Audrey Flack

Audrey Flack, Study for Marilyn (Vanitas) II, 1977

Audrey Flack

This artist is another one of my living heroes. I think it's quite an accomplishment when a visual artist makes history while they are still alive. Audrey made a name for herself at a very young age and still teaches art today in New York.
I pulled this image from a site that placed her work under photography. This is not a photograph but shows how photo-realistic her work could actually be. If you were to view one of Flack's paintings in person, it would be obvious that it is not a photograph because of its size and accuracy. Most cameras cannot reproduce quality images the size of a wall without loosing clarity. Her painting technique at this time was airbrush over oil.
One of my favorite quotes from the well-known textbook author and historian, Henry Sayre states, "Sometimes the greatest challenge in art, is art itself." He was referencing Audrey's work when he made this statement and I believe it is a beautiful argument for all photo realists. Their work is so skillfully done that it is hard to tell if it's a photo or a painting. Many of the airbrush artists brought photo realism to its peak in the 80s and 90s.
I remember one of my professors scoffing at the photo realists movement and said, "It's like they are so seduced by their skill that their paintings have no soul." As much as I loved this teacher, I was appalled by his commentary. Very few people could look at this image and say it has no soul. Ironically enough, Audrey wrote a book called "Art and Soul" which I cherish and have read many times when I'm discouraged by my own art struggles.
Audrey Flack is using iconography to describe the content behind this piece. She did more than one painting on the subject of Marylin Monroe and the still life was her primary means of communication at this time in her art career. Study the objects closely and think of the symbolic meaning each one has. Her work is fascinating and each object's story, when combined with other objects tells about the complex life of this tortured soul we called, Marylin Monroe.
Although I've never read that Audrey Flack was a feminist, she does tackle many of the issues women face today. She began sculpting goddesses later in her art career and was equally skillful at the realism in her 3-D works. She has left quite a long legacy to the art world and is still contributing to its ever-evolving nature to this day.

It's Hot!

I created this watercolor in a cartoon-like (illustrative or animated would be a more proper term) style simply because I wanted to show off the beautiful features in the desert. One of my favorite quotes you can find in Frank Herbert's, Dune:
 "Wisdom comes from the desert and polish comes from the city."

I believe in this quote because of the strong spiritual feeling I get when walking across the desert. I've visited the Chihuahan Desert, the Mojave Desert and the Sonoran Desert in my travels and I'm always in awe by the extreme temperatures, wildlife and landscape.
I've included a vulture in this picture because I really love the turkey vulture. I have looked up the difference between a vulture and a buzzard many times and all the dictionaries and encyclopedias argue on the proper definitions and differences. Basically, here in the United States there is a difference which has to do with how they eat, (carrion or prey) and what bird they have evolved from (eagle, falcon or hawk). In Europe, there is no difference and most believe that is how we picked up the term buzzard.
Whether you disagree with my summation or not, you must agree this is an incredible bird in both wingspan and resilience. Vultures and buzzards play a major role in our environments. Many have labeled them "nature's environmentalists." Imagine how messy it would be if we didn't have this animal to clean up all the carcases in the desert! The ancient Egyptians believed the vulture carried your soul to the heavens. This is why you see the ancient hieroglyphs with vultures worked in the glyphs. One of the oldest Egyptian gods, Nekhbet, is symbolized as a vulture.
The vulture has taken on bad PR in the past. In some parts of the US they are considered pests because they would attack small farm fowl but that is a buzzard (by most definitions because a vulture feeds on carrion - dead animals, not live prey.) This is why I choose the term vulture when referencing any great scavenger bird out of respect for such a magnificent animal that's capable of surviving in such extreme temperatures all over the world.

The Blue Hour

 

This image is from St. Anne's in Houston, TX - It's where my mother went to school! The blue in the sky is her favorite color so I drove down to this church one night and took a picture, printed it, framed and matted it and then gave it to her for Christmas. She was over-joyed!

Right after the sun sets and before it gets dark, the sky takes on the most loveliest shade of blue. This is affectionately called "The Blue Hour" by artists. It's the second most popular kind of lighting to photographers because they can use that lovely shade of deep, rich blue to accent any artificial lighting around them. Using twilight for high contrast photos is another great technique that pre-dates the invention of photography.

Even Leonardo da Vinci found this time of evening to have a flattering affect on his subjects. He encouraged his students to cover their patios with a tarp so they could have this lighting affect in the daytime as well. Shadows on figures are more pronounced but still soft and flattering. Even buildings look prettier in this type of lighting because the corners and angles are accented with a high contrast. It can be quite a challenge to make artificial lighting look pretty especially at night. The tripod is necessary for sharp shooting and your camera needs to be set manually. Any auto focus - auto lighting images will look fake and over-lit.

Twilight is another story. The light is still bright enough for rich, natural colors and any artificial light will not dominate the scene.

So if your heading out to take some sunset photos, stay out a little longer and you'll catch the blue hour!

Want something to do this weekend?...Grab that camera!

The Golden Hour

Photographers know this moment. It occurs twice every day no matter if it's been raining or sunny. Long before photography, we called this time, "the golden hour." Even the early Renaissance masters knew that this was a magical time of day when the sun's colors were brilliant. 

The sky takes on a gradient rainbow and everything is bathed in a golden highlight. 

Grab your camera and head for the outdoors when you see the sun setting behind the horizon. Your pictures will turn out wonderful, but hurry...

 

...you only have a 30-45 minute window before all the magic is gone.

Got Stains?

Please forgive the cliche title but it seemed to work!

I live in a very hot climate and during the summer months, I paint wearing a tank top and shorts. Sure, these are cheap cloth items but the thrifty, recycling, nature-lover in me does not like to waste anything. So when I get a few bleach stains or paint stains on my clothes, I usually draw something over the stains and keep on wearing the shirt till it's worn away or too difficult to clean. I've created a lot of interesting designs this way. 

All you need to do is stretch the shirt over a piece of cardboard and draw out the design with a soft grade pencil or stick of graphite. You can see the actual circle behind the sun image above. I used this for my grid and placement. I use a medium point permanent marker to draw the finished image. The cardboard stops it from bleeding to the other side. 

If you use permanent color markers and want to add shades of value, just take some rubbing alcohol with a cotton ball to smear the line work and create a watercolor effect. Be open to experimentation - after all - you were going to throw the shirt away - why not experiment?

By the way, this is one reason artists wear black. With a black shirt, all you need to do is color over the stain. It's much harder to match other colors.

Here is the final outcome...

    

The Skyscraper

(photos by dianne curtis / all rights reserved)

The Skyscraper

...was America's contribution to architecture. Did you know that in order to invent the first skyscrapers, we had to invent the elevator first? That makes sense...right? The Romans could have invented skyscrapers but buildings that were taller than 5 stories were not logical for everyday business practices.
You're looking at one of Houston's most famous and distinguishable buildings now called Heritage Plaza. It was finished in 1987 when Houston was suffering from the oil crunch, unemployment and premature over-expansion so it stood as one of the last, tallest buildings to be built in Houston for over a decade. The main architect behind the design, (M. Nasr) was inspired by the Mayan step-pyramids he visited in the Yucatan.

Another building with a bit of a "Dutch-Gothic" revival located in Houston is the Bank of America Center designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee.
Like many of the modern skyscrapers in Houston, these buildings are so distinctive, the skyline in this city has become famous and easily identifiable all over the world...
but Houston has been criticized for not paying attention to the ground level of these beautiful towering entities that dwarf anyone walking under them. We don't really have the elaborate gargoyles or Baroque arabesques that other cities do along the east coast but it can be argued that Houston is a more modern city simply because it developed at a much later time period in history.
When the first skyscrapers were designed the idea of using nothing but reinforced concrete, steel and glass seemed disastrous. It wasn't until the perfection of steel manufacturing. stronger glass and reinforced concreted that allowed architects to solve all the weight distribution problems that are included with a huge skyscraper. This is why older cities like New York and Chicago have masonry work on the first few stories, this was the only solution for handling the weight and gravitational problems with building so high. As we perfected these challenges, our buildings became prettier. One architect who taught everyone how to really "dress up" up a building was Mies van der Rohe...but we'll talk about him on another day.