Coming Soon To An Art-o-Mat Near You

It’s been a while since my last series of artwork for Art-o-mat, and I’ve missed making them. I really enjoy working on these series, and love seeing these little guys come together.

My larger artwork has been exploring envelopes. They’re a dying art – who sends letters anymore? Envelopes (at the root, “envelop”) are meant to wrap and contain things, and then to be opened and the contents released. I’m interested in the contrast between open and closed, hidden and visible, and the emotions they evoke.

The current Art-o-mat series plays on the theme with a little handmade envelope with an unexpected surprise peeking out, attached to a wooden block covered in vintage map or book page. The surprise might be flowers or pets, people or sayings. They are light and humorous, and hopefully will give patrons a chuckle.

Miles of Paintings

Ah, the sense of satisfaction of completing another batch of paintings for Art-o-mat! Miles and miles of cheerful little paintings just make me happy, no two ways about it.

Read more...

Wrapped and Ready to Ship - Day 10

Ta Da! The paintings for Art-o-mat are done - finished, labeled, wrapped in cellophane! All shiny and ready for shipping. Nothing left to do but seal the box and slap on an address.

And put my feet up for a few minutes. Ah-h-h!

Labels - Day 8

To continue with yesterday's theme, I worked more on my Art-o-mat paintings and glued the labels on the back. They're one step closer to being done.

Ready for Wrapping - Day 3

The latest on the Art-o-mat paintings: the paper cutouts have all been glued in place (successfully this time) and all blocks have had a coat of clear gloss. Definitely progress. I only lost 1 or 2 in the smeared-paint-gooey-paper debacle.

So, next up: they need to have labels glued on the back and then be wrapped in acetate.

Saved

After the …surprises… with the little Art-o-mat paintings last week, I’ve learned a few things:

Coating the blocks with matte medium sealed them enough to prevent the paint from running. Well, except for a few blocks, which needed a second coat.

The pink, blue, and yellow origami paper absorbs the matte medium unevenly and I don’t like how they look. Even coating them with matte medium and letting them dry beforehand doesn’t help. Once I glue the shapes to the blocks, I’m sunk. I like transparency, but not here. I won’t use the paper for Art-o-mat anymore; I’ll have to save it for other projects.

The green, white, and purple papers behave nicely so I can use them. Go figure.

I have to only cut a few new shapes from my old paper. Phew!

All in all, I only lost a few blocks, so I’m happy. Onward and upward.

Progress on Art-o-Mat Paintings

Progress! The blocks all have had 2 coats of gesso and then 2 coats of acrylic paint. This paint is just the background color. They still need lots of work yet, but I'm happy to have gotten this far. The background coats take a lot of time but I enjoy it. Maybe in a previous life I was an elf in Santa's workshop who painted wooden toys or something.

This time, I've tried a slightly darker shade of blue and also red ones. The red ones are really cool - I added a little bit of iridescent paint to the red, so they actually have a bit of shimmer and look kind of a coppery.

Stay tuned...

New Paintings for Art-o-Mat

I love doing paintings for Art-o-Mat. There's something about these itty bitty blocks and working in a series that just gets the ideas flowing. So here's a new batch of 50 wooden blocks, all fresh and clean. They need 2 coats of gesso on all sides before I can begin painting. So, here we go...

More Paintings For Artomat

I finished another batch of paintings for Artomat this week and popped them in the mail. Forty-six little gems are heading off to find new homes!

The style is the same as the previous batch - fish, flowers, a few snowflakes. I even snuck in a few birds this time: little tiny baby peeps. The blue painting in the upper left corner of the photo has birds. It's sideways in the box, so turn your head to the right to see it right side up.

It's so much fun putting these little paintings together. And I'm always delighted to find out where they end up.

I posted photos of the first batch in August 2009: http://lifeneedsart.blogspot.com/2009/08/artomat-wip-7-finished.html

These little guys take me a fair amount of time: they get 2 coats of gesso (primer) first, then 2 coats of the background color (green, blue, or yellow), then 2 coats of the paint on top, then the paper cutouts get glued on, then 2 coats of clear, then labels on the back, and then the whole shebang is wrapped in plastic. Whew!

Blue Fish

I'm still on a fish kick. (That's "kick", not "stick"...)

This next series of fishes are slightly larger than the ones I did for Artomat and in a whole different set of colors. (Look in the July and August posting of this year to see the the Artomat series, or go to this post: http://lifeneedsart.blogspot.com/2009/08/artomat-wip-7-finished.html.)

This fish, and his cousins, are made of my favorite origami paper. The background is painted with acrylics on paper. Then I've mounted the fish and the backing paper on a piece of canvas-covered board that I've also painted with acrylics. The boards are my favorite Pannelli Telati panels from Italy. They're great to work with.

The whole piece ends up being 5 x 7 inches.

At first glance, these fish are whimsical -- being fish and brightly colored. But they're actually quite complex and multi-layered. The colors are bright, true, but there are some interesting color combinations going on and some great textures. Definitely worth a closer look.

I've picked out some awesome frames for this series. The fish will be on display at the two upcoming shows this month: http://lifeneedsart.blogspot.com/2009/11/come-see-me-at-these-art-fairs.html

Artomat WIP #7 - Finished!

Ta Da! The Artomat paintings are finished! They're all done, dry, and wrapped in their acetate sleeves.

Fifty happy little fishes and flowers are ready to be popped in the mail to their new homes. Each one is unique and individually painted. Here are just a sampling of them:

• Step 6 - Almost Done
  
• Step 5 - Fishes and Flowers
  
• Step 4 - Tweaking the Color
  
• Step 3 - Middle Color
  
• Step 2 - Background Color
• Step 1 - Base Coat
• Prototypes

Artomat WIP #6 - Paintings Are Almost Done

I've had to set aside the art swap project to make some progress on my Artomat project this weekend.

The images are all done: tackgrounds are all painted, paper cutouts are all cut and attached, and everything has a nice coat of varnish.

After they dry, they will get a label on the back and a piece of acetate wrapped around before being shipped out.


Whew! It feels good to have the end so close in sight!

In case you missed the earlier steps, here they are:

• Step 5 - Fishes and Flowers
  
• Step 4 - Tweaking the Color
  
• Step 3 - Middle Color
  
• Step 2 - Background Color
• Step 1 - Base Coat
• Prototypes

Artomat WIP #5 - Fishes and Flowers

OK, nobody sneeze! One brisk breeze, and it's all over.

I've been cutting tiny little fishes and flowers out of paper all day, and the studio is full of them. I'm placing them on the blocks and rearranging them to see which combinations look best. Another dozen or so cutouts and then I'll start gluing them in place.

I'm using my favorite origami paper, a Miyabi Chiyogami floral. Now I think it's time to go for a walk or get some exercise

Artomat WIP #4 - Tweaking The Color

After the last layer of color dried, I brought the blocks together and considered each one of them. They all needed a little fine tuning. Some needed more pools of color, others needed details.

The painting steps are now finished. I'm happy with how the blocks look and am ready to move on. The next step is to get out the origami paper and cut out all kinds of little flowers, fishes, and other shapes. It could take a while to get all those little pieces cut, arranged, glued, and sealed.

In case you missed the earlier steps, here they are:

• Step 3 - Middle Color
  
• Step 2 - Background Color
• Step 1 - Base Coat
• Prototypes

Artomat WIP #3 - Middle Colors

Now we're getting to the fun stuff! This is where the colors get interesting.

I brushed plain water onto a block, then dropped in diluted paint in different colors. The paint swirled and blended on its own, depending on how much water was on the block and how much water was in the paint. Each color behaved differently. Each block has a different pattern of colors.

It's fun to see how the blocks progress because the color change so much as they dry. They start out looking outrageously dark or bright, but blend nicely and become subtle.


In case you missed the earlier steps, here they are:

• Step 2 - Background Color
• Step 1 - Base Coat
• Prototypes

Now I'd better get back there and wash out those brushes before they harden up.

Stay tuned for Step 4....

Artomat WIP #2 - The Background Color

Ta da -- color! I finally got 2 coats of gesso on the top and edges of all 50 blocks. So now it's time for the background color.

The blue ones on the left are Liquitex Bright Aqua Green Soft Body (fluid).

The bright green ones in the middle are Liquitex Vivid Lime Green Heavy Body.

The yellow ones on the right are Windsor & Newton Cadmium Yellow Medium.

I thinned all the colors with mat medium so that they'd go on nice and smooth and fluid.

Whew! Off to lunch, and then back for another round of painting.

To refresh your memory, step 1 was here: http://lifeneedsart.blogspot.com/2009/06/artomat-wip-1-base-coat.html

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

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!