Figure Drawing with Flair. . . and Water Guns

January's "Draw!" event at Lowe Mill conjured up thoughts of Classic Movie glamor and Impressionist ballerinas; February's event was a blast of pure dynamism and dramatic creativity. For the first pose, our model (the marvelous Maray Fuego) played guitar and sang soft murmuring notes throughout, dressed in layered clothing, rolled up jeans, and rough boots like a picturesque character beside the railroad tracks. For her next pose, we were faced with a water gun fight casualty in checked tights and a green tunic that evoked the '80's and the space-age-'60's with sparkling wit. Many artists were drawing in the theater of Lowe Mill Sunday afternoon, each with a different style and focus. In my own work [above and below], I wanted to capture the vivacity and boldness of the model, naturally, but I also wanted to make a fairly straight-forward record of her poses for reference, so I kept my drawings free-flowing but somewhat simple. Were I to make a painting based on either sketch, wild colors, daring angles, and fantastical abstractions would surely come into play.

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Huntsville Art Blog Discussion: Art Versus Craft

If you would like to take part in an open discussion on the relationship between art and craft, please click here to read my full post on the Huntsville Art Blog. There will be new prompts each month; if you would like to see a particular theme elaborated upon, feel free to leave a comment on this post or E-mail ChristinaBWegman@aol.com!
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La Vie en Bleu

For the German Romantic poet Novalis (and many other writers), the "unattainable" blue flower or rose has often served as a symbol of longing and impossibility. Naturally, true blue roses do not exist, and my first work combining block printing and painting itself struggled to come to terms with being. That is, while I was preparing the background and printing my rose design over the blue canvas, I thought that a distressed finish might give the work a sense of antiquity that would enhance its literary connotations, and while applying a new gloss medium, I found myself stripping much of the ink off the canvas, then re-touching and re-printing a few times. The result, I hope, is a mixed-media piece that expresses the mystery of the blue rose and the struggle toward the seemingly unattainable.
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Reception at Reflectives Frame & Art Gallery

Many thanks to all who attended the reception for my February 2011 solo exhibit at Reflectives Frame & Art Gallery in Hampton Cove, Alabama. To those who were unable to make it to the reception but would still like to see the show, the paintings will be up until the end of the month.
[Above, the front part of the gallery before visitors began to arrive.]

[Above, enjoying food, drink, and conversation.]

[Above, from left to right, David and Gina Hurst, gallery owner Marguerite McClintock, and I.]

[Above, with Elizabeth Baxley.]

[Above, Julia Paul contemplates Near the Corner of Jordan and Holmes.]
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Kochel am See

The lake across from the Franz Marc Museum, portrayed in Kochel am See [above] remains almost mythical in my psyche. . . this was the sort of serene natural world that inspired Marc's Utopian paintings of animals, and this was the sort of serene world that he did not wish to see threatened by the march of the soldiers and machines of World War I, leading to his more disturbing, apocalyptic visions. Staring across the lake, mountains and a warm village in the distance, I had found a complete and profound beauty, and his paintings became vivid reality. . .
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Painting Spirit and Essence

I have never painted an Eastern Orthodox-style Icon. . . it would seem to me blasphemous to paint Icons without proper study and deeper knowledge of traditional Orthodox symbolism. However, I often mention the impact that Iconography has had on my paintings (particularly the Icons of Elias Katsaros that I have admired for hours during services at a small Greek Orthodox church in Huntsville, and also many much older Icons that I have been fortunate to see). In the suburbs of Montreal, there was a Greek living near some of my cousins who painted Icons in his garage, which he had converted into a studio; he would open up the garage door on pleasant days, revealing the brightly-colored blocks of imagery hanging from floor to ceiling, and sit outside on his driveway working on new ones. . . I wondered whether he was painting them for churches or whether it was simply a private hobby; I still wonder about what it would take to become a serious iconographer.

At any rate, the geometry and stylization of these images have always been aesthetically appealing to me, but more importantly, I have long been fascinated by the ancient concept of the image as a window to the spirit of a person or place and its evolution over time, as well as the way in which certain forms of abstraction and stylization deliberately reject materialism while stressing the universal. It is not surprising, then, that I would be so drawn to the work of Wassily Kandinsky, an Orthodox Christian from Russia, who also marveled at Icons and the religious glass paintings he saw in Bavaria (he made many glass paintings of his own, in fact).

My most recent block print [above, Byzantine Church] was created with these thoughts in mind, the design having been inspired by the architecture in the background of a 14th Century Greek Icon. It is not meant to be an Icon, rather, it is a small way of expressing artistic gratitude to a tradition that has influenced my outlook so deeply.
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Solo Exhibit at Reflectives Frame and Art Gallery

It is with great enthusiasm that I announce the third solo exhibit of my artistic career, to be held at Reflectives Frame and Art Gallery in Hampton Cove during the month of February. Paintings on display include Small Courtyard [above], House, Frankfurt an der Oder, Near the Corner of Jordan and Holmes, Depth Puzzle, and more, many of which have never before been exhibited publicly (a selection of works from the show can be found on the Reflectives Gallery Blog). The reception will take place on the 11th from 7-8:30pm. For more information, please click here.
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La Vie en Rose

With the swift approach of Valentine's Day, it seems only appropriate to depict flowers, and while Valentine's bouquets may or may not make the lovely and noble rose (one of my personal favorites) seem tacky to some, it is surely the sentimental mascot of February 14th. The very geometric and refined block print, Rose [above], was done first, then I painted Roses on a Rainy Night [below]. A discerning eye might recognize similarities between the background of this painting and that of Emerging Red; the similarities were quite intentional. Having brought home a $5 bouquet of roses one evening, I set my vase on my drawing table, contemplated the dampness and darkness of University Drive, and found that the cheerful colors and large scale of the roses against the distant scene outside, the piercing neon lights, the strange shadows, and cascades of rain would tell an interesting story.
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February Interview

This Month, I talk with Huntsville Art League Education Director, versatile artist, and enthusiastic art instructor S. Renee Prasil on the Huntsville Art Blog. Click on her name to read the full interview!
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