Creative Chrysalis
Artwork appears as if by magic to the onlooker, but inside the studio it’s not magic at all. Through this blog, you…
Artwork appears as if by magic to the onlooker, but inside the studio it’s not magic at all. Through this blog, you…
Impact! Oversized “Flying Pins” by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen yell out and demand a look. This site sculpture wouldn’t be…
I depart from my usual arty posts to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all! I cooked up a feast for my social-bubble…
If I were looking straight ahead, my primary field of vision would be the blue area. I colored these areas to remind…
Just for the fun of it, I colored in a bit of a drawing. I really don’t know how to “paint” on…
I’m working on the center section, what will be behind the girl with the balloon, trying to figure out how to get…
I spent oodles of time on drawing a snake slide, but in this version, I’ve ditched it completely, and, well, I like…
These two drawings remind me of spot-the-difference cartoons that always captivated me! There are many of the elements that I have shown…
I’ve got a lot packed into this, but I can’t say that I’m happy with it. There is no flow in the…
You might be wondering what the silver thing is that is often on my drawings. It’s one of my favorite drawing, or…
Back to using the background grid and drawing boxes to figure out how a barrel would look lying on it’s side. Because…
Versions of what will be to the left of the girl with(out) the balloon. I liked the idea of a dog pulling…
My balloon people will be in the front of my story, so they will be a bit larger than some of the…
Here is another opportunity to have everything count – I could have both child and adult reaching up to the escaping balloon,…
The loss of a balloon is another idea that has been floating around my imagination. Child loses cheerful balloon, adult reaching but…
The amusement park is taking shape! I can start seeing colors in my head. After so much drawing I am really itching…
I’ve drawn a shooting gallery in my amusement park and now I’m working on characters that are passing by, a man with…
I like the idea of two people pointing and laughing at the bottom of the slide. I think it’s clearer that they…
How do I know how large to draw a figure? It’s back to boxes and the perspective grid. At the start of…
Different versions of the same idea. Haven’t settled on the size or placement of the snake slide, but I’m figuring that if…
Colors! Paint! Creative Play! Oh the fun of being in my studio! My artistic life allows escape from current events, but I…
I’ve got some idea of my snake slide drawn, so now what happens? I recall being slightly dizzy at the exit of…
My husband will repeat a tennis shot over and over to get the correct form into his muscle memory. While I wouldn’t…
I’m still on the subject of drinking and playing with how it will fit into my grand scheme of a plan for…
This slide functionally works. It’s size or something isn’t quite right, but good enough for now. I am pleased with the person…
2 AM: Startled awake with a WTF moment! Last post I claimed to be getting better at recognizing errors with perspective. Yeah,…
WHEN DRAWING IS DIFFICULT, GO BACK TO BOXES! The snake slide that I envision is a tough thing to draw. Not only…
Man, I can really relate to this quote from Chuck Dixon, “Every artist has thousands of bad drawings in them and the…
Bottle…drinking…downward slide – connects in my mind to: insidious poison, sneaking, slithering, evil snake oil. But, snakes and alcohol are not all…
I don’t want to say directly “shooting at people” but I do want to make this suggestion with a shooting gallery. I’ve…
I continue to work out how my theme park will look by sketching out slightly different versions. One of my earliest sketches…
I think I will add some giant murals to the sides of the funhouse/amusement buildings. They have to be done in a…
Frantic, flashing lights, colorful neon, bold graphics!, A promise of fun and excitement, luring people to spend money and wait on lines….
You’ve seen a lot of drawing, but have I mentioned that I intend to make the final piece of this project out…
A tighter sketch with some different additions – a menacing animal beyond the mouse hole reaching out its paw. Maybe a jail-like…
Background ideas are formulating. I like the Mousetrap game’s ladder and basket and the diving board person. They kind of just found…
The rolling barrel entrance to a funhouse began with my thoughts on getting sucked into the internet, how I’m drawn into a…
Position alters perspective, even more so when the type of perspective is distorted. Re-locating where an “attraction” is in my theme park…
A lot of geometry going on here. it will be no easy thing to draw a funhouse entrance barrel convincingly. It is…
Detail added to the gingerbread house, adding some people and the Food Court signage. One of my biggest fears is fire, so…
Planning stage for some other buildings has started. A gingerbread house would be tasty – not only for its colorful appeal, but…
I’m using a grid behind tracing paper for my drawings now. Newsprint was for quick sketches. Now I want to have a…
Here’s some crucial info that completely escaped me until lately: People of similar heights standing on flat ground, arranged from closest to…
The size of a human figure is often shown in “heads”. Height: 7 ½ heads, Width: 2 heads, Arm length: 3 ¾…
This is my go-to for figure drawing reference. The simplified human anatomy, along with details of expression, age, clothing, gender differences are…
As I plan the positions and appearances of the structures in my landscape, I need to think about people in the same…
I’ll keep some of the details that appeared in the sketching stage and include them later. I really like the “Not Dead…
Now that I’ve decided to do a landscape view, and have more of an amusement park look rather than a solitary funhouse,…
“Grok” is one of my favorite words. Thanks to Robert A. Heinlein for coining it in his 1961 science fiction novel, “Stranger…
This perspective grid is what I’ll use for my drawing. There are many kinds of simple grids available for free on the…
The South Korean artist named Kim Jung Gi creates absolutely amazing drawings using unusual perspectives. Here’s his website: https://www.kimjunggius.com/pages/about-artist There’s links to videos…
The artist John Lee granted permission for me to use his drawing in this post as a good example of the type…
You can get lost in all the information about perspective drawing that is available on Google. I had never used a perspective…
My previous thoughts on Perspective Drawing Art Instruction = math, angles, geometry = let’s not go there: Yes, classic math avoidance syndrome!…
How do you become a better artist, a better anything? Identify what needs improvement, then learn and practice.I need to study up…
What do you do when you come up to a barrier? Do you shirk away from things that scare you, or do…
An imaginative world requires convincing size, shape and space in order to be believable. Photographs can give me the basics of how…
Yes, this is a self-portrait – from 1979! (Don’t ya just love those big eyeglasses?) It’s a first attempt at etching. We…
Somedays, everything feels like too much. I go into my studio to escape from complications of the day, and find myself mired…
Preliminary sketches – imagining how some ideas might fit together. These may not look anything like the final drawing for my quilt,…
I’m beginning to think that I’m trying to do too much with one artwork. Better to have too may ideas than none,…
If I had one amusement house featuring all the ideas that I’ve thought about so far, it would be pretty jammed packed….
Thinking on the collapsing space of a traveling carnival ride, I tried to stretch the idea to something else that works in…
I’ve now searched the internet for amusement “dark rides” and funhouses. Some of them travel with carnivals, so they need to disassemble…
If I’m going to put all my ideas in one house-like structure, then the large, ornate, and often creepy look of an…
The idea of a snake shaped slide is too good to pass on, so I’ve sketched out how it might look. Something…
I like the idea of a slide in my new art work, but not sure how it works with the idea of…
I’m trying to recall any experience I’ve had with amusement funhouses as I think of how to incorporate their structure with my…
How do you figure out how a funhouse warped mirror image will look like? Photoshop Elements! There are all sorts of “Filter”…
Here’s the sketch for the warped reflections of social media. Love the idea of this. OK, how will I do this with…
When I get bogged down with current work, I like to think about why I make art, and if I’m straying from…
My photogenic family, looking our best!I remembered that we took photos at a boardwalk amusement hall in New Jersey. These might be…
A hall of mirrors was never as good as it promised to be. Amusing, yes, but the quality of mirrors wasn’t good…
I’m onto the idea of a funhouse for my artwork. Maybe this piece isn’t as much about fear as I thought. I’m…
Another thought on pencils while I’m at it. Woodless graphite sticks can be sharpened like pencils, but all of the graphite is…
The Art Supply Providing the Most Bang for the Buck:the lowly pencil.Not the mundane, yellow #2 bubble-fillers (although those will do in…
There aren’t many drawings in my journals. Sometimes I’ll do a pictionary-quick sketch to remind myself about what I was thinking; nothing…
Feels good to get rolling on this project…I’ve spent plenty of time on the conceptual part of my next art quilt, which…
Thinking about entering the rolling barrel entrance of a funhouse, I can almost feel the pull of the brightly painted hypnotic stripes…
A funhouse is different from the dark ride I mentioned in my last post, – it requires you to walk through various…
One of my biggest fears is that of the human aging process. Getting older has its rewards for sure, but too many…
For my next quilt: Topic: fearSetting: amusement parkStyle: believable reality Have you ever thought about different kinds of artistic reality? Photorealism strives…
When I’m not thinking about my studio projects, then I’m reading about art. Especially when contemplating new work, I’m constantly on the…
One of my journal entries listing different aspects of fear brought me to the idea of amusement parks and the various ways…
The topic I want to explore with my art work is fear. That’s a nebulous concept. Preferring realism in my art, I…
“Adrift’ was my last quilt. It was unplanned. I missed being absorbed by an all consuming project, but nothing was grabbing my…
I’m ready for commitment to an idea that is complicated, which is no surprise if you know my artwork. It doesn’t scare…
I’ve tried to make it a habit to write in a journal: sketches, random thoughts, whatever crosses my mind. It’s a safe…
FEAR…there, I’ve said it. Who hasn’t been nagged at by demons of fear? Looking over my journals for some creative inspiration to…
Art Work … there’s a lot of that required to make an artwork. Follow my latest project as I bring it from…
The assembled quilt has been loaded onto my A-1 longarm sewing machine. Not only will the stitching hold down the fabric collage…
Before quilting, I need to play with the position of flowers (I’ve painted a smaller second one) and butterfly on the painted…