Fleam Find

I'm so lucky that I live just down the street from the amazing Raleigh Flea Market. I can't resist the Fleam-- you never know what wonders (&/or weirdness) you'll find there. Today there was an especially nice book stall with many antiquarian delights, most at bargain prices.

This is a detail from the cover of my find of the day-- a 1855 volume, edited by one Dionysius Lardner, D.C.L.-- full of tidbits about everything from "The Brain of the Ourang-Outang" & "The Sagacity of Bears" to "Magnifying Glasses for Miniature Painters." Dozens of engravings to boot.

All for a fiver! Squee!

Food & Warmth

Yet another illustration-in-progress from the book I'm working on. Here the formerly greedy cat learns to savour simpler fare... a timely example for all of us who overindulged in Thanksgiving bounty yesterday!

Acrylic on text & maps on canvas, 9x12".
I haven't put the hidden cat in this one yet, so hold off on the search... but do click for a closer view.

For The Old Man and the Cat, by Anthony Holcroft, to be published in 2011 by Penguin NZ.

p.s. If this image seems curiously familiar, maybe you've seen this one-- the original Cricket illustration that started it all!

Musical Mischief-Maker

Yet another illustration-in-progress from the book I'm working on. In this scene that sneaky cat learns he can summon the birds & beasts with the magic flute. Uh-oh!

Acrylic on text & maps on canvas, 4.5x5.4" detail of the full painting, which is 9x12".
Please click for a closer view-- can you find the (sneakily) hidden cat?

For The Old Man and the Cat, by Anthony Holcroft, to be published in 2011 by Penguin NZ.

Burning, Man?

Another sneak-peek snippet from the same spread as the last fiery post. No hidden kitties in this bit, so don't burn your eyes out searching!

Acrylic on text & maps on canvas, ~4.5x6"" detail of the full painting, which is 14x18".
Please click for a closer view.

For The Old Man and the Cat, by Anthony Holcroft, to be published in 2011 by Penguin NZ.

(Full disclosure: I've never been to Burning Man, which will probably come as no surprise, but I am addicted to hoop dance & I must admit I've watched quite a few videos of the amazing hoopers there!)

Flames & Flute

Another illustration-in-progress from the book I'm working on. I'll let you guess what is happening in this one!

Acrylic on text & maps on canvas, 8x11" detail of the full painting, which is 14x18".
Please click for a closer view-- can you find the hidden cat?

For The Old Man and the Cat, by Anthony Holcroft, to be published in 2011 by Penguin NZ.

After-Woods

Please forgive the dreadful pun! Another illustration-in-progress from the book I'm working on. In this scene, the morning after the storm, the old man is carving a flute from wood recovered from the tree that was struck by lightning.

Acrylic on text & maps on canvas, 8x11" detail of the full painting, which is 14x18".
Please click for a closer view-- do you see the hidden cat? (And the not-so-hidden flute?)

For The Old Man and the Cat, by Anthony Holcroft, to be published in 2011 by Penguin NZ.

Spooky Halloween!

It was a good day to be working on this one... I think I'm nearly finished.

Acrylic on text & maps on canvas, Detail of original 9"x12" Please click for a closer look. Prior states can be seen here

For The Old Man and the Cat, by Anthony Holcroft, to be published in 2011 by Penguin NZ.

p.s. If you'd like to see my Alfred-E-Lantern, check out my Flickr page.

Curious Art by Leah Palmer Preiss

Spooky Progress

These are details from a painting-in-progress-- another illustration from the book I'm working on. In this scene the old man is walking home, feeling uneasy after encountering a mysterious black cat with huge, greedy eyes.

"Perhaps, even now, it was watching him from somewhere in the forest."

Acrylic on text & maps on canvas, 9"x12" Click for details, & check back soon for the final art!

For The Old Man and the Cat, by Anthony Holcroft, to be published in 2011 by Penguin NZ.

Curious Art by Leah Palmer Preiss

Running Out of Ink

As much as I crave novelty in some things, in other ways, I'm extremely old-fashioned-- especially when it comes to pens. Nothing feels as right as a dip pen in my hand, & when I'm at home I write nearly everything (down to checks & shopping lists) with my trusty Hunt 108.

Back in the day, all my professional calligraphy was also done with ink on paper. But inevitably I've found the ability to move things around & change them on the computer to be a huge time-saver, & more & more of my lettering work ends up being pixel or vector based. There's a lot to like about doing professional work on the computer. But I will never love the physicality of it it the way I love the feeling of a nicely-inked pen on good paper!

This piece is a "curiollage" I did a few years back when I was feeling conflicted about the whole digital direction of my work. It's acrylic on Sculpey, found objects & paper sewn down on the back of a stretched 9x12" canvas. Most of the paper elements are from a great antique office supply catalog.

Acrocats

Every Easter since my twin sons were one, I've painted each of them a wooden egg to commemorate a special interest or event in their lives that year.

I painted these the year they first went to the circus. They were fascinated by the trapeze artists. They were also obsessed with Siamese cats at the time, hence the acrocats.

Acrylic on wooden eggs.
(Apologies for the blurry photo.)

Rootacles

As I was sketching out ideas for Goodly Creature, these rootacles just emerged, seemingly without any intention at all on my part. It's surprising how often this happens. That's why (for me at least) it only works to think on paper, whether with I'm dealing with words or images. For some reason the act of mark-making seems to bypass my conscious mind, & allows me to think much more openly. I rarely have more than a vague shadow of an idea before touching pen or pencil to paper. This may be a right-brain/left-brain thing, but for me it happens almost as much with language as with image. What do you think? Does mark-making have the same effect on you?

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below. You can also see Goodly in his final assembled state on my main blog, Curious Art.

Tendril Twists & Turns

I have a severe fixation on tendrils. I can't explain it-- I just love them. My passionflower vine, for instance, with insanely rambunctious tendrils reaching out every which way & fiercely latching onto anything handy-- clearly it has a diabolical plan to take over the universe, & it's pretty much accomplished Phase One: Leah's garden-- but I forgive all its thuggish characteristics when I see those outlandish curlicues doing their flourishy thing. (Despots always know how to play on our weaknesses!)

I have a tendency to overdose on tendrils in my artwork too-- it's a trait I keep meaning to rein in, but much like the passionflower, it's proven too vigorous for my powers of control.

But as I was sketching Goodly Creature, I thought I had the perfect excuse for a pair of tendrils: they could create a nice double helix, thus reinforcing the genetic theme! Yay!

Only when I was painting them I was very very tired (this piece has been something of a studio marathon) & I ended up getting the crisscrosses mixed up, & my carefully-planned, scientifically justifiable symbol turned into a random tendril-tangle. Much like my garden... & yes, perhaps my mind.

Oh, well. Goodly's a bit of a random fellow in general, so I guess it's not entirely inappropriate that his helices lost their way. But the Tendril Druthers still haunt me a little.

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Trumpetvine

This is Goodly Creature's right hand... er, appendage. I'm honestly not sure how the trumpet got in there. I didn't consciously think "trumpet vine" until I was titling the image file, but my head often generates visual/verbal puns without asking me first.

Druthers:
The text for this one, a page from Genetics & Eugenics, was almost totally obliterated by paint, which sometimes happens in the pursuit of more dramatic lighting effects. One of the disadvantages of paint over Photoshop... you can't play with lighting & contrast forever & still hang onto transparency. If I were doing it over I'd have planned the lighting a bit better so as to preserve the text. Oh well.

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below. You can also see Goodly in his final assembled state on my main blog, Curious Art.

Nonodactyly

Polydactyly is the possession of additional fingers. Nonodactyly is the possession of nine. (Okay, I made that word up, but it makes linguistic sense.) You may note that Goodly didn't have any bonus digits in the sketch. They were inspired by the text I used for this segment, a treatise on genetics & eugenics that includes the words "increased number of fingers." I've always wondered if polydactyly would be beneficial. Fingers seem like very handy things, especially if you play a musical instrument. I suspect the genotechnology of the future could easily arrange for a few extras.


Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Goodly Shroombelly

This is the central portion of Goodly Creature. As you may already have suspected, he is a creature of multifarious parts. Some are decidedly shroomy.

I hasten to assure you that my fixation with mushrooms is botanical, gastronomical, folkloric, aesthetic, & nostalgic. My dad has always been an enthusiastic collector of edible wild mushrooms (he has just planted a truffle farm!), & when I was young I spent a Christmas in Denmark, where the magic mushroom (Amanita muscaria, a.k.a. fly agaric) was as emblematic of the season as holly is in the U.S. Isn't that curious? ;) Ever since then I've had a warm feeling for those cheerily spotted fungi.


Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Head Shot

This is a very-nearly-finished state of Goodly's head. All the colors have been built up as I described before (paint-blot-repeat) with glazes of Golden fluid acrylic, sometimes mixed with open medium, sometimes just with water, depending on the effect I was after. Each area of the painting has at least 4 or 5 layers of paint. Even the whites are laid on thin in multiple glazes. The finished surface is quite smooth.


Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Ghostly Presence

After scanning in my sketch & refining, roughly coloring, & working out the collage elements in Photoshop, I print out the collage base (I have an archival Epson printer & I use archival paper as well) & begin adding the earliest glazes. Before I collage it to the canvas I want the border colors in so that they don't end up puddling over the edges, & the main figure colors so I know I'm off on the right track before committing it to canvas. So I usually begin with light, thin glazes, again painting/blotting/drying until the basic colors are blocked in.

Then I glue it down with Golden Open Gel.

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" tab.

Starting Block

This is usually my first step... painting the "frames" on deep-edge canvas. For Goodly Creature I'm using 6, each one 6x6 inches. As you can see here, my painting style is all about layers. I use Golden Fluid Acrylics mixed with Open Medium, building up the texture by painting with a wide brush, then blotting, drying & painting again until I like the effect. The unfinished center part will be covered by the collage elements.

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Some Assembly Required

As I was sketching the Creature Soon To Be Known As Goodly, I realized his slinky figure wouldn't fit comfortably on any of the standard canvas sizes. At first I was thinking I'd stretch my own in a taller format, but then as his arms began to grow, I realized that wouldn't quite work either. Then it dawned on me that I could make a sort of patchwork of small canvases. I was quite tickled with this notion since it seemed to fit the patchwork mode of his genetic bits & pieces, & also it was something I've never done before, which always makes me happy.

In the sketch you can see me brainstorming ideas for joining the elements, including a hinged version, which I decided wouldn't quite work for this project, but I'm definitely going to try it someday! In the end though I decided to join it with corner braces, as you can see here. Once it is permanently assembled, I may reinforce it with a wooden brace as well if needed, but this does the basic job.

More on this project soon!

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Storms & Brainstorms

August in NC is thunderstorm season. I always feel a bit crazy as the storms approach-- maybe it's the electricity in the atmosphere.

I've been full of crazy ideas lately too, all waiting in the clouds, impatient for the moment when they can make their way across the atmosphere to earth. I finally have a stretch of time without tight deadlines, & I'm so very ready to release that storm of ideas!

This is an illustration from my children's book in progress, The Old Man and the Cat by Anthony Holcroft (see earlier posts on my main blog, Curious Art).

The background texts & diagrams are scanned from antique encyclopedias, music books, maps, dictionaries & science textbooks. These are printed on archival paper, mounted on stretched canvas, & the painting is done with Golden acrylics & Winsor & Newton Sceptre Gold watercolor brushes. I'll show more about this process in upcoming posts.

Institute of Genotechnics

I've been mining my collection of texts for goodies to include in the collage elements of the new piece, & I found this great ad which I'd scanned from an old Mechanics Illustrated:


















These zoobotanical creatures are the result of extensive genetic engineering, so I did a bit of pixel engineering in Photoshop.




















You will see this again in later posts, showing the collage state, but most of it will be obliterated by paint in the end... I'm glad I'm keeping progress shots from this one!

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

Zoorobotany

For quite a while now I've had this word in my head... describing some of the creatures that inhabit my sketchbooks, part animal, part vegetable, part mechanical. I'm working on a piece right now that I hope will be the first in a series of paintings based on this theme.

Here's my initial sketch of a fellow I call Goodly Creature after the Shakespeare quote from the Tempest:

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in it!

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.

p.s. This is the very first time I've shared my personal sketchbook with the world! It's a bit scary.

Visit the hidden lair of a mad artistic scientist!

Welcome to the Curious Art Lab!

I'm a very shy creature at heart & I have never been able to draw or paint with anyone looking over my shoulder. In fact, just hearing someone approach my studio door while I work causes all my creativity to grind to a halt.

But now, thanks to the mysterious powers of the internet, I've finally dared to invite folks in! I'll be posting sketches, sources, process pictures, maybe even a studio shot or two. I'll talk about ideas, intentions, materials, techniques, discoveries, 'druthers-- all the ingredients of my curious concoctions.

Feel free to poke about the Lab, & if you haven't yet wandered over to my original blog, Curious Art, please do!