Wallflower

Wallflower is fresh off the easel. It has quite a different look from most if it's "sisters," partly because the dress is more from the 70's era rather than the 40's and 50's. The pattern is a loose interpretation of what was actually on the dress, enlarged to bigger than wallpaper size. What I love about this piece is the contrast or "push-pull" between the transparent color and the opaque ground. I added a bit of a shadow behind the dress just to make it pop a bit, but I already know there will be many, many people who will breeze by this piece and never even know there is a dress under the paint. Most of my paintings hold some sort of surprise for those who are really looking! You will have to look closely though to see her name, "wallflower" is stitched along the bottom hem of the dress in black floss. This piece will show for the first time in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the "Original" show, here is a link to their site http://www.artfair.org/

Wallflower is 24" square.

Ideas

A question I hear over and over at art shows is "how do you come up with all these ideas?" It always sort of takes my by surprise, because I guess I never think I have enough. I am always building piles of new ideas, in my head, in my sketchbook, on scraps of paper beside the bed. They come in the form of photographs, scribbled notes, random sketches.

Walking the familiar route from studio to kitchen this past winter the buds on my dogwood tree caught my eye.



The contrast is what caught me, they tell you in art school that the human eye registers contrast between light and dark faster than any other aspect, even bright colors.

So I went in to grab the camera and made a few shots. All the while little birds were out fluttering in the chilly air. So here I was out shivering in the cold, while they were out doing whatever little birds do. And, well, I can't carry on with this thought much further without sounding like a complete nut. Suffice it to say I must have been heavily influenced by Disney's Dr. Doolittle as a child, I wish from the bottom of my heart that I could talk to these little creatures. In fact I do talk to them, all forms of animals, lizards, dogs, frogs, birds, even bugs on occasion, so I guess what I really wish is that they could understand, or even talk back!

So as I watched the birds, it dawned on me one was gathering bits for a nest. And I was simply cheering her on, "attagirl" as my father would say.

This is the second I've done like this, the earlier one can be seen a page or so back in this blog. The bird is a pine warbler, not the same as the little brown bird that was building it's nest, but a later visitor. And who knows, this may be a male, being such a bright yellow, but I'm still going with "attagirl." And if you need to see it, I have my artistic licence in my wallet somewhere!

Attagirl is 24" square and has sold!

New post coming soon!

I am catching up on my to do list, and will post a new painting soon. Maybe even this afternoon! But I just wanted you to know I've created a Facebook page, so if you are a FB junkie (like me) please take a minute to seach me out. You'll find me under "Kathrine Allen-Coleman, mixed media artist."


Or try this link... http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Kathrine-Allen-Coleman-Mixed-Media-Artist/114416795259825

Please join my page by clicking the "like" button at the top, it's the easiest way to hear about what I'm working on and where you can find me. Thanks!

Smarty Pants

This isn't the first "smarty pants" I've done, and it won't be the last, but this one sure does make me smile. Rather than explain the process of this one from start to finish, I'll just run through some of the elements.

Front and center is a piece of cherry pie, cherry pie a la mode actually, just paint, nothing tricky. Her little apron has these funny little pac man shapes on it, circles with little pie chunks cut away. Her cherry red dress relates back to the color of the pie, and is covered in little polka dots. And finally the background. What's up with the numbers anyway?

Here's the back story on Smarty Pants. I was at a show a few weeks ago, and a jeweler was next to me, Amy Pfaffman, we've been neighbors before. She is very sweet and I have a few of her pieces. You can see her work here http://amyjewelry.com/ Her jewelry is made of all kinds of bits and pieces, scrabble tiles, watch faces, just cool stuff.

So during the show I occasionally hear people asking her what the numbers mean? I eventually peek in when she isn't busy, and see a few pieces with 3.14159 in them. SO of course I have to ask too. "It's PI" she says exasperated, "I wanted to use numbers, and I thought everyone would know what pi was!"

I just can't resist a good pun.

And maybe with all the extra clues there will be the occasional "Smarty Pants" who will figure out pi=pie all on their own! Smarty Pants is 24" square and is sold.

Ragamuffin

Ragamuffin has finally declared herself finished! Like most of my paintings, I don't begin with a solid plan on what the finished piece will look like. I start with a few elements, and work from there. Adding more, and tweaking this or that as time goes on. (This process makes my artist husband more than a little mental I might add, as we work in very different ways!)

This piece began as a collision between the name, something my mother said to my sister and I on more than one occasion, "You look like a couple of ragamuffins!" And a photo I found in a second hand shop in Atlanta. The bare feet and wild hair connected with me immediately. These elements paired perfectly with a dress I'd had on the back burner for quite some time.

The dandelion relates back to another phrase I often heard as a child, "You're growing like a weed!" I assume it was always meant as a complement? But I was never sure...

The dress itself is adorned with dots made with glazes of color altering the purple base, which makes for a related, fairly neutral, yet interesting palette. Several more layers of paint, and stitching the name in with embroidery floss, and she finally made me smile.

You should see all the things I do in the studio, trying to see a painting "fresh" after working on it for several days. Hang it in a different spot, whirl around and look at it quickly after taking a break, squinting...it probably looks quite comical from the outside!

Well, enough chatter, deadlines are calling. Today I start on a new "smarty pants" and I'm quite excited about her, she should be up by next week!

I got in Old Town!

I applied to The Old Town Art Fair in Chicago again this year, even though it is an extremely difficult show to get into. Then a minor miracle happened, I made it on the wait list. Now for a full body slam in the miracle department, I got a phone call a couple of days ago. A spot opened up, and I was invited. Can you say tickled!?

I haven't even made the change to my schedule yet, but I said you'd be first to know. I'll see you in Chicago on June 12 & 13!

A color junkie

Everyone is probably familiar with the idea of an artist's palette. Usually the first thing that comes to mind is that kidney shaped flat thing with a hole for the thumb. I have been painting for over 20 years now, and I've never actually used one of those! Empty yogurt and cottage cheese containers are usually my palette of choice, with a nice slick expanse of tempered glass as a backup from time to time. But today, I am stitching some of my little "Paper Dolls," so a wad of embroidery thread is my palette.

My grandmother taught me how to embroider sometime around the second grade. I remember even then being mesmerized by the shiny floss, how the deep saturated colors changed as the light hit. I still love to look at these, line them up sorted into analogous colors, or from pure hue to more neutral shades. I think we call that play?

Enjoy your day!

Atta Boy

The question I get asked most often at art shows is definitely "do you do commissions?" But I am also often asked "why don't you do boy's clothes?" Well I do, but pretty much only as commissions. "Atta Boy" was requested to be a companion piece for a little dress painting I did called "Smarty Pants."

"Atta Boy" has a background of transferred Farmers Almanac pages, it is glazed over with quinacridone gold. A row of buttons from a Navy jacket runs along the top. The name is stitched through the canvas, and the oval shape is surrounded by a line of little brass beads. And yes, the little overalls were blue, but I still repaint them entirely to give them lots of depth. This was a fun piece to do, especially because I was given lots of freedom in the process, simply a companion. Something that would feel good in Iowa. Both hang in an oral surgery office, I hope they bring smiles.

Paper dolls and the flip side

Here is the latest paper doll. I've taken this one one small tiny step further by choosing pink as the color of the embroidery thread rather than green. Pink and this green are a complimentary discord, a term color theory fans are probably familiar with. This is because red and green are complementary colors, as they sit opposite each other on the color wheel. But they also become a discord when the value of the colors, (meaning the lightness or darkness) are changed. Red, in it's pure form is a darker value than green in it's pure form, so when you lighten one, or in this case both, so that they are of similar value, or the red (pink) is even lighter than the green you get a discord.

I have always been color theory obsessed, it may even be a medical condition.

And, I have to announce, this is the first piece I have done as a "grown up" that has a touch of that dreaded craft supply...glitter! Cheap? Maybe. Tawdry? Possibly, but I must say I do like it in this case!

And I often have people browsing through these little pieces at a show, and they often can't really tell what they are. Is this paint? Do you use glue? Possibly just a general need for reading glasses, but I thought I'd show you the flip side. All the embroidery work is stitched through the paper, as are the beads and buttons. These little babies routinely take 3 hours or more to complete. Fortunately though not all this needs to be done in studio, I'll often stitch these while Scott is driving the van to a show, or in the hotel room, wherever that is, even at a show if the crowds are light.

That's it for now, have a great day!

The paper dress blues

One of the things that I like about this blog is that I can post something whenever I start down a new road. It doesn't have to be major, something worthy of a whole new web page, just something like this. This little paper series that I've been doing along with the big dresses on canvas has taken a little shift. Rather than strictly using paint, I've started to collage art papers on top of the pattern pieces. This opens up a whole bunch of decorative possibilities, and gives me a good excuse to buy some of the beautiful hand made papers at the art supply store!

And little ideas rarely stay little for long, my mind is already mulling over ways to expand on these. I guess that's why they call it a creative process, one thing always seems to lead to another.

This piece is 5" square and framed in acid free materials. Sold