Looking through canvas. Małgorzata Ata Warias

This is definitely too gray, too melancholy, too self-abandoning. Looking from left to right, into the end, curving himself from somewhere where the beginning hasn't even started - straight into the blue, self-effacing space. And look at his look. A sight that has more shadow than seeing.
I like it.

Sticks

Contemporary art could be described as the look-out for presence. There are very pragmatic ways in which presence can be experienced. If anything can be art when given the right focus, we need to look for ways of better focusing. So when we get it, we get it. Thus, it is a constant game between what we know and what we think we might have known, had it been a slightly different setting. Darren Harvey-Regan is a beautiful example of finding what is already there, of creating what had already been there and just giving it that delicate push which makes us grow our of here and into the work.
And if you think you know exactly what it is, it might just mean you need to look more carefully, and take the time to see the landscape he has found.

Off topic: Playboy celebrates 31 years in Brasil

Cowscapes by Rachael Sudlow

You can spare yourself the trouble of reading the artist's statement. These landscapes speak for themselves. See the online gallery here. I labeled this post as 'funny', though I don't consider it just a joke. It has real beauty (come on, stop chuckling...). Somehow, though, I didn't label it as land art.

Technorati: photography, land art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Kathy Weller's New book

Check it out ... one of my favorite artists has just finished a new illustrated children's book. It is called "The Months: Fun With Friends All Year 'round".

If you have little ones to buy for you need to add this to your shopping list.

Way to go Kathy!

Simply enjoying design

The two lowest steps of this staircase are used as shoe drawers. Found here.

This is what this chest sounds like. Unfortunately the people that make them seem to think children are the only ones who would enjoy this type of furniture. Found here. This rings a bell - I remember discovering an amazing installation, a table where one would hear sounds through the vibrations going through your body. Does anyone have a clue?

There is a pleasure in the usable object that is simply magical. This glovy feeling - it fits like a glove, and it feels like a glove, and it can be the most exquisite thing. Some sort of harmony, I guess. As if design gave us the world as we had imagined it ought to be, though only now does it live up to expectations. Artsy art rarely seems to head that way. (If we insist on distinguishing the two).

Technorati: design, interior design, furniture, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Pretty science

And now for something completely unrelated.

Technorati: science, beauty, visual art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Rent a Wife

What the hell is going on?
Wives for rent? For an unlimited time? Chose your preferred category?
Of course, Rent-a-Wife is a joke. But is it an artistic joke? A provocation joke? A silly joke? A horribly sexist joke? Or is it?
If it is an ironic look at the way women are seen by today's society (not only male), than why does it seem strange?
Because there is a catch. (Duhh...) And it is not about feminism. It is about renting DVDs. As what we have here is an ad for DVD rental.
How far is this from Vanessa Beecroft installing her objectified women in a shoe-shelf, to sell shoes?


Could I be accused of the same hypocrisy, exposing something by exposing it?

Oh, and if you think it's getting pretty much impossible to look at gender issues in a witty way without being accused of this or that, the desert is for you:

Technorati: commercial, publicity, funny, parody, art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Naked Poppy

Naked Poppy
Originally uploaded by artpaw.

Ok, so I am breaking away from dog art a bit here. This naked poppy stem really makes me happy. I have been shooting a lot this year with a new Macro lens. It is very hard to take a "bad" shot with the new lens. Getting up close to flowers is a lot of fun and it is so very easy to snap pretty pics of flowers. It is much harder to try and find a beautiful shot that is not so obvious ... a shot that I have not seen time and again. My naked poppy feels fresh to me. I look at this and imagine that this stem is like 20 feet high and lives on a foreign planet, you know something right out of Star Trek.

Ok ... now on to printing & proofing.

Thickening light: Emilia Bergmark - Jiménez

There is a melancholy light in Emilia Bergmark-Jiménez's work that makes one want to stay there.
By «there», I don't mean the place that is being photographed, but rather, the space of the photography itself. The picture seems not so much to portray something, but rather, to use it for its own means, as if the image had a goal of its own, quite separate from the object matter, or even the photographer herself.
What is left of the person? What form can a person have if light goes through her and plays with her seeming irrelevance? Maybe, the person becomes distant. Translucent.
Yet there is something about that form that appeals precisely because it is being put so close to forgetting.

This may well be what remains of memory, when what is left to oblivion, is rescued by thickening the nearly empty space, the traces gaining contours that are not what was left behind, but are some ambiguous form we vaguely recognize as ours, as belonging to us, as representing this left-over area that is neither the object we knew, or the eye of the beholder. It is this lovely, strange in-between.(via)

Cat Eye

Louie eye
Originally uploaded by artpaw.

Macro shot of Louie the Siamese cat. We visited with family on Sunday and I got a great detail of Louie's blue eye. The week ahead promises to be quite busy. I am usually off on Mondays, but I have a few printing & shipping duties this afternoon.

Happy Earth Day

More wet petals
Originally uploaded by artpaw.

Happy Earth Day. Go outside, enjoy the planet.

Year Of The Dog Movie

A new movie called Year Of The Dog is opening here in Dallas this week. Starring Molly Shannon this movie deals with the subject of pet loss & grief with a light hand. It appears to be a comedy about a tough subject that affects us all at some point. I hope to catch it this next week, and I'll be sure and post a review. The trailer looks great.

Check out the Flash Website for more info.

Flare The Toy Poodle

I often receive client snapshots where one or both eyes are partially hidden under fluffy hair. For an artist an eyeball has three main parts: the iris (color area) the pupil (the black area), and the highlights ( white dot or dots where light is reflected). When an eyeball has hair in front of it I feel it is important to erase or reduce the hair just enough to paint in a highlight and any missing pupil. When I leave a tiny bit of fluff in front of the eye I think it helps speak to who that puppy really is ... and in all honesty I like a scruffy pup that is not too overly groomed or too perfect. Stray hairs are part of being a dog.

This is Flare. This adorable little red poodle had a great photo that needed just a tiny bit more sparkle in the eyes. I gave the eye to the left a highlight and allowed a small bit of stray orange hair to wisp in front. If you scroll down to yesterday's post of Dash below you will see that he too has a tiny bit of hair in front of his eye. Stray hairs are just one of many details I think about when working on a piece.

Dash Maltese / Poodle Portrait

Today I finalized 2 portraits. Flare is a cute little red poodle that I will blog on tomorrow, and Dash is an adorable little Maltese-Poodle mix. Dash's original photo was sort of tough in that Dash's face was very dark and the entire file was only 48k ...which is a pretty tiny resolution. Once I enlarged the image I spent an hour or so dealing with the pixelation that occured. Using the blur tool I went over the pup smoothing out the jagged pixels and creating a very soft blurry image. I then used the Wacom tablet and stylus to paint in the missing detail. Digital paint stroke by digital paint stroke I worked in some fun loose line work and also added some highlights and sparkle to the eyes. I am very pleased with this piece.

Detail of Original Photo
Detail of Artwork

Funny Cat Video

Soon I will get back to posting about art ...for now I offer a really silly cat video found on-line:

Taxes

Well it is tax time again. Not much to blog about today. We have been crunching the numbers all day and my eyes are crossing.

Lisa king exhibition photos

Lisa king exhibition photo, originally uploaded by verika-art.blogspot.com ©.

From the lisa king exhibition

Majestic

Majestic
Originally uploaded by artpaw.

This is a shot taken downtown here in Dallas. This is the old Majestic theater. I saw Johnny Cash here several years ago. He was really great.

Scottie Video

Not much to talk about today. All politics aside, I will share this cute video found over at YouTube. Be sure & turn up your sound.

Wholesale Pet Products

Allison has finalized our wholesale shopping site. If you have a doggy boutique or know someone that is running an upscale pet oriented business you might want to check out our wholesale offerings. We also sell at wholesale prices to doggy breed groups and rescue orgs for fundraising activities.
Check out artpaw.net to learn more.

More Tips For Pet Portrait Artists

Today I offer up a few tips for other portrait artists ... please leave a comment and share your own insights if you have time.

#1 Build those relationships!
I am working on this one myself. We have all heard this before and it is true... "word of mouth" advertising is the best kind. I have tried to maintain lists and do mailings and I find this is not my strong suit, however I am working on it.

#2 Keep your sanity ... do artwork for yourself too!
I love doing commissions and yet I find that being able to play with my own "non-directed" artwork keeps me very happy and more than willing to jump through creative hoops for my clients as needed. When you have a lot of freedom in your personal work you tend to be more open to advice and direction in your commercial endeavors.

#3 Go to an art museum or gallery at least once a month
When we were younger it was easy to find ourselves at gallery openings several times a month, after all if the art was bad you still had the free wine and cheese. As we get busier and older we often forget about all the great art that is just down the block. Artists need visual stimulation, and while the web is amazing, there is something special about seeing art in the real world.

#4 Experiment
Try something new every week. Work in media that you are not good at, paint a subject you have never painted, take a class. Do something to push yourself out of your comfort zone, because the "comfort zone" in our commercial work is our biggest enemy.

#5 Teach, share, and lead.
If you have been doing your own thing for awhile, you must have some of your own special techniques, and ideas for success. You can regard every little thing you do as "secret sauce" and guard your knowledge carefully or you can share and earn the rewards that come from being a leader. In business it is often hard to feel safe sharing, but when you can connect with other artists that also have a lot to give you find that it gets easier and easier to take off the armor.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!
Originally uploaded by artpaw.

This is my Ajax with bunny ears. Happy Easter everyone. Not much to blog about today. We will back at work on Tuesday.

Izzy the Dappled Doxie

Izzy is a Traveling Girl
Originally uploaded by artpaw.

This is Miss Izzy and she is my 100th post to Flickr. I hope to play some more with this girl over the weekend and add her to the site soon.

Izzy is an unusual little dappled Doxie with one blue eye and one brown eye. She is shown here in her green traveling tote. Sometimes you see tiny little toy pups in bags and you sorta wonder if the dog is a fashion accessory or what. This little girl on the other hand looks like a real scrapper to me, and when you read her human's Flickr blog you discover that this little pup gets to go hiking in a backpack and she travels to many cool places other than the Mall and Starbucks.


You can see Izzy's original pic here.

2 addictions

1 and 2

What you see

If the previous post made you think of how powerful not-so-free association can be, then you might like Logo.Hallucination. Its author, Christophe Bruno, used a pattern-recognition software to analyze images on the net and discover similarities with known brand logos.

And our dear Courbet can apparently be associated to Corus:

Now, here is the crazy part: after discovering the image, Bruno sends an e-mail to its owner:

Madam, Sir,

We inform you that our automated monitoring spiderbot has detected a potential infringement of Intellectual Property Law in the digital image located at the address […]. Indeed this image includes a total or partial representation of the logotype of the brand XXX. Since you are responsible for the diffusion of this image on the Internet, we would like to remind you that such unauthorized use of copyrighted work could be liable for statutory damages. Moreover, it may have violated other US federal laws, including (among others) the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and the Consumer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Accordingly, we hereby suggest that you should contact immediately, and possibly through our agency, the company XXX so that we negotiate with them a friendly contract which would allow a regularization of this situation, according to the following possibilities:

Case 1: You might be financially rewarded by company XXX insofar as this situation constitutes advertising and promotion for the brand XXX. In this case you must explicitly indicate the reference to the company XXX by adding its logo to the aforesaid image and insert a link towards the site of this company.

Case 2: You wish to continue the exploitation and diffusion of your image without mentioning the company and in this case you will have to settle reproduction rights with this company insofar as the latter authorizes you to further exploit and diffuse your image.

If you fail to comply with these requests, the company XXX will have no choice but to proceed in a manner appropriate to protect its valuable intellectual property rights.

Sincerely yours

Logo.Hallucination

Scary? Funny? Ironic? Insofar as this is an artistic project, it sounds hilarious (especially if we were to try and find the author of the Origin of the World)(pun intended). But if internet cafés started off as an artistic project, why can't a ruthless fight over image rights start off as a funny piece of software?














(via)

Dandelion

Dandelion #3
Originally uploaded by artpaw.

This is a macro shot of a dandelion in my yard. Funny how a common weed can have it's own inner world. How many things do you walk by every day without pausing to really notice? Learning to see is an ongoing process for an artist. My husband and I have found our recently adopted hobby of photography has made us see more in the world even when we do not have a camera at our side.
If you click the photo above you will be taken to my Flickr pics.