Folk Art Mary

Crows with Seated Guys - Greys and Yellows

I like these brown/grays and yellows. All the crows (except one) are pointing their beaks towards the big mommy or daddy  crow in the middle.

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Crows with Seated Guys

Crows with Seated Guys - here unpainted - is one of the latest of my carved and painted crow pictures.

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Guest Artist - Kiki Blumenkraft Roosli

Guest artist  Kiki Roosli, also known as Vicious Cow Art, has this to say about her bold homage to cow paintings:

"I love cows…..it is as simple as that. I think they are very special creatures and I feel so lucky to be able to take walks in the Irish countryside and observe their behaviour in the fields….so zen and yet so curious. I think they each have a unique personality and the message I strive to get across in my paintings is just that; these cows are saying to you, 'We are more than meat!' Beautiful beasts you just have to love. I like to see the humourous side of things so the expression in their faces and the exaggeration I inject is vital to my style."

Cocoricow - "This cow was created with a local French Festival in mind. I wanted to make a big friendly and proud French Friesian who would send out the message loud and clear that she is not just a big lump of beef. She is, in fact, the national representative and her pride knows no boundaries; hence the title, my reference to ‘Cocorico’, the call of the French cockerel, the national icon. This title embodies the ‘fierté’ of the French people. To compound this notion of pride she just had to feature with the French flag as a backdrop and the digits representing both ‘Bastille Day’ (French Independence) and the tagging system used for cows. Above all she is a beautiful, curious and friendly animal and proud of it!"

 

Empty Cow. "This painting started exactly like this: I was craving some red in my life and I love the contrast of the friesian colouring. Colour and shapes are what attract me in painting. I wanted to move away from ‘by heart’ shapes so I exaggerated the lines on this one to make her look like she was almost pieced together like building blocks or indeed slabs of meat, laid one on top of the other. Again a reference to food – her nostrils remind me of the pink and black licorice allsorts sweets. Her expression is bewildered…..she if looking at you saying, 'I’m drained!'. This notion of being drained then prompted me to include the curved, floaty tube behind her. It represents the milking parlour…her daily routine of having tubes plugged in and being emptied of her fresh milk. Other than that she is just made for somebody to enjoy."

 

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Sailing with Swirls Extravaganza - DONE!

A number of paint layers later, Sailing with Swirls Extravaganza is DONE! As you can see, I continued to work on the piece since the last version shown. I  improved the blues, made them softer, like you could just dive in. The front lighter blue wind swirls hug the big boat as well as the small ones. I used copper to make the sun.

Many other times I've tried to capture the joy of sailing, and Sailing with Swirls Extravaganza pretty much does it for me.

Below is a picture of me hard at work on Cayuga Lake, doing hands on research for my next sailing picture...

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Swirls Extravaganza - Reds in Boats

Time to work on the sail boats and sailors. I start with some reds, to make them stand out.

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Sailing with Swirls Extravaganza - Muddier

Sailing with Swirls Extravaganza looks a bit muddier here, but it's on its way to looking good. I'm leaving the sailboat in the center (and the other small sailboats) until last. When the waves and wind swirls around them look good, then I'm ready to paint those boats.

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Sailing with Swirls Extravaganza - Water and Sky

I'm getting my bearings on how Sailing with Swirls Extravaganza wants to be painted. To simplify things, I've painted the water separate from the sky. The big boat in the center, is still to be tackled.

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Sailing with Swirls Extravaganza, First Coat of Paint

Sailing with Swirls Extravaganza is a piece of art that I recently completed. I carved it last summer and finished painting it this winter. Here is a picture of it with its first coat of paint. This one goes heavy on trying to show the wind and wave action I love so much as a sailor.

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Guest Artist - Brian Brogan

Here's what guest artist Brian Brogan has to say about his work:

"It has become a souless world in a veil of amnesia of what it is to be human. Lost wandering, and ghostly clever souls consuming the planet, and all its rich diversity of spiritual light. Objectified material base consciousness stripping the living mother earth, and awakened consciousness along with it. But all souls are not lost, with our need to keep reseeding ourselves in the ritual fire within, reuniting with our unique integral flame - is co-creative and inter-dependent with all life. Let our courageous fire bring light to the world and burn off the mind numbing dross that those in power are serving us."

Brian writes that he works in a variety of mediums including paste, stucco, polymer, pumice and acrylics. Check out Brian's video, Tribal Connection, a Painted Story .

Celebrating with the Ancestors.

 

Soul Vision, Seeing Your Soul

 

Where I identify with Brian's work is in the theme I am working, people in nature.

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Canoeing in the Adirondacks with Islands- Done!

Canoeing in the Adirondacks with Islands is done! Birthed at last. Success.

I can stop with this final version of the art work. Thanks for bearing with me as I went step by step through the gestation of Canoeing in the Adirondacks with Islands. I thought of not posting on this piece since I struggled so much with making it, but then I thought perhaps people might be interested in seeing the difficulties I had and the solutions I came up with. Perhaps I'm too much of a perfectionist, but I just can't stop working until my gut and my emotions say that a particular picture is finished.

I feel most comfortable describing myself as a self taught folk artist, and I certainly learned a lot through the making of this piece.

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