100 Drawings: 30/100

In the studio with the first 30:

100 Drawings Update

I started 100 Drawings two weeks ago and since then, I have made 30 drawings. When I started I wasn't sure what form this project was going to take. I have mailed away many of my first 20 drawings, and this week, I started working on a standard 9"x12" watercolor paper. I bought a stack of 100 sheets, and am going to fill all of them. I have made 10 drawings this week. Here are a few and the remaining 10 are on my website: http://aimeebelanger.com/section/271082_100_Drawings.html

Ira Glass: This is really important

Someone posted this on Facebook today and I had to share it. It's a wonderful quote by Ira Glass (a personal hero of mine) about being a young artist.

READ:


This is very real for me- I wonder why the things that I like are so much better-more interesting, engaging, dynamic- than the things I make. If I wasn't me and I saw my work would I even like it? Would I even care to look? There have been times when I have stopped making things altogether because I didn't think that what I was doing was intelligent or beautiful or original enough.

That is what 100 drawings is about. Just making stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. Thanks, Ira.

Flux Feature

The curatorial crew at Flux has decided to feature my studio and me on their blog! Check out my studio, recent work, and Distillery friends here: http://flux-boston.com/?p=3418

Cheers to Liz for the nod!

100

100 drawings by December 31, 2011
Buildings and people and landscapes.
People as landscapes.
Buildings as portraits.
Time. Starts. Now.

Richard Serra

Richard Serra, walnut ink and pen on paper, 7"x10", 10/31/2011

people i love

i've been thinking about:

dan flavin
charles ray
richard serra
rachel whiteread
erwin wurm
simon starling
james turrell

none of these people make pictures

Oh Charley, Charley, Charley!

pen on paper, 7"x10", October 29, 2011

Dan Flavin

Dan Flavin, walnut ink on paper, 6"x6", 10/24/2011

I made you a drawing

1. Mt. Hood, Pen on paper, 11"x8.5", October 11, 2011
2. Glasgow, Pen and pencil on paper, 10"x7", October 12, 2011

Great Grandmother

Recently I visited Asbury Park, NJ with my roller derby team (you read that right). I was excited for this trip in particular, because it brought me back to where my dad's family lives and where my great-grandmother was once famous. You can read her story here.

I decided to follow up on this trip with a series of drawings, and since I broke my wrist and was unable to finish some of the paintings I had been working on previously, it seemed like the perfect time to make some sloppy, opposite/broken hand drawings.

The Great Cedora at age 16 on the boardwalk with her bicycle.

Another classic

Eleanore, ink on paper, 50"x"36", 2011

(detail)

(detail)

Cedora, ink and gouache on paper, 40"x24", 2011

(detail)

Broken Hand Press

New prints (sorry to take pics of them in their sleeves)

You Are Beautiful And I Love You. Hand screen print on Rives BFK, Edition of 25, 4 color combinations, 12"x19"

Since I broke my left (read:important) wrist, I have been working at home. Luckily I have a room all to myself and my boyfriend doesn't complain about me covering his pianos with prints. Note the clip lamp taped to the desk: it has a 300 watt bulb ($6 at Home Depot) and at 12" away, I can expose a 12"x18" screen in 20 minutes. Wash out in the tub with a scrub brush, let dry, find a clean spot (there's got to be one somewhere), and print. This is basically the process I use with my students. No light table, no racks, no pressure sprayer, no darkroom. Feel free to comment with questions on this process- and then get to work silk screening at home! Also, these prints are for sale.

Piles

scans of recent sketchbook drawings

Studiomates

After being out of the studio for a bit (home 5 days for Thanksgiving break, hectic schedule, lots of skating practices, and you know...life), I was relieved to get my butt back to the Distillery this week. Naturally, I got all the way to Southie and realized I'd forgotten my keys. But, lo and behold! A light glistened from within the building and I was able to call up to my studiomate, Corey Corcoran, to let me in (the heat was on so high he had to crack a window...thanks, Distillery!) Once safe inside, Corey let me borrow his digital camera to take some shots of work that I had not been able to share yet. Corey saves the day again! Being an artist without a digital camera is not only inconvenient, but totally ridiculous at this point in history. I am working on this.

Here are a few shots of some work from my Invasive Species series. I just made that name up, but I think I might stick with it. This is me fumbling around helplessly with oil paint for the first time in years. Also, I have questionable digital photo editing skills. More to come!

The trees go to the seashore, 24"x24" oil on panel, in progress

Overpass, 24"x12", oil and gouache on panel, spring 2010

Oh, and the moral of the story: Studiomates are awesome!

Studio

Here's a little bloggo about what I've been up to lately. I usually just post images, but this post is a little more about process. I have a lot of stuff going on right now: collages, watercolors, ink drawings, etc. I'm hoping that as long as I keep making anything it will all eventually turn into something.

Since moving into a new apartment and setting up my new room (a big sort of lounge/music/art/study space), I've been able to work at home. I've been using ink and watercolor and working pretty small. Here is a shot of my desk. Note the cornet which I take breaks to practice:


In the studio, I've been struggling a bit-I've been making lots of drawings and little things, but haven't really put out any finished paintings in a while. Here is a piece I started working on about a month ago. I started out working with gouache. It's the biggest thing I've done in over two years, and the first painting to have a figure in it in quite some time:


Just after nearly filling in the whole bottom of the panel with grass (made with individual brushstrokes), I decided to try working with oil. Everything was really flat and boring and I just kept using the same colors over and over again. I haven't made (finished) a single oil painting since college, and it is definitely not an easy thing to pick up again. Basically, I've been fumbling around a lot, making a mess, and ruining clothes, and the whole process is producing questionable results. I ended up covering all of that initial hard work with a new layer of oil, and now the painting looks like I just started it. However, I feel like I've been making the same neon gouache landscape for about two years now, so I figure any practice which shakes things up a little is bound to be valuable eventually.

The painting now:

Note: My digital camera is broken, so all of these shots were taken with the camera on my MacBook. In real life, these are brighter, with more variation in the color.

Last night I decided to paint one of my collage/sketches (see post below). This is the beginning of my second oil painting- I just drew everything out and started to block in color. I spent about an hour blocking in the whole surface. I try not to work section by section, but rather try to build up everything by layer so that my color and spatial relationships develop together.

Shot of the two paintings together: