Happy Spring!! I used pressed flowers, glass and copper tape to make the below flower tiles. ~JM
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| The finish product. |
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| The finish product. |
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| The beginning - pressed flowers and beveled glass. |
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| Securing copper tape around the perimeter of the two glass plates. |
Artist Michael Booker led a virtual class using pen as an art medium. To learn more about Mr. Booker and his art work, his website is - https://michael-booker.com/home.html
The class focused on works by Alighiero Boetti and Sam
Gilliam who used pen in some of their work. Below is an example of Boetti’s work. Notice the movement of the lines.
Also below is an exercise I did practicing different colors and angles of pen strokes. ~ JM
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| Practicing using different strokes and colors of the pen |
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| Boetti's "Mano Libera Pensieri Sciolti", 1981 |
There is a nice plant store in my neighborhood that offer different workshops. In the latest workshop, I made a moss wall. The main materials were air plants, moss, sticks, shells, and plastic flowers, in which I pinned into a frame. Below is the finish product, along with pictures of the rows of plants and how things looked before. ~ JM
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| Moss Wall |
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| Rows of plants. |
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| In the beginning...an empty frame, air plants and pins. |
In the last few months, the National Gallery of Art virtual studio has focused on collages. Click here for information on future courses.
The artworks that drew inspiration for the collages included: 1.) "A Sunburst Restrained" by Maria Berrio and 2.) Study for "Le Tournesol (The Sunflower)" by Edward Steichen.
On a separate piece of paper we drew or painted colorful stripes, along with circular and geometrical shapes. Afterwards we cut the different shapes out and glued on a different piece of paper to create our own version of the above-mentioned artworks. Below are the collages I created. Also, below are the artwork by Berrio and Steichen.- JM
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| Collage 1 |
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| Collage 2 |
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| "A Sunburst Restrained" by Maria Berrio was used as inspiration for Collage 1 |
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| Study for "Le Tournesol (The Sunflower)" by Edward Steichen was used for inspiration for Collage 2 |
I'm participating in a 6-week photography class. I'm learning the nitty-gritty of how to use the camera. For the longest, I didn't know what all the buttons and knobs did. So far I have learned about shutter speed, aperture, metering, types of lenses, ISO, focal length, exposure, the histogram, white balance, and rules of composition. Below is an example of a night shot I took as part of an assignment. ~ JM
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| Night shot of a neon sign. |
So many Black artist go unknown. The National Gallery of Art recently acquired 40 sculptures, assemblages, paintings, reliefs, quilts, and drawings, including the Gee's Bend quilts. Below is a a picture of one of the quilts on display. When I got home, I made my own mini-quilt using scraps of fabric and glued on canvas. This is a great no-sew, simple way to make a quilt on display (also see below).
Learn more of the quilts of Gee's Bend here. The quilts of Gee's Bend are quilts created by a group of women and their ancestors who live or have lived in the isolated African-American hamlet of Gee's Bend, Alabama along the Alabama River. ~ JM
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| A quilt of Gee's Bend |
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| My own version of a quilt using scrap fabric, glue and canvas. |
Summer is my favorite season and I get a little teary knowing that the change of season is upon us. I needed something to remind me of the beauty of summer - flowers! With guidance from a magazine titled, "DIY Watercolor Flowers", I painted a simple bouquet of flowers. ~JM
