paintings from the chris peters workshop...

The Chris Peters workshop at Gage was quite a while ago but its been a crazy month. My cat broke my camera so I haven't had a chance to take any photos of the still lifes I did at his workshop. He is a great teacher and had a wealth of information to share with everyone in the class. It was a joy to listen to his stories and good advice for artists who are trying to push their art out into the world. A weekend well spent!
These bagels and pears are pretty straight forward still lives. I won't be putting them in my masterworks file anytime soon. At the same time, its the first time I've ever tried painting a still life in color so I'm proud of the final result. The thought of painting a still life makes me want to pull out my own fingernails. But these were surprisingly fun and wonderful practice. I'm excited to say I'm actually looking forward to doing more still life painting excercizes when we get back on track after the holidays.

Juxtapz article...

 I'm very excited to have gotten an article on the Juxtapoz website. So far it seems like there's been some great response...

We Are All Animals: The Artwork of Crystal Barbre

Tuesday, 01 December 2009

“We are all animals, and don’t you forget it,” writes Andrew Michael Ford. “While we may still exist in a male dominated world, Crystal Barbre wants to remind you that sexuality is not solely a man’s game.” [Warning: these images are explicit and not safe for work or young eyes.] Read More...

December show at Bauhaus...December show at Fresh Flours

The Atelier is having two shows in Seattle this December. Crystal at Bauhaus and I'm showing at Fresh Flours.

We had the opening reception this past Saturday at Fresh Flours and I was really happy to see some faces I really should see more of. Thanks to everyone who came out!  Despite my sleep deprivation from hanging the artwork the night before and then opening the cafe the day of the show, after a couple drinks and some espresso, my mind returned.  The show has some prints from this past year at Gage and some new, post-Gage prints and drawings up as well. If you're in the neighborhood check it out. 5313 Ballard Ave NW.

-Jameson

Crystal is having a reception on December 10 at Bauhaus (301 E Pine St) for the Capitol Hill Second Thursday Art Walk.  See you there!

liferoom...

My work in the liferoom is still hit or miss but it feels like its getting a little easier. I think the anatomy studies are helping. I actually look forward to being in the liferoom now. I never thought that would happen. Once or twice a week instead of five times a week makes the time spent in liferoom a little more precious. The Bauhaus show in December is coming up fast and has been keeping me out of liferoom the last week or so. I need to be going more consistently before I hit another plateau with my figure studies.

its hard working in the shadows...

I have a show coming up in December - a little more than a week away so I am trying to get as many pieces done as possible while still making them look good. This piece is giving me all sorts of trouble. Trying to bring out color and shape in shadows is proving to be veeerrry difficult. When the focus of the piece is in the shadow there's no cheating away the form and color. Its quite a challenge. Needless to say I'm not exactly satisfied with the results yet. I'm in that frustrating stage of just pushing paint around hoping the right image and color will magically appear. Funny how it never works out that way.
The show in December is at Bauhaus. They have big bookshelves there that the paintings usually hang in front of. I think it looks awkward and distracts from the work terribly so hopefully I'll be able to come up with a solution. They get a lot of good foot traffic there so its worth trying to make it look as good as possible.
I'm starting to get pretty sick of this series so I'll be very happy when I can get back to my drawing and painting excersizes and start thinking about a new project. I don't want to creatively give up on this series though before I've given it a chance to be worked through as well as I can do it. The end is always the hardest for me. The newness of the work I'm doing has worn off so its hard to infuse the paintings with a sense of life and excitement when I'm personally bored with the project. But I think thats part of being a real painter - is being able to harness creative energy thoughtfully and not be crippled without "inspiration". The balance of the love of creating vs. the work of the craft.

back in black... and white!

waddup. I was out of studio commission for a bit there, but I'm back!

I started back on black and white painting, I'm super excited because I need to know how to handle paint before i feel comfortable jumping into the disaster that color is!
This is a black and white painting I'm currently working on, its from a portrait of my profile and even if it looks nothing like me i think it is coming along pretty well!

ps, we need to start posting this blog places because I dont think anyones reading

Missy

Figure

Haven't had time to post on this blog, which I consider a good thing, but I figure it's about time.  Just wanted to throw some thoughts and pictures out there from what's been going on in my head and with my hands in the last few months.

One thing that both Crystal and I have spoke of in the past is the overkill in life room that we experienced while in the atelier at Gage Academy.  Three hours everyday with a model is a great opportunity, but I get the sense that it may not be as beneficial for some and it is for others.  Even the New York Academy, where our friend Jason is studying and where our prior atelier instructor studied, only schedules it's students to work from a model two to three times a week.  I feel like this is probably a more accessible way of learning than daily sessions.  There was a point during each quarter of attending the Atelier that I realized I wasn't actually soaking in any more information; I didn't have enough time to digest everything from the past week.  I feel like it's akin to the difference between short-term and long-term memory - at times information learned long ago seems to randomly pop up from your long-term memory if given the appropriate stimulus, something that would've been impossible minutes after learning it the first time.

This quarter I'm monitoring Matt Buckner's Beginning Sculpture class.  I've taken two classes with Mike Magrath over the two year's I've been at Gage, but have heard a lot about Buckner's straightforward and analytical teaching.  He really is an amazing teacher and full of helpful knowledge and important tips.  It's amazing how much sculpture helps me out with my drawing in the life room.  I guess sculpture uses the part of your brain that works out dimensionality, which really helps with expressing depth on a piece of paper.  Here's some photos from what I've been working on:



This was taken during the beginning of class.  There's a lot of noise happening that I knew I needed to get rid of before advancing the piece.




...And at the end of class.  Clarified and some anatomy issues worked out, but glad that we still have five more classes left...they're going to be needed.


And photos from the cast-making day with Missy and Crystal:













...And finally, if you want to see what I've been working on with my printmaking, I'm keeping with the spirit of separatism and using my Wordpress blog to update the imaginary world of that artistic side.  Click on the drunk bear on the right...should be updated soon.

making casts

We met today to make casts to draw from. We used moulage

that we melted in a double boiler to create lifelike molds of our hands and faces. The material we used is fantastic and shows every wrinkle and fold of the skin. The fingers on this hand mold broke, but it was our first try so I'm sure they'll get better as we go along. Besides, it looks kind of cool this way.

                                      posted by Crystal

barque copies, color studies, and life drawing...

This week i wanted to work on drawing casts. We were going to make our own casts but we don't have a double boiler to melt our cast goo yet so I decided to work on some Barque copies. Jameson bought the Charles Barque Drawing Course - a great book full of cast drawings and mastercopies by Charles
Barque. Its a perfect book for practice on drawing casts. I wish my finished master copy didn't look stoned, but practice makes perfect so I have to just keep at it.

Also working on some  color studies. It helps me get a better handle on how the different colors interact with each other and trying to find what neutrals look good from the different color wheel opposites. Also gives you a little more sensitivity to the graduation of color tones.

And of course life drawing. I'm trying to make it to lifedrawing sessions two or three times a week. It starting to become a little more fun and a little less like having my fingernails pulled out with pliers. The anatomy studies are helping the proportions come a little more naturally.
                              posted by crystal

Master Copies! w00

As Crystal's starting off with anatomy studies, I need to start off the year on the painting side! I've begun my second Jenny Saville mastercopy.

Mastercopies are a great way to learn to paint, and because I have no background with color I need to find similar palletes in which I want to paint in and copy them. I plan on doing as many mastercopies as possible over the next year and I will post the progress as they come along on my own blog as well as the beginning and end of each piece on here.

Jenny Saville has a technique which I would like to incorporate a lot in my own work. She layers and uses a very tight color palette. I found in my  first copy of hers, that I could narrow my idea of color into a specific palete and use that as a tool to learn how to move and blend the paint. Of course it will take tons of copies for me to be able to work on my own paintings and leave them with a more finished and professional quality but that is what I plan on working on over the next year.

Many of the learning tools we are using are taught in ateliers style schools, mastercopies being one of them. It is thought to be a great way to start color practice and theory by tightening up what may become an overwhelming way of thinking; color. I have found it extremely useful but I have a long way to go :x!

Post by Missy Dahl

anatomy studies. who doesn't love um?

Anatomy studies to start off the school year right... I'll be working on cast drawings soon, but haven't got the cast goo to get a move on that yet. So its pre - anatomy study time. Working on getting a basic sense of proportion and muscle shapes branded into my brain before later on this year getting into some more serious in-depth anatomy study. The basic plan - to memorize proportions, basic muscle masses and bone points. Then move on to a more detailed study and memorization of muscles and movement studies. Hopefully a solid base of anatomy will help with moving on to learning to construct basic figures from my head and be able to rotate a figure in space.

One of the most important skills studying classical technique gives you is the ability to draw from life with a fine sense of realism, to have a good understanding of how to render the form. But because I want to work with more surrealist concepts I need to know how to manipulate the form and figure. I need to learn how to not only draw what I see, but draw what I can't see as well. I've got a long way to go, but the first step on the road to not sucking...anatomy studies.

Some anatomy references I've found very helpful...
   Human Anatomy for Artists by Eliot Goldfinger
   Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist by Stephen Rogers PEck
   An Atlas of Anatomy for Artists by Fritz Schider
   Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing From Life by George Bridgman
   Artistic Anatomy by Paul Richer
                                                                                                posted by Crystal

some of our work from last year...

About Us...

We are three previous students of the Gage Academy of Art in Seattle.
Gage is an art school that teaches the atelier method of art instruction. It is a fantastic place to learn and each of us developed invaluable skills there.
    However, after two years at the gage academy we have decided to strike out on our own. We are developing artists (well, which artist isn't really) and realize the importance of continuing to push our artistic boundaries - of technique, creative expression, and exploration. We have decided to come together to help keep each other on track, provide critique, support, and a creative sounding board for each other's work and ideas.

  We will continue practicing the atelier method and using traditional techniques to improve our skills and help us to fulfill our individual artist...visions.