firenze

I love Florence, Italy!


If you have not yet had the chance to meet this city, I highly recommend you do someday!  I spent a weekend there the summer of 2007 when I was in Rome studying watercolor and Italian Renaissance art history.  I took this shot of the Ponte Vecchio (literally, "old bridge") one evening.  The sky above was so amazing - like an electrified blue!  

I decided to make a watercolor of it:

(the actual size of this is pretty small........like 3"x4.25")

My experience in Florence inspired me for my design of the map project in VICO 511: Introduction to Infographics:

(I think I may still change a few things before the end of the quarter)

If you are ever blessed with the opportunity to go to Italy, GO and eat the gelato everyday.....it's amazing!  

mural - history of western painting

During my junior year of undergrad, I had the opportunity to be involved in a mural painting commissioned by Wittenberg University that would hang in the student center.  Five other painters and myself were to create a chronological mural depicting the history of Western painting.  Not an easy task!  The editing process was difficult when trying to decide which quintessential pieces to include.  I was lucky to get the early to mid-20th Century artists such as Matisse, Dali, Picasso, Kandinsky, O'Keefe, Pollock, Lichtenstein and Warhol.  We also had to consider the relationship of the adjacent sections when designing our composition.


This was my contribution....

And the full mural hanging in its permanent home...

watercolor

So I am ALMOST done with a watercolor commission I've been working on for far too long!  This is a four seasons series of a friend of the family's house in Western Ohio.  I'll include the photo of the actual house in the respective season before each watercolor example....

As you can see, I'm not done yet with the Fall.  I think I'm going to kick the colors up a notch from the way they are in the photo, especially in the two large trees in the foreground (more yellow).  I think what I've loved most about this experience is noticing and comparing the nuances of each season:  the way the light affects the landscape; the growth/decay of flora; the various colors, etc.  My goal is to hand them over Thanksgiving weekend so she can have them framed in time for Christmas. Maybe if these are up on my blog I'll be more motivated to finally finish it!  :) 

oil

"Music ignites in our ears and we feel it in our souls.  Art brightens our eyes to create as we slowly paint the lives we live."  - Anonymous

I thought I might share a couple of paintings from my senior thesis (Wittenberg, 2007). My Artist Statement:


My work is about my two passions, art and music, that continue to inspire me everyday of my life. Basic themes that are woven in and throughout my brushstrokes of these paintings include frustration, sorrow, joy, and love. I believe these emotions are intrinsic to human nature and serve as common threads that tie each of us together.

I created this work as a response to powerful music that has shaped my life and as a way to reveal and discover more about myself. By composing each piece using multiple panels in a variety of shapes and sizes, I have created an open-ended montage of memories that have extended past the two-dimensional realm of painting and have come to possess a sculptural quality. I made this choice to reflect my belief that memories are often fleeting, sometimes tainted, and always very personal.

The musical phrases you hear as you experience my exhibit are fragments I have selected from the very four songs that inspired these works. Just as memories come and go, these melodies drift in and out of existence, sometimes leading into the next, and other times fading into profound, black stillness.

Artists whom I admire and have inspired me throughout this endeavor include Georgia OʼKeeffe, David Hockney, Elizabeth Murray, Charles Demuth, Robert Delaunay, and Vassily Kandinsky.

Blue in Green, oil on board, 2007

Pour Some Sugar on Me, oil on board, 2006

this time of year

This past weekend, my husband and I celebrated our 9.1 anniversary (9 years of dating, 1 year of marriage) by camping at Burr Oak State Park.  It was gorgeous.....this was the view from our tent.  I think it's important to escape from this hectic, technology-crazed world every once and a while and sit in nature and just breathe.  And relax.  And do nothing at all besides stare at the fire while eating a really good bowl of chili....mmmm.  Definitely effective therapy for a new grad student in the middle of her first quarter!