Rachel Castle

 

After those calico toiles and a period of working in monochrome I am in need of some colour inspiration. Rachel Castle fits the bill perfectly with her bright felt appliques, serious fuzzy felt fun and the antidote to eyes hungry for colour.

Emanuele Luzzati I

Emanuele Luzzati's bright, lively and very happy alphabet figures.

Vyacheslav Legkobit

 

 

Time for some colour and pattern inspiration from the wonderful Ukrainian illustrator Vyacheslav Legkobit, who could fail to be happy when the bluetits are painting the sky blue? Have a lovely weekend.

Masks and toiles

 

 

 

Today I am going to try to get my NC fashion students started on a fabric mask. I am wanting to use calico as the students all have calico toiles made and I hope to be able to put on a fashion show which is quite ghostly and mysterious using the toiles and calico masks. Here are some that I have made this week to try to inspire them.

A Catch Up II: Hair and Beauty

 

I had the opportunity to photograph the hairdressing students show and portfolio pictures this week, they had help from the beauty department with the make up and introduction to art students with their stage set. I love these shows where different departments in the college can work together have fun and achieve great results.

A Catch Up I, My Students

I want to show you some of the work I have been doing with my students. This is last weeks mask, veil and headdress workshop with my NC Fashion students. I think the students did a fantastic job given the challenge of 'stuffing tights'.

Claire Loder

Claire Loder posted this gem of a portrait today, at first glance I fell in love,  I thought the lips were goldfish. It is one of Claire's development ideas for 'lippy' you can see more here.

Sherri Belassen

Sherri Belassen water themed paintings have wonderful undulations of tone and subtle colour combinations with great contrasts, as little sparks to guide your eye around the picture, like the little golden hat in this work and the red of the ring around the mermaids waist.

Nathaniel Mather II

I love Nathaniel Mather's interpretation of the language of whales.

Bill Traylor

Having Mentioned Bill Traylor in the previous post I thought it best to share some of Bill Traylor's wonderful cats and dogs, I think what makes these works even more enegmatic is the random shapes of the scraps of paper on which Bill drew them.   

Bill Traylor (1854?–1949) was born into slavery on a plantation in Alabama. After emancipation, he continued to live and work on the plantation until sometime before 1928, when he moved permanently to Montgomery. There he worked as a laborer and briefly in a shoe factory until he was physically unable to continue, then began receiving modest government assistance. Under the challenging conditions of Depression-era Alabama, Traylor survived on the streets in the then primarily black enclave of Monroe Avenue (now called Monroe Street). He slept first in the storage room of a funeral parlor, then in a shoe repair shop, and spent his days sitting on the sidewalks, creating the more than 1,200 drawings he is believed to have produced. High Museum of Art

Nathaniel Mather I

Nathaniel Mather is an American artist illustrator who has a love of colour texture and story telling, his work at it's most primitive has Bill Traylor's magic.

Christy Kinard

With still lives boardering on abstraction Christy Kinard's development is almost mirroring the transitions made by Mondrian when painting his fantastic trees, wonderful bright collaged paintings. 
"I created my own visual language partially inspired by the Southern quilting tradition. While quilting is a globally practiced art, the South has its own unique style. My great aunts, who sewed kaleidoscope patchwork with patterned squares of fabric, exposed me to this style. Instead of picking up a needle, however, I picked up a paintbrush to paint and collage layers of patterns and textures with simplified bold shapes and weaving lines." Christy Kinard

Yinfan Huang

Yinfan Huang is a Chinese illustrator, photographer and printmaker currently studying in Minneapolis.

Joanna Kafka

Joanna Kafka is a Polish artist, printmaker and illustrator, with a very varied portfolio. I am drawn to the humour of her illustration and I love her black, white and red hens.

Furze Chan

Furze Chan is a design freelancer in Hong Kong. Her works include publication design, web design and illustration. These are her latest designs for her "With Her Animal Poetry" label. Furze Chan also makes some delightful textile work.

Rebecca Rebouche

"I go about my days with a watchful eye, and when I notice something, I take a mental photograph of it. Later I explore how these objects can be metaphors for some greater human feeling of tension, harmony, loneliness or embrace." Rebecca Rebouche

I love the sentiment of this statement.  My watchful eye grabs strangers and tells them to watch crows bending sticks from branches; or to see the sparrow hawks by the church spire, it demands they notice the wonder of seals or snails.  

A watchful eye is a great thing and Rebecca's watchful eye sees and helps make beautiful work to share the vision.