Illustration Friday: Atmosphere

I'm trying to get back to drawing--but it has been hard. Many many changes. The most recent is that I will be homeschooling my son this year using a Virtual Academy. So I've joined a homeschooling group that has regular park days as a way to deal with the big "socialization" question. One of things I've noticed is that the atmosphere in a homeschooling group is very different. We meet in a park with a stream running through it. The kids usually spend some time on the play ground just getting oriented, but then they head off into the woods to explore the world around them. Getting wet and dirty is just part of the learning process.

Illustration Friday: Artificial

So here's a question. I did this using ZeFrank's Scribbler tool. I drew a scribble using my touch pad (represented by the stronger lines) and then I ran the scribbler tool, stopped the scribbler tool, adjusted colors, transparency, scribbliness, and ran the tool again. I repeated this process until it looked done to me. The machine generated the image (and it wasn't even my machine, just some anonymous server somewhere out there) but I controlled the machine. Is it art? Is it artificial art?

So my thoughts about art are constantly evolving. When I was younger, representational art seemed more "artsy" to me. But when I realized that no matter how well you render that orange in your still life--while you can eat the model, you can't eat the image. All art has an ARTificial quality to it. So then I began to think that stylized art had more art to it, than camera precise rendering, which has more technique to it.

More Nature Art

This weekend I went back to the shell beach along the bay to do more nature art. (IF still didn't inspire me) I found a piece of charred driftwood and liked the contrast between the black and the white was interesting. It was also interesting to think about the contrast of fire and nature. Near where I was there are three acres that were accidentally burned by a couple of pre-teens.

Nature Art

I watched a documentary on Andrew Goldsworthy the other night and was inspired. I took my daughter to the San Francisco Bay this morning and we did nature art by the shore. Here are my two pieces. (more photos here )

Family Art: Seals

We took a family vacation to San Diego. In the San Diego airport there was a painting that had been done by various artists of a single scene, and it gave me the idea to do one of our from our trip. I divided a photo into 12 sections and assigned various family members a square to copy as they saw fit. Here is the original photo.

Illustration Friday: Trail

This banana slug represents trail in several ways. The first is the slime trail that slugs and snails leave behind as they go about their business. The second is that we found this banana slug, (and 29 of his cousins) on along the trail on a hike in the Purisma Redwoods. And finally my own personal trail, where after living in many states, I've ended up 11 miles from where I was born. (Apparently I was less than pleased meeting a banana slug as a young baby!)

Illustration Friday: Equipment

Just a quick sketch--since I haven't posted in a while. This is my husband with his SCUBA equipment.