beach day

catching up with art house projects

Heavens, I've been in a downpour of work lately as we come to the end of the school year. So much to do! I have big plans for a huge dosage of personal Kimi-time during this three-day weekend and I hope it lives up to my expectations!

To kick it off, I've made a short video of my Limited Edition Sketchbook Project. This is the sketchbook that doesn't tour, but does get an image or two published in some kind of compilation. Can't wait to receive that! It will be fun to look at all the work that ends up in the book.

Have a look through my pages with me, if you like:

 

Hmm, I'm not sure about the quality of the video in the Blogger format. Can you see anything at all?

Anyhoo... in other Art House news, my 2012 Sketchbook Project was recently digitized and is presently available to check out in L.A. as the tour is there on Sunset Blvd. How I hope someone will check it out!

It's only been checked once so far on this tour, by Lelainia in Vancouver whose link you should follow as she wrote a nice and interesting summary of the event. She also told me she effusively hollered, "Narwahls!" to her friends when she got it. :) Also, that the book was passed around to numerous viewers during it's check-out. Ah, I was happy to hear that.

In just four days, the Sketchbook Tour will arrive to Oakland and hang around for an entire 17 days. I have so little time, I am going to have to work miracles to get over there and see it, but I am determined. Please wish me a little luck. :)

Meanwhile, wishing you all a very happy, relaxing and productive weekend. (That's what I'm hoping for...)

~ ciao!

spring art show ~ {yukie's studio}

Yukie's dish at the Spring Garden Art Show

Last year Yuuco contacted me about a trans-Pacific art exchange which I thought was a brilliant idea. She sent me a box with her paintings inside, as well as art from Shingo Akiyama, Ms. Pen Artist Santaac, Kanae Nagashima and Ikecoo. I gathered together some U.S. artists: Chiori Tasaki, Trina Chow, Toni Rica, Yukie Nakanishi (and me!) and we held our first show last December at Claymates, followed by a second show in January at the Bay Street Cafe' (grandly titled The Trans-Pacific Art Show). Along the way, a few pieces sold, many new people enjoyed the works and we had a lot of fun.

I had one more show planned ~ the Spring Garden show at Yukie's Studio ~ where the art made its appearance one more time last weekend. Yukie displayed and sold her ceramics, along with her friends Della and Akio, plus many of her pottery students. Additionally, there was glass jewelry by Margie, all in the beautiful garden setting (curated by Larry).

Della's ceramic display

Ms. Pen's book covers & Ikecoo's sculpture with Yukie's cups.

Yuuco's watercolor with Yukie's ceramics.

Paintings by Rica, Trina & Shingo with printed bags by Yuuco.

Yukie's pottery with Ikecoo's drawings.

Shingo's artwork with Yukie's ceramic creations.

More of Yukie's pottery with Kanae's triptych.

Unfortunately, I was not able to bring any of my work to the show, nor to coordinate much with the other artists, because I caught a terrible cold that lasted a full week. I barely managed to get all the trans-Pacific art up; I went early to set up when no one was there and left before the guests began arriving and then fell straight back to bed! I was really sorry to miss out, but Rica and Yukie both told me it was a great success with many visitors attending.

It was definitely a beautiful setting and many people came to buy things for Mother's Day, so the timing was good. When I returned to break down our art I was feeling a little better. If I can, I will set up another show in the summer before we get ready to send our U.S. art to Japan for display there. It's an exciting exchange that is helping all the participants reach out across the ocean to a new audience.

I must thank Yuuco for the great idea and Yukie for hosting us at her garden studio with such style!

a bee book

After completing my Art House sketchbook for 2012 and sending it off, I signed up for the Limited Edition project as there were a few openings left, a few months to work within, and a few friends that I knew had also joined in (to make it more fun).

The Limited Edition project differs from the annual Sketchbook Project in that the books do not go on tour, but at least one image from each book will be published in a set of books about the collaboration. I sent my book off to New York the other day to join the others in Brooklyn and I just posted the scans of my pages on flickr:

My Limited Edition Sketchbook Project on flickr.

I wished to share the pages as I created them, but had so much going on I ended up just feeling lucky to have the time to finish the book at all. So, here they are ~ all in one go. Please take a look and let me know what you think! Thanks!

a visit with anna

Last autumn I started a traveling sketchbook on the theme of self-portraits and home landscapes called portrait:landscape. Seventeen female artists that I met via twitter joined in and although the book's first stop was just a few cities away from mine, it soon traveled to the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountains, the South and the East Coast before sailing across the Atlantic to the U.K.

Anna Jane Searle was the first artist outside the U.S. to receive the book and she has made a clever, personal and beautiful contribution! I wanted to post these on the proper portrait:landscape page, but have run into a boring technical difficulty that is really cramping my style. But! I did not want to let a silly glitch delay enjoyment of Anna's clean and elegant illustrations and besides ~ I figure that the first works from across the pond deserve their own post. Enjoy!



Anna's portrait page features herself as a bear in her trademark glasses and cute illustrations of her favorite things. Her blog, Annarack, is always fun to read and full of actual objects of a similar nature to these drawings, plus her ace artwork ~ amazing dioramas and three-dimensional papercrafts, very detailed and incredibly textured embroidery, fashion, handmade buttons, book arts and much more. Do follow her if you don't already have the pleasure!


I really love her landscape pages. She turned a local landmark into a piece of the British flag, effectively combining her region and country in one eloquent drawing of her location. She also drew Hadrian's wall, which somehow really makes me want to go there and walk along it on a sunny day.

She has already sent the sketchbook on to Valeria Poropat in bellissima Roma, Italia! I am sooo looking forward to seeing the Eternal City through her eyes. Valeria paints and draws at her blog Valeria Draws and her style is quite distinctive. From looking at her many female portraits, each a bit magical and a bit mysterious, I am coming up with a guess in my mind of how her she may go about her own self-portrait. Very curious to see if she keeps her signature painting style or heads in a totally different direction.

After Valeria, the book will travel to nine more artists before arriving back to me. At that point... we shall see ~ the book is becoming so tremendously precious as its pages are so beautifully filled that I feel I should think of something really marvelous to do with it. Thank you, my artistic friends, for your heartfelt drawings and paintings in our round-the-world collaboration! You are inspiring me with every page!

honeybees

We were surprised after dinner the other night to find a bee on the floor in the dining room. She looked weak and parched, so I put her outside with some sugar water that she seemed to appreciate. When I checked on her later, she was gone and I hoped she'd recovered her strength and found her way back home.

I began thinking about bees and their mysterious disappearances lately. When we visited my uncle in Illinois last summer, he commented that 2/3 of his hives had collapsed without warning. Only three were still carrying on.

I had been bouncing a variety of ideas around in my head for a theme on my Limited Edition Sketchbook Project without being able to settle on one, but the little visitor helped me decide to focus on the little creatures that keep our plants pollinated and our garden humming.

This morning I spent some time with them in our back yard, near the rosemary bush that they favor. I've only a few weeks to start and complete my LE Sketchbook, but with these little fellows for inspiration, I hope to meet the deadline.

Will begin to work this weekend and hope to have some art to share with you soon!

kids' sketchbook project!

After I shared my latest Sketchbook Project with my son's class, his awesome teacher had the class make their own sketchbooks! They were all assigned the same theme, "Family Matters" and created their books entirely on their own ~ choosing the paper, sewing the binding and filling the pages. They plan to make their own classroom sketchbook library so they can check out their classmates' books, just like the Arthouse library in Brooklyn.

The books are absolutely adorable and the kids put a lot of work and care into them. Some glued photos of their family inside, but many of them drew pictures that illustrated the stories they told about their families.

 Some of the stories inside are hilarious. One of my favorites says,

"My grandpa's name was Granpapu. I don't know much about Granpapu, except that his great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather fought in World War II."

There are also stories of a grandpa getting kicked out of a movie theater (for laughing during serious parts), a grandma throwing away a gift of pizza into the hay because it was unfamiliar, mischievous uncles playing pranks, and all kinds of plans for the future, including having a flying house with jets on the bottom so one can go to work and keep the family floating safely nearby at home.

I'm really thrilled by the students' creativity and impressed by what a group of 9-year-olds can do!

fun with type

One of the classes I'm taking is in Typography and we recently completed an assignment that asked us to create mini posters of three different historical styles of type. The text was provided for us; we had to come with the layout, typeface and design. I thought I'd share what I did with you ~ since I haven't had any type to paint or draw lately, at least I can share an assignment! :)

The Classical Era made me think of the beautiful illuminated books I'd seen once in a royal library.

I know the arrows are a bit more modern than industrial, but after getting into the reckless and wild mood of the time period, I got a little rebellious with the style too. Looking at it now, I might change those to heavier, more block-like ends.

Went for a Bauhaus effect with the modern version. Fitting all the text in was a bit of a challenge as I wanted to keep it dynamic and not let the text get too heavy and weigh everything down.

I'd like to take many more classes in Typography. There's so much more to learn and I'm enjoying exploring what can be done with type to enhance the communication of an idea.

liebster award

because I love you! :)

Juriko Kosaka recently honored me with a blog award ~ the Liebster Award ~ which I was very surprised and happy to receive, especially since I admire her blog and her artwork so highly. {Thank you, Juriko!}

Juriko has been doing a drawing each day, which has been centering around food. In Japan, she painted delicious meals that made my mouth water. Now she's on a trip to New York, so she's sharing sketches of the things she's seeing there. It's fun to see the sights through her sketchbook, (though one of my favorite recent drawings was the cake she saw in the bakery right before she left Japan).

I had only recently heard of this Liebster award, which she says is passed on to three to five of one's favorite bloggers that have less than 200 followers. A simple comment on their blog lets them know that they're one of your favorites. I surely have more than five favorites, but will try to stick to the rules. I'd like to recommend Juriko and the bloggers that she chose, as well as the following five blogs. Do check them out!

Seeds of Happiness
is a blog by Yuuco, who lives in Japan where she makes art and teaches art projects to children. I love her art's simple, friendly lines and bright yet soft colors. As the title of her blog suggests, her art is designed to make people happy and I definitely feel that way when I look at it! She is the one who initiated our "Trans-Pacific Art Show" that ended up involving ten artists at our show in January! I'd say she is very talented at being able to make things happen far away from her, to motivate others and organize people and events. She has many good (and happy!) ideas.

Nature's My Friend 
is the blog of Jessica Gowling, who lives in Canada, immersed in nature, where she draws constant inspiration from the wildlife and scenes around her. She is very outgoing and connects artists around the world through mail art. She takes her art out places, setting up booths and selling directly as well as on Etsy. On her blog, she shares her process, art, mail art and activities so there's always a lot to learn from her. I'm amazed at how prolific she is and how she manages to keep producing such a variety of work at high volume while still keeping us all posted! I always enjoy reading up on her latest adventures.

Saylor Made
is by Jeannine Saylor, a talented artist and mother of two young girls. Reading her blog is like having tea with a friend that's showing you her sketchbook or latest crafts. I always look forward to seeing what she's been up to. Like Jessica, she keeps up with many artists through mail art and shares what she sends and what she receives in lovely photos. Jeannine is presently working on her Limited Edition Sketchbook Project, with watercolor and ink drawings on a family theme. She lives in Canada and sometimes draws on aspects of the various places she's lived in Canada in her art. Reading her blog is relaxing and cozy with lots of inspiration.

Good Things
is written and photographed by Emily Orpin, who truly has a knack for finding good things. I love the photos of her home, city, dachsunds and wide travels (she lives in Seoul but seems to regularly hop around the world to all sorts of continents and countries). She hosts a "Colour Lovers" monthly color collection collaboration and it's fun to see the collections her readers gather in the color theme of the month. Emily's collections are beautifully curated, she's a very good writer and she has a lovely sense of design. She has quite a number of followers and when you see the gorgeous photos and conversations on her blog, you might become one too.

Harujion Design
is written by Hiromi Widerquist, who can make just about anything with cloth, thread and yarn. She lives in Indiana and shares projects that she sews for her daughter, home and Etsy shop. Her work is finished so beautifully and she uses pretty fabrics in interesting combinations. I enjoy reading her blog because many of the things she makes remind me of things my mother used to sew, knit or crochet for me when I was small. She also posts some great tutorials that I hope to try one day. Most recently, she's made some crocheted necklaces, embroidered pendants and a stuffed animal, all very cute and unique.

* * * *

I was inspired by the idea of the Liebster Award and made the award banner above to acknowledge how I feel about some of my favorite blogs and their authors. I changed it quite a lot from the original that has been going around the web for some time, but felt I absolutely needed to add color and personalize the design in order to express how much I like these blogs. Anyone that would like to use the banner and pass it on to their favorite bloggers is welcome to use it. I look forward to finding some new favorites to follow!

industrial arts inspiration ~ {the crucible}

I took a little drive up to Oakland for an afternoon of industrial arts demonstrations by numerous artisans who've no fear of fire. The Crucible is the kind of place that takes all your latent superhero fantasies of bending glass and twisting metal with your bare hands and makes them... reality! Wow.

We all left with visions of welding enormous metal sculptures, blowing glass bubbles and hammering out swords. Here are a few photos from this amazing, non-profit, educational facility. Once you've learned a trade, you can buy studio hours, go in and make to your heart's content.

He rolled the hot glass in the blue powder on the table for color.

I think the hot glass is so pretty!

(Eventually, he made a pitcher.)

Demonstration on bending glass tubes for neon signs.

He blows air through the tube during the bend so the passage stays open.

This guy was so cool. He gave me two linked heart-shaped tubes "to give to your sweetheart".

Everyone loved the blacksmith.

Twisting metal to make a very strong & handy hook.

You need a hood, protective clothing & eyewear to guard against the sparks & UV rays.

But then you can meld metal together into statues.

Yeah, I'm fired up! :D

Another way to bend steel.

This method feels a little spectacular. :)

Not trash ~ supply bins!

Melted aluminum being poured into ingots.

Hot stuff.

Art everywhere.

Right next to a BART exit so anyone can get there!