Thursday, September 16, 2010

Fragment of self

 



Another in the "Self" series. This time a need for a smaller version as a gift for my Mother who particularly liked "Revealing Self" (a look beneath the surface) when she last visited. I'm off to South Africa soon to visit with Mother and wanted to take her another in the series, but obviously something smaller would be easier to pack into my suitcase.

I didn't want to simply paint a smaller version, so I came up with the idea of recreating just a section of the original on a smaller box canvass - a fragment of the original. And thus "Fragmented Self" came to be. 

It's another look at the layers beneath the surface of our personalities, revealing protective layer after experience layer we all create and grow around our delicate inner beauty.

Take a look at a few pics showing the process.




Thursday, June 24, 2010

TWITTER ART EXHIBIT: LOS ANGELES

Now here's an interesting opportunity - network with fellow artists, publicity for your art and most importantly contributing to charity. I'll be joining in and sending my postcard art!


OPEN TO ALL PROFESSIONAL & AMATEUR ARTISTS WORLDWIDE WORKING IN 2D MEDIUMS

Twitter Art Exhibit: Los Angeles is the third installment of an open international exhibition of handmade postcard art for charity, donated by hundreds of participating artists from around the globe.

While the first two exhibitions were held in Moss, Norway, the Los Angeles show marks a global launch for the concept by founder David Sandum, a Swedish-born artist who conceived the Twitter Art Exhibit as a vehicle for doing good through social media and online community-building. The idea is simple: artists from all over the world receive a call through Twitter social media to create original postcard-sized art, which they mail to a local curator who then exhibits and sells them to benefit a local charity. Artists must have a Twitter account and interact with exhibition organizers to help seed the event.

In its first year, Twitter Art Exhibit received postcards from over 260 artists in 24 countries, raising funds to buy 221 new children’s books for a struggling library in Moss, Norway. The second installment received entries by 360 artists in 32 countries, raising $4,000 USD for an abused women’s shelter, also in Moss.

With the Los Angeles show, Twitter Art Exhibit hopes to expand the concept to support small, local nonprofits around the globe while opening new markets and exhibition opportunities for participating artists. The L.A. event will be held at E.U. Gallery on Chung King Road in Chinatown’s Arts District, neighbor to Coagula Projects, The Company, and Charlie James Gallery.

The event will be highly publicized and well attended by art buyers and enthusiasts, members of the press, local artists and the community, as well as members and young students of Art Division.

Of course, social media plays a major role in the Twitter Art Exhibit. It’s our intention to tweet, share, seed and promote our artists to thank them for their participation, and to make this event a huge success. For more information visit twitterartexhibit

 E.U. Gallery is proud to present Twitter Art Exhibit: Los Angeles, an international exhibition of original postcard art benefiting Art Division, a nonprofit (501)(c)3 organization dedicated to training and supporting underserved youth (18-25) in L.A.’s Rampart District, an at-risk group within one of Los Angeles’ most densely populated and underserved communities. Through focused instruction, individualized tutoring and personal support, each student is given the tools they need to pursue higher education, achieve self-sufficiency and obtain careers in the arts. For more info, please visit www.artdivision.org.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

It's Been a While


An amount of time, the length of which I will not highlight, has passed since my last blogpost. I have been busy with other things, obviously. Some of which have no doubt been very important, possibly.

In truth, I have not been particularly arty and creative for a longer time than I'm happy with, but life has a way of presenting distractions, attention grabbing events and responsibilities that need time and energy. This has been the way for the last while and necessitating my wants and wishes to sometimes be sidelined. One of these responsibilities, with a long lasting legacy, knocked me off kilter, but I'm happy to report that it has now passed. As evidence I share with you my most recent commission, completed, delivered and loved by it's owner.

I share below a few photos of the work as it progressed.



 "LIVE, HOPE, LOVE"





 The first layers of colour and texture are applied



 Some more texture details



 Some rather bold colour is added



 A lighter watered down colour wash added
 



Hmmm, all blacked out
After doing that I was unsure it was the right thing to have done, but faith in my idea paid off
Notice the texture showing through



 As counter-intuitive as it may seem, so begins the long process of scrubbing off 
much of the dark wash



 Slowly but surely the desired effect is revealed



A few more touches of colour and there it is


Thursday, June 10, 2010

Will you follow me?

Rob G Art has joined Twitter!

I'm told this will be a good thing and could lead to more exposure for my art. I do hope so.


I don't really know what it's all about and to be honest I don't "get" twitter, but I'm all signed up, following a few people already and have a couple of followers too! All very exciting.

I have added a Twitter feed to my blog so it will be easy to find and follow me.

Who said you can't be in more that one place at a time...I'm on FaceBook, the Blogosphere and Twitter baby! I'm where ever you are. I'm everywhere!

So when will I see you on Twitter?

Stephen says Raaa!



Stephen Fry has written a wonderful blogpost about the Royal Academy, one of my all time favourite places. For your pleasure I include a snippit below with a link to the original article at the end.

Passions
Blogging down one’s thoughts can sometimes end in bogging them down. Political events, ideological disagreements, rants, apologies, defensive screeds and coverage of techno launches, political scandals and general media excitements have often been the meat, drink, potatoes, peanuts and popcorn of my blogging space, which is fine and well and high and dandy and adorable in its own way (one hopes) but it leaves little time for dilating on the subjects which really move and enliven me. So here is the first of a series of blogulosities in which I try and share a personal delight.

I shall begin with a passion that has been with me since … well, since I was young enough to look and wonder I suppose. Like many of my generation I was made a prisoner for life from an early age by the remarkable Ernst Gombrich, whose The Story of Art Pocket Edition The Story of Art is probably responsible for opening more eyes to painting and sculpture than any other book published in the English language. If you aren’t familiar with it, I am not sure there is any work I could recommend more highly. If you are on a Gombrich spree you might like also to get hold of his A Little History of the World A Little History of the World, which will make you and any children you have handy writhe, ripple and froth with pleasure.

Since reading The Story of Art I have loved looking at pictures. At school I took History of Art (or ‘history o fart’ as I would write on my exercise books because I was exceedingly sophisticated and amusing) for A level and did seriously consider the subject for a degree either at one of the universities or perhaps the Courtauld Institute. The Courtauld, if you don’t know it, has a spectacular and woefully undersung gallery at Somerset House in London, which houses stunning impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, as well as owning perhaps the best art image collection in the world, the Witt Library

Article continues here.