Genesis

This piece is the next piece of the Genesis series. It's based on Moses 2:8 and Abraham 4:8. The piece is called Firmament Called Heaven, and I tried to use symbolism to visualize heaven. The pillars represent a transition. The orthagon square is in the middle, it contains all 12 of the orthagons, I would once again remind myself and other artists that it perhaps would be good to leave yourself notes on what deep and creative ideas you have behind your pieces, so that you will remember them later on. I guess what I was going for with all of the symbols is perhaps a sense of the eternal, with the orthagons, the alpha and omega and the color purple which it the color of royalty. I'm very sorry that I can't remember more of the thoughts behind this piece.

Firmament Called Heaven
Watercolor
9x9in
2012
Series: Genesis

Blast from the past

 colored pencil

9x9in

I like the colors and the simplicity of the design of this piece. I love sacred geometry and all it's possibilities.

Sacred Geometry: A Primer

Today, how to draw an equilateral triangle. Start with a line (vertical, horizontal, etc.) and draw a circle around it. On one point where the circle and the line meet arc the compass (on the same setting) up and down.

Connect the points with a line.

Triangle.

Does anyone have any suggestions or things they'd like to see in this blog segment?

Adventures in natural beauty

Today I had an unexpected adventure, a friend was taking the day off to hike and enjoy the fall colors and though I'm not a fan of hiking, I decided to go along. I am so glad I did, it's been a while since I've done fall colors up right and I was constantly saying "Wow!" the colors were so beautiful, it made me want to be a landscape painter, maybe even a plein air painter...almost. Here are some of the pictures, it was so much better in person though.

Piece of the Week

A lot of Hex pieces in the works lately. This was a crucial key in the unlocking of a pattern.

watercolor

6x6in

2012

Series: Hex

Hex Artist Statement

In my studies of traditional arts and craftsmanship, I was delighted to discover sacred geometry and hand drafting with compass and straight edge. These techniques were crucial to the art and architecture of the golden age of Greece and later the renaissance. I first learned about working with a compass and straight edge in college, studying with Wulf Barsch. My discovery of sacred geometry has since blossomed into a love for geometric patterns and designs and lead to an increased interest in Islamic art through the geometric patterns so prevalent there. In this series I have been exploring the possibilities of the number six or the hexagonal shape, in so doing I have relied heavily on Islamic art and other geometric traditions and thrilled as I’ve learned the secrets to these beautiful patterns and designs.

I love what I do over all but there are a few things that I didn't expect to come along with this job title. I've been getting a show application ready and in doing so I've taken what feels like a million pictures of my work which I've then cropped and picked the best images, resized etc. I've been wondering if I should have taken a photography class or two in school. Oh well, it still beats sitting in a cubical somewhere.

Genesis

So the piece this week is a variation of last weeks piece, a slightly different take and more inspired by Egyptian art.

watercolor

9x9in

2012

Series: Genesis

P.S. The lightning type stuff on the bottom is supposed to represent water, I think but can't currently confirm that that comes from Egyptian art.

Blast From the Past

This piece is from some of my first forays into sacred geometry. At this point in time I used colored pencil a lot, I don't so much any more. I do really like the color choices on this piece though. I don't remember why but I decided to tear it down to the size seen, not the best idea that I have ever had.

colored pencil

2007/8?

Sacred Geometry: A Primer

Alright, there's a lot in today's post. I'm running out of orthogons (there are only 12 after all) but the good news is that there's a lot more to sacred geometry than just the orthogons. Today is sort of a continuations of last weeks post, how to draw a hexagon or a six-sided star and the how-to on those opens up a whole world of possibilities.
Anyway, start with a straight line, I went horizontal but you could also go with a vertical line.

Draw a circle and sort of center it on your line.

Draw a circle with the point of your compass on one of the points where the original circle and the line cross. This is the same step to create a vesica piscis. P.s. don't change your compass setting.

 Draw another circle at the point where the two circles intersect.

Continue until you have six circles around the original circle.

Draw connecting lines between each intersection of the original circle.

The hexagon.You can also draw the star from this point but I did not.

If you want to simplify things, you can get the same results without drawing all the extra circles. Just draw the points where the circles intersect.

When you've done that you can make a hexagon or proceed as follows for a star.

Connect two points leaving another point in between them.

So there you go, now go and experiment and find out what you can do with all this.

Piece of the Week

I'm not sure that this is the pattern that I started out to create but I like how it turned out, especially the overlapping yellow lines that make stars.

watercolor

9x9in

2012

Series: Hex

Genesis

This piece comes from Abraham 4:6-7 and Moses 2: 6. These verses talk about an expanse or a firmament and I looked in the footnotes to try and better understand what those words meant, to get a better picture of what was going on. In Moses 2:6, the footnote refers one to Facsimile 2, and figure 4. I think from here I remembered something that I'd read or seen in Hugh Nibley's book One Eternal Round and I researched more in that book. In looking back on my notes for this piece, there are thoughts like:
-divide water from water
-like water in the atmosphere and water below?
- boat belongs to the moon and the sun
-Sokar bird (that's an Egyptian thing I believe)
-connection to stars
-an ocean of stars
-the rising sun emerging from the lower regions
I wish I'd thought to start blogging about this when I'd made the painting because I'm sure I could have explained it better then. I do remember that the top corners are supposed to be clouds, the water in the sky and the bottom corners are the ocean.

Watercolor
9x9in
2012
Series: Genesis
Photo by Hawkinson Photography

Blast From the Past

This week, two paintings from my first watercolor class in college... come to think of it, my only watercolor class in college. It may have been one of the first times I attempted to create a series, before that I'd mostly just done stand alone pieces. I had was painting from pictures of a pioneer trek I'd gone on. I think the assignments were focusing on textures etc. On the whole these pictures are not great, I'm not sure why I still have them, but there are sections where I notice that I was able to do good. I was told by a teacher that old work like that shouldn't be saved, that it would be a stumbling block perhaps? I am not sure about that though, from these I can see that I've made great advances and I see some reminders of things I'm capable of. The second piece looks like I'd actually used real watercolor paper, instead of the cheapest watercolor pad I could find, I think this teacher helped to convince me that it was worth the extra money to use the better paper.

watercolor

2006

Sacred Geometry: A Primer

So on Friday I had the opportunity to go to this workshop with Dr. Lisa DeLong. I was really excited for this workshop because it was about geometry, because I've gotten to hear Lisa DeLong before and because she got her doctorate at the Prince's School of Traditional Arts and she now teaches there. It was indeed a good workshop, probably what I was most excited about was getting instructions and cheat sheets (if you will) for some patterns based on four, eight and a seal of Salomon.
I really liked something that she said, she was talking about how with a compass and a straight edge you can make about anything in geometry because when you connect or overlap circles, straight lines become possible and from there the possibilities are endless.
She also talked about how rules or laws, rather than being restricting as is commonly thought, can open up all sorts of possibilities, I agree, in fact that's sort of what my series Hex is all about. These are three of several examples of variations on the same design/pattern.

Untitled
Watercolor and Sumi Ink
9x9in
2011
Series: Hex

Untitled/Pattern
Watercolor and Sumi ink
9x9in
2011
Series: Hex

Untitled
watercolor and sumi ink
9x9 in
2011
Series: Hex

PS You should also check out this lecture on the Beauty and Belief exhibit.

Piece of the Week

This is one of my most recent pieces for Hex. I'm really excited about the pattern/design. A few weeks ago I was looking through pictures on google for inspiration of patterns I could use, I found a picture of several hexagonal tile designs from the Victoria and Albert Museum and this was one of the designs. My colors are different but I like it. It's thrilling to figure out a pattern that's new to you.

watercolor

9x9in

2012

Series: Hex

Genesis

This piece is based off of Genesis 1:5, Moses 2:5, and Abraham 4:5, the moon through the night over a world without any land yet. The constellation is Orion. I believe what I was thinking about with the background pattern was heaven and earth, with the blue and read and circle/squares.

Night
Watercolor
9x9in
2012
Series: Genesis
Photo by Hawkinson Photography

Blast from the Past

This was a masterpiece from college, one of my last two years in school. I picked up the leaf on my way home from school one day and the acorn on another day. I like the detail I was able to get and the composition.

untitled

watercolor

9x9in (just a guess)

2007-8?

Sacred Geometry: A Primer

This week, the penton and I must first state that I'm pretty sure I figured this out but the diagram I went off was complicated and the instructions are in German, which I don't speak or read that well. If anyone can see that I've made a mistake, please let me know.

Rather than starting with the square we start with the double square.

Draw a diagonal from the bottom left to the top right.

Set your compass to the width of the bottom of the square, point on the left, lead on the right. Arc up to meet the diagonal line.

Set your compass again, this time point on the upper right corner of the double square and the lead where the arc and diagonal line meet. Arc up past the outside of the double square.

Apparently I failed to get a picture of this step but set your compass again, point on bottom right corner and lead on top right and arc to meet the arc that extends beyond the double square.
Then draw a line between where the two arcs intersect and the bottom right corner.

Where the double square and the diagonal line meet is the top of the penton.

Top it off and there is a penton.

Nude vs Naked, Part the Third

I may be going back to this subject too much but I saw the link to this post on facebook and read it and really agreed with a lot of what was said so I wanted to share it.

Piece of the Week

I am really excited about this piece of the week. This piece was inspired by a beautiful Tuscan scene in a movie, I loved the way the light made everything golden.

Giallo

watercolor

7x10 in (paper size 9x12in)

2012

Series: Light