Tim's Vermeer

I watched a fascinating documentary last night called, Tim's Vermeer.  It follows inventor, Tim Jenison and his quest to prove the theory that Johannes Vermeer used optics in order to paint extremely realistic paintings during the 17th Century. Everyone has seen a Vermeer or at least the most famous one...

Girl With a Pearl Earring

Books have been written about the idea that Vermeer may have used an early version of the "camera obscura" to project a scene on a wall in a dark room through a pinhole lens. His work has always been thought to be too perfect and his pieces (when x-rayed) show absolutely no sketching under the oil paint.

Tim Jenison wanted to recreate a Vermeer using this technique or something similar in order to prove that it could be done using 17th Century technology.  What he discovers is something truly magnificent and ground breaking in the Art History world.  If correct Vermeer may have not only been a great artist but a brilliant inventor and early "photographer".

Tim using mirror technique to do his very first painting copying a portrait of his father

The scene Tim set up in order to precisely copy a famous Vermeer

Here is the trailer to the movie and it is only 99 cents to rent on iTunes this week.  It's not long and is most definitely worth the time.  It is directed by Teller (of Penn and Teller) as well as produced and narrated by Penn himself.

-Brian

In My Classroom: Tooth Fairy Part II

The Tooth Fairies are done! It ended up taking 3 lessons and I still have a handful undone because of absences but most are done and they're now hanging in the hallway. Here are the fruits of my Kindergartener's labor!

My students colored them in with oil pastels, I had to demonstrate how to use oil pastels properly otherwise it can turn into scribble scrabble coloring. After the oil pastels were laid down neatly we painted over with watercolors. I think one of the hardest parts was explaining to the children to color anything they wanted to leave white in with oil pastel. They didn't understand why they had to do this until they painted over with watercolor and then they experienced firsthand the resisting the oil does to the watercolor. 

So what do you think? Do you like the project? 

- Grace

Art Board Books

Graham has acquired a lot of thoughtful presents over the year. If you asked him what his favorites might be, he’d probably cite the soggy corner of that sweet tasting Amazon box or the Styrofoam packing blocks that made such a satisfying squeak against his teeth. But some of MY favorite things that he’s received are books. And he’s collected quite a few great ones. While sifting through the big pile he’d recently flung off the shelf, I noticed that he owns several art-themed board books that, while perhaps are not the best written of the bunch, contain amazing works of art I am so happy his curious eyes and growing brain are already being exposed to.

Whether you have a child of your own or are searching for a gift for someone else’s kid, these books are sure to please adult reader and baby listener/looker alike:

Counting with Wayne Thiebaud is one that I have already given to a few new moms, and was so excited to find under the Christmas tree from our friends Nick & Janie. It’s chock full of pretty pastel paintings of food (one of my favorite subjects as a kid) and is written in a lovely lilting rhyme.

So Many Stars is more free-form, as it’s really more about stringing Andy Warhol’s simple illustrations together than following any sort of narrative. But it’s pretty cool that many of the images have never been published before. This one was a birthday present from his Mimi. 

Magritte’s Imagination is page after page of the Surrealists’ paintings paired with fanciful possibilities that will spark a reader's budding wonderment. Our friends Victor and Andrea sent this one from Brooklyn with love. 

Charley Harper 123s features 10 of my favorite illustrator’s graphic drawings of animals, fish, and bugs. (With a couple of vague, redundant “creatures crawling” on page 5 and then different “creatures frolicking” on page 9---but all is forgiven knowing that the book was put together after the artist’s death and that they were just working with what already existed.)  It is one of Graham's most-read/chewed on.  

Matisse Dance for Joy is a book of the artist’s bright collages set to a song of disjointed sentences calling the reader to action. It's nice! I just kind of wish it rhymed.

Something else I like to do is write the name of whomever gave the book to us inside. Then every time Graham chooses a book from his little library, he is reminded of the someone who picked it out just for him. 

- Cathleen 

Artwork of the Week: Zip Thorax

Zip Thorax by Elodie Antoine

zippers, 30 x 20 cm, 2008

The grotesque combined with an everyday object? Gets me every time. 

You can see more of this interesting Belgian artist's work, including this cool mushrooming easy chair, at www.elodieantoine.be

- Cathleen

[Image courtesy of the artist's website www.elodieantoine.be]

She Brakes for Art: Julia Child

Cooking is one of the most delicious artforms there is and Julia Child was unquestionably a headmistress in the school of French cuisine. Her tools of the trade were her many copper pots and pans, and of course, her mad fine cooking skills, but it was her visual organization techniques that most impressed me. The photo above is of her instruments outlined and displayed on a pegboard in her Cambridge, MA kitchen, a system she and her husband Paul designed. 

"It did my heart good to see rows of . . . copper pots at the ready,” Julie wrote in her 2006 bestseller My Life in France, “I could hardly wait to get behind the stove.”

Photo of a white gloved curator tending to the kitchen's installation 

in the National Museum of American History. The entire kitchen and all of its contents were donated by the Child family to the Smithsonian in 2002, while the coveted copperware collection was later acquired in 2008. 

- Cathleen 

[Images and quote sourced from smithsonianmag.com]

Artwork of the Week: Spotty Banana Peel

Spotty Banana Peel by Aubrey Levinthal

Oil painting on masonite panel, 5 x 8 in

I love the idea of elevating a cast off fruit rind to fine art status.

You can see more of Aubrey's work on her website: www.aubreylevinthal.com

And purchase some of her small original paintings from her Etsy shop: Tastycakeartist 

- Cathleen 

Erin Lynn Welsh

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“What makes you think I enjoy being led to the flood” 36x36in. Oil on Canvas 2010

A couple of weeks ago, I was inadvertently introduced (through a Facebook friend) to a new-to-me artist: Erin Lynn Welsh. She’s a painter and photographer living in NYC and her work is gorgeous.

“Dale’s yard in New Mexico” 2009 Mixed Media (Acrylic and Oil paint) 54x54in.

I was immediately drawn to her style, which, to me, echoes some of my favorite artists such as Georgia O’Keefe and Anselm Kiefer. I spent the rest of the afternoon looking at as much of her work as I could find online.

“Elodie” 2007 Mixed Media (Oil and thread work) 36x48in.

Many of her works are large so I can only imagine how powerful they are in person. I can’t imagine that my little house could handle all the beauty of one her paintings. But that won’t stop me from dreaming!

“Untitled 2” 2008 Mixed Media (Oil and thread work) 36x52in.

I’ll leave you with a couple images to get your Friday started off on an inspiring note. If you need me, I’ll be counting my pennies and calculating exactly how long it will be before I can own one myself. If you're interested in seeing more of Erin's work, check out her blog or her gallery at Uprise Art.  

“Thunder” (Redone) 68x68in. Oil on canvas, 2012

“High tide” 2010 54x54in Mixed Media (oil and acrylic on canvas)

Happy Weekend!

-Alissa

North Korea's Artistic Identity

It's hard to know what kind of art, if any, is being made in North Korea. I would say it's safe to guess that anything being made would be laced with propaganda. Of the little carefully selected by North Korea to be presented to the rest of the world we are usually faced with their Mass Games ceremony. North Korea is careful not to present themselves as impoverished but instead as a country booming with food, enterprise, happy citizens, and art. 

I would classify the artistic identity of North Korea as their large, card flipping, human mosaics. One can barely pay attention to the news and current events and still know that North Korea is into card flipping! 

Here are some images of these enormous human mosaics. 

September 9, 2012

Arirang Mass Game performance in Pyongyang 

Detail of above. 

Photo Credit: Sam Gellman

About 300,000 flip cards at the 2011 Mass Games. 

These cards were manned by children. 

Photo Credit: Sam Gellman

Detail. 

Photo Credit: Sam Gellman

Mass Games, year unknown. 

Photo Credit: Sam Gellman

Mass Games, year unknown. 

Photo Credit: Sam Gellman

Mass Games, year unknown. 

Kim Il-Sung

It's evident that the human mosaics are also a way for the North Korean government to indoctrinate its people with the glory and right of the dictatorship. 

- Grace

Artwork of the Week: King Frederick's Taxidermied Lion

Taxidermy is really an incredible art form. The deft touch of a talented taxidermist can truly breathe new life into an inanimate animal carcass. This, of course, is not the case with the lion you see here. The royal taxidermist tasked with stuffing this king of cats did such a hilariously terrible job that you can't help but love it. In 1731 King Frederick I of Sweden was given a lion, a wildcat, some hyenas, and a slave to take care of them all from the Bey of Algiers. When the lion died, the king handed the pelt and bones over to a taxidermist who had never seen a lion before. This dopey lion still stands, in all of its glory, at Gripsholm Castle in Mariefred, Södermanland, Sweden.

- Cathleen 

[Source: Pinned by Kimberley Laurenti from doobybrain.com]

Artist of the Week: Julia Harrison

Blue Belle, 2006, 2.5 x 1.5 x 5"

maple wood, gouache, lacquer, wax, nickel, magnet, epoxy

This exquisitely hand-carved wearable art is made by Seattle-based artist and jewelry maker Julia Harrison. Creating in wood and metal primarily, Julia also teaches jewelry and wood-carving classes. I'm amazed that she can pull these animated shapes forth from a dull block of wood, reducing the lifeless material to produce such a vibrant form. You can see more examples of her work on her website: www.juliaharrison.net

The Dozen Rosebuds, 2005

various woods, gouache broaches, also wall-mountable

Mirabella, 2005, 2.5 x 2.5 x 5"

maple wood, pearls, gouache, varnish, wax, nickel, magnet

Daikoku, 2006, 2 x 1.5 x 1"

pear wood, gouache, wax, nickel, magnet

- Cathleen 

[Images courtesy of the artist's website.]

Artwork of the Week: Cabbage Bowls

Yasuhiro Suzuki, Cabbage Bowls, paperclay, 2004

Each leaf can be peeled from the cabbage head and used as functional bowls.

I would serve coleslaw in mine. Exclusively.

You can see more of the artist's work on his website www.mabataki.com

- Cathleen 

[Photos via buzzaurus.com]

Artist of the Week: Elisa Werbler

I spied these prints pinned up in the hallowed halls of school last week and they literally stopped me in my tracks. Yes, I mean quite literally. I passed them, stopped, double-backed and took a good long look. I really wished I had my phone with me to take a picture. It would have lasted longer. But I committed the name posted next to the cluster of colorful images to memory and looked it up as soon as I got back to my desk: Elisa Werbler. The layered translucent colors and sharp edges of her prints are what really impressed me most—all effects rather difficult for any novice printmaker to achieve. Turns out Elisa also makes paintings, sculpture, furniture and—wait for it—Anthropologie window installations!! Her window displays are the stuff of repurposed material dreams! And her constructions have definitely made me stop to admire her handiwork on my walks around the city. You can see more of what she does on her website www.elisawerbler.com

Materials used: coffee filters, Cling Wrap, Q-tips, 

plastic spoons, cotton candy cones, wax, dye

- Cathleen