Artomat WIP* #1 - The Base Coat

My Artomat blocks came in the mail this week, and I've been so excited about getting started on them. I thought I'd show the blocks as they progress.

Here's step one: 50 plain wood blocks that need 2 coats of gesso before I can paint on them. The gesso gives them a smooth, bright white surface that I like for painting. It takes 2 thin coats to cover the blocks evenly.

I'm using a 6-inch wide putty knife to apply the gesso. A brush makes, well, brushstrokes in the gesso that I don't want. The putty knife keeps the surface nice and smooth.

It only took about an hour to cover all the blocks once. I'll let them dry overnight and apply a second coat.

For my prototypes, I left the sides unpainted. I'm not sure if I'll do that for the finals or if I'll paint the sides. Depends on how messy I get while painting, probably.

6/22 followup: The first coat of gesso dried so quickly that I put the second coat on last night. They look much better with a second coat. And this morning, I painted the sides of a few blocks to see how that looked. And the verdict is...the sides need to be painted. I was sloppy with gessoing the tops, so the sides are messy. They really do look cleaner with the sides painted.


* WIP = work in progress

Getting Ready For The Clothesline Show

I'm busy painting, matting, and wrapping! The annual Clothesline Art Show and Sale is this week. The photo shows my 12 entries in this year's show.

Stop by and see the show:

Thursday, Friday, Saturday
June 18, 19, 20
Noon to 5:00 each day

Hudson Middle School
77 N. Oviatt St.
Hudson, OH 44236
Get a Map

All artworks are by members of the Hudson Society of Artists. Everything is small, original, and unframed. More than 300 artworks will be available for purchase.

Stop out, support a local artist, and pick up something wonderful!

Artefino Gallery and Cafe

Met with the great folks at Artefino Gallery and Cafe yesterday. They contacted me through my Etsy shop to see if I'd be interested in showing my ACEOs at their gallery. Naturally, that sounded like a good idea to me.

It's a really vibrant gallery space with work by local artists. And, the menu is yummy -- soups, sandwiches, smoothies, coffee -- wow! Definitely worth visiting.

http://www.artefinogallery.com/

They're located at 1900 Superior Avenue in Cleveland, 216-830-1400.

Hours:
Monday - Friday: 7 am to 6 pm
Saturday: 11 am - 3 pm

I've Been Accepted to Art-o-mat!

Hurray! I'm so excited! The kind folks at Art-o-mat have approved my prototypes. I sent off my samples a little over a week ago, and just heard from them last night that it's a GO!

What's Art-o-Mat? It's a project where vintage cigarette vending machines have been converted to dispensing miniature artworks. They have 82 machines around the U.S.

I sent 2 prototypes: the little blue fish to the left and the yellow flower below.

The artworks must be the size of a pack of cigarettes so they fit through the machines. Mine are painted on blocks of wood. This photo shows the thickness of the piece of wood.

The background is painted with acrylic paints, and the fish and flower are cut from my favorite origami paper.

Take a look around their web site and see if you have an Art-o-Mat machine in your neighborhood:

http://www.artomat.org/

Next step -- get more blocks of wood and start painting!