EVERYONE looks better in garb in my estimation.     I think what has kept me from doing a lot of portraits in the past is the isistance of people that their portraits be visually synonymous with glamour shot photography or state portraiture type stuff.

How much more fun would it be to capture everyone’s inner Lord and/or Lady?     Since I have a small talent for realism, I think this could be a fun exercise.

This idea tickles my creative fancy as well, since I have an abiding interest  in both textiles and history that actually passes over into the perseveration zone…

W00T for multi-level creative itch scratching!

Hmmmm, now all I need is subjects….

I find that I usually either don’t look at people at all or inversely I stare like I’m boring holes in them. The latter usually happens if I find them OR what the light is doing to them interesting. Just how do I explain that I’m bugging out on the series of planes that their face has become?

One thing that I’ll say for photography work is that the camera acts as a social buffer against my unabashed tendency to fall into whatever it is that I’m looking at.

Artism strikes again, much to the detriment of my social calender….

As someone who has worked on both sides of the aisle on this issue let me start by saying that nothing is “just whipped up” in any working artists studio that I know, my own included.

I’ve been working with digital media off and on for well over 20 years. As of late I’ve been working in combinations of digital and analog mediums. Has the digital experience changed my approach as an artist?

Yes and No.

I work mostly with Corel Painter IX these days. It has a gazillion and fifty two nifty features that I don’t use, opting to work the digital format like an analog medium. Why don’t I just work the analog equivalences you may ask?

My reasons are as follows:

1. Pixels aren’t toxic.

I worked in oils for years, then switched to wax pastels due to toxicity issues. I tend to not pay attention to where my brushes and solvents are and also have an unfortunate propensity when rapt in work to stick my brushes in my mouth when I need a point or to wipe solvent laden brushes on my pants leg. *DOH*

Even though there are other mediums that don’t require toxic solvents I realized that most artists pigments are, in and of themselves, toxic. This includes the pigments in pastels, acrylics,watercolors etc. Cadmium anyone? And then there’s always the issue of toxic fixatives.

2 Pixels are green

No solvents, no minerals, no wasted paper in reworks , no waste in general.

3. Safety of Originals

I had a studio flood on me a few years back. I lost a lot of pieces. I’ve also had pieces meet a number of more unusual demises, some involving housecats.

Back up your files on disc regularly and your originals are safe

3. Space

it takes a whole lot less space to work on a Wacom Tablet than to work on an easel, as well as a drafting table and airbrush booth. That and one doesn’t have to pay for all of that equipment.

4. Versitility

See entry 3.

I tend to approach my digital works the same as my analog work ie with classical layering technique.

I also tend to combine scanned analog and digital, using the best of both worlds.

The only thing I really miss about analog is working with  impasto, but then again a girl can’t have everything.

When I was in college , back in the earlier days of computer art, my instructor told me 2 things that have stuck with me throughout my career.

The first is that it doesn’t matter what tools an artist uses to get the effect that they’re going for. They STILL have to come up with the idea for the piece and make every call along the way as far as approach.

The second is that a computer is really nothing more than a fast pencil. You still have to be able to draw and be well grounded in artistic fundamentals in order to make it do what you want.

My challenge to you is this…look around the works posted on this site and My Imagekind Gallery.

I have a whole lot of pieces that are marked mixed media. Can you tell which are purely analog and which are analog/digital?

I’d be interested to hear which you think are which.

While I’m adjusting to the new lenses and stuff I’ve been digging through the piles of raw shots that I had stockpiled and cropping and whatnot as needed. I’ve even managed to find a few keepers in the bunch!

I started 2 series in Alaska, which are very much about life in the North. The first I call “Hidden Support” and looks to the nature of animals in support of people in Alaska, notably the paleolithic. Without fauna, mega and modern, people would never have been able to survive in the Far North. In addition, the modern Northern societies are still supported by animals that lived eons ago in the form of Oil. Agriculture in Alaska is still pretty minimal. So past present and future , Alaska is supported by the bones of animals.

Here’s a few examples from the series:

Ghost Bear 2008

Fossil Spine 2008

Sea Lion Skull 2008

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In addition to the ‘Hidden Support” series I’ve been editing another series all wound around light refracting within and shining through Ice. I think it plays off the bone pieces well not only visually but conceptually as well. The Ice represents the pressures of the environment in living in the Far North. Everything one does is wound around a seasonal deadline that will not be pushed to suit a person. So what we end up with with the 2 series together is Hidden Support and Obvious Pressure.

Ice 3 2008

Ice 4 2008

Even though I’m still getting used to the new camera, sometimes I can still get a good one….this was taken in my best friend’s house. The eyes were not manipulated. All I did was to desaturate the other colors. In addition, the wonderfully creepy dolls eyes in this terracotta sculpture were set looking forward. They do tend to follow one about the room…which I think came through.

Watcher by the Door 2008

As always prints are available on My Imagekind Gallery

And as always I welcome your opinions, comments and critiques!

Since my paintings have taken on a somewhat photographic quality over the last few years anyway , why not just skip a step in the process. My photos tend to have a painterly quality to them as well. I’ve actually had a few people ask me if they were pen and inks, paintings or photographs. I guess you can take the girl out of the studio , but… well you know the rest.

Another plus is that photography tends to crack me out of  my Aspie studio isolation more. I can’t help but think that this is a good thing.

The next step is going to be figuring out how to combine the 2 mediums and try to create something that is not wholly painting and not wholly photography but is, instead, something that retains the qualities of both and yet is neither completely. It’s going to take some thought.

In the meantime , while I figure this all out here are a few of my most recently finished shots.

Again, as always, I welcome your feedback and opinions of the work and prints are available at my Imagekind Gallery

Portrait of a Eurasian Eagle Owl 2008

Pine 2008

Flotsom & Jetsam 4 2008

Flotsam & Jetsam 3

Frost 4 2008

I’m afraid that living in the state of Agritopia after 6 years in the sub arctic zone has brought out my hoarding instinct. I must confess, however, that the many jars of vividly colored produce appeals to my aesthetic instinct as well. All that and it just flat tastes better than the commercially canned stuff.

I’m working on the GFCF cookbook as well…and I gotta tell ya my DH loves research and development days.

Be that as it may, I have still managed to get a few pieces done and I’ve quite a few more on the drawing boards.

I’ve started digging into the reference shots that I took while living in the Alaska interior and the ones taken on my recent trip through the Yukon and Northern BC.

This is the most recent painting.

Birch Catkins Mixed Media 2008

I’m finding that very loose brushwork used to create a lot of detail is getting to be my most used technique and tends to make said detail a little less stiff to the eye. It also gives my aspie penchant for twiddling with stuff a place to go that is productive. I’ve also been noticing that over the last few years that my work has been moving from and expression of how I feel and more into an example of how I see.

I like the way that this piece moves.  It invokes spring breezes even with the main focus being on the botanical aspects.   It’s peaceful without being static.  It’s also a study in complementary color relationships without getting in your face.   Overall I think it works.

Birch Catkins detail

Click on the image for a closer look

I’ve also been getting some of the photos that stand on their own finished.

Spring Anemones 2008

Click on the image for a closer look

I do tend to see the world in macro…these flowers were only 2 inches or so in diameter. They were the first wildflowers that I saw of the season and were bravely blooming next to a motel parking lot in Tok, Ak

As always I welcome your opinions of the work, positive and negative alike. And again as always prints of these pieces are available at my Imagekind gallery

You can check it here.

Liz, the site owner has cram packed her site with loads of interesting articles relating to the arts of all stripes.

Thanks Much!

Part of me is happy to be going to a place where it doesn’t get below 20F often and one doesn’t have to shovel out in the winter or worry about avalanches, volcanic eruptions, frozen pipes and automobiles or getting stomped on and/or mauled by wildlife.

Another part of me is sad to leave a place of such breathtaking beauty. This place fills up my soul through my eyes.

Living in Alaska pushed my work into areas that I said that I would never go, mainly into landscape.

I don’t know how I could have avoided landscape work living here. Every day brought a different and more intensely beautiful vista, even in the middle of town.

I think it’s all about the light. There is a color of light that’s pervasive here that is usually reserved for a few fleeting days in the very early spring in environments further south. It’s a sort of pinky- golden color and being as there are so many white barked birches , it’s reflected back everywhere. In the winter even snow dumps acquire alpine glow. Add to that the extended sunsets (hours and hours!) and well, even the big 64 box of crayons wouldn’t be sufficient to render it. The sky is always doing something utterly amazing.

One thing that I found impossible in working on the Northshore series was capturing the sheer magnitude of the larger views. Trying to catch color as it was ended up looking garish on the page. Seriously…the color is so very intense that even photography doesn’t seem to quite catch it or ends up looking less than, well, real.

There is not a film on the planet that can even approximate the living blue of glacial ice.

It seems that Alaska will not allow itself to be taken out of context.

In response to this I ended up focusing on small moments rather than the grand view.

This is an example of that and is the last piece in the Northshore Series:

Barnacles, Bladderwrack and Basalt

Mixed media on Paper 2008

Okay before you say “gee it looks just like a photograph” Look here:

Barnacles, Bladderwrack and Basalt detail

Mixed Media on Paper 2008

I’ve heard Alaska described as brutal, savage, and uncompromising. I think it’s more supremely indifferent. It has an extreme and vital sense to it that is separate from human doings. The place thunders under ones feet.

I’ll miss it….except for when the mercury hits -50.

I always have to fight the urge to judge my past work by current standards and the subsequent urge to rework a piece. Repeatedly. To the death.

The question is, is it ever appropriate to do so?

I have to be very careful about allowing myself that liberty. It IS however, at least in my world, OCCASIONALLY warranted.

I’ve just completely reworked a piece that I had deemed finished in 2005. Why?

Well after spending 6 months closely observing the Northern Lights I felt I could do the subject more justice without ruining the feeling of ‘wildness’ of the piece. In short, without overworking and waxing too technical, reworking with restraint. HA! No sticks or shouting required.

If you’re interested in taking a look, the piece has been posted here

I welcome your comments and opinions.  Feedback helps me to be a better artist!

1. Because there is no possible way that I can separate my artistic process from my autistic function. Believe me, I’ve tried and tried again. In order to begin to explain my work in any kind of real fashion I must address the autism and visa versa.

2. Blogging gives me an avenue to actually express where I am in either process in a manner that is less socially awkward and potentially alienating i.e. the ability to edit. It’s also helpful the the reader decides when they’ve heard enough

My work is an area where I apparently have a really difficult time interacting like a civilized human being. This forum also gives me a place where I can send people that are interested in what’s happening in that area of my life without having to traverse that slippery social slope.

If I perseverate, (an action I once had a friend call “arting in my face”) the reader can opt out on their terms, no harm, no foul.

3. I hope that I can, in some small way, dispel some myths and stereotypes that surround Adult Autistics and Apergers folks from all areas of the spectrum.

I don’t claim to be any kind of expert on the subjects that I am putting forward for public perusal.

All I can do is share my personal experience.

As far as the potential social stigma? Well, I’m capable of committing social suicide all by my lonesome. This blog isn’t going to make a whit of a difference there…..