Birds 26 June

Birds 21 June

Birds 5 June

Birds 30 May

These are some experiments I did with color and pattern, and as always, thinking about shapes in boxes. I've been looking at wallpaper books and am drawn particularly to patterns designs from the Arts and Crafts movement through the 1930's. For the color, I used marker and colored pencil, but when I scanned the images, the colored pencil washed out completely in places, such as in the background of the Flicker Tail-- a drawing I like for it's sense of flight and height.

The colors are not just faded but distorted, so I either need to photograph them, which is a lot more complicated than scanning, or find a different medium for color. Still, it's a good, quick way to do studies. All of these were inspired by images in John James Audubon's  "Birds of America", but needless to say, I don't aspire to imitate.

Fritz Kuhn: Iron and Apples

I'm always struck when an artist takes  radically different ideas, like iron and apples, and brings them together in one work of art. I love the delicacy of Kuhn's initial sketches, which emphasize the fullness and ripeness of the apples. He evokes that sense of life in the finished ironwork (second  photo) through his use of abstracted shapes, solid and void, rhythm and repetition. I'm especially taken with the ink wash studies (bottom photo), as pattern and movement in a 2D format is something of particular interest to me right now.  This is a great example of  the development of an artist's work, one which clearly illustrates the evolution of specific ideas, and how they all come together in the finished product.

- Photo credits: "Fritz Kuhn, Stahl Und Metallarbeiten"

Fritz Kuhn Iron work

Maybe it's the iron locks and nails on the clothespin scarf

that got me thinking about ironwork. Having grown up in New Orleans, I was surrounded by lots of old cast and wrought ironwork. These images are from a book on Fritz Kuhn that caught my eye in the ironwork section of the library last week. (So lucky to have access to a library with such a section....)  I really like the patterns and sculptural quality of his work. 
Iron and silk scarves-- all in one week--  reminds me to stay open to the expansiveness of one's creative affinities.


- Photo credits: "Fritz Kuhn, Stahl Und Metallarbeiten"

Fritz Kuhn Blacksmith

                                                                 

This is ironwork by a blacksmith named Fritz Kuhn who worked in Germany from the 1920's-50's. Information about him is scarce-- I scanned these photos from a library book written in German which, unfortunately I don't read. In any case, beautiful work-- love the spiky insects.

- Photo credits: "Fritz Kuhn, Stahl Und Metallarbeiten"

Clothespin scarf

Iron locks, chains and keys.  Nails hammered into silk; ropes and lassos and wooden clothespins on a scarf given to me years ago by a dear, close relative long since gone.  I'm guessing she bought it in France in the the 1950's or 60's--a whimsical era for scarves with themes that go beyond color and pattern. This one is a mix of familiar objects in an offbeat vignette of everyday life.
Love.