Two Lucys - New Painting

 Two Lucys 

16 x 20 oil on stretched canvas

My head, at two different ages, replaces the heads of a boy and his sister, from a photo the late, great,  E.A. Autrey shot in the 1950s.  I was going for kind of a Diane Arbus/Alice Neel look.  

Lucy's MOCA Class for families with kids starting this November

I've been spending a lot of time trying to come up with a fun project to do with families with kids that will result in a finished art piece in about 30 minutes.  This is for my paper collage art theory class at MOCA (link here: https://www.marinmoca.org/) this coming November.  I'm using nice washi paper and some recycled paper from an old telephone book.

For now, after some trial and error (see prior post,) I've decided on a paper collage portrait in the style of Yayoi Kusama.  This Pinterest link: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/230809549637151790/?lp=true includes Yayoi Kusama's 2016 self portrait  in yellow and purple.  It's simple, it uses complementary colors, and it's contemporary.   The image above is my self portrait done in somewhat of a Kusama style.

There are several great projects on-line for kids to create collage portraits in the style of Picasso, or Paul Klee or Matisse.  I thought it would be fun to do something in the style of a living, contemporary artist instead.  I have thrown in a few words of things I love to fill out the negative space.  Drawing the words out, inking them and painting them in, however, made the project take longer than desired, so the negative space surrounding the main object may have to stay empty!

Paper Collage and Color Theory

I'm getting ready to teach a few art classes at MOCA (Marin Museum of Contemporary Art) in Novato starting this coming November.  The classes are part of their Sunday family days - having fun making art with your kids- program.  Link here:  https://www.marinmoca.org/

As I haven't been doing much more than nursing this past year, I needed to practice for my paper collage class revolving around color theory.  I wanted to tie in my first class with the current 50 FACES exhibit at MOCA and come up with something that would result in a finished portrait in 30 minutes.

First off, I got Sam to pose for me (top)  Result looks nothing like him and this fill-in collage technique takes way longer than 30 minutes.  I filled out the rest of the image with doodles (a technique I'm planning to explore in more mediums coming up) and tried another approach.  

Next up (middle) was a portrait using recycled telephone book pages and some apple cut paper images to illustrate the complementary colors red and green.  This also took way too long and didn't come out that well.

Another effort (bottom) was a pen & ink drawing with complementary colors (yellow/purple) filling in the negative space around the main image.  Something to consider, but not the final choice.

More E.A. Autrey Original Art

Top to Bottom:
1.  Five Autrey Girls photograph with wax mustaches
2.  Bottles pastel
3.  Candle pastel
4.  File Cabinet watercolor
5.  Still Life with Fruit pastel
6.  SB Research watercolor (very old)
7.  Self Portrait etching
8.  Self Portrait pastel
9.  Self Portrait woodcut
10. Singer Sewing Machine watercolor (very old)
11. Still Life with Paintbox oil
12. Still Life with Pitcher oil
13. Trees etching
14.  Various etchings and one ceramic tile
15.  Various pastels

E.A. Autrey Quilted Grocery Bag

Now that 93 year old E.A. Autrey cannot drive his van anymore, I made him a deluxe two-sided canvas grocery bag with one of his self portraits on one side and a favorite bucket oil painting on the other.  Going to the store on the bus with this bag should be lots of fun!

Multiple Personalities

Ink Spill Girl

Digital Self Portrait.  Myself as a senior in high school with the two teenagers, who would greatly impact my life in the future, on my sweater.

Faces

Four pictures above are examples of how to draw people.  That is, if you don't want them to look like themselves! Top photo of "High School Girl," does not resemble the model.  Bottom three sketches of a Leonardo Da Vinci drawing, look like three different girls.  Fortunately someone invented the camera.

Self Portrait Pink and Green

#6 of 6 self portraits done for Chester Arnold's painting class at College of Marin.

Self Portrait in Blue

Oil paint and mixed media on marble dust gesso on board (above) based on digital painted over photo composite (below).  #5 of 6 self portraits done for my art class.

Self Portrait Red Background

#4 of 6 self portraits - this time in a "realistic" mode.  8x10 on canvas board

Gold and Green Self Portrait

#3 of 6 attempts at Self Portrait.  Each one looks like a different person with some resemblance to myself.  This effort was supposed to be an abstract but, for some reason, a picture insisted on emerging of a more youthful me.  Mixed media (acrylic, Schmincke Bronze pigment, ink, watercolor and oil on marble dust gesso on birch board) 8x10

Self Portrait in Green

Second in a series of self portraits done as an assignment for my painting class. Final is 8x10 oil on canvas board.  Also shown is the underpainting.

Zero Plastic Surgery

Self Portrait made with silver point and Copic marker on marble gesso on board 8x10

Self Portrait with Bird Lungs

I don't smoke anymore but I feel like I do since I have bronchitis - hopefully a mild case.  My hurting lungs prompted me to create this digital self portrait using a recent oil painting of a bird in a green lung shape.  It's also raining today so I used another painting that has a blue cloud and red raindrops.  A fun way to spend a rainy, coughing day.