Lemon Sky

This painting is done using a really easy transfer technique and a xerox of a photograph. The transfer process lends a very soft, fuzzy edge to the piece. After the transfer is complete I add pigment in the form of water soluble crayons and pencils and of course, watercolor.

The photograph was taken by Amanda Jacobs.

Fresh Face: Christine Chapman

I did a little interview with up and coming photographer Christine Chapman. Curious as to what brings people to their work in the first place, especially students, I asked her some questions to uncover the artistic direction she sees herself going in the future.

Christine Chapman is a Santa Barbara, CA area native with a love for fashion photography and a spunk for life. She is currently attending Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara where she builds her portfolio and paves her path to her professional photography career.

What got you into photography?

"I've always loved and been involved in art whether it was painting, drawing, music, or dance. My parent's made me get a "real" degree at UC Santa Cruz in Psychology where I realized after changing my major 5 times that I was not going to be satisfied working in a lab or as a therapist. My senior year in psychology I decided that I was going to pursue my dream of being a professional photographer after I graduated. I worked in a graduate lab studying how photographs affect emotion and memory, and all of my classes were focused on social influence, the power of the media, and anything else that involved photography in psychology.

What do you wish to accomplish after your time at Brooks?

I want to be famous! It may sound dumb, but I'm serious! haha! I truly hope to be a greatly influential photographer such as Annie Leibovitz, Mario Testino or Ansel Adams. I hope to shoot for large editorial magazines and high end designers such as Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, Armani. It's very, very hard to make it in the business, much less become a well known name, but knowing this [isn't] stopping me from working my butt off to get there :) Although the ocean is my #1 love, I will most likely leave California for New York or even Europe to pursue my dream once [I'm] done with Brooks.

Name 3 of your most influential photographers:

Annie Leibovitz, Mario Testino, and Elliot Erwitt

What are your favorite subject matters and types of photography?

I am more focused on fashion and character portraits, things you will see in Vogue, Vanity Fair, Marie Clare. I like to bring out a very natural, glamorous feel with my models, as well as use a lot of design and movement in my photographs. I want to keep the viewer entertained as well as bring a sort of majestic feel from looking at my images.

What type of camera(s) do you use?

I use a Nikon D700 and my favorite lenses are the 24-70mm (for photos that incorporate more of the models surroundings or numerous models) and the 105mm for single model portraits and beauty shots. In the studio I use a hasselblad h2 with a digital back. I'm all digital! It's faster :)

Do you partake in any other types of creative work (ie; painting, writing etc)?

I wish I could write better, haha! But I do paint (that's how we met; in painting class my freshman year of HS) although I don't really have time to do it as much anymore with photography taking up my time. I did dance for 12 years and I try to surf as often as I can. I know it sounds silly, but I believe surfing is an awesome art form, as you'll see many professional surfers also play music, paint, draw, etc. You're free to move and almost dance about the wave any way you like. Surfing is definitely my down time activity and I get a lot of great ideas when I'm in the water because all the stress and pressure of work and school disappear and I can think freely"

Christine Chapman's portfolio and contact information can be seen on her website cchapmanphoto.com.

Splish Splash

Yay! I am so happy to announce that the sun is shining here today. Sadly, I understand this may not be the the case for everyone. Regardless, this got me daydreaming of summer and swimming and outdoor fun and so I decided to post this little painting; a fairly quick study of some koi-esq fish. This painting actually developed into two more paintings, both of which reside with my bf who seems quite smitten with them.

For All You Winos

I made some nifty little paintings for use over at The Wine Rack; a blog devoted to the savvy review of affordable, delicious wines from around the world. It is a great blog to check out if you are interested in anything wine related, especially affordability. So check it out and see some of my art in action! And as always, I would love to know what you think!

In the Clouds

Here is a quaint little painting I did of a giraffe yesterday afternoon. I can't quite remember where I got my inspiration for this silly thing, but I just had to paint it. The funny thing is, I feel like my head is amongst the clouds as I write this due to a lovely little cold.

Earthy

I hope everyone is having a lovely and fun filled weekend.
Above is a mushroom painting I did for a class assignment sometime last year.
Let me know what you think!

It's All In Your Head

No Excuses

Good morning everyone,
I am sorry that I haven't posted anything new in a couple of days. I have been working on some website stuff for a singer/song writer friend of mine Rich Phillips.


You can check out his website at www.richphillips.net

In other news, there really isn't any. However, I have started working on all the plant matter in my dahlia painting. It is proving to be a bit of challenge and I will definitely have to play with my technique and the painting more to get my desired effect. I find that the biggest obstacle for me is finding the motivation to finish the thing. I get incredibly bored painting the same stuff over and over again, but for the sake of my blog I will complete it.

I just wanted to thank everyone who has decided to check my blog out! It is cool to see that people are (slightly) interested.

Gracias!

My Noggin

Thanks to the lovely Kyle Phillips for turning my noggin into a cool piece of photo-shopped artwork!

XOXO

Kisses my little chickadees. So with the permission of my darling Kyle I am sharing with all of you the valentine's that were exchanged between us this weekend.

Kyle has been on a roll making super cool paintings on sheets of metal, and so, in super manly man fashion, he made me a valentine on..... a sheet of metal! A dremel tool was used to gouge in the heart outline and was also used to create the swirly little pattern around it. I absolutely love it! It is so creative and sweet of him. The back was painted in a solid red and a sweet little love note was written on it. Swoon.

Kyle Phillips

Below is the Babe-a-tron 3000 Valentine card I made for him. It is constructed out of different high qua-la-teeee card stock that I simply cut out and glued together. I added brads and silver ink to make it even more authentic and robot-ey. The card actually opens up, but I didn't take any shots of that.

Inside Your Hand

Happy Sunday Evening! Woot! (Because I can!)

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a love filled Valentine's day. My V-day was celebrated true to the style of my lovely bf and myself (aka: lots of wine, a yummy dinner and some amazing homemade valentines. I am hoping to post them up here so you can all get a look!) I was thoroughly surprised by Kyle's amazing gift of some knee high moccasin boots. So rad. You know it's love when a man buys you a gift that he knows you will love, despite the fact that he may despise it!

Above is a painting I did for a class last year. The stormy weather that is a-brewin' outside kinda reminds me of the background on this....
On another random note; the prompt for the painting was Nest.

Watercolor.

A Fish Out of Water

Soooo, I just consumed a ridiculously huge bowl of peanut butter puffins with banana and I have yoga in a half an hour. Smart move.

Anyway the point of this post isn't to rant about my obese breakfast, but to share with you my so super silly fish sculpture I made in ceramics. It is only in it's first stage of life, but a couple of firings in the kiln and some glaze and bam! I hope it turns out cool. We shall see and I will keep you all updated.

Lacey Valentine Heart How To

I came up with this idea while making some Valentine's for some special people. Who wants a cheesy heart shaped lace doily for V-day when you can make your own unique version??

You will need:
- watercolor paint
-masking fluid, preferably in a squeeze bottle with a small tip
-Paint brush
- watercolor paper or card

Step 1: Draw out two concentric heart shapes lightly with pencil. Using a squeeze bottle of masking fluid with a small tip, draw a lace pattern around the inner circle. The masking fluid is seen in blue.

Step 2: Once the masking fluid is completely dry (it will feel like rubber cement) you can paint the inner heart with your choice of colors. I used Winsor Newton Quinacradone Red and Alizarin Crimson. Let dry completely.Step 3: Paint the outer heart with another color. I used Winsor Newton Violet and Cotman Ultramarine.

Step 4: While the paint is still wet, paint on some lace detail on the outside of the heart.

Step 5: When all the paint is completely dry peel and rub off your masking fluid.

Here is the completed card!
I would love to hear from anyone who gives it a try!

Love Tree

This is a small painting I did for my friend Alexis' little baby that will be on the way soon. It is hard to tell from the picture, but the tree and it's little love fruits are actually cut outs with another layer of paper underneath. The texture of the tree was created using moist cheese cloth, dropping pigment onto it and once dry, removing the cheese cloth.

Watercolor.

Below are a couple of closeups, sorry for the reflections, I remembered to take pics after i had framed it.

Art Museum

Above are a few pieces I was drawn to at the S.B. Art Museum on Friday. Please excuse my crappy picture taking! :)

Plumpasaurus

I introduce you to Plumpy the fierce, flesh destroying Plumpasaurus.

Mixed media.

smarthistory

Mike, over @ The Wine Rack (aka: my dad), sent me an email about smarthistory, an interactive art history website. The site is pretty cool and is set up like a time line, but you also have the ability to search according to style, artist, time period and themes. It's kinda like a fancified text book, but way cooler. Check it out!

Thanks Dad!

Rainy Day Painting Update

Good morning everyone. I worked on the dahlia painting a bit yesterday and wanted to give you guys the update. Each petal takes a couple of steps so it is pretty slow going. And since my kitchen table is my work surface I get kicked off of it for periods of time. Oh well.

Anyway, I am heading to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art today. Hoping to pick up some inspiration. I'll try to take some pics of things that delight me.

Rainy Day Painting

Good afternoon! The weather here is wet but I am embracing the light rain. It's good weather to stay inside, dressed in comfy leggings and paint. I thought I would let you all see what I am currently working on. It's a fairly large size painting for me and it should take a while to complete. It's not my usual subject matter of choice but I was inspired by the photograph I am working from. They are large magenta dahlia's that Kyle took pictures of when we visited the Getty a few months ago.

Watercolor.

Roots

A more recent painting of mine that I actually am quite fond of. I think the technique behind it let me remove myself from total control and hence I find it's abstract look quite refreshing. I hope to develop this idea with some more paintings in the near future.

Watercolor, watercolor pencil.

Danny Roberts

Through my constant perusing of fashion blogs on the internet I have stumbled upon the lovely and whimsical artwork of Danny Roberts. His blog, Igor + Andre, has been a delightful discovery for me. His character sketches and paintings are richly layered with semi-transparent strokes of watercolors, inks and pencils. The pieces he showcases on his blog are usually portraits of intriguing female bloggers, artists and models.

I find his pieces particularly inspirational. There is something about the way he that he transforms and translates the person to paper which adds a bit of magic, mystery and sparkle to their forms. Overall, his work is deliciously rich with color and fun to look at. I highly recommend you watch the clip of him in action, it is quite amazing.

Dan Berkland

On a recent weekend trip up to the Morro Bay area I stumbled upon a few paintings by Dan Berkland. A small art gallery on Cambria's Main Street called The Vault houses a collection of his wonderfully warm and "glowy" landscapes. I particularly loved his paintings of trees.

He works mainly in oils and his subject matter varies. I enjoy the smoothness to his paintings, the rounded edges and soft lines. His San Francisco skylines remind me of hard candy or looking through a slightly warped glass window.