“I love nudity. I’m always nude. When I was a little girl my mother would always have to dress me because I was quite good at taking my clothes off.”
03
Sep
10
friday nude quotes
Landing
Daz|Studio render
Sometimes I will have an idea rattling around in my head for a long time. in the case of this one it’s been years! for some reason every time I sketched it out it just wasn’t right. I’ve tried a couple of times with paintings like rage but I’ve never gotten close to the motion in my head.
Last week I was inspired to try some new takes. this is the result. I don’t know if it’s exactly what I wanted, but I do know that it is looking really good and fitting in well with my current explorations into action. I’m looking forward to painting it up!
BTW, if you see any renders you really love, you can always contact me about commissioning it as a painting! I can tailor the size to suit your space and budget (within practical limits of course!) – check here for my past renders and stay tuned for more..
Daz|Studio products used
Figure: Victoria 4 *free*
Lighting: Studiolight Pro
Morphs: Morphs++ NGM for V4
27
Aug
10
friday nude quotes
“I never had any qualms about posing nude. The human body was always an attractive figure to me, that is, if it was in healthy shape, and young.”
Sorry I’ve been so out of it lately, I’ve been ill and sore. I started a number of blog posts, only to realize that they made no sense! hopefully I will be back on top of things soon.in the meantime, this is an interesting video that came across my screen, it caught my eye because lately I’ve had times where I feel like this! it does hit at our identity in some ways, often women are not only judged by their breasts but base our identities as women on them.
controversial giant breasts sculpture, posted with vodpod
it’s an interesting concept. ‘how big do we want our breasts to be’ has come under attack, literally, for it’s controversial nature but I think it makes an excellent point. There is so much focus on the idea that bigger is better, that all we need is enhancement to be as sexy as possible. if my email is anything to go by anyway! I see so many ridiculous morphs in 3D art that make these sculptures seem practically normal. these concepts are often created by men with infantile mammalian fantasies. it’s interesting that this sculpture was created by a male, I think it’s really interesting and well executed. it’s a shame they’ve felt the need to censor the sculptures.
20
Aug
10
friday nude quotes
Extend - 5x7 Oils on Canvas
- many places provide cheap canvasses. these are a mixed bag. take a look at the thickness, the composition and the stretchers. whatever you do, get 100% cotton, if the canvasses are a cotton/poly blend they will warp and age badly. if they don’t state their composition you can bet they aren’t cotton!
- there are some companies that create excellent inexpensive canvasses, it pays to shop around and the key for these is the stretchers – often the thin stretchers on less expensive canvasses will warp, but the double wide ones not only look better but are more stable as well! plus you can save on framing.
- if the gesso is a little thin, or toothy you can fix that yourself by adding more or sanding it down – companies will save money by providing less ground or by not refining the surface as much.
- use natural earth pigments wherever possible. pigments such as sepia and umber are very common and cheap so they are inexpensive to produce in paints (no this isn’t why I use those colors.. well, not the entire reason!)
- buy a limited palette and blend your own colors. not only will you get better results but you can save on the more expensive real pigments by buying them in bulk
- use hues instead. if you have a family or you are just lazy about hazmat safety (me on both counts!) while painting you can get reasonable substitutes for the pure pigments. I have both types and while the pure pigment is often brighter I’m not sure it is worth paying double the price and having to constantly worry about heavy metals. it is pretty hard to distinguish the two in a painting in the end
- buy the best for the colors you use the most, you can substitute student quality or a lesser brand for tiny touches- no need to go out and buy a whole new tube of the best quality for one painting or a small accent.
- invest in some generic tube squeezers. my grocery store has them near the toothpaste – you will be amazed at how much you can get from that seemingly empty tube!
- duct tape fixes tube leaks.
- save your old student quality paints for playing, experimenting and random events. you never know when someone will want to borrow them. in fact, save everything – you just never know.
- wrap your palette in recycled plastic bags or use lunch wrap to save that unused paint for another day.
- buy really good brushes and take good care of them or buy cheap brushes and don’t worry as much. personally, I take the middle road and buy medium quality brushes because sometimes I take good care of them and other times I forget. this way I don’t mind so much.
- online companies like moo create wonderful supplies like business cards and exhibition postcards with different images for each card. Vistaprint often has free offers on their newsletter.
- check online art supply stores like dick blick and jerry’s artarama and sign up for their newsletters. keep an eye out for their sales and get a bargain!
- the most important tip I can give is to assess your 6 monthly expenditure on supplies, your output of art during that time and use those numbers to factor into your art pricing. ideally you want to make back your art supply expenses on one sale. keep track of those numbers and it will help you keep your pricing current and appropriate.
13
Aug
10
friday nude quotes
12
Aug
10
the miserly artist at work
Interlaced - 12x12 Oils on Canvas
But it’s not about saving bucks. It’s about volume of paint and the potential for juicy creativity. Expensive paints bring out your resident miser. Cheaper paints, used discretionally, are more likely to be lathered on in abundance and bravura.
Fact is, for some of us, inexpensive materials bring out the magic of playfulness.
I love reading Robert Genn’s letters, they have a range of interesting observations, views, tips and ideas spanning the whole gamut of being an artist. I felt a need to write about this one in particular as it’s a subject very close to my heart. especially right now as I’ve been considering buying some new pencils currently on sale. my husband’s comment is, yes but you’d never use them- they cost so much you would want to save them for best.
this is so true of everything for me. I hate spending money (yet, ironically, I love shopping) especially if it’s on something that’s important. when I started painting again I went to a place called art shed which had enormous tubes of paint for under $5 and inexpensive 100% cotton canvasses. knowing that I hadn’t paid that much meant that I could play with paint and if they didn’t work out it wasn’t a real loss. I was free to experiment. in a way, my main style has come from my inner miser, I didn’t have much left in a tube but I wanted to make it count. it was heavily dilute and very thinly applied and I realized by accident that I could create really cool effects with it that thin.
I finally splashed out on real professional quality oils only a couple of years ago (after a large sale) because I wanted to try windsor and newton water miscible oils. my studio is in my house and Liam can’t stand the smell of turpentine. on top of that we wanted to start a family and I didn’t want harsh chemicals around (much better for the cats as well!). I do love these paints, they are wonderful quality and the clean up is very easy. but it took a very long time to get out of the saving mindset. I put the paint on very thinly (even for me!) and I tried to make it go as far as possible. The funny thing is, the tubes are not as robust and splitting. the lids are breaking too – so I have to keep using them as much as possible and not worry so much. the threat of losing the entire batch is freeing me up to play once again.
I still buy art shed canvasses, they have a range and I buy their upper range now rather than the cheapest. it’s still affordable enough that I don’t feel too bad if the painting goes badly – at least not about the cost! I also use one of their easels, which, as far as I can tell, is just as good as any other. the trick is knowing where to cut the costs.
Big Mother - Further images at Patricia Piccinini's website
The Sierra Leone-born, Melbourne-based artist decided to give up in her failed attempts to breastfeed when her sister suggested she practise with her own six-month-old son.
“I thought, `I can’t do that. I’m not just an animal, and I am not a lactating animal for some other baby’,” she said. “But then this six-month-old taught me how to breastfeed, and how to breastfeed my own child.”
The work is confronting on many levels – from the stark, hairless nudity of the animal, its gorilla-sized arms and legs and baboon’s bottom and genitals, to the idea humans could engineer humanoid beasts as slaves.
A friend recently wrote about this work on his blog and I was intrigued by the concept. this piece is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful, saddest and disturbing sculptures I’ve ever seen. on Patricia Piccinini’s website are further detail images showing the depth of detail and emotion in this piece.
The story rings on a very personal note. as a breastfeeding mother myself I can relate to her struggles at the beginning, breastfeeding a newborn is a tricky thing and during such an emotional time it is very easy to give up. I remember how many times I would have killed for a wet nurse! I think her friend was a genius to suggest she try an older child, perhaps it’s something more new mothers should consider. I wonder how I would have felt at that suggestion, you do feel like an animal- we joke about being a cow but it is a very animalistic action, based in nature and going back to our most primal roots. how wonderful that this suggestion has spawned such an interesting work.
One thing I learned recently is that all the planning and preparation in the world is completely useless unless you actually take the plunge and get going.
Release - 12x12 Oils on Canvas
it’s so important to just do it. nothing is ever going to be perfect enough, nothing is ever going to be ready – everything is a process. putting things off until they are ready or perfect or just how you want them is anathema to getting anything actually achieved. and that is fine if you actually want to coast through and not achieve anything, but usually perfectionist types have very clear goals. I know I do.
If I had waited until I was “ready” to have a baby it would have never happened. and I find that now I have one, I am ready. nothing can prepare you, so there is a limit to how much planning you can do. I was a project manager so you can imagine how that strikes me! (must..plan..everything..) but I realized that all the planning in the world couldn’t prepare me. I just had to take the plunge. and I was right! I prepared for the things I could control (very little) and am in constant amazement by all the wonderful things I could never prepare for.
today I contacted some galleries. as I sent off the emails, I worried. my artist statement and bio aren’t perfect! I don’t have enough lines on my CV, I’m not ready, what if they turn me down, what if I get shunned by the entire arts community because of my problems with capitalization?
but I sent them off anyway. and already received one callback. so there perfectionism. sometimes you just have to jump in, hold your breath and hope. there is no such thing as ready. you won’t get anywhere dipping a toe in – you won’t know the temperature of the water until you actually get in.
Recent Comments