Art Talk 5/12

Snarl #3, 1978

Tomorrow I'm part of a Conversation with the Artists, in conjunction with my current exhibition at TAG. I am joining Katherine Kean and Betty Sheinbaum.

Art Spoken Here is a monthly informal event in which featured gallery artists discuss their process, practices, and backgrounds, as well as answer any questions. It is free and open to the public. The conversations are led by Laura Korman, TAG Gallery Director.

For those of you too far away to get to the gallery, you can finally walk my show in a virtual way. Enjoy!

Color Placement is Everything

Same 3-color art, colors placed 3 ways.
Each one, so different!

One Thing Leads To Another...

My scarf print strike off from Spoonflower came in the mail Thurs. I opted for cotton voile thinking I could easily tear the fabric and just have raw edges. (Also got samples in the silk/cotton and cotton sateen to judge print quality and fabric hand). I was very pleased with the look and feel of the voile.

It's way past time that I get some show announcements printed. As I was beginning to work on my layout, I thought it'd be cool to have a QR code on the front image that would jump to the scarf in my Cargoh shop... So THEN, I needed to transform my yardage into a scarf. Easy, right?
"All I have to do is tear the edges, press it, and take some photos."
WRONG.

after tearing all edges -- note how off-grain the print looks/is

I'm going to have to merrow stitch the edges. Do I have a serger? Not 15 minutes ago, but one is on the way from Amazon. Meanwhile... still need to get those cards printed... Maybe I'll pretend the scarf is hemmed and stick it on Cargoh. Then again, thinking I'd rather market a scarf that's oblong... Which means I must order more yardage.... AAAARGH! My head hurts! Why didn't I decide these things months ago?

La La La Leopard

Did March sneak in like a leopard for you? How did that happen? Celebrate by adding some feline spots to your day.

1. Armless club chair, LA Contempo, $199
2. Little Giraffe fake fur throw, Layla Grayce, $192
3. Elizabeth and James ltd ed sunglasses, Shopbop, $185
4. Fake fur iPhone cover, Mini in the Box, $3.39
5. Vince Camuto mixed metal bracelet, Macy's, $98
6. Chooka rubber boot, Shoes.com, $67.15
7. Sally Hanson Kitty Kitty nail strips, Sears, $9
8. Wall plate, Home Depot, $12

This was my pitch for a weekly guest post on a very cool blog. I didn't get the gig >sad face< but why waste the post? Later on today or tomorrow I'll do a demo on how I do leopard-type prints at work.

Almost one month later...
Yeah. Thank goodness my "demo on how I do leopard-type prints" isn't a life-or-death situation. It'll happen... eventually... don't hold your breath!!!!

Pattern Recognition II

I just decided yesterday --
I'm exhibiting pattern-themed art in April!

something about seeing these two pieces together cemented the idea

mr chu says: what took you so long to come to your senses?

My last show like this was in 2009.
TAG Gallery,  2525 Michigan Avenue, D-3,
(Bergamot Station), Santa Monica, CA 90404

Stay tuned for developments...

The 18 hour Paisley

I worked on this paisley for 3 days.
Here are some of the steps I went through to get it into repeat.

the original "art" from the client

had to reduce it to B+W first, worked in photoshop (psd)

considered completing paisley by hand drawing
got this far and nixed the notion
I can draw nicer shapes with the pen tool in ai

straightened it out using skew transformation

mirrored the elements
I then took it all into Illustrator (ai) and Live Traced

here are elements that I pulled to make custom ai brushes

here are all the brushes in ai

working out the repeat

it's all little bits of vectors from the Live Tracing
big file!

repeat done

I then exported it to psd
and brought back into ai
re-Live Traced
to make it a nice simplified flat file

adjusted colors to beige + grey

finally done

celebrated with chocolate truffles

Spoonflower Design: googie coffee shops of greater Los Angeles toile

Cityscapes. Create a fabric design using a view, or elements of a view, of a particular city. 

VOTE HERE

How did I do this?

trying to remember how I created this repeat because now I need to make a companion with circular elements. argh, brain, get to work and stop thinking about chocolate truffles...

Spoonflower Design Contest: coordinates

My entry in Spoonflower's design contest can also be seen here.

the designs for these originated from my silkscreen work from the 70s
more here

Contest Rules:
Coordinates. Using a single digital file uploaded to your Spoonflower account, submit a one-yard image that includes four distinct coordinating fabric designs, including at least one stripes pattern and one dots pattern. The four designs should take up equal amounts of space on a one-yard canvas (42" x 36"). Preview will be sized at a yard of quilting-weight cotton (42" x 36").

Happy New Year!

here's a Bloody Mary repeat for what ails you:

original photo swiped off from Google Images search
used for entertainment purposes only