naomese - naomi bardoff's art blog

Tam Lin pieces / compositing process

2011-12-16T09:11:00.000-05:00

The basic process for this piece was to make the sketch below, scan it, separate out the separate figures, use carbon paper to sketch them out at various scales onto watercolor paper, make watercolors of all the figures, scan them back in, and composite those. It sounds somewhat simple but it actually took many, many hours!

As you can see from the final, I changed a few things from the original sketch, like the pose and face of the woman, and the various birds just to crows.

Tam Lin / Liege & Lief cover

2011-12-14T10:42:00.000-05:00

Ahh. This is one of my favorite pieces I've made in possibly years. As you know, the ballad Tam Lin is a song I love and continue to revisit for inspiration. Recently I was assigned to illustrate an album cover, and chose Liege & Lief, the 1969 Fairport Convention album. They have a wonderful interpretation of Tam Lin, fabulously psychedelic and haunting and rocking.

Here are some relevant lyrics:

So first let pass the horses black and then let pass the brown
Quickly run to the white steed and pull the rider down
For I'll ride on the white steed, the nearest to the town
For I was an earthly knight, they give me that renown
Oh, they will turn me in your arms to a newt or a snake
But hold me tight and fear not, I am your baby's father
And they will turn me in your arms into a lion bold
But hold me tight and fear not and you will love your child

All the sections of this piece were done in watercolor with a bit of gouache, and the final is meant to be the size of a record album. There's no original because all of the figures, animals, shadows, and the background were done separately and put together in the computer. I'm getting a lot out of this way of working, it gives me a new flexibility and range to experiment in. (For one thing, I did four versions of the woman before she was right!) I like that I can switch out for different animals and shift the composition as needed.

Soon I'll make a post with all the separate animals I drew!

honeycomb

2011-12-12T10:10:00.000-05:00

Watercolor and gouache study of some honeycomb. I thought of the colors first, then the honeycomb. Original is about 11"x11".

four-legged snake

2011-12-08T10:38:00.000-05:00

This was an illustration for an issue of the Hypocrite Reader. It's waterproof ink with watercolor washes on top. Original 15"x11".

periscope fish

2011-12-06T12:32:00.000-05:00

This was for an assignment in an illustration class. It's meant to be wine label for a winery called Periscope Cellars. You can see I was in a bit of the same color world as I'd been in when I made San Francisco Animals.

I've been making a lot of work, I just haven't had time to post it lately! So I've finally queued up a few posts of what I've been working on.

In this one, I was just starting to experiment with compositing many drawings into one.

They Draw and Travel: San Francisco Animals

2011-07-28T17:36:00.002-04:00

Remember the San Francisco map sketches I made? I put them to use in this They Draw and Travel Map of San Francisco Animals. And it turns out it won an honorable mention in the They Draw and Travel Contest!

My prize for being an honorable mention is a copy of the They Draw and Cook Book. What's funny about this is that I already got a free copy of They Draw and Cook, because my recipe is going to be in it! Oh well, now I get two free books. Maybe someone will get an autographed copy...

a wolf in sheep's clothing

2011-07-20T12:38:00.001-04:00

I just finished taking an illustration class at the California College of Art extension. We had a couple assignments, but I didn't make anything from the first one I felt like sharing. (It was a good exercise though.) The class overall has really helped my thinking about illustration and composition, working with editorial-type assignments, working with deadlines, knowledge regarding the business of illustration, and other great things.

This is one of the pieces I did for the final assignment, to illustrate an idiom. I had a ton of fun depicting the wolf, and I like how creepy the sheep / sheepskin is (though I wouldn't mind it being a bit creepier) but I knew the whole time I was working on it that this was one of the most boring ways I could interpret that assignment! I got close to something with another idiom which I will share soon... I didn't quite finish it before class on Monday and I think this weekend I'm going to try to really finalize the idea. So for now, here's the wolf in sheep's clothing.

enchanted forest (part 1)

2011-07-15T11:24:00.000-04:00

I'm working on a series of drawings to maybe bind into a book about an enchanted forest. I don't want to say too much about my plans at the moment because they are changing daily. I think I've decided on a size though! These are the first pages I've made: above is a detail of the mushrooms; directly below is the mushroom final (with white space to add text once I figure out what the narrative is going to be); below the final mushroom page is the version before I added the watercolor; at bottom is a drawing of some trees that didn't turn out how I imagined it, but might end up in the book depending on where it goes.

Click on the images to see them full-size.

artichoke leaves

2011-07-13T12:21:00.000-04:00

The other night my roommate made artichokes and I was really enchanted by the colors and transparencies in the leaves. I made this watercolor study that evening. I was going to do more, but the leaves curled in on themselves! I'll have to wait until the next time we make artichokes.

The Librarian / orangutan reading a book

2011-07-11T11:21:00.000-04:00

I've been reading (or more accurately, listening to the audiobooks of) the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. Sometime in The Colour of Magic or The Light Fantastic or one of those early books, the librarian at the library of the wizard's university has an accident with a magical book and is turned into an orangutan. Being an orangutan turns out to be awesome, and apparently helps the librarian do his job.

This is a drawing of him with his favorite books and a few bananas. In other words, librarian bliss! I like this because it works even if you haven't read any of the Discworld books. If you have read them, then you know that it's an important aspect of the library at Unseen University that books are powerful, dangerous, and have lives and minds of their own, and that the librarian is someone who respects that.

So, this is a drawing with a white background, but with more than just one thing floating on it! However, I can't help think of how Chuck Close said, "If it comes out looking like art, it must look like somebody else's art," and it's true I was thinking a bit of this wonderful drawing while I was composing this portrait of the librarian. But it's a pretty different drawing than that one, and it was so much fun to make, and I like it more than most of my other work lately, so I call it a successful exercise.

I really relate to the librarian lately. All I want to do is stay in and read.

I've also started adjusting my work a lot more after scanning it. I used to just try to clean up any splotches or drips of paint, and then try to make the colors look as much like the original as possible. Lately, I've also been fixing a few errors (like in this one, places where the books overlapped wrong, or in my Mrs. Dalloway drawing, where the awning got really crooked) and altering the color in ways that the paint can't do. I use pretty heavy watercolor, balanced sometimes with lighter washes, but it can still get muddy or have a weird combination of intensity and lightness, so it helps to dodge and burn and so on.

Speaking of which, I've simply got to give in and drop a couple hundred dollars on a really complete set of artist quality gouache paint. These solid blocks of color in the books were just begging to be painted in gouache. Yep, this thing is all watercolor! There's a tiny bit of white gouache mixed into some of the colors, and a bit more that I used to cover up sploshes on the original (but those were then painted over in Photoshop).

if you're going to San Francisco...

2011-07-08T11:38:00.006-04:00

... don't use these as maps! They're not to scale.

More playing with ink and watercolor. These were so much fun to make! I'm brainstorming for a They Draw and Travel illustration.

nasturtium sketches

2011-07-07T12:46:00.000-04:00

I assigned myself to just play around with watercolors and ink, drawing one of my favorite flowers: nasturtiums. I wasn't crazy about these when I made them, but I'm coming around to them -- as sketches, anyway -- now that I have a bit more distance. Plus, they were fun to make!

artist statement draft

2011-06-30T16:58:00.000-04:00

My work is about fairy tale magic. In fairy tales, unlike the more narratively familiar and internally consistent fantasy magic, there are no rules; this is the point of magic, and possibly the capriciousness of fairies. In fairy tale magic, things simply happen. Eating a magic talking fish causes a woman to give birth to triplets, her dog and horse to have triplets, and a large tree to sprout from where the fish's bones are cast. If one woman eats the pome of an enchanted apple and the other the peel, the child of the first will be heavy and pale, that of the second thin and ruddy. A mirror turns into an ocean not because it is an enchanted mirror or the woman throwing it is a witch or there are fairies around, but because placing an ocean behind them is how the characters must escape their pursuers. Events occur because they are visually, thematically, and narratively satisfying, not because they make any sense or are explained by a consistent system of magic or because they follow logically from what is previously known. In fairy tale magic, the reader already believes in magic. In fairy stories, or more correctly animal stories, animals have rich personal lives like any other character in literature. Like many animal lovers, I relate to, anthropomorphize, and project onto animals. The animals I draw are characters, the drawings of them portraits. They have personalities, just like the other people I draw. In drawing a world of fairy tale magic, animals are characters, the tongues of dragons must be collected, drawings cast magic spells, animals and people are friends, dresses fit in walnut shells, and visual and poetic logic overrides formal logic.

process

2011-06-28T13:43:00.000-04:00

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

Ira Glass (source)

I worry sometimes about changing the format of this blog, or all my blogs really. This blog is perhaps the most important to me, and seemingly the least interesting to anyone else (I think about 5 people look at this with any regularity -- hi, Mom!), so I am going to remember that no one cares, and plunge in and write about where I am in my work, instead of showing images of it. (The images in this post I picked because I couldn't bear to make a post without images, and one of the things I am thinking about now is how words become images and images become words, and how wonderful it is sometimes when images can't become words. They are from an old project, posted here and here.)

And writing about my work is something I'm worried about, too. I don't want to get stuck in words when I want to be thinking in pictures, or intellectualize to the point that I can't draw, or resort to obtuse references when I'm trying to communicate a story or idea. I put it to a friend recently that finding a word when I'm working on a drawing can be like hitting a wall -- I think "bird," and then all I can work on is this platonic ideal of a "bird," and then there's nothing else in the image but a "bird," like I am drawing the word instead of a drawing, with thought to composition and color scheme. Reference helps because it reminds me that there are many birds, many different kinds of owls making different sulky faces or hopping one foot or with fluffy baby-bird feathers sticking out, but even when "bird" becomes "owl" or "grumpy owl" or "grumpy owl on one foot," it can still be like tunnel vision. And writing about my stumbling blocks can be like making rules -- stop drawing cute animals! stop making white backgrounds! stop being so cluttered! stop mixing dry-brush and wet-brush!

But here I go, writing about drawing! I've already started.

I'm trying to avoid framing this as being stuck on things, and more as challenging myself and examining how I work. I want to move into more complex compositions than singular objects floating on white backgrounds, as I mentioned in passing in my Mrs. Dalloway post, while also keeping in mind that white backgrounds are okay, they can be beautiful, I love specimens and lists of items for a reason, I love how the white of the page shines through thin washes of watercolor, and I have made a series of posts of artists who successfully and beautifully utilize things floating on white backgrounds. I want to go back to the way I drew before I became interested in design and, as a result, whitespace, with horror vacui and patterns and paisley and woodgrain and pillows and several cats hiding around and too many birds int he sky. I want to move into more complex subject matter, multiple figures interacting and making scenes and activating negative spaces.

And finally I want to move into acknowledging with patience and impatience. I've mostly been using watercolor and ink, which are very patient and very impatient mediums. With watercolor, there are layers that have to be perfectly dry, washes that have to stay wet, colors that have to stay bright and not get muddy. And it's easy to pretend that watercolor is as impatient as I am, if a spontaneous-looking wet-into-wet drawing of a fox takes 30 minutes. But that's forgetting the other 5 drawings of foxes, which also took 30 minutes each, that I threw away and hid from the world because they turned into runny messes or muddy messes or looked like neon pumpkins or I for some reason became obsessed with using magenta straight out of the tube. And then there's book-making, which is patient and meditative and involves repetitive processes, but I can make while watching old episodes or Star Trek or listening to an audiobook or catching up on the news, and somehow feel more "productive."

It comes down to that I just need more time to draw and figure everything out. I just need to make a ton of work. I need to come up with a ton of subject matter. I am happy for the most part with my ability to render objects, figures, and animals, given sufficient time and reference; it's just a matter of applying it to images and compositions that are exciting too. Maybe sometime soon I can take a week off work and spend the whole time drawing. We'll see.

Next up: a draft of my artist statement!

business cards, letterpress workshop

2011-06-20T13:41:00.000-04:00

I've been having a great time volunteering at the Center for the Book (especially blogging!). I few weeks ago I took the Introduction to Letterpress: Business Cards evening class and made these fun, simple business cards. I've since taken Letterpress 1: Handmade Notebooks (post forthcoming! Don't forget, I'm still catching up on things I made when I wasn't posting). I was excited that I got my name to look similar to how it does on my website.

After I took them home, I spiced them up a bit with some watercolor washes, inspired by Oh Happy Day's cards for someone named Aubrey, which I learned about through this inspiring post on Bird and Birch. Before I start handing them out, I'm going to add a bit of clarity by going over some places where the ink didn't quite fill in the letter -- I didn't know enough about the process to see that some of the type pieces I picked wouldn't print well.

Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself

2011-06-16T10:59:00.024-04:00

Last-minute illustration for the Hypocrite Reader, for an article about Mrs. Dalloway. Original is about 11"x13". It was fun having a deadline! (This month's issue went up this morning, and we only found out about the articles on Monday.)

I am still learning how to work with this kind of deadline. I'm glad I was able to make something I liked that works with the article (for the last issue I made something so boring I didn't even post it here) but next time I will try to make a more interesting composition that isn't so flat. I had sketches that showed the whole street, with two-point perspective and cars and other people walking past Clarissa, and maybe an airplane overhead maybe writing out "Kreemo Toffee," and all sorts of details in the flowers, which I just didn't have time for. Then again, it's a (welcome) departure for me to make something that isn't just an object floating on white space, so it's all a learning process anyway! One of my favorite professors used to say that drawing is a form of thinking. For now I'm glad that I made a solid watercolor and my Mrs. Dalloway doesn't look too much like Vanessa Redgrave!

drafting tools

2011-06-14T11:36:00.006-04:00

I love old-fashioned kits and collections, and I love love love this beautiful drafting set my grandfather gave me last week. These drawing implements are about 100 years old!

I'll make another post about these in a few days showing what the different tools do! I'm really excited about the ones that make parallel lines (below right).

envelope book

2011-06-10T13:30:00.019-04:00

The East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse was selling these resealable inter-office memo envelopes the other day, and I knew I had to make a book of them. (This is not an original idea: I copied it from Esther K. Smith's fantastic How To Make Books.) I wish that mine, like the ones in Smith's book, had all of the names written and crossed out on them, or were other wise actually used. But my current office doesn't use these, and a place where I temped that did went through them very slowly. (In my 6 weeks of working there, I only came across one of these envelopes! I still have it, it didn't quite go with the blank, crisp envelopes. But maybe someday I will accumulate more!)

Unfortunately these photos are not the greatest, my lens is good for smaller books and drawings of a certain size, and this book was just a bit too big! Once I get a different lens I might photograph it over again for my website.

I plan to use this book organize receipts and pay stubs.

update to naomibardoff.com

2011-06-06T12:42:00.001-04:00

One of the things I did in my super-busy last month was revamp my website! (Again!) And then, like the art I was working on then, I was too busy to post about it. I liked my old design, with the hand-drawn touches, and while my web design experience means I'm perfectly able to update it, I found that I didn't do so as often as if it were more standardized. So here's the new, hopefully-easier-to-navigate, naomibardoff.com!

(PS: Yes, this is another one of those posts that will be a duplicate for those of you who also subscribe to my inspiration / cooking / everything else blog, a billion tastes and tunes. Won't happen again for a while, probably!)

a couple of blue-footed boobies

2011-06-03T11:34:00.001-04:00

I've been experimenting with dark outlines around flowy watercolor. Here are a couple of blue-footed boobies I tried out this way. I think the one above, where the outline is also watercolor, works better than the one below with pen.

Neighborhood Pencil Drawings

2011-06-01T12:07:00.017-04:00

Okay, so, I said in a recent post I would be posting more here, and then I didn't. And it wasn't even because I wasn't making art! It's because I was so busy, with working, volunteering, and other blogging that I haven't had time to post. (To clarify a previous post: I am not working full time at the Center for the Book, I am just volunteering and blogging for them, in addition to my full-time office job. I also took my first workshop there, and am about to start a class at the California College of Art Extension. Busy busy!) These drawings (more plants and things from around my neighborhood) are actually from several weeks ago.

I'll be staggering my posts of recent work over the next couple weeks, so that you don't get a flood of posts all at once. And then hopefully I'll have the photos and posts of the work I'm making now ready to go and consistent posting will return once again!

San Francisco Center for the Book Blog

2011-05-04T13:53:00.018-04:00

First of all, I'm sorry for those of you who subscribe to both this and a billion tastes and tunes, because you'll be getting almost perfectly duplicate posts about this. Duplicate posts like these will happen only very rarely, when the content of the two blogs overlap.

For the last few months I've been volunteering at the wonderful San Francisco Center for the Book. And recently, I've started contributing to their new blog! So far I've been posting about my favorite book art and artists. Many of my planned and past posts touch on work that explores the relationship between analog books and digital media or e-books. Other posts are simply appreciating and ruminating on some of the beautiful work that book artists have created. Other posts so far have been about events, workshops, and classes held by or connected to the Center. Definitely check out the blog! You can also see all the posts I've made so far.

the dragon with seven heads

2011-04-18T12:42:00.002-04:00

Here's another larger ink drawing, another illustration of Italo Calvino's version of the Italian Folktale "The Dragon with Seven Heads." After my Little Red Riding Hood illustration, I went back to this favorite of mine, continuing to work with the silhouettes. This one shows more of my own style than the Red Riding Hood one, and I'm happy with how it turned out.

Here's what I said about the folktale last time:

The image of a woman with a knife, preparing to cut off the tongue of a dragon, came from "The Dragon with Seven Heads," an Italian folktale I read in Italo Calvino's collection of Italian fairytales. The gist of the story is that, after a fisherman kills a talking magical fish (which had previously help him find a bunch of non-magical fish to catch and eat) and serves it to his family, his wife, horse, and dog, each have triplets. The eldest of the human triplets travels into the world with his horse, sword, and magical talking dog, where he decides to rescue a princess from a seven-headed dragon, thereby winning her hand. In order to prove that he killed the dragon, he has the princess collect the seven tongues in her handkerchief, which sets up the rest of the story.

little red riding hood

2011-04-14T11:47:00.000-04:00

Here's one of the large drawings I promised you. I was so excited when I sketched this idea for Little Red Riding Hood's cape reaching around and becoming the Big Bad Wolf. Below you can see some of the sketches where I worked it out, and tried a few different ways of depicting the idea. I knew I wanted lots of solid shapes. The sketches helped me get to pen and ink, and to realize that I needed to work larger for this idea.

I was originally very happy with the finished piece, above, which is about 24"x18" (the sketches below are about 15"x11"). But I soon realized that this was because I had pretty much copied someone else's illustration style! I had recently been enjoying the beautiful illustrations of Myths and Legends of Russia by Himmapaan on DeviantArt. So this piece ended up being a good exercise, but I think I was trying too hard to imitate his style. The original idea with the cape is still one that I'm interested in visually, so I may try another piece with this image that's more of my own style.

vanity set

2011-04-12T13:12:00.000-04:00

For several months now I have been planning / toying with a book / illustration project involving a vanity set. I even purchased a cute vanity set and did these watercolor studies. I've done some other sketches too, and the project keeps changing directions. These watercolors won't be part of the finished project, but I thought I would share them anyway. Their original size is about 8"x6".

I haven't posted for a week because my recent work has been too big to scan, and I haven't had a chance to photograph it yet. Scanning always feels much more direct. But I have some more small work planned and will photograph my larger work soon. Lots of things planned!

recent They Draw and Cook work

2011-03-30T11:38:00.000-04:00

My Fig Jam recipe was featured on They Draw and Cook with other "luscious watercolor fig recipes." Here are some other recipes I recently submitted. I love drawing food, and I love having the format of this website as a constraint.

See more of my recipes under my they draw and cook label.

How to Prepare an Artichoke. The text is from my own notes about my experience steaming artichokes, but the last time I prepared them, it took a lot longer than 30 minutes to steam them, which is a bit embarrassing now that this is online! I tried to look at different web sources for how long other people take to steam their artichokes, and found numbers between 20 and 90 minutes. So that's confusing. Last time I was trying to prepare 4 quite large artichokes at once, and I think I had the heat too low. I just wish I'd experimented a bit more before putting this out there forever!

I love me some edible flowers, especially nasturtiums. Yum! I wish I had taken the time I spent on the text in this one on some of my other recipes, where my poor handwriting (even though I certainly made an effort to be legible) takes away, I think, from the fig jam, as an example.

For some reason, the colors on this herb salad illustration look very garish on the Draw and Cook website. Hmm. Well, this is one of my favorite summer meals: tons of herbs with and edible flowers with a light dressing.

wolves, and more baby owls

2011-03-28T13:28:00.002-04:00

More watercolors of animals! Wolves snuggling, and some very silly baby owls.

more plants, plus Illustration Friday submission

2011-03-25T13:24:00.009-04:00

All three of these are experiments I've made with watercolors and my new watercolor pencils. Above is my submission for Illustration Friday, below is another take on the compost bin from the other day, and below that is some ivy from my neighborhood.

plants and things from around my street

2011-03-23T13:28:00.000-04:00

A few recent watercolors of plants on my street. I saw the plant matter draping over the compost bin the other day, and I had to draw it.

abandoned They Draw and Cook drawing

2011-03-22T22:11:00.001-04:00

The deadline for They Draw and Cook's Year of the Fig Recipe Contest was last night, and I didn't finish this drawing in time. (I submitted another one a couple weeks ago, but I was hoping to submit a few of them!) This was going to be a recipe for fig and arugula salad with walnuts. Yum.

it is important to use your hands

2011-03-21T11:52:00.002-04:00

A quick drawing I made recently to hang on my wall. I learned about this quotation through The Book Design Review, here and here. Ever since I saw the quotation typed on there in that second link, I have thought it was unspeakably hilarious that whoever typed it didn't notice the irony of typing "It is important to use your hands, it is what distinguishes you from a cow or a computer operator." I guess I don't have all the context, but hey, I giggled quietly to myself typing that just now. This quotation begs to be handwritten!

book cover project 3: Professor Mordicus Egg's Philosophy of the Mundane: Why the Muggles Prefer Not to Know

2011-03-18T12:48:00.002-04:00

Another book cover from my imaginary book cover project, Professor Mordicus Egg's Philosophy of the Mundane: Why the Muggles Prefer Not to Know. This book was mentioned in the real/fictional book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, by Newt Scamander, by J. K. Rowling. (Minor Harry Potter trivia: in an interview, Rowling revealed that Luna Lovegood, my favorite character, later married Newt Scamander's son, Rolf. I like to imagine that they're happy magizoologists together, and have discovered plenty of crumple-horned snorkacks.)

book cover project 2: Oolon Colluphid's trilogy, Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes, and Who Is This God Person Anyway?

2011-03-16T16:33:00.013-04:00

This is the series that originally inspired this project: Oolon Collupid's Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes, and Who Is This God Person Anyway? from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Here's the quotation where Colluphid's work is first mentioned:

This is the story of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Perhaps the most remarkable, certainly the most successful book, ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor. More popular than The Celestial Homecare Omnibus, better selling than Fifty-Three More Things To Do In Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid’s trilogy of philosophical blockbusters: Where God Went Wrong, Some More Of God's Greatest Mistakes, and Who Is This God Person Anyway?.

I freaking love platypi, but they are often cited as a "mistake" of nature, so I chose a platypus as emblematic of where god "went wrong." My father suggested the dodo as another of god's greatest mistakes, and I picked the praying mantis to display the title's existential question. (The mantis is supposed to be staring upward, looking for a god who refuses to answer. The poor mantis.) Plus, this way, there are animals on all 3 covers.

I haven't decided yet whether I'll make a cover for Oolon Colluphid's other famous novel, Well That About Wraps It Up For God, which describes how the existence of the Babel fish proves, and therefore disproves, the existence of god. For one thing, I'm not sure I can beat the memorable and hilarious depiction of the Babel fish that was in the recent live action adaptation of The Hitcchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Fifty-Three More Things To Do In Zero Gravity may make an appearance though, we'll see!

two baby foxes

2011-03-15T12:44:00.000-04:00

A watercolor I made the other day of two baby foxes nuzzling noses. 'Nuff said.

book cover project, part 1

2011-03-14T12:26:00.001-04:00

I'm starting a project of book covers for imaginary books. The Invisible Library (previously invisiblelibrary.com, now accessible only through archive.org's wayback machine) kept a table of fictional books, their authors, and what real book they appeared in. I've picked some of my favorites that I think will also be fun to illustrate.

These will be posted out of order, but I thought it would be fitting to start with Pierre Menard's Don Quixote, from Luis Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote."

Above right -- one I'm less happy with -- is The Orange Catholic Bible, from Frank Herbert's Dune series. Not much is explained about what the Orange Catholic Bible is, so I went with an orange. (I really love drawing oranges.)

(PS: Happy pi day!)

grumpy owls

2011-03-12T23:26:00.000-05:00

I just think it is so cute how owls so often look so grumpy. And I love how fuzzy and fluffy the baby / adolescent owls are. So here are a couple recent watercolors of grumpy, fluffy, adorable baby owls!

recent figure drawing

2011-03-10T19:26:00.000-05:00

I'm finally getting out of my drawing funk. I'm still scanning and photographing my new work, so it will be up on this blog in the next week or two. For now, here is some figure drawing I did at the Mission Cultural Center and at UC Berkeley. Unfortunately, the time I was at Berkeley, I didn't get a very good seat, and had a poor, backlit view of the model. Plus, I was doing line drawings in light pencil, which don't scan very well. So most of these scans are from the Mission.

animals with antlers

2011-02-03T00:54:00.003-05:00

I'm still having some trouble with ideas and motivation lately. When I can figure out a project to work on, and make the time to work on it, I can eventually get something I like out of it, even if it's not what I originally planned, and even if it takes lots of sketches and re-dos. But without ideas and motivation, I'm stuck.

So I went through my tumblr, where I post images and artwork that I enjoy or find inspiring. And I mapped out some of my favorite elements in other people's artwork. A couple of things I came up with were animals and antlers. (The antlers tag, of course, has a lot of animals with antlers, not just free-floating antlers.) I don't know, I think antlers are a bit of a cliche right now, but it got me drawing. So here are some of my animals with antlers!

"ipad"

2011-02-01T12:52:00.000-05:00

Inspired by the PixelPads (which I learned about via swissmiss), I made this paper "ipad" for my sister for her birthday. It's a big, ipad-sized pad of paper with a black border and rounded edges. (The edges should really be silver, but I liked the black look better.)

I wanted to get actual ipad packaging for this. I went to a couple Apple stores a few times, to see if they had any leftover packaging hanging around. At first they told me that they just didn't have any on hand, and I would do better to check back when they were near closing, because a couple people a day would buy ipads and then leave the packaging at the store for whatever reason. When I did come back near closing, I was told they couldn't give away their "marketing materials."

A lot of people encouraged me to make my own ipad packaging. I think this would have defeated the purpose. My sister knows I can't afford to buy her a real ipad (I also suspect it wouldn't be her top choice of an expensive gift? we like paper books quite a lot, and she got a new laptop somewhat recently) but the real packaging still would have been a fun bluff! Whereas my handmade packaging would have been somewhat the same as writing "there is a paper ipad inside of this wrapping paper." Defeats the purpose.

Anyway, I meant to post these pictures months ago! But here they are.

houses in my neighborhood, 1

2011-01-11T13:07:00.003-05:00

I've started a series of pencil and watercolor pieces of houses in my neighborhood. This is the first one. I'm not quite satisfied with the way the watercolor turned out. I'll have to experiment more with layering transparencies next time. I like the way the cars turned out, though, and the shingles.

I'm finally doing more drawing. Which means there will be more blogging here! If nothing else, I'm trying to go to a figure drawing class as often as possible. I may post some of my less embarrassing figure drawings here, we'll see. There are also some more Mulan illustrations on the way.

they draw and cook - pasta with handfuls of herbs

2011-01-07T14:52:00.001-05:00

My recipe is up on They Draw and Cook! This summer they had a very recipe / illustration contest for a book they're putting out. Unfortunately I missed the deadline on the holiday contest, but it looks like they have plenty of other exciting projects in store!

grebe watercolor in Bard's News From Hudsonia

2010-12-21T10:31:00.000-05:00

Bard College's News from Hudsonia has published my drawing of a pied-billed grebe. Originally drawn and posted in March 2010.

mulan illustration, folio 5: battle

2010-10-19T09:45:00.005-04:00

The newest page in my Mulan project. Original is 14" x 28".

mulan illustration, folio 4: mulan going to the market

2010-10-13T10:00:00.002-04:00

The latest finished folio from my Mulan project. Original is 14" x 28".

These all look much better large -- when I've finished all of them, I'll be posting them in a larger size on my flickr.

mulan illustration, folio 3: mulan dresses as a man

2010-09-24T09:27:00.013-04:00

Another finished folio from my Mulan illustration project. Since this is designed to be in a book, the image is split down the middle, with a Mulan on the outside of each page. On the left she holds a chrysanthemum, on the right, a sword. Behind her is her house (also, a goat).

Above is the full size, 14" x 28" version. Below is a 9" x 11" sketch, sort of a character / costume sketch. Both are watercolor.

mulan illustration, folio 2: mulan at her father's bedside

2010-09-22T10:23:00.006-04:00

Another folio from my Mulan project. Mulan visits her ill father, knowing that he's too sick to go to war. (Also, there are kittens.)

Again, above is the latest, full-size version, 14" x 28", watercolor. Except that the blankets on the bed are a disaster, and are making a dozen different planes, none of which appear to rest on the man's body, or even on the bed itself. So I'll be doing this one over.

And here is the smaller sketch, with less interesting patterns and a floating cat, but at least the space makes sense.

mulan illustration, folio 1: mulan weaving

2010-09-20T12:09:00.006-04:00

Above is a folio, real size 14" x 28", of an illustration / book project I am doing of the Chinese folktale / poem Hua Mulan. Below is a messy sketch, something like 11" x 14". Both are watercolor.

the snake

2010-09-16T11:15:00.012-04:00

This is an illustration from an Italian folktale I read in Italo Calvino's collection. The story is called "The Snake." It starts out with a little girl who is the only one of her sisters not to be afraid of a snake lying in a field. She eventually takes it home and puts it under her bed. (It's after the snake gives her a gift and then leaves that the story really begins.) Get a load of this wonderful, oh-so-Calvino line:

"When she got back home, she placed the snake under her bed. It grew so rapidly that soon it was too big to fit under the bed, so it went away."

And that's what this is a picture of: when the snake is too big to fit under the bed. The ink version above is my latest version, though I'm still not totally sure it's what I want. The watercolor one below feels too static, though I'm glad I tried to make a setting.

revenge is a dish best served cold, and some sketches of buildings, plants, and flowers

2010-09-14T11:38:00.001-04:00

This is a post of really just sketches, to get me working again. Above and below are watercolor and india ink.

And this incredible goofy, awkward drawing, was my first attempt and throwing together something for Illustration Friday. (The next time I update my flickr I'll be submitting it there.) The theme this week is "proverb," and I went with a Klingon one. Revenge is a dish best served cold! (bortaS bIr jablu'DI' reH QaQqu' nay')

tam lin, part 2

2010-08-23T10:59:00.000-04:00

See part 1 here.

tam lin, part 1

2010-08-20T10:46:00.004-04:00

This is a project from 2008 that I've finally gotten around to photographing. Students in my class were given a roll of cash register tape. We had 2 weeks to fill it with something. I consider this one of my first book projects (a scroll is a type of book, after all!). I chose to illustrate the ballad "Tam Lin," a story of a maiden, Janet (sometimes Margaret), who falls in love with a fairy named Tam Lin. My favorite version of the song is by Fairport Convention, followed closely The Watersons' version and Anne Briggs' version. There's also an amazing re-imagining of the song by Benjamin Zephaniah & Eliza Carthy.

Other information to help make sense of the illustrations: I made all of the characters birds, Janet and her friend are chickadees, Tam Lin is a bird of paradise; Tam Lin lives in a forest called Cauterhaugh (sometimes Cauterhall), which is, perhaps, on land belonging to Janet's father; Janet can't play chess with all the other women in the land, of which there are 24, because she's become pregnant with Tam Lin's kid; she goes into the woods to find an herb to give herself an abortion, and Tam Lin convinces her that instead she should try to turn him back into a mortal knight and save him from the fairy queen. Not pictured: the fairy queen threatens to tear out his eyes and replace them with a pair made of wood.

I didn't photograph the whole thing, as you can imagine, it's quite long! These are some of my favorite sections. There are 8 pictures in this post, and there will be another 8 in a second.

new pictures of butterfly boxes (and a few dragonflies)

2010-08-18T11:31:00.010-04:00

For months I've been meaning to get individual photos of some of my favorite butterfly boxes. Here they are! More butterflies and bugs on my bug tag.

The butterflies are cut-out watercolor drawings on watercolor paper. I made the boxes out of davey board (book board). Unfortunately, these pictures were taken a few months after being tossed around in the mail, so they're not in the greatest shape. Someday I'll repair them and take still more pictures!

new photos of old work

2010-08-16T10:03:00.006-04:00

I know, I know, I've sucked at posting anything lately, and with any consistency since April. I'm hoping the new blog design (which I posted about here) and my recent redesign of naomibardoff.com will inspire me to start posting again.

For now, here are some new photos of some work from the last year, taken by Michael Blackwell.

naomibardoff.com redesign & update complete

2010-08-15T23:40:00.000-04:00

As you can see, I've finally finished redesigning and updating naomibardoff.com! Please browse around the site, check out the galleries, and definitely let me know if you run into any issues. If you do, leave a comment here or email me at naomi (dot) bardoff (at) gmail (dot) com.

Also, for anyone who emailed naomi (at) naomibardoff (dot) com, I'm sorry if you didn't get a reply, or didn't get one for basically ever. I've changed the contact information on my website to match the email I actually use (the same one as above) and will also be checking my domain email with more frequency.

new book of tea bags

2010-06-29T15:00:00.000-04:00

I'm finally making things in my studio again. Here's another book of teabags. I bought some gorgeous book paper and have been saving teabags again this summer.

handmade books

2010-06-12T09:35:00.007-04:00

I've finally photographed some of my favorite hand-bound books I've made over the years.

This is the most technically advanced book I've made, from when I was working on just technical bookmaking at the Colombia Center for Book and Paper Arts in Chicago. It's a round-back spine, the only one I've ever attempted, and the headbands are hand-sewn. The different colors of the patterned paper is not a trick of the light, it's two different papers. This is also the first time I made a fitted box for a book.

The binding of my book of spells. Because of how I was working on this project, I wanted to do each pair of pages at a time, so each signature is only one folio. Since it's also on drawing paper, which has a horrible grain for bookbinding, sewing it was a huge challenge. All of the pages are glued together as well as sewn so that there are no blank pages.

And here's a stack of all my books together:

book of spells final chapter

2010-06-09T12:30:00.002-04:00

book of spells, chapter 4 (the one about the flowers)

2010-06-08T12:00:00.001-04:00

book of spells, my favorite chapter!

2010-06-07T11:40:00.001-04:00

book of spells, chapter 2

2010-06-06T11:35:00.002-04:00

book of spells, chapter 1

2010-06-05T11:30:00.002-04:00

As I'm trying to get back into working mode, I'm looking at back at my old work. My favorite project I've done is still the book of spells I made in spring of 2009. I'm going to be posting my favorite pages, chapter by chapter, over the next couple of days. Images of the book of spells can also be seen on my website.

More spellbook pages after the jump.

food, design, illustration, fun, fashion, etc. blog: a billion tastes and tunes

2010-06-04T15:08:00.001-04:00

I have a new blog, a Billion Tastes and Tunes. It's about food, design, illustration, fun, fashion, goals, everything that isn't the art I post on this blog. I've been less active on naomese since my opening; I'm hoping that soon I'll be producing art again. I needed a break after my senior project, and now I'm ready to be making art again.

I also have a flickr, naomese. I've actually had this flickr account longer than I've been actively using this blog; the idea was originally that I would update both at the same time. Now that I'm using flickr again, I do plan on doing that, for now I'm just slowly adding pictures a few at a time, and with new ones for a Billion Tastes and Tunes. I lost the password to my account, and though the people at yahoo were confused for a while, thinking my account had been deactivated, eventually my password was recovered and now I love the people at yahoo for recovering my password and letting me keep the same flickr name. Hooray!

If you want even more of me, I update my tumblr, curiosities & clockwork, about a dozen times a day. I post images of art and photos that I like or find inspiring. I've also just made a new header and tweaked the design slightly so it's more my own. Let me know if you have a tumblr so I can follow you back!

"kitchenette" senior project installation part 8: individual objects and object groups

2010-05-18T09:49:00.008-04:00

My pile of paper shoes.

Another detail of the objects on the table. More can be seen in the post about the table and tablecloth.

Part of my orange peel collection from above.

Collection of hair and paper-mache eggs.

Collection of paper, birch bark, and orange things.

Another top view of the table.

For all the posts with pictures of my finished senior project, check out the finished project tag on my blog. I'll be updating my website with the photos of my project too!

"kitchenette" senior project installation part 7: butterflies and wall details

2010-05-17T16:58:00.002-04:00

The rice paper pile and rice paper cut-out butterflies emerging from it.

Close-ups with butterflies, cut-out silhouettes, rice paper pile, and box of hair and thread.

Colored butterflies on small wall.

Detail of colored butterflies and cut-outs.

Cut-out india ink feathers by stove and windows.

"kitchenette" senior project installation part 6: drawings

2010-05-17T16:55:00.013-04:00

Wall collage of cut-outs and drawings, the small far wall and part of the hutch from the previous post.

Detail of the same wall.

Close-up of the butterflies and other paper cut-outs.

Most of the large wall.

Close-up of the figures and animals section of the large wall.

The corner.

"kitchenette" senior project installation part 5: cabinet hutch

2010-05-14T11:43:00.001-04:00

What is the proper term for this awesome piece of antique kitchen furniture? Well, here it is. For photos of it in the context of the complete installation, check out my past post with photos of my entire space. A future post will have detail shots of the items piled in and around this piece, and another will have photos showing more of the drawings, walls, and how they interact with the furniture and space.

"kitchenette" senior project installation part 4: table and tablecloth

2010-05-13T09:12:00.002-04:00

My huge tablecloth in action! It's cotton muslin painted with silk painting techniques. A few in progress posts are in my fabric painting tag.

A more full-installationview of the table with the stove and chair.

Top view with painted globe, hair collection, eggs, orange peel, canvas book, and utensil case of twigs/wands.

"kitchenette" senior project installation part 3: stove

2010-05-12T13:38:00.027-04:00

Close-ups of the stove and surrounding area. Check out the previous post with photos of the whole installation to get an idea of how the stove fit into the space.

My stove with the hair paintbrushes, papier-mache frying pan with bird's nest and paper egg, some of my jar collection, and rolls of paper.

Another angle of the stove, with a better view of the fox mask and leaf floor covering.

Side view of the stove, with the pile of my paper shoes, and some of the cut-out and drawing collage on the wall (details of the latter in a future post!).

Top view of stove, leaves, and paper shoes.

Final close-up of my fox mask!

"kitchenette" senior project installation part 2: whole installation view

2010-05-11T11:37:00.001-04:00

Pictures of the whole thing, all the drawings and furniture and objects and orange peels and all! Details to follow.

"kitchenette" senior project installation part 1: last-minute installation stuff

2010-05-10T10:45:00.008-04:00

My opening has come and gone, and I'm finally getting back into the swing of blogging and making art. These pictures are from a few days before my opening, as I added leaves and other finishing touches to my installation:

watercolor nudes with animals

2010-04-06T09:11:00.000-04:00

Some new drawings, the main ones I've done as drawings and not just to fill out my wall-space.

I've rearranged this wall since I took this picture, but the clementines are still with the foxes. I like all the oranges together. The women with the reindeer, polar bear, pig, and fox are now over on the lower bird section.

my opening is in 4 days!

2010-04-05T21:11:00.000-04:00

Eek!

Above: hung windows, started putting out leaves, hung chandelier, getting ready to paint floor around my area...

Windows!

postcards!

2010-03-30T12:41:00.000-04:00

My show announcement postcards arrived yesterday! I spent the afternoon addressing them and mailed them out today. If you live on Bard campus, your postcard is already in your mailbox!

Sadly, the picture I used for the postcard has been damaged since I photographed it for the card. It will be presentable for the show, but I'm disappointed that I won't be able to present nearly the same image that I photographed for the postcard. I mean, I guess it's interesting that it's different, but it's not really what my show is about.

I'm really happy with the title "kitchenette." (Mandy came up with it.) I also really love the juxtaposition between that and the dead bird.

There's not much left to do. Here's my list: buy supplies for hanging chandelier and hang it; correct hanging of windows; make and hang curtains, paint molding and ledge; paint stencils on wall; make more drawings; hang drawings; cover floor in dirt, twigs, and leaves; touch up paint; nail down anything that is only taped to the wall. Totally doable in 2 weeks! Though of course the "make drawings" part is open-ended. but mostly I feel like I can relax and just concentrate on getting things done day-to-day.

installation for my exhibit continues in UBS

2010-03-26T08:49:00.001-04:00

Unfortunately we were having a gray afternoon when I took these pictures, so the light is not very good. But it's exciting to see how much the walls are covered now! Compare (both light and space coverage) to my first entry about hanging at UBS.

larger drawings of birds & people

2010-03-25T18:52:00.002-04:00

More recent watercolors. These are about 18" x 24". The two below are from specimens at the field station.

spring break in red hook and UBS

2010-03-24T19:10:00.002-04:00

My spring break productivity is sadly not much higher than my non-spring-break productivity, but at least the weather is beautiful! And as you can sort of see in this picture showing me working on installing in UBS, I taught myself how to French braid my hair.

(Compare to the first picture of me on the scaffolding in UBS, in almost the same spot!)

I'll be spending the rest of the week hanging my pieces, collecting leaves and clementine peels, drawing at the field station, and drawing in my studio. (And eating the focaccia I made yesterday, yum.) Barely over 2 weeks left until the opening! See you there.

more field station drawings

2010-03-23T09:41:00.010-04:00

wings

2010-03-22T16:39:00.000-04:00

I went to the field station again today and did some drawings of wings and bird specimens.

Tomorrow I'll post more pictures from my excursion today. I'll be going back to the field station a few more times this week, too. I'll also be working in UBS, pictures of that may follow this week as well. It's spring break here and my schedule is up in the air, other than my appointments at the field station and for studio visits.

(So my next immediate plan is to make lemon-rosemary focaccia!)

globe, owl, and butterflies

2010-03-18T12:55:00.000-04:00

A few better pictures of some of my 3-d pieces in their new homes:

FURNITURE!

2010-03-17T17:18:00.002-04:00

My furniture came last week and I've been loving it. The second there was a stove in my space, it became a kitchen. (Painting that ledge didn't hurt either, and I'm sure once I have the molding up on the other wall it will improve the domestic/interior vibe further.)

I'm working on bridging the gap between handmade/altered and store-bought (if antique) furniture by stuffing my furniture with all my weird crap. In the countertop/cabinet/hutch thing on the right you can see some of my cutouts, twigs, and leaves piled up in the drawers and on the counter, and some fabric scraps and a paper owl in this bizarre glass hingey thing on the top left of the piece.

Here's the stove! This week I made that pan out of papier mache and I love it with my nest and paper eggs and the jars of brushes and hair. I'm less happy with how the stove looks stuffed with paper -- unfortunately, a stove with a built-in oven that could be stuffed with paper was out of my price range, even for renting -- but I think with a more colorful and patterned collection of paper in different sizes, it won't look as weird as it does now with the mostly-white paper that's all the same width.

clementine sketches

2010-03-16T09:34:00.006-04:00

More scanner-sized sketches:

bird-related sketches

2010-03-15T16:53:00.000-04:00

I've been a bad blogger for the last week. I blame going back and forth between my studio on campus and my exhibition space in Red Hook. I brought my camera to Red Hook to take pictures of my new furniture (!!!) at UBS, but I kept forgetting to bring it there when I was actually working there, and I kept forgetting to bring it back to campus to take pictures of what I was working on there.

So: scans of scanner-sized sketches of what I'm working on. Pictures of my awesome furniture and the objects I've been making and the changes I've made to my installation coming soon!

field trip to the field station

2010-03-05T13:12:00.000-05:00

Today I finally made it to the field station to look at specimens! After a less-than-productive week (in terms of producing things, at least... I did have some productive meetings and rearranging-UBS sessions) it was exciting to go see these inspiring bird and mammal skins.

I took over 100 pictures, these are just some of my favorites. Next week I'll be coming back to draw them in person.

Some of the birds were over a century old. Everything was so gorgeous and fragile.

I'll keep you guys updated on that whole vegan-obsessed-with-taxidermy thing.

PS: the professor showing me around told me that these bats are mummified! How awesome is that. And you can't tell in this picture, but they are tiny.

starting to hang at UBS

2010-03-04T13:26:00.001-05:00

This is how I left my things at UBS on Monday: practically every drawing I don't hate from this schoolyear hanging on the walls (and some I do hate too); the 3-d things I made last week (I finished decorating that globe on Sunday); my tablecloth and rugs hanging out; and one shelf installed.

I'm going to be playing around with the arrangement, layering, and hanging of my work a LOT, which is why I'm starting now. And of course, it will also be different as I do more work. I like having the sketches, solid colors, and cutouts hanging on the wall with my bags of hair, bugs and teabags, as well as my cut-out butterflies, but I'm still trying to figure out what, if anything, is my organizing principle.

This shows my tablecloth and the canvas rugs I made better than previous pictures. Also some of my implements, like the mop from a failed mopping spree (more on that below) and those rolly stairs. You can even make out my budding collection of orange and clementine peels piled on the table.

This gives you an idea of how much my arrangement will change: this is how my space looked Sunday evening, the night I started hanging pieces. The tablecloth is piled and there's a dark spot on the floor because I tried sweeping and even mopping. There is SO MUCH dirt and caked mud and cement dust on my floor, I created a dust storm just with my preliminary sweeping. Mopping a pile of mud was so depressing that I decided to just let me canvas rugs get dirty for now. Those can protect the hem of my tablecloth until the floors are cleaned completely.

cutouts from last week

2010-03-03T09:34:00.007-05:00

Last week I made this drawing with the sunflowers, and those butterflies and boxes in the pile on this chair. (I also made that weird drawing next to the sunflowers, but then I cut it to bits and try not to think about it any more).

Then I moved most of my work into UBS to start hanging. Eek! More on that tomorow.

NAOMI BARDOFF DOT COM

2010-03-02T13:15:00.002-05:00

naomibardoff.com is finally finished!
this is a good excuse for not posting in a week, I think.
regular art & project updates resuming tomorrow.

I am particularly proud of the 404 error page, which you can get to from any mistyped or made-up address following the usual naomibardoff.com URL.

ALSO: this blog can now be found at blog.naomibardoff.com AS WELL as at naomese.blogspot.com. Okay? Okay.

what AM I doing now?

2010-02-18T17:02:00.001-05:00

Now that I've finished my tablecloth, I'm feeling the lack of structure in how I work. The week I was worked on the tablecloth, I knew what I was doing each day, and stayed in my studio and the art building longer. My work is all over the place now.

I've been working on some stencils for my walls and finding things to do with my leftover fabric paint.

I started a big acrylic piece on paper (right) and I've spent a lot of time walking around the art building in my patchwork working skirt (left).

I've also been having craft meetings in my studio, making things like the big mask above for the circus this may. I'm trying to make my project for this week to make a lot of canvas throw rugs for my show. That's what the black and white rectangles are, the colorful pieces are experiments using fabric paint on paper.

my corner of UBS

2010-02-16T10:48:00.001-05:00

This weekend Mandy, my former studio-mate, current roommate, and fellow art major, and I started working at UBS. My corner was among the grimiest, between flooding and cement mixing that's been going on around it.

My house paint had froze in Mandy's car, and I probably should have spackled or something, but instead I started painting my walls. Here I am on some scaffolding, taking care of business.

It may be hard to tell from this picture, but even my half-painted and taped-up walls are a huge and cozy improvement over the mud-spattered, nail-and-staple-filled void I walked into on Saturday.

finished tablecloth!

2010-02-15T15:19:00.000-05:00

I finally finished painting and ironing my tablecloth! These pictures give an idea of what the tablecloth is like on a table, but unfortunately the table is the wrong size and the only good place I could find to take a picture was in a seminar room with tiles missing from the floor and black folding chairs all over the place, so it's not quite right. Later, when I've finished painting the walls of my space in UBS, I'll get some pictures of the tablecloth there!

so, what's your senior project on?

2010-02-13T18:36:00.011-05:00

If you're a senior at Bard College, you'll be asked what your senior project is on. Depending on who asks, sometimes I say "It's an art project," "I'm doing mostly watercolor and ink drawings," "I've been drawing a lot of dead animals lately," "It's sort of related to witchcraft," or "It has to do with femininity and animals and feminine power or something." Lately I've been saying, "That's a good question!"

You tell me:

At any rate, 8 weeks from today, at the UBS Bard College Exhibition Center (a former warehouse belonging to UBS), from starting at 3 PM, my completed senior project will be on display!

(That's April 10th at the UBS Exhibition Center in Red Hook. The reception is from 3-6 PM.)

starting to paint my giant piece of fabric!

2010-02-12T21:10:00.002-05:00

I'll do a post later explaining the process of how I made this fabric painting, but here are a few pictures of my process of stretching out the prepared fabric and mixing and applying the paint:

giant fabric stretcher

2010-02-11T13:38:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I built a giant fabric stretcher for my giant fabric painting project (a tablecloth).

The fabric has to be stretched taut, so that it's not wrinkly or collapsing in on itself, and has to be raised so that none of the fabric is pressing against anything, like a wall or a table or the floor, because then the resist and the pigment will smear and bleed against itself. My fabric is 108 inches wide (9 feet) and about 12 feet long. I am doing it in sections, but it made sense to me for the stretcher to allow my fabric to stretch to its full width, and then do the length in batches.

Above is my stretcher in the hallway by my studio, with my floral hammer as I was hammering in tiny nails for stretching my fabric on.

As usual, I couldn't get my camera do a good job of photographing something mostly white, but here's a couple shots of my giant fabric piece, stretched out on my stretcher, the extra length pooling at the bottom, with the pencil sketch of the outline I'll be making with the resist.

It took my about 2 full days of work to finish drawing in the entire outline with the resist, and today I hope to start going in with the fabric paint. After I have pictures of every step of the process, I'll do a post about how it works. For now, the resist (or gutta) is a waxy and, well, resistive substance that I use to outline shapes on my fabric, like the black outlines on this scarf and the white outline on these scarves. Then, when I go in and paint with the very watery fabric paint, it doesn't bleed ridiculously, and instead pools within the shapes formed by the resist, which, if applied correctly, will have penetrated through the cloth and stopped the paint from spreading.

JARS: or, so this is what I spend my money on

2010-02-10T12:09:00.000-05:00

This weekend I went to Kingston and got some lumber to build a stretcher for the tablecloth I'm making, and a table to put it on. (More on that in a couple of days!) I also went by Michael's and bought a bunch of awesome apothecary jars. I'm sure there will be lots more to come as I continue to work on my project.

Above are some of the clementine peels I've been collecting, and a braid I made out of painted dental floss.

And these are the paintbrushes I've been making out of my hair. This group of pieces is probably the favorite non-drawing aspect of my project right now. There are lots more coming, but it's a slow process. (And yes, I will be painting with them.)

And a final huge picture... the clutter of my working area, my teabag collection, my watercolor butterfly collection, my paint chip collection, and, below, my lunch. Which I had to bring in jars, because all of our tupperware has mysteriously disappeared or become covered in mold. (My lunch that day: green rice with cilantro, parsley, spinach, green onions, spinach, and red lentils, with garlic bread, all leftover from the dinner I made the other night.)

paper shoes

2010-02-01T18:11:00.001-05:00

At the beginning of last semester, I was toying around with illustrating "The Shoes that were Danced to Pieces" (sometimes "The Twelve Dancing Princesses"). Around the same time, Ullabenulla, one of my favorite bloggers, was posting about beautiful shoes and a class she taught on making paper shoes.

These are the paper shoes I made as part of this project. I go back and forth about coming back to these... making all 12 pairs of shoes, or making 100s of pairs of shoes, wearing the shoes, making shoes out of washi paper or papier mache...but for now, here are my favorite shoes from that currently-abandoned endeavor.

girl and polar bear, raccoon, anteater, condor, and bats

2010-01-29T13:35:00.010-05:00

Before I say anything about this piece, I have this thought: IT IS REALLY HARD TO PHOTOGRAPH PENCIL DRAWINGS. I had the same problem with my starling series.

This pencil drawing shows a young woman, in this case my friend Deborah, hanging out with some of my favorite critters.

This zoom shows the pencil a bit better.

And here's a better shot showing a corner of my studio, with my scarves and the hair, jars, and orange peels I've been collecting. (Note to those in the Bard College area: please save and give my your orange and clementine peels! Please!)

book of teabags

2010-01-28T16:00:00.000-05:00

This is a book experiment I made with some of the teabags I've been saving. (I drink a lot of tea in my studio.) The stitch is something like a basic coptic stitch, but it couldn't be an exact one because I had teabags, not signatures and folios.

in progress

2010-01-26T15:06:00.008-05:00

I'm back at school and in my studio. I haven't posted any new work yet because most of my art supplies are in the mail between my parents' house and school. Later this week I'll have pictures of some work from last semester that I haven't posted/photographed yet and are related to my project.

Pictured is this wonderful jar kit I found at a local (and overpriced) junk shop. I haven't decided yet what to make out of them — they're so fantastic by themselves!

While I'm waiting for most of my stuff to arrive, I'm working on pencil drawings (pencils are all I brought with me on the plane) and on setting up my website. It's getting close, and right now the main thing I have to work on for it is getting good photos and scans of everything — perfect busywork for while my watercolors and brushes come in the mail.

wrapped bird from book of spells last semester

2010-01-21T10:05:00.000-05:00

Since I've been posting about my recent dead bird drawings, here's an older watercolor of a dead bird, from my book of spells project. I'll post the entire chapter another time, but for now here's one of my favorite pages from that book project.

more crushed starling

2010-01-20T10:24:00.012-05:00

This drawing of my dead starling is my favorite so far:

When I was working on it, I kept glancing down at the paper and thinking that the flies crawling all over the bird were landing all over my wet ink! I like to think of this story as less tooting my own horn regarding the rendering of the flies, and more a story about how I'm such a space cadet that I actually forgot I had drawn all the flies.

Fire more after the jump.

crushed starling

2010-01-19T11:59:00.005-05:00

I found a lovely crushed starling in a parking lot over the weekend and have continued my studies of dead animals and my drawings of dead birds.

Three more after the jump.