Artist of the Week: Tiffany Bozic

I have known of Tiffany Bozic for maybe a year and a half now, and I find her to be a primary inspiration, here is a little bit about why: 

Tiffany Bozic is one of those artists that somehow is able to both eat her cake and have it too. She is California’s Academy of Science first Artist in Residence, she shows all over the world, she is often compared to the likes of John Audubon and Ernst Haeckel, and well, she lives in California. Tiffany’s story, however, is different than what one might expect. She is self-taught. A degree in art is usually not only seen as a qualification of you as an artist, but, sometimes more importantly, as a way for you as an artist to form connections within the art world.

In the magazine Hi-Fructose, where she was recently interviewed, she credits her success to hard work. In the interview Tiffany is quoted as saying, “I believe that people aren’t born with talent. They earn it form a lifetime of hard work. Most of my ideas come to me during the process of creation, while the gritty gears were turning and my hands were busy. Also, if you wait for someone else to come around and give you permission or validate your motives you could be waiting a long time and no one knows how much time you really have.”

Here you can particularly see her method. She paints on boards of maple that have been bleached until they are almost white. The bleaching gives her the tone she uses in order to unify each work's color scheme, and the choice of maple is due to it's tight grain. This tight grain means that the paint does not bleed throughout the grain. She also paints in acrylic which is watered down to an almost watercolor consistency. Painting in acrylic means that she does not have to prime the board, and can paint directly onto the wood. This allows her to use the natural beauty of the wood as part of her composition. 

 

A job for me? Yes Please! Thank you My Modern Met

One of the many art blogs that I follow, actually it is probably one of my top five blogs/sites, is hiring writers.

Hmmm, yes please I would like to be hired. It will be an extremely low work load, about 1-3 hours a day for five days a week, and I will get to write about art. Like awesome, current, everything is wonderful art.

I found out about this yesterday, because for some reason when I was sick I did not peruse the internet. Which is exactly what one does when one is sick, right? I must have been super out of it. Anyway, they posted this job opening on the 22nd, and it will be open for a week. Granted I am not too far behind by getting my application in today, but surely they have gotten a billion applications by now. I will be super lucky if they even look at my email. Oh, I hope that they do. How ideal would this be? Mega ideal.

Sadly also one of the things that they want you to do is send them links to websites/blogs that you write/do/make...etc? I don't super blog, except for this and my new perler pattern blog (which is mega secret and I love). But perler blog doesn't have anything but perler patterns on it, and my website is still under construction. (sigh)

Well, yesterday I did write that I had the idea of writing posts about some of my favorite animal artists. Looks like I will be doing that. Gotta beef this puppy up!

Fingers crossed they will look at my email.

Where have I been?

Sick, that is where I have been and it is kind of my doctor's fault for switching my prescription. Awesome. On the bright side I have been in bed watching more than a healthy amount of "The Good Wife." (note: It is not a good TV show, like at all...but I just can't stop. No more, I am not allowed to watch it any more.) I was joking about that being a bright side.

I have been thinking a lot for the past week and a half about the blog and about things that I would like to start posting. I think that I am going to start posting about animal artists that I like. Maybe once a week? I am also going to start posting about oil painting, like tips and techniques. Obviously more for myself than anyone else. Maybe I will also do this once a week?

Anyways, being out for as long as I was means that I am SUPER behind on my goals. Time to really push it. Husband and I have made a pact. Husband, who is still working on his last class for graduation, and yes it is an online, independent study class, and yes he has been "working" on it since January, and yes this is a run on sentence, is not allowed to watch Korra until he has finished a chapter in his book and submitted the work.

Now I also have something similar. I am not allowed to watch Korra, new episodes for the final season are aired on Fridays, unless I have clocked a minimum of 25 hours painting. Hopefully this will push me. And yes, "The Legend of Korra" is that good, and yes it is a cartoon, what? :)

Kaa: part 3

Here he is after about another six or seven, maybe more, hours:

I made a couple of mistakes. If you look, the top "head" section of the snake has different colored spots than the rest of the body that is "naturally" painted. This is because I am stupid. Here is what happened: I painted the board a light blue as a base (this helps colors be a little brighter). When I painted the head section, I painted around the spots, leaving them the light blue, first with burnt sienna and then over that with vandyke brown. I then painted the spots with naples yellow. The blue and the yellow gave the base of the spots a lovely greenish-yellow color. I was in love with myself when that happened. It is a perfect starting point for the spots. 

But then came the stupid part: It took forever to paint around the spots twice. Sooooo I thought to myself, "I know! I will just paint the burnt sienna over the entire section and then paint around the spots with the vandyke. Brilliant, I shall save myself time!" Well it did save me time, but it also covered up the blue to the point that the yellow couldn't interact with it and ta-da yellow-brown spots. :( 

However, I am looking on the bright side, the browner spots look like they are more apart of the snake's body, which is good.... that is all I got. Yay for color theory and me ignoring it. 

I also ended up shrinking the first color stripe. It looked like it was cutting the snake off a little bit too much up top. I think it was a good decision.  

Kaa: part 2, Lisa Frank

Remember Lisa Frank folders from the 80s and 90s?

Accidentally went Lisa Frank on Kaa today: 

I super love the red to yellow gradation, but then I thought I was being so clever by having the base color for the spots be blue and then mixing each color's compliment. Looks a little sickly sweet.

Husband thinks that when the rest of the snake is finished it will look cool, I am not so sure. However, even if it doesn't it shouldn't be a problem. I will just make the spots all the same color. I am thinking either a really light, light blue or an almost blue black.

Mr. T: part 1

Mr. T is the family dog of my bestest friend since third grade, Nana. That makes 24 years...super long time.

Anyways, Nana's family is going through a rough spot, and Nana thought it would be nice to paint Mr. T for her mom. Originally the painting was going to be on an oval canvas, which I did find, however, the quality of said canvas was of a dubious nature. Aka, it was questionably cheap. I bought it anyway, but it isn't going to work out. I wasn't sure what to do, until I discovered an artist, Jen Lobo, the other day. See what I mean:

I love these works. I am not in love with all of her works, which is totally to be expected, but these are exceptional. I super want to see if I can paint something similar. I can't get over how much I love these, if I had the money I would buy one, hands down.  

I paint on board, which does not come round, and thought that following Jen's lead would be a nice solution. Here is Mr. T after about two hours of drawing: 

This is a composite of pieces of Mr. T and another dog that was sitting in the position I wanted. I think I got Mr. T in there pretty well. There is, however, something wrong with the right side of his face. I need to figure out which angle is off. I think I will hold off on painting him until I can figure it out. Mr. T, as you can see, will also have a bow tie. It will be painted in Nana's scottish family crest plaid thing. This morning, I even found a photo of a dog wearing a plaid bow tie, which will be a nice reference. 

Here are a couple prep sketches I did a while ago of Scotties: 

As you can see Mr. T is kind of right between these two, except there is one thing that Mr. T has that these two dogs do not, a very distinct tuft of hair between his eyes, right before his muzzle hair begins to separate. I super love this about him, and think if I get that tuft right, Mr. T will shine through.  

Kaa: part 1

My sister in law, TT, has a pet ball snake python (snake python? a little redundant, the naming committee was out the day the snake's name was picked). When I told TT that I wanted to start a pet portrait company, she laughed at me and said something about how people who want paintings of their pets are idiots, or stupid, or weird, or something along those lines.... (sigh) awesome. So what I am going to do? Make a kick ass painting of her snake, that she can't have. :) Yep, I am both petty and vindictive.

Also a little note on animal care. TT's snake lives out its life in a little fish tank. Super small. I know a girl from school who has three snakes, I believe, and one day she was telling me about the care of snakes. Just about everything TT does for her snake is wrong. Oops. Girl from school has a huge, more like an inclosure than a cage for her snakes that sounds awesome. If I had the money/wasn't nervous around snakes I would totally get a huger six foot tall gig for a snake. It would be snake paradise with real plants and maybe frogs and climate controlled and it would look so cool in the living room. I understand that TT may not want to send that money on her snake or prominently feature her snake, but I feel that if you are going to be a responsible pet owner, you have to.

Take my mom for example, she hates spending money on the family cat(s) (we are down to one, but when we had three she was the same). When something is wrong with the cat, who is the one to take care of it? Me. Almost always.

Another example, my step sister. She has a dog who, when step sister was struggling with getting pregnant, was step sister's baby. The dog was fully featured in many Christmas photo cards. Now that kids are around? Puppy lives out it's life in the garage.

Here is the thing, TT, mom, step sister, they just don't really get it. Animals aren't there when it is convenient, they are there to be a part of your life. Not a fixture. Their food is important, their environment is important, etc etc blah blah. Like how really everyone should just be feeding their cats raw meat.

Sorry...on to the snake!

Snake, I am naming Kaa, after about three hours (including drawing time):

The background will be dark, like the lilly painting, and not stripped. The snake, on the other hand, will be. I put the lines in the background for the time being to help me see the divisions. Hopefully this will turn out.

Blue Kitten: Part...? Starting over

Yep, totally starting over on the kitten. I fixed somethings that were really bothering me about the composition, and tomorrow I should have something.