Pop Goes the Artist!

Another ballpoint pen sketch, this one of the top of my fridge, which makes a convenient printer stand and catch-all. The perspectives and proportions in this are a little off all around, which is sometime I need to work on in general. The shadows are a little confused, too–blame it on the uninspiring lighting in my room. But still–any sketching, no matter how mediocre, is better than none.

I actually got this link from the professor of my Renaissance history class, since we’re currently looking at Renaissance art.  It’s a fairly in-depth analysis of one of my favorite Vermeer paintings, Woman Holding a Balance, which is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.  Check it out!

There are also some pretty exciting-looking exhibits coming up in DC.  The National Museum of Women in the Arts is doing an exhibit called “The Book As Art: Twenty Years’ of Artists’ Books from the NMWA,” which looks really interesting.  Their homepage features a nifty “interactive page turner” that allows you to flip through some of the books from the exhibition (particularly check out Miriam Shenitzer’s “How to Talk About Art”).  Part of the kick-off for the exhibit, which runs from October 27 to February 4, is a lecture by the author of one of my favorite books (Audrey Niffenegger, who wrote The Time Traveler’s Wife), who is also a printmaker and book artist.  Exciting!

Opening tomorrow at the Phillips Collection is an exhibit called “The Societe Anonyme: Modernism for America,” featuring some of my favorite modern artists, including Paul Klee and Alexander Calder, as well as Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, and others.  It should be a diverse and colorful show.  It runs tomorrow (October 14) through January 21.

But the show I’m probably most excited about is “In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000″ at the Sackler Gallery.  I mean, wow.  Old Bibles tend to be really interesting, because of their (often) dual status as religious objects and status symbols for the wealthy patrons who commissioned them (particularly in the Middle Ages, when the art of illumination was at its height).  Most of the Bibles at this show probably won’t be that ornate, especially the very earliest ones, but it still looks like a fascinating exhibit.

Apparently there’s also an exhibit, continuing indefinitely, of ancient and medieval metalwork at the Sackler Gallery, on loan from Dumbarton Oaks, which I just found out is DC’s source for medieval art and history.  (Too bad it’s closed for renovations until autumn of next year.)  Either way, I’ll have to make sure to check that exhibit out as well, when I go see the ancient Bibles.

Looking like it’s going to be a very nice winter.

Some of the art-related blogs I read:
Your Daily Art: Features an (almost) daily painting with a little bit of background on the artist, painting, or time period.  They show a pretty nice range of work: today’s painting is by Giotto di Bondone, an Italian Renaissance artist, yesterday was James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and Monday was Picasso.

The Art News Blog: Pretty much exactly what the title implies–a frequently updated blog of news, both quirky and mainstream, from the wild and wonderful world of art.

Danny Gregory: Vibrant watercolor and pen drawings, plus the coolest masthead ever.  Just started reading this one a few weeks ago.

Laurelines: Almost daily colored pencil and watercolor sketches.  Every month she picks a different theme–animals, outdoor scenes, food, etc.  This month, she’s living and sketching in Paris–lucky!

m.Lee Fine Art: I found this blog through WetCanvas.  She does really unique monotype woodcuts–layering multiple colors and multiple blocks to produce some really lovely images.  I particularly like some of her older work involving tree images.

A Painting A Day: The artist whose blog this is has actually scaled back a little bit and is instead posting a painting every few days, but the blog is still worthwhile.  He does beautiful postcard-sized oil paintings, mostly still lifes.  Inspiring and also a little humbling–I can’t even manage to sketch every day and he does finished paintings.

Enjoy–and if you have any favorite art blogs, mention them in the comments so I can check them out!

“A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.”  –Edmond de Goncourt

and

“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”  –G.K. Chesterton

(both from The Quotations Page)

This is actually one of the later projects from my art class first semester of last year, but I never posted it because I didn’t have a good way of photographing it. I ended up scanning each half (it’s on two pieces of paper) and then splicing them together in IrfanView, but it didn’t work very well, as you can see. The aim of the project was to make a comic strip (in the loosest definition of the word), meeting a variety of compositional requirements (multiple panels, cropping, zooming in, etc). There didn’t need to be a story, dialogue, etc. It was, I believe, the first time we were allowed to use a colors other than black and white, which was exciting. It’s done in markers on two sheets of Bristol board, taped together on the reverse side. (Click here to see it big enough to read the words.)