I'm working on a new drawing.

It's been a while since I've posted here and that's because I haven't been doing much art wise the last little while. I'm not proud of that but I'm working on getting myself back in gear and on staying in gear. I've had a hard time transitioning from being a student to being a working artist. As a student I had time constraints, classes, part time job, and homework. Too often art homework got pushed to the side because I got more ambiguous homework in my art classes and I had syllabi that were followed in other classes. It's ironic I know, that as an art major, that's the homework I focused on the least; I guess in high school if I was working on art at home, it was more for my own pleasure than actually needing to work on it at home and on the other hand in my brain writing a paper etc. seemed more pressing than getting to work on a painting. Anyway this mindset is not a great one for an artist and I believe it's part of the reason I've had such a hard time getting myself to really work on art.
I'm changing things, I'm making goals and working on getting myself to treat art more like what it is, my job, it's an awesome job but it's still my job and I need to do it.
Also I've decided that I'm done with the sketchbook project, I just wasn't satisfied with the results I was getting, so I'm revising the sketchbook project, no theme, most likely not sharing the results but just sketching and drawing to do it, for practice and improvement etc.

Who Knew?

When I was first informed about the sketchbook/moleskine project by the teacher I had for two days, I tried to find out more about it. The teacher had heard about it somewhere and said that it could be found on the internet. I couldn't really ever find anything. I just came across this on the blog of a former classmate. I was quite suprised but it was cool to finally see what the teacher was talking about. I'm not going to join this project formally but if you're interested there's still time.

This is another older piece, it was also photographed by David Hawkinson.

Unity
Pencil
2010
Series: Choices

Time for another update on the Sketchbook project. Stars in the sky seems to be a reoccurring theme in cathedrals and temples, including Egyptian, Masonic and Latter-day Saint. The golden background is reminiscent of the early Renaissance and the churches of Byzantium.


The second page (sorry for the poor photo) is my version of a figure I saw in One Eternal Round by Hugh Nibley and Michael Rhodes. I just read the little blurb underneath the figure and it talked about how the different rings represented different things, a sort of religious map. The innermost circle is true learning, the next is false learning, then vice and then the pre existence. The idea being to avoid vice, to pass through false learning to reach true learning.

PS I found this program about Chartres and I think it should be helpful to this project.

This piece is not a part of the sketchbook, it's an older piece and looking back through my posts I was surprised to find that I hadn't already posted it.

Life
Watercolor
9inX9in
Series: Choices

P.S. I forgot to mention this in earlier posts but the all the professional images (the ones where all you can see is my art and no background) were taken by David Hawkinson of Hawkinson Photography.

Sketchbook

Alright, so I've been working on the sketchbook project for a few days now and I've filled a few pages and I'm working on filling a few others. I'm not so sure that this is a project that I'll be interested in doing again after this time. If I were to do this again I would want a spiral bound sketchbook, they don't look as nice as the hard bound but they're much easier to work with... or maybe I could make myself a Coptic bound book, those are also easier to draw in.
In retrospect I wish that I'd done more/better research on my theme because I don't really know how I want to go about this and so a lot of what I've done so far is not very impressive. I'm really feeling the pressure of the deadline, there are so many pages to be filled and it's very tempting to just fill them with something simple/poor quality for the sake of filling pages. Below are a few pages, the one on the right's not finished yet.
P.S. I wanted to share this amazing book that my friend made.

The Sketchbook Project

A few years ago I was in a painting class and the teacher wanted us to do a moleskine project; due to scheduling conflicts I didn't end up staying in the class but I thought that it was a cool idea and vowed I'd still do the project... until reality and homework hit.
Now you may wonder what a moleskine is and what a moleskine project might entail and I'll tell you. Moleskine is apparently a very old and very famous brand of notebook/sketchbook that lots of cool and famous people have used over the years. The moleskine project... I don't know that it's something that's organized in anyway but people all over the place fill their moleskine sketchbooks with art work that has a common theme. In the painting class that I almost took we decided on some rules for our project.
Rule 1 was that we all had to have the same size and type of moleskine book
Rule 2 was that all the pages in the book had to be filled, front and back
Rule 3 was that we had to have some sort of theme for our books
Rule 4 was that we had to have a rule about the media/mediums used in the book
and Rule 5 was that it was due by a set date.

As I said I intended to carry out this project even though I ended up dropping the class, but while moleskine notebooks are wonderful I'm sure, they're also more than I can bring myself to spend for a little book, so since I wasn't actually in the class I bought a knock off notebook.
I was recently reminded about this project by a friend who actually stayed in the class and completed the project and I decided to give it another shot. I'm still not willing to buy an actual moleskine notebook and I can't find the knock off brand I got the last time around so it's now the Sketchbook Project and I'm using an Utrecht brand sketch book. Here's the guide that I've set myself in the project:
That all the pages in the book have to be filled, front and back
That there has to be a theme; my theme will be temples and cathedrals
That there has to be a media/medium rule for the book; no painting in this book, just pencils, pens, etc.
There is a due date set; the sketchbook I got is bigger than the moleskine books so I gave myself a longer time period, the project has to be completed by January 1, 2011.

I'll post pictures as the project progresses, hopefully this will be a fun and stimulating project.

I first learned about Sacred Geometry in college and I have been interested in it ever since. In London there is a school that specializes in Sacred Geometry and other such arts, The Princes School of Traditional Arts. I came across this movie (part 2) on the website and I really enjoyed it.

Why Beauty Matters

I happened accross this blog where I found a link to this program on youtube. I enjoyed watching this, it was so well thought out an presented. I have so often tried to find the words to describe beauty and it's importance but Mr. Roger Scruton has voiced them so well. I think there are some things what he presents that I would disagree with but on the whole I agree and want to keep his words to use the next time I want to explain beauty and it's importance in art. I'm very glad to have come across this.

Eternal Round

Right now I'm working on a series focused on circles, Eternal Round, I've posted a fair amount of pieces from it. It's been really cool to see just how many things I can do with circles. Circles are such a unique shape and so full of symbolism, and with circles you can make so many other shapes from triangles to octagons. I'm also enjoying working on this series because it's geometric designs and patterns, I'm fascinated by the beauty of a lot of Islamic art or stained glass windows, because that's what they are, geometric designs and patterns, simple and/or complex but so beautiful.

Watercolor
9X9in.
2010
Series: Eternal Round

It's amazing how many different designs, etc. you can make with circles.

Untitled
Watercolor and Graphite
9X9in.
2010
Series: Eternal Round

Here's some inspirational beauty.

Why do we not make buildings like this any more?

Template
Watercolor and Pastel
9X9in.
2010
Series: Choices

I was told that the symbol in read above (a cross/plus sign inside a circle, inside a square) stood for the temple and that one double square was on earth and one was in heaven.

Another Former Classmate

Rebecca Rendon is another one of my former classmates and along with her art, she writes this really cool blog with her art, projects and group critiques. I really enjoy it. Again it's really fun seeing classmates work because we were all working on things together and how interesting it is to see how others have taken and incorperated the things that they've learned.

Check out Whitney Johnson and her awesome art! Her work is really cool and intricate. We were in school together and took a lot of the same classes; I love seeing the different ways that my classmates and I incorperate the things that we learned.

Three Degrees
Watercolor
9X9in
2010
Series: Choices

A little something different today, book binding. I have always loved books and notebooks, etc. and so when I found out that they offered a class on book binding at BYU, I knew I should take it. I liked book binding so much that I took it a second time! I enjoy making books for myself and for others and it's amazing the possibilities that are out there with book binding. If you ever get the chance to take a book binding class, I suggest you take it!

It is such an exciting thing to see pieces coming together and becoming what you envisioned, or perhaps even better.

It's remarkable how versatile circles are.

Watercolor and graphite
9X9in
2010
Series: Eternal Round

This piece is from the Choices series. The image on the overlay is the plot Joseph Smith drew for the city of Zion which was never actually built.
Interestingly this plan is quite similar to a plan for an ideal city that Albrecht Durer drew.

Planning Zion
Watercolor and pen and ink
9X9in.
2010
Series: Choices

I failed to mention that this piece

will be on display at the Eccles Community Art Center July 2nd through August 28th at the 36th Annual Statewide Competition.

News Break

News Break

Starting Monday my series Bees will be on display. The series includes this, this & this piece.

One of the really cool things about geometry is how so many shapes can spiral down inside themselves like this.

Adam and Eve
Watercolor
2009
18X18in
Series: Rose Windows

Research and Reading

Right now I'm reading some art related books to educate myself on varrious things to make myself a better artist and to be able to incorperate ideas or concepts into my work.
I'm reading The Artist's Guide by Jackie Battenfield and I would recommend it to anyone starting out in the arts, it's both enjoyable to read and highly instructive.
I'm also reading Sacred Geometry by Robert Lawlor, I am very interested in sacred geometry and I'm still working to get a better understanding of it and to be able to utilize it more in my work.
Point and Line to Plane by Wassily Kandinsky, this was recommended to me by one of my professors and it's very interesting but quite frankly I'm having a a hard time following it.
Last but not least is Lenoardo da Vinci's Notebooks, it's been very interesting reading this and seeing more of Leonardo's perspective on the world. The subjects covered vary from studies of water to parables to praportions.

This piece was inspired in part by this essay by Hugh Nibley and the thought that perhaps the sexes were in the best equality in more rural times when both the husband and the wife worked at home both in the house and in the fields and with more evenly distributed time with children.

United
Watercolor and pen and ink
9X9in.
2009
Series: Rose Windows

Openings
graphite
2010
Series: Choices

Planning. These are the tools that generally go into planning a piece, sketch books, pencils, compasses and a ruler.
I generally end up using more than one sketch book when planning a piece, and the original idea is quite often in my journal.When using sacred geometry and the orthagons a compass and ruler are the most important tools; even if a piece is not overtly geometric, the structure and composition underneath usually is.

Quatrefoil
Watercolor
9X9in
2010
Series: Eternal Round

Quatrefoils always remind me of art history and this; that doesn't influence the meaning but it's something I associate with the shape.

Geometric designs are so versatile and beautiful.

Watercolor
2009
Series: Rose Windows

Detail of larger image
Pencil
2010
Series: Choices

Sea of Glass II
Sumi-e ink
9X9in
2009
Series: Mysteries

I've been told that the checkerboard between black and white represents choosing between good and evil. There's a compass rose to help navigate the choices.

Compass Rose
Watercolor
6X6in
2010
Series: Choices

When I researched bees I found the suggestion that a swarm of bees was more like an individual with the bees being the cells, very thought provoking. In this piece I drew all the components of the swarm: the queen, drones, and workers. The bees all make up the swarm or the hive and in a way it's like a puzzle, all the pieces are needed to make up the whole.

The Swarm
Watercolor and Pen and Ink
9X9in
2009
Series: Bees

Tools of the Trade: Watercolor

Here's what's going on in my studio.

Right now I'm mainly working on watercolors and these are the "tools" I use.

Arches Watercolor Blocks, I can't tell you how nice it was to find that there was an alternative to taping down your own watercolor paper or not taping down your own paper and having it buckle. Watercolor blocks are pads of prestreched paper and Arches is some of the best watercolor paper I know of.

Windsor Newton Series 7 sable brushes; it took a long time for me to accept that I could make better work with quality materials. It seems natural now that poor quality materials will not make something high quality just through sheer artistic talent, that if you want to make something great it seems only right to start out with quality.


Another wonderful type of brush is a Hake (pronounced ha-ke); Windsor Newton Series 7 brushes are wonderful, but they are also expensive (justifiably so) and more than that, if you want a very large brush there is not only a large price but a waiting list; hake brushes are another solution to the problem. Hake are Japanese brushes made of soft natural hairs and are much more affordable.

Today I've been looking at the art of Laurie Lisonbee and I've been really impressed. I would be interested in measuring out her work and disceting it, if you will, and seeing if she uses any orthagons in her work. I love that she uses gold leaf on pannel.

In the story of Noah's ark it's commonly told that Noah sent birds to see if there was dry land. It's been suggested to me that it might really have bees Noah sent out and not birds.

The Promise
Watercolor
9X9in
2009
Series: Bees

In a bee hive worker bees keep everything going, they do just about everything. I read that some people think of a hive or a swarm of bees as an entity; like we are made up of various cells and organs, a swarm or hive is made up of bees. I was thinking of portraiture and how the people in them are usually important or at least like to think themselves so. The worker bees are very important to the hive and individual people are very important to their families or fiends, community, etc.

Bee Portrait
Pen and Ink
9X9in.
2009
Series: Bees

Wassily Kandinsky and others have connected certian shapes and colors such as circles being blue and triangles being yellow. I used that in this piece and I also was looking to a church window which represents trinity and unity.

Unity
Watercolor
9X9in.
2009
Series: Rose Windows

I used to work early mornings at a bakery and one morning as I was walking to work I looked up to see the moon surrounded by clouds rimmed with gold. It was stunningly beautiful and so I decided to paint it. This piece is done on the golden section.

Moonlit Clouds
Watercolor
2009

This piece was just recently in the LaGrange National XXVI Biennial 2010 at the LaGrange Art Museum in LaGrange Georgia.

Untitled
Watercolor
12x9in.
2009
Series: Rose Windows
SOLD

Sacred Geometry

In high school geometry was one of my least favorite subjects, I had a hard time with it and I had a weird teacher; I was surprised, when in college I came to enjoy something called sacred geometry. Geometry had been my least favorite math subject, I learned about sacred geometry in my art classes. Sacred geometry is unlike regular geometry in that regular geometry deals with numbers where sacred geometry works visually. In the golden age of Greece it is believed that sacred geometry was practiced and responsible for the acclaimed beauty. As the renaissance began the knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome was recovered and painters such as Albrecht Durer and Leonardo da Vinci learned sacred geometry from Fra Luca Pacioli.
Today sacred geometry is not a widely known area of study, and since hearing about it I've been trying to learn more about it, to understand it better and to include it in my art work. For anyone interested in learning more about sacred geometry I recommend Sacred Geometry by Miranda Lundy and other Little Wooden Books.

Untitled
Watercolor
9X9in.
2009
Series: Rose Windows

Welcome

Welcome to my art blog! I'm excited to be able to share my work with you.

This piece was included in the 29^th Annual Farber Birren National Color Award Show at the Stamford Art Association in Stamford CT in 2009

Untitled

Watercolor
9x12 in
2009
Series: Rose Windows
SOLD

All art works are available for purchase unless stated otherwise.