love

Today

Today I had a crazy art day at the PAM attending a lecture re: Chinese calligraphy/painting/poetry by Jonathan Chaves, talking with a cartoonist in the R. Crumb exhibit in PAM, (he gave me a minute sketchbook review), and had fun at the North Bank Artists Gallery potluck. Anne John's son was talented when he was 17, she showed me some of his work... he is 32 now. Very inspirational!!!

Pee Ess: Y'ALL SHOULD CONTRIBUTE YOUR ACTIVITIES and make me feel less lonely? Soooo what did you do today?

Come see me at NorthBank Today!

Hey y'all I'm babysitting NorthBank Artists Cooperative Gallery (its right next to Kiggin's Theatre on Main St) from 11:30-4:30, COME VISIT MEEEE!!

-the sitting duck

VA Focus/ AP Gallery Art Walk on Alberta

Come join me for a tour of all the galleries on Alberta Street. We will meet at the Talisman Gallery at 1:30 on Sunday 8/29. (I will meet at VSAA parking lot at 1pm to meet anyone that needs to car pool or caravan) We will cover about 10 blocks, so wear good walking shoes.

Email me if you have any questions or concerns (or you can comment to this blog to say if you can make it or not......)

Mrs. Zeller

Alberta Street Fair this Saturday

A fun, exciting art event on Alberta Street. The Talisman Gallery will have member artists doing demos through out the day. The entire street will be closed and there will be many artists/vendors in tents through out the street. I will be sitting the gallery this day and might also do some demos.

Art Pix

Butts- 2' by 4' ish

blue abstract- 4' by 4'

(fierce girl)- 6' by 5'

Alberta Art Walk this Thursday

Here is the card from the show that will be at the Talisman. I am planning to meet who ever wants to join me for the art walk in August, but if you want to go to more you should check it out. Also the 1st Thursday in the Pearl and 1st Friday in Vancouver art walks are next week. I will be out of town, but there will be a lot of great work to see if you get a chance.

Kaori's Exciting Art Summer

I've been experiencing a pretty intense art filled summer.

I worked for a week as a studio assistant to artist Catherine Schaper at Grace Art Camp in Portland, OR and had a blast learning (and teaching!) scratchboard techniques, tiger posters, and dioramas to little kiddies. I got to know the kids on a personal level: one boy and I could not stop chatting about Pokemon, and everytime he chose our studio (over Glass, Theatre, Dance, Music, Printmaking, Visual Arts, etc) he would mutate the theme of Haiti animals to Pokemon!! Such fun! It was the best first job in the whole cosmos! Catherine really gave me some valuable insight to art colleges esp. OCAC and PNCA.

Mrs. Zeller- I've done 5 breadth pieces so far!!! Well, maybe three are great enough to be in my ap studio art portfolio:D. The one I made at Grace Arts Camp was a tiger poster-markers, and gouache. (with Proud Tiger written on it)Rawr! OOOO i learned about gouache!!!

For the past two weeks I have been commuting with Emmy Cammack/Emmers on the Max train to PNCA/Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Today I spontaneously became pen pals with a Korean girl studying art abroad in Portland! I took some fun classes last week:

Adv. Perspective (which was mentally challenging because I didn't quite understand what the teacher wanted from me...I learned about the sighting method...),

Mixed Media (where I learned acrylic gel transfers and xylene transfers, a little bit of spray painting technique, and I started my self portrait with charcoal and oil color....),

Adv. Figure Drawing (WHERE I SAW MY FIRST EVER penis!!! although I didnt have to draw it the whole time like some people did haha....I drew the dude with a bit of charcoal on a really long stick, and I held the end of the stick and slowly worked up the the midpoint then the charcoal itself....and I "drew" a naked lady with black, grey, and white paper torn into messy strips.),

3-D (where I made a baseball glove out of molding pinky stuff they used to make Coraline or Walice and Grommit characters in those animation movies...). Oh! I also made a pinhole camera which I am positively itching to use!

This week I was in Fine Art Studio with this cute (married) teacher called Benny :) He's a great teacher, I've learned a lot about different canvas stretching techniques, and color gesso, and abstract art with only two colors....(I made a BIG abstract piece :) Its pretty minimalistic, and I made it with only a freaking BUCKET!!!!!!!!!!!!) Now I'm creating a Pop inspired artpiece with each repeated image in a different style, whether subtle or dramatic.

I have a potential internship with Anna Fidler lined up for September, I'm going to apply to the PAM Drawing Portfolio 10 week thingamabobber... and GUESS WHAT!!! I have a LEGIT gallery show lined up for next July (all month) at Angst Gallery with Hannah Swanson for our Senior Project!!! Freaking yessssss!!!!!!!!!! I'm pretty happy. Exhausted, but happy doing the thang I love: ARRRRT!

Free Drawing Class this Fall at the Portland Art Museum

From an Email I got from PAM:

I am getting the word out that local artist Carson Ellis will be teaching the second annual free teen drawing workshop this fall and all area teens (your students) are invited to submit an application. Eight star students will be chosen to take part in this free ten week course at the Portland Art Museum to help hone their talents and beautify their portfolios. Supplies will be provided. The application is available online at http://www.portlandartmuseum.org/education/display/Workshop-for-Teens/.

Parks and Recs. Cool

Art is fabulous and a wondrous thing and i am thinking about doing an open pottery studio at portland parks and rec. Cool

I am thankful for the time I can spend in my studio during the summer!

I am currently working on a commission of 6 family portraits (all grandchildren and great grand children of my good friends) I started this project over a year ago and am finally getting close to finishing.

Some challenges I faced: All I had to work with were small black and white photocopies of the people in the painting. I had to look very closely at all the details.
I used oil on recycled canvas (old paintings that were not going anywhere and were longing to be painted over) These canvases had some unwanted texture and if I were to do it again I think I would use new canvas, or something with less texture.
It was challenging to get all the detail just right, or close enough to capture a strong likeness to all of the people represented. This was extra challenging because I know and have met most of them, so I know what they look like!

My Process:
The paintings are designed to be hung right next to each other in a cluster format. This was how the painting started. The very first image I painted was of a tree that branched out to all the canvases (after a lot of visual research and looking at different trees I settled on an image of an oak tree) I then problem solved which people to put together on one canvas (I had to look at a variety of different photographs to form one painting) I then had to decide on what groupings of the family to paint on which canvas, as the canvases vary in size. Very challenging but exciting and fun at the same time.

What's next?
I need to add some more fine details and some thin washes with liquin impasto (I love the finish this creates- a semi-gloss that is not too reflective, but very lovely.

I am going to start working on a new series of paintings and drawings and ceramic sculpture for my show in October. I will post work as it is finished. :)