Art in the Park was a lot of fun... but windy. Look for some new pieces of mine at the Monadnock Fine Art Gallery in Keene... soon.

Updates

Updates!  Another kitsch piece finished! I am hoping to get one more done before Art in the Park on Labor Day weekend. That is our local art fair that happens in town that same weekend every year. I missed it last year with it being my first year teaching but will be back this year! Hope to see you there!

A Bird & a Feather

8" x 10"

This portrait isn't quite finished. I'm still working out the likeness that is a bit off, but its close!

 I did nail his hair and t-shirt though! ;-)

Let's Get Synthy!

My brother-in-law just got married this weekend, so I've been in festive mode (which really isn't a good enough excuse for the bad title of this blog post).

Ben and his beautiful wife Caitlin had such an amazing wedding at an estate in Harrisville, NH. It is at the top of  a hill overlooking Mount Monadnock, Harrisville Pond and countless tree topped hills; with a full panoramic view of it all from the estate's deck and lawn. 

I took several photos standing in one place on the deck but turning my body so I could get as many continuous shots of the panoramic view and today I created a  Photosynth of the scene; which I just found out about at a recent edcamp unconference in Keene (thanks Matthew). 

Here's a description from their website of what photosynth is/does:

"Photosynth takes your photos, mashes them together and recreates a 3D scene out of them that anyone can view and move around in.

Different than static photos and video, Photosynth allows you to explore details of places, objects, and events unlike any other media. You can’t stop video, move around and zoom in to check out the smallest details, but with Photosynth you can. And you can’t look at a photo gallery and immediately see the spatial relation between the photos, but with Photosynth you can."

Here it is below! Go ahead and click the Photosynth tips box off after you read it so it doesn't block your view. Okay now to look at the view just click the right or left arrow since that is the only directions that I turned. Then if you are looking at a photo you like and want to zoom in hit the plus button - even a few times to get right in. 

Of course I instantly can see how great this gadget would be for art shows/galleries. Instead of taking a shaky tour with a handheld video camera you can take shots all around the room and allow the people to walk around. You actually don't have to do a circle like I did too - as long as the shots have some overlap the program can stitch them together and you can meander around the space.

I searched their site for "art gallery" to see if anyone is doing this and found loads:

HAEA Faculty Art Show by Chanbliss
& a simpler one:
SB Art Gallery 

Another great use for Photosynth is making a 3D rendering of a statue or object like Matthew Ragan did below. I would imagine for a gallery, you could even do this with smaller objects so people can really take a good look at a sculpture.

New Works

I went for a trip back home to the Chicago burbs for a couple of weeks. Here's what I have been working on since I got back. I don't often have more than one going on at once...

To the left is another one using whimsical pottery and fresh flowers. I just love these and plan on having several for the Art in the Park Show in Keene in September. So far they are all 8" x 10."

Below is a new portrait I'm working on that is about 12" x 16." It is the second half of a diptych I started a while back - kind of a contemporary engagement portrait. 

Then finally what I think is the final version of Artifact. I hope!

Bird's Eye View

Bird's Eye View

8" x 10"

Prismacolors and Solvent on Fisher 400 paper

I need to go in and touch some things up on this but I am impatient to post it. 

My daughter and I picked these lovely flowers on the side of the road. I think I need to go back and just get a whole vase full of the black-eyed Susans! They were really fun to do.