Contours

Every year in May we have a local art fair and competition called the Fine Arts Fiesta, which is a multi day event on Public Square in Wilkes-Barre.  There are bands, performing arts, vendors and food stands, adult and student juried shows, and plenty of people walking around and enjoying it all.  The past few years I’ve been submitting works for the adult juried show.  You really can’t beat it, since the entry fee is only $9 for the first work, and $6 for subsequent, and they jury the works usually the day after they are dropped off (you don’t submit slides – they jury the originals).  You can sell your work, or have it NFS.  At the end of the fiesta, you just pick it up – either right off the wall of the art tent (with a member of the art league there to remove it and verify that you’re you), or at the drop off location.  There’s the usual divisions for medium – painting, photography, etc.  There is not a specific colored pencil division, but instead I’m part of the Graphics category, which includes pencil, pen & ink and other graphics.  Awards include monetary prizes or gift certificates.

Read more »

I started my latest drawing before the arrival of my daughter, Emma, and managed to squeeze in some time in the few delirious fleeting moments of free time afterwards to complete it.  Since I planned on entering it as this year’s CPSA entry, one of the extra challenges I had was prohibiting myself from using Neocolor II washes to block in the initial colors and shadows.  Actually this was due to my confusion regarding the CPSA’s recent rule change which classified Neocolor II crayons as not a colored pencil, making them ineligible as a component of a drawing for the Annual International Exhibition.  I wasn’t confused about the rule, but had misread the announcement and assumed the rule went into effect this year, when actually it goes into effect in 2013. I actually could have used them this year for their final eligible show.  Oh well!  On the plus side, my recent entry into the Prismacolor tin contest, which had similar restrictions, egged me on to try and recreate some of the Neocolor effects (such as soft edges) just using blending of colored pencils.  I felt this worked well in this drawing in some of the transitions of the hair and shoulders into the shadows.  Another interesting thing about this drawing was that I purchased and used several of the open stock Caran d’Ache Luminance skin tone colors.  I really love them (although I don’t love the price as much – expensive!).  I think they really helped achieve some of the glow you see in the face skin tones.  Now I just need to whisk the final drawing away to Lizza’s Studios to have it professionally scanned, then enter it by the end of the month as my CPSA entry.

Read more »

It’s amazing how quickly the nursery has evolved.  We thought it was fairly well stocked two weeks ago, but after putting it through its paces and several Babies R Us trips later, it’s got plenty of new gear.  A few things have really proven to be invaluable, and I thought I’d make a small list of some of my favorites: Read more »

I love browsing Etsy (okay, shameless plug, I also have my own Etsy shop for selling prints).  Recently I bought three prints for our nursery there, and wrote this post about matting and framing them in my studio.  As I was browsing for those prints, one of the things which caught my eye were birth announcement prints.  Etsy has plenty of cute typography designs which list the details of when your child was born, birth weight, etc.  As my finger hovered over the click to buy button, I suddenly thought wait, I can do this.  It’s funny how sometimes I completely forget I’m an artist, or that I was a graphic design major.

Read more »

When Kiersten and I discovered last summer that we were expecting our first child, we set about learning everything that we could.  Before falling asleep each night, we read side by side in bed, Kiersten thumbing through a paperback of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and me reading The Expectant Father on my Nook. We perused The Bump and followed along with their checklists and suggestions.  Early on, we did an extreme baby room makeover of the den and spare room, creating a nursery and guest room.  By fall, I realized my two door, 6-speed manual bachelor mobile wasn’t going to cut it as a baby mobile, hugged it goodbye, and traded it in for a new Honda CR-V.  The baby shower rolled around with it’s dizzying array of baby gear, gizmos, and tiny outfits that made your heart melt.  In January, we completed childbirth classes, pre-registered with the hospital, and took a tour of the maternity ward. All in all, we were feeling pretty well prepared for our March 14th due date.

Read more »

With only six weeks to go until the arrival of our daughter, the nursery is shaping up nicely.  After the baby shower in January, it’s filled with baby gear: more types of blankets than I know what to do with; adorable hats with ears; changing tables and hampers, video baby monitors, and lots of tiny outfits.  I’m especially happy with all of the hand made items in the room:  there’s the needlepoint blanket my mother made for us, the needlepoint prayer Kiersten’s mother made for her nursery when she was a baby, some heirlooms from Kiersten’s family, original artwork bought from one our of DC115 CPSA member’s show (Nan Bozenka’s beautiful cone flowers), and of course the room itself, which Kiersten and I laid the floor for with our own two hands.

Read more »

Prismacolor is hosting a contest on their Facebook page, where the grand prize winner may have his artwork appear on one of their 2012 tins. I decided to create a piece specifically for the contest.  A few years ago we did a makeover on a small room in our house, converting it to a den.  The walls were painted a rich terra cotta color, and one of the lamps was red stained glass.  I nicknamed it “The Red Room”, and did a piece called “In the Red Room” (12″H x 9″W Prismacolor pencil on red Artspectrum Colourfix paper, 2007).  Earlier this year I was thinking about some ideas for pieces and took a few photos for some poses, and one of these became “The Red Room, Revisited” (15″H x 10″W Prismacolor pencil on black Artspectrum Colourfix paper, December 2011).  Here’s a picture of both pieces side by side:

Read more »

Our Charlie Brown Christmas tree is getting ready to be filled with presents.  We have many favorite ornaments, including this little painter guy.  I’ll bet he’s hoping that giant stocking underneath him gets filled with art supplies!

For those who haven’t seen the Facebook posts, Kiersten and I are expecting a baby, due March 2012. We’ve been frequenting The Bump website, and I liked their countdown tickers and thought I’d post one on my website.  We’re a little more than halfway there!

This weekend Kiersten and I did our annual pumpkin carving, which felt a little out of place this year with 7″ of snow falling outside.  Happy Halloween!

The past weekend I decided my blog wasn’t getting much TLC.  It’s actually 5 years old this year, and has had tweaks and upgrades here and there, but on the most part it’s looked pretty much the same and hasn’t used all the latest bells and whistles of WordPress.  It started innocently enough: add some snazzy thumbnail previews to my posts.  This involved modifying code, which, like most of my WordPress tinkering, resulted in a subsequent run of days where visitors were greeted with “error!” and a white screen, instead of an art blog.  After much hair pulling, I discovered the offending piece of code was one single space (ah, computers are great that way).  Anyway, along the line I started thinking about how my blog is different than my Facebook page is different than my portfolio page.  I tend to use the blog a little more like a diary, with posts including everything from how the cat ate my latest computer cord to photos of the pumpkins we carved for Halloween.  It made me want to change the look of the blog, and I stumbled on this diary theme.  I’ll try it out for a while and see if it fits – kind of liking it at the moment.