Mandala

I haven't done much art this week as I've been getting my stuff ready for a show and just dropped that off today.

I also went with my daughter's class to Keene High School to see the Tibetan Monks who are visiting and creating a sand mandala. They've been working all week on it, dropping little bits of sand from the end of a gold colored rod that has ridges on the outside of it. They rub a wooden mallet on the ridges so just little bits come out at a time from the vibration. The mandala they are working on is the medicine mandala which, when they are finished after a full week of solid work, will be dumped into the nearby stream during the closing ceremony on Saturday March 31st at 4 pm. The meeting will originate at the KHS gym. According to their website, this is to symbolize the impermanence of all that exists and spread the healing power of the mandala.

Here it is on their website with more information about them and the process: http://www.gomang.org/mandala.html

I went with a bunch of second graders and as we walked from their school to the high school they were silly and energetic, so it was really fun to not only watch the amazing artwork that was going on but also the way the kids were reacting to it. Mouths were open, they were still, and their gaze couldn't be broken. :)

I know a group of kids and teachers from Keene High School worked hard to get this to come to Keene, but as their website was down when I wrote this, I don't know the specifics. I did however get a photo of a poster listing the donors that made it possible.

More info on Framing Without Glass

Thanks so much for the nice comments on my miniature Waterhouse's. I have to do one more of my other daughter as the guilt it setting in. :)

Sherry Ellis just sent me a great link to a demo for mounting paper pieces on Ampersand board. http://www.jnibbe.com/pdfs/glassless_framing.pdf Check it out!

Also I wrote to the amazing colored pencil artist Alyona Nickelsen on how she mounts her pieces on stonehenge paper to boar. She graciously replied:

You can mount it on any archival surface. You can purchase gesso boards,
but they are more expensive. I prefer Masonite board. It is not archival, but so
far it is the cheapest. So the best shot is to purchase a large sheet of
Masonite board in a builders supply and prime it yourself. First you have to
lightly sand the board and cover it with a couple of layers of gesso. I use
Golden gesso just because I have it already. To mount the artwork on the board
you can use various adhesives, such as Grafix Double Tack Mounting (expensive),
paste “Yes!”, Golden Heavy Gel Medium, Lineco Neutral PH Adhesive or Polyvinyl
Alcohol Adhesive. The last step and the longest is to cover your artwork with a
few layers of varnish over a few layers of Prismacolor Final fixative. I use
Golden Archival Glossy Varnish in aerosol. You have to let it dry after each
layer.

You can frame it with no glass, but it will not protect the
artwork from scratches.

Alyona has recently had colored pencil demonstrations featured in Artist's
Magazine and American Artist recently and her official webpage is www.brushandpencil.com

I'm
getting ready for a show that I'll tell you all about this week and soon will
get to work on a new piece again.

Melancholy Princess - Miniature

Well this one will look very poor after the copy of a masterpiece, but I thought I would give doing my own image using what I learned from that one little Waterhouse copy. Oh boy... much more difficult than copying a masterpiece and a good reminder of why I was trying to do more copies in an effort to improve my portraits. :)

This is the same size as the other one: 2.5" x 3.5" and is of my daughter about four years ago. We had gone to the Vermont Renaissance Festival and it was very hot outside. We took a break under some trees and my daughter, dressed as the princess for the fair, looked so sad.

OK back to something else. :)

If you want to see more miniatures I've done, I've got some posted on my official website: www.nicolecaulfield.com and to go right to the miniature gallery you can go to http://www.nicolecaulfield.com/gallery3.htmwww.nicolecaulfield.com/

Waterhouse Project

After Waterhouse, My Sweet Rose
Miniature
2.5" x 3.5" (about actual size)

I've been doing monthly projects with the group I'm in called Fine Line Artists. Each month we pick an artist to study up on and do a work inspired by him/her. This month was Waterhouse. I have to confess I was busy this month or recently not feeling well so I didn't study much on him and consequently couldn't come up with much inspiration.

I therefore just made a copy of a detail of one of his paintings in miniature form, My Sweet Rose, which you can find by scrolling down on this page.

I've done quite a few beautiful women miniatures now. I've done Vermeer, John Singer Sargent and some from people at the Vermont Renaissance Fair. I really enjoy doing them and since I seem to learn something every time I do one, maybe when I start doing portraits again, I'll be better than I was before. This time I picked another silhouette which I always find difficult to do. I think what I learned on this one with silhouettes is to keep those edges soft even where you would think it would be a hard edge as with the outline of the nose on the background. Doing this miniature also reinforced some things about color and skin tones. I tend to never put enough yellow in creating a chalky look - I had to keep on adding yellow to get even close to Waterhouse's colors. I love that little band of bright orangey yellow he left on her hairline. How important a bit of green is to lessen the intensity of the pinks in the usual flesh colors was also reinforced.

Cans 2 WIP finished - well, pretty much

So here's where I'm at. I always sit with them for a little while to see if I need to adjust any values or spread some color around. I think for instance I need a bit more of that pink somewhere to tie it together.

I named the first one "Canned" but I'm not sure what to name this one yet. Maybe "Tight Situation." Hey I just realized one of the cans in the other one is the same can in this new one but going down instead of acroos. See if you can see which can was repeated!

I've always loved doing metallic surfaces so this was therapy. I enjoyed the can tops so much I've decided to use the can theme again soon in a much bigger representation. The city of Keene New Hampshire and the business owners on Main Street are having an Art Walk in downtown Keene. Artists display their artwork in the Main Street shop windows the first week in June and people parade through looking at the artwork. I've been summoned to do some sidewalk art for Artworks, the art school I teach at, during the event. I've decided to do some sort of squished can. Not a load of squished cans like this, but a lone LARGE squished can on the sidewalk.

My friend Katherine Tyrrell made the joke that it was like depicting litter right on the sidewalk, which I like! I wouldn't be the first artist to do that! I was just reading the book "Still Life A History" by Sybille Ebert-Schifferer where in the very first chapter they talk about a Roman mosaicist, Oikos Asarotos (Soss of Pergamon), who was known for depicting food scraps and other trash on the floor of wealthy homes in the second century CE. According to the book and Pliny "sweeping up the remains of a meal was bad luck."