Oil Painted Tote Bag Panel

Trying something new in the shopping bag category.  In addition to my original art printed fabric quilted panels, I'm adding original oil paint, ink, and brass grommets on unstretched gessoed canvas.  This one is titled "Yellow and Blue Flowers," size 11" h x 10," w to be appliqued onto a Simple Ecology organic cotton shopping tote.

One of my quilted panel grocery bags and some smaller gift bags are now posted in the Crafts section of my new website Redcrowartworks.com.  The original oil painted panel bags will retail for between $60 and $115 once I get them finished.

Better Bears

Juggling bears, bears who play games, bears bearing balloons - these are all better bears than the ones in Miley Cyrus's cringe-worthy X rated dance at the 2013 MTV-VMAs.  The last image of the bear with balloons and the capital letter B is from the fabulous book The Taylor Twins in Alphabet World available on Blurb here:  http://www.blurb.com/b/2981021-the-taylor-twins-in-alphabet-world

Longbow Camping Art

I spent more time swimming in the ice cold river at Longbow Camp in Oregon than I did doing art, but a few things were accomplished:
Top:  Landscape view of the river 10x14 done with pen & ink and watercolor and glitter
Second:  Some leaves drawn with various pencils
Third:  A postcard-sized pencil sketch of a good Oregon wine bottle and label
Last:  A googly eye portrait done with Wilson Taylor

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!

Camping Collecting Stencil Cut-outs

What's cooler to find than a collection of original stencil cut-outs?  Well, maybe bird feathers, interesting leaves and a few beautiful rocks.  Hopefully the little Longbow campers will find all of these treasures to collect in their new treasure bags when they go camping next week!   See prior post for the treasure bags here:  http://autreyart.blogspot.com/2013/08/fun-with-fabric.html

Fun With Fabric

A gift bag, five treasure bags and a grocery bag with a quilted art panel.  Having fun sewing with printed art on fabric, laminated fabrics, and grommets!

Tooth Fairy Pillows

My imperfect sewing technique shows, but at least these tooth fairy pillows (based on a concept imagined by Amber Taylor) are original!   The two pillows above feature original art by twins Wilson Taylor (pillow on the left) and Cole Taylor (pillow on the right) printed on 100% cotton fabric.  The paintings were done when the twins were 3 years old.  The pillow backs feature a little snap pocket to hold a tooth and a financial reward from the tooth fairy in exchange for said tooth.  The pillow backs feature two different tooth fairy stencils painted on fabric and snaps by yours truly.

Fraternal Twin Art by Cole and Wilson Taylor

Recent artworks by twins Cole and Wilson Taylor and me (Grandma Lucy to my two 4-year old grandsons).
From top to bottom:
1.  Mountain by Wilson and Bobo Fett by Cole:  Using new birthday present watercolors.  Unlike identical twins, who seem to paint in the same style, or together (see more on famous twin painters below), Wilson and Cole have distinct painting styles.
2.  Lion by Wilson and Rhino by Cole:  More watercolors and mixed media.  The objective was to paint in and around pencil drawings I did of a lion and a rhino but the original sketches were pretty much obliterated with paint.
3.  The Big W (untitled) by Wilson:  Grandma Lucy added the W to Wilson's mixed media painting using fingerpaints and pen & ink
4.  Alien Thomas by Lucy:  With help from Cole, and named by Cole and Wilson, using mixed media and fingerpaints.

I'm always struck by how different Cole and Wilson's painting styles are.  Wilson likes to fill the page with color (often preferring black) and Cole likes to leave spaces between his dots of color.  I was curious how fraternal twin art differs from identical twin art and found the following of interest:


Brazilian identical twins Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo
http://diattaart.wordpress.com/tag/identical-twins/

American identical twins Doug and Mike Starn
http://www.starnstudio.com/

See also Wikipedia Twins in Art
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_twins#Twins_in_art

New Conceptual Bird Portrait - Brown Pelican

Rough mock-up for the first in a new series of planned 36" x 36" oil on canvas portraits of birds with patterned backgrounds.

Paintings for Kids

Two 12x12 oil on canvas paintings created for my twin grandsons' 4th birthdays.  May all their wishes come true:  to be as powerful as Darth Vader (but not use that power for evil); as adventurous as an astronaut, as strong and brave as a lion, and as athletic as a mountain biker

For Father's Day

Thinking of my father, younger, on his bicycle in the early 1970's, and the recent trip to Rochester, Indiana with him, now nearly 93 years old.  The sun in Indiana was hot and muggy, there were beautiful red cardinals in the backyard, where our rental car was parked, behind the fence with the irises and the neighbor's shed.  Today my dad is in the hospital.  Not the best way to spend the day but, hopefully, he'll ride out of there and go one for awhile longer enjoying the sunshine.

Scissors and Knives

Artist Aunt Reva Autrey Lane has an enviable collection of old scissors in her farm house in Rochester, Indiana.  She generously gave me a few of them.  After photographing her collection, I was driven to find more at various antique stores in Indiana, for the pen & ink and watercolor painting above, and as inspiration for future studies.

Portraits of my Father in Indiana

The Future Includes the Past

Digital photo art collage created for the new Illustration Friday, combining photos from the early 1970s with a more recent pen & ink and watercolor still life

My Military Experience

On the streets of Madrid, May, 1970, during the military parade for the anniversary of the victory of Franco.  One of the only benefits of living under a dictatorship was that, with so many Guardia Civil around, it was pretty safe to walk the streets without a guardian.

Pig Ballet Version #3

Poster print version #3 of the Pig Ballet.

Pig Ballet

Two new versions of a large format digital poster print titled "Pig Ballet."  The new digital paintings are intended to be companions to the pig depicted in my earlier "Exploded Balloon" digital painting.

Remembering Camp Lorr in Santa Barbara in the 1960s

I was lucky to be a LIT (leader in training) at Camp Lorr in Montecito for a few years in the 1960s, while I was in Junior High and High School in Santa Barbara.  Somehow my older sister Laura Autrey had gotten involved and opened a path there for me.  Unfortunately, the last year I was at Camp Lorr, I scared my tribe of kids by pretending a witch lived in the woods.  They all ran screaming through the trees and I was not  invited back the following year.  The camp was fabulous.  It was in a beautiful part of Montecito.  There were loads of great activities and on Fridays real American Indians joined the camp for a pow wow with chanting, songs, dancing and a campfire lit by magic.

On the back of the middle photo (I think this is in 1965)  I jotted down the names of some of the staff and campers:
Back row:  Linda, Lydia Weintraub and me (Lucy Autrey)
Middle row:  Daniel Green, Ann Smotheron and Lori x and Eva Hestal
Front row:  Kelly Jackson (Jones), Julie x, Debby x, Lynn x and Debby Monson.
Also in the tribe but not pictured was Celeste Weidman

In the bottom photo, taken in 1964,  I only remember my fellow LIT and friends Nancy Manzetti (far right back row) and Lynn Howard (left of Nancy).  I'm on the left in back, with an unfortunate flip hairstyle.

Twin Photos - Film vs Digital

No matter what they are shot with (SLR camera with B/W film or digital camera with color converted to B/W in Photoshop), twins Cole and Wilson Taylor always look great!  Photo above shot by Susan in San Anselmo, March 2013 with her old film camera.  Photo below shot by me in color in Seattle, February 2013 with my Nikon digital camera.

Autrey Family Goes to the Beach, 1960

B&W photo by E.A. Autrey, taken in December, 1960.  Photo colorized by Lucy Autrey Wilson in February, 2013.

Seattle Art

Art created in Seattle on my latest visit to see twin grandsons Cole and Wilson Taylor.

From top to bottom:

Face, mixed media painting by Wilson Taylor, age 3 1/2
Color Gradation, finger painting by Cole Taylor, age 3 1/2
Farmer's Market, pencil sketch by Lucy Autrey Wilson (age withheld)
Cow, finger painting  and ink by Lucy Autrey Wilson