exhibit ended mid-December. Yesterday, however, I found out it was still up until today, so I got to see it after all. Architecturally, Saarinen designed a variety of types of buildings, from colleges to corporate campuses to homes to churches. He also designed furniture- chairs and tables, including his famous womb chair. He was also the designer of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Surprisingly, he managed to do so many big projects before the age of 51, as he died an early death as a result of a brain tumor.



While at the Walker, I also looked in on the Text/Messages exhibit. It is an exhibit of books by artists. For me, there were a few treats- books that I enjoyed much more, however, I have been unable to find images of them online. This exhibit is up until April, so if you are in the Minneapolis area, you have time to see it for yourself. My favorite pieces from the exhibit were by the Belgian artist Mark Luyten. They were pages out of a book, on which he made suddle abstract ink and watercolor paintings. It seems that this is a great diversion from the art he is best known for. There was also a version of Alice and Wonderland, which was illustrated by Salvador Dali. There was a book about artists, in which the majority of the text had been sewn over, leaving selected passages uncovered to result in a new text and meaning by the american artist Jen Bervin. My final favorite was by Sarah Sze, an american artist known for her delicate, elaborate sculptures of mundane materials. It was a typical legal pad, in which the pages had been strategically separated and geometric portions cut out, so that the resulting piece resembled architecture.

Happy New Year

Well, I took a holiday break without mentioning it, but I hope everyone is enjoying the new year. Here are my puppies wishing you happy holidays.

Rats saving the world

This is totally off topic of art, but I thought it was so cool. There is an organization in Africa training rats to find landmines, and detect tuberculosis. They can do both of these things many times faster than any other method already in existence, and making the world a safer place. I thought it was really fascinating! You can learn more, or support the rats at www.herorat.org