Slowing Things Down
Hello everybody! I hope all of you are doing well. It has been a little while since I last posted, and a lot has happened. I do have a lot of art to show. I have taken a lot of time to listen to our current climate and let that influence me through art. I have also continued to use this time to work on other goals of mine and use this as a opportunity. I think i can say for all of us this has been a strange year. With my whole year schedule thrown out it has been challenging to keep to a strict deadline for finishing art. I have been going in cycles of being super creative and then not at all. I have started 5 projects within a week then tried to keep up with all of them. I am learning a lot of new things. from writing a children’s book, to taking an online marketing class to help propel my business. I’ve learned to just slow it down, embrace the climate of uncertainty for now and be ok with with a slower schedule.
With Covid-19 impacting the world. and to see countless tragedies I made several pieces of art inspired by it. While I have had the blessing of staying home and safe from the outbreak, it allowed me to explore what’s immediately around me. My house, garden, neighborhood, the trees, and flowers, the way light and shadows interact. I wanted to look for beauty and expand my horizons even if they were limited to my immediate surroundings. I found that I was attracted to softness, and wanted to create works that reflected a soft hopefulness. A since of overcoming all of our obstacles. I have made four pieces, the last one though is really a remake of the first one.
The first and last one I was inspired by the since of being overwhelmed, embracing it, then letting it go. It seems everyday there are new facts, new data, more tragedies, and resilience. It was easy to get overwhelmed by it all. Even for me, a laid back guy, it was a lot to take in. Both of scenes take place at dawn. I wanted soft clouds and grass. Warm pinks and oranges as the sun fades. and then a figure filled with peace. The first piece turned out good, but I feel like I accomplished what I wanted to say better with the second. I also wrote a short poem for it as well. These were done over several months, the first in April the second in June.
The second piece was more a focus piece on the first. I wanted to just focus on the sky and make a piece that highlights the soft and wonders of clouds.
The third piece, (last one below) I made in may. This one was inspired by the stay at home orders across the country. I was in shock when I saw people protesting stay at home orders across the country this spring. It really struck a nerve with me. They’re are doctors and nurses, fighting working tirelessly to save peoples lives, grocery store workers stalking food, delivery workers, all these people working to keep our society together. What really got to me was that the ability to stay at home is a privilege and they were throwing that away because they were upset they couldn’t go out to eat or go get ice cream. The reality is that they’re many people who don’t have the ability or the means to stay home. For those people to protest that was throwing their privilege away in vain. There are communities of homeless people across our nation, thousand in jails, kids and families locked in cages at the boarder, refugees across the world living in tents. All of these people don’t’ take have the luxury to stay home. So I wanted to create a piece that highlighted the positive aspects of staying home. I wanted to show the curiosity and enlightenment that can come from staying home. I was also wanting to capture the light and shadows that inspired me. The scene has a girl in a bright window sill with plants and books scattered across the floor. I wanted to continue the theme of ease and peacefulness.
Standing still on the edge
A soft trickle of wind runs over my feet
Clouds tower and rise
Constantly changing
Free from all restrictions
The colors glow soaking in the setting sun
The world is spinning
the day is ending
everything is changing
What will be of tomorrow?
What will become of me?
What will become of us?
Calmness sweeps in
I am standing still
Watching the clouds as the day fades.
The Heavens and the Sky
Staying Home
I’ve also been illustrating some birds, I’m hoping to do a whole bunch of them! I have a list of around 40 birds! Here are the first few I have done.
In my last post I gave a tutorial on how to make a block print. In that I was starting a series of mini prints. I started making lots of little birds and I have plans on making a bunch of these mini prints! They are really fun and relatively quick to make. I can also sell them at a cheaper price point than some of my bigger work which takes a month to make. They all come in a 8x10 matte ready to frame. Here are my first three.
I recently had a birthday in June, and with that I got a great birthday gift! I got an Akua Pin Press. I had my eye on one for a while, for those of you who don’t know, the pin press is basically a fancy rolling pin. I have been using a marble rolling pin to print my block prints. But the pin press is way easier and longer making printing a lot more efficient!. With this pin press, It claimed that it could print etchings and drypoints. I was very excited to dry this out since the last time I made an etching print was in college. So I drew a quick sketch and made a drypoint trying the new press out. It took two days of printing to find success, But I eventually got where I could get a good print! I am very happy that now I can also be making and experimenting with drypoint etches :D
Lastly I would like to send you with some photos around my house, I really loved seeing the trees and flowers bloom over spring! Here in CT we had a cold spring and it even snowed in mid May! So most of the blooms are a couple weeks behind normal. I think it’s quite profound that as our society goes through hardships and troubles, there is a steady constant. Winter fades, the flowers come to bloom, the trees awake, and the animals begin to roam, the birds migrate, all listening to the steady cycle of nature. It is a great reminder that this too shall pass, as with all seasons and storms nothing stays constant.
I will be back soon with a post on a recent block print I did continuing developing my ornate border.
much love,
Bryan.
