Working Wednesday | Late Again

June 9, 2017June 9, 2017 thepaintedspreadsheetLeave a comment

Can it count that I was kind of working on Wednesday? Also that my computer was unavailable to me? Heck yes!

An awesome friend of mine has a career in the medical world. She wants to raise money by throwing a fundraiser for her office. She wants to have one of those paint and sip parties. She asked me to teach.

!!!!!

Networking sounded so stupid to me in college? Like why would I pretend to enjoy small talk with a stranger so I can give them my business card? But this is technically networking? Also, I love my friends. And that they’re thinking of me.

I don’t know if her idea will get approved, but I can’t not think about something once it’s in my head.

I want to teach something easy, but REALLY impressive looking. Something with mass appeal. All my brain keeps coming up with is sunsets. Or paintings where you peel the tape off later and come up with something cool. Or a galaxy? A galaxy could be fun.

This totally counts.

-Smudged

Famous Artist Friday

May 12, 2017 thepaintedspreadsheetLeave a comment

In college, I had a professor who was OBSESSED with textiles. I mean, I think she pretty much had her doctorate in it. Under her tutelage, I wove things and tried my hand at indigo dying. Also, in 5th grade, my class was all girls and the teacher was so excited that she had us make a quilt.

So you can say, I have a history with fabric. I also want to admit that quilts aren’t really my thing. They always seemed old fashioned and definitely not as comfortable as my super fluffy blanket that I like to cuddle up in.

But dangit, some quilts have personality.

And one of the artists I learned about in college, she stuck with me. Because she made me appreciate what you can do with a quilt.

Her name is Faith Ringgold and she literally put her stories on quilts. And they’re beautiful. Just look at that closeup above. There’s a real sense of narrative. There’s a real story going on there. I haven’t spent a lot of my life in cities, but even I can get a sense of a muggy summer night spent relaxing on a rooftop chatting about a day. I’m not her, I don’t know if that’s what’s happening there, but that’s what looking at it makes me feel. And I like that feeling.

Faith is also well known for her sculptures (which include some awesome masks) and her performance art. And based purely on her Wikipedia page, just generally being a really cool person who stands up for what she believes in.

She makes art with a purpose, and I love that.

She has a website: HERE! I definitely recommend reading up on her.

Also, cool fact about her. She’s still alive. Unlike the last artists I researched. So it was not depressing to read up on her. Also, I believe she still makes appearances!

-Smudged

Famous Artist Friday · Uncategorized

Famous Artist Friday

April 28, 2017April 28, 2017 thepaintedspreadsheetLeave a comment

Before I start making oohing and ahhing sounds, I’d like to point out that I have no idea what I’m doing. What’s allowed, what’s not allowed, etc. I would like to discuss one of my favorite artists. And show his work. And discuss him. I don’t know if this counts as a review, I know with movie reviews or music reviews, you can have a clip and it’s totally ok. I don’t know about art. Also, he’s dead…so I’m all kinds of confused.

So, here goes nothing.

Piet Mondrian. Dutch. Artist. Best known for neoplasticism, which to those not in the art community could be put in a large group called “I could do that.” Basically, white background, throw some stripes on, and fill in some of the newly created blocks with primary colors. If you’re into art and that kind of thing, it’s a lot of geometry and asymmetry, and oh my gosh, no wonder I love him as I am an accounting/art person.

*I would like to say that I found the above picture at this link and they do a great job of breaking down Mondrian’s artwork in a totally professional way. Unlike me. It’s about to get unprofessional up in here.

But honestly, that’s not my favorite stuff by him.

Story time. I took painting in college. In fact, I took 4 painting classes because I love painting and hate having extra time. One of our assignments was to replicate and artist’s work, but it had to be a certain kind of artist. Or at least, I vaguely remember thinking it had to be a specific kind of artist because I remember being irritated that I would have to paint straights lines or things I wasn’t incredibly fascinated by. And then I found this book on Mondrian. It might be the one by David Shapiro that I found on Amazon after a quick look up. It might not. But it was a book on Mondrian’s flowers. I fell in love with them immediately. I thought they were heart-shatteringly beautiful. Also, the rebel in me was satisfied that I could fill the project requirements and do WHATEVER I WANTED. Winning on a technicality.

But here’s why I fell in love with his flowers: they’re so sad. They’re so beautiful and they’re so sad. Here is the closest image I could find to what I fell in love with:

I wish I had a picture of the painting I did, but I cannot locate it at the moment. So save those hopes and wishes for another day. (Oh also, I found this picture through Pinterest and landed on a website with a language I couldn’t read, but just to be safe.)

I love all of his sad chrysanthemums. Flowers are normally so happy or romantic, but his art so sad. I mean, when you think of it flowers are kind of sad, you cut them off from what keeps them alive and decorate your house with them until their petals start falling off. Until they lose their beauty. I don’t know what his artistic intentions were. I wish I cared a little more, but I don’t. I’m just in love with these flowers. They are beautiful in their moment of darkness and immortalized in paint.

Look how sad this sunflower is!!!!:

And no, not all of his flowers are sad. Some are just beautiful. I think I vaguely recall (sorry for the extreme generalities, memory is flexible and full of errors and I don’t want you thinking that I trust my memory for one second), the author of the book mentioning that Mondrian didn’t particularly like his flowers. That they didn’t fit in with what he wanted his art to be. But he couldn’t stop. And I’m so glad he couldn’t stop. I love these flowers. Flowers may be common or basic or something ridiculous like that, but they’re beautiful and I love them.

I mean, just a quick Google search and you can find gorgeous pictures like:

Also, while looking for all of these pictures, I found this post and while I wasn’t feeling not lazy enough to translate it, I am so happy that someone decided to put so many of his flower paintings in one place. The internet can be so good sometimes.

Totally related side note, it’s really cool to find out someone you’re a fan of does other stuff. I mean, Mondrian was famous for neoplasticism or whatever, but I was psyched to find out about the flowers. BUT DID YOU KNOW! Billy Dee Williams (my favorite Harvey Dent and the coolest guy in the Star Wars universe) is a painter!!?!?!?!?!

Seriously. Billy Dee Williams is so cool!

-Smudged

PS: Don’t be mad at me for not knowing what neoplasticism is without looking it up. I only had one art history class, and it didn’t exactly cover neoplasticism or anything like that…it was pretty neat though.

Uncategorized · Working Wednesday

Working Wednesday

April 26, 2017April 24, 2017 thepaintedspreadsheetLeave a comment

I did a project a while back (January and February) with the intents of starting a blog and posting my progress. I’m a bit late on starting the blog, but here’s the whole project:

My husband’s friend wanted a painting for his Dungeons and Dragons groups. Apparently that’s a thing (and kind of a really cool thing, I can’t think of being part of a group that loved what they did so much they got paintings done). So he gave me a list of the 7 people (outside of himself, but he’s the guy that reads and doesn’t have a character). I did some preliminary sketches of the characters (and somehow totally forgot to design one until the painting). These are those sketches:

Then I did some very basic background sketches just so I could see what kind of thing he was going for:

There are more, but those are the ones I could find. He liked the one with eyes overlooking everyone (him) and the castle. So that’s what I went with and planned. Somehow I always end up doing math when I do art. Always.

I’m still working on learning composition. Honestly, I get it a little bit, but I have a long way to go. So, like any sane person housesitting/dogsitting for their sister-in-law, I gathered my niece’s toys and staged my painting. I showed this to the person who wanted the painting and they were definitely amused:

And that’s when I started to paint:

And eventually I finished. Let me tell you, it’s hard to take pictures of paintings. You need really amazing lighting and probably no flash. I’m not good at it. But I tried.

My supplies weren’t great (my better paints are in storage, I’ll be able to get to them in a few months). I took forever. The better I get, the faster I’ll be. In the mean time, it’s the nice start to a side hustle.

-Smudged