Well, I'm still working on the last 2 pieces of my triptych, so I thought I'd show you a little work in progress. After I've done the block printing in the background and covered the canvas with acrylic washes, this is how I came up with an interesting texture to paint while creating some of my flowers in the series "Nothing But Flowers". The photos are all titled, and pretty self explanatory. This method is absolutely a cure for my perfectionism, which I have labored over excruciatingly while creating the photo-realism in my pastels for many years. Imperfection is so much easier and much more fun! I can't wait to show you all 3 paintings finished!
Nothing But Flowers
I am finally experimenting with several antique hand carved wooden printing blocks from India (used for printing/stamping Indian textiles by hand) that I've been collecting for years. They make great textural background patterns which is what I've done here on stretched canvas, then painted with gold/sienna washes to make it look even more antique. The flowers are made of cut, torn & painted paper, and the big orange one on top is made with sand poured over wet gesso, dried and painted with liquid acrylic which bleeds through the sand in an interesting and uncontrollable way. The center of that flower is an old skateboard wheel with a purple button in the middle!
It will be the center of a triptych, with 2 more paintings in the works (maybe by next week?) and will be exhibited for sale for one night only (!) at the Fountain Hills Artists Gallery (Fountain Hills, AZ) where I will be one of the featured artists at a Featured Artists Reception on March 24th from 6-8pm in honor of Spring! The painting is also available on my website at JaneNassano.com.
These 2 small ones are being raffled off (raffle tickets are free and available all month) at the gallery, with the winner drawn the evening of the reception. Come in and enter the raffle. You don't need to be present to win!
Tumultuous Garden & Gumdrop Trees
These are 2 mixed media monoprints I just finished.
The 1st one is called "Tumultuous Garden". The monoprint, with several passes of ink looked like a stand of trees in the background so I created 2 'flowers' (made with copper, glass & china) in the foreground on the left. But, then I had this really great June bug I had found dead in a cup on my patio table last summer (yes, I saved it) and the underside of the June bug is this bright metallic green. (Don't worry, he's preserved with many coats of varnish!) The topside is just a dull dark green, so I had to find a reason to use him upside down. Flipping the 'flower' with the spring for a stem made perfect sense! A Tumultuous Garden….
The monoprint I made for the 2nd piece looked like a whole grove of trees in a swirl of candy colors, with one big one in the middle. I accentuated that with some broken, painted wire mesh for branches and a piece of an actual tree (a twig) also painted in candy colors, for the trunk. The tiny metal chain makes a path to all the 'candy' gems & beads on these "Gumdrop Trees".
These works are both tiny, just 5" x 7" framed in shadow boxes, and are on exhibit at On the Edge Gallery in Scottsdale for $59 each. They are for sale in my website shop as well. Click here for "Tumultuous Garden" and here for "Gumdrop Trees"! Like little boxes of 'eye' candy for Valentines's Day!
Flowers, Like Dancing Flames to Warm Your Heart
This is my latest mixed-media monoprint, just completed. It's called "Flowers, Like Dancing Flames to Warm Your Heart". I was thinking of Valentine's Day coming up but not wanting to be all cliche with hearts and flowers. Truthfully I just had all these really cool jewels, beads and buttons that I was dying to use in something and this monoprint I'd made that looks like fire was the perfect backdrop for them.
This piece is framed with a metallic gold mat in a shadow box, 9" square x 1.25" deep. It goes on sale ($95) this week at my gallery, On the Edge, in Scottsdale and really is much richer and more dramatic in person. Come on over and check it out if you're nearby, and if not, well, may you dream of dancing flowers!
Simple Pleasures
I come from a long line of treasure hunters and finding one (a treasure) is one of the simplest ways of bringing a little happiness to life. This is a print of a pastel painting from my archives, something I painted about 15 yrs. ago, newly framed in this vintage frame that I just found at a thrift shop near my house. The glass on the frame is screen printed with this diagonal pattern and floats above the surface of the print. See how the shadows it casts change with every different angle of light? What a sweet little frame to give an old print new life! The piece measures 12" x 12" x 3/4" deep. Once I decide that I'm ready to part with it, it could be yours for the low, low price of about $48! Till then, it will make me smile.
Karen Stecker, Featured Artist
My good friend Karen Stecker will be the featured artist this Thursday night during the Scottsdale Artwalk's "Party with the Artists" event at On the Edge Gallery. Karen creates "goddesses", with intricate and exquisite detail, that represent mythology from around the world.
In Karen's words, "The creation of the 'Goddess' came to me over time and tapped on my shoulder until I paid attention, and gave her life. She reflects our need to make sense of ourselves and our universe beyond what we understand as sentient beings. The use of stones, fiber, metal, and wood allows me to take materials from earth’s creative force and create something transcendent."
Here are some of my favorites...
For the Birds
Well, I hope these photos convey just how much FUN I had making this little bird house mosaic out of broken glass, pottery, jewelry & rusty metal. It is mounted to a piece of slate and can sit on a shelf or hang from a tree. It stands about 6" tall so it'd have to be a pretty tiny bird to actually move in to it, but it makes me smile just looking at it! It goes on sale at On the Edge Gallery in Scottsdale tomorrow for $95 or you can order it directly by sending me an email to jnassano@cox.net.
Look out for my next wacky, repurposing project…. I just found some rusty old horseshoes that I can't wait to combine with some shiny, glittery kind of thing. :-)
On the Edge Gallery Print Media
Graphic design has always been my first love and I enjoy doing freelance design projects for print media in addition to my pastels & mixed media fine art. One of my favorite jobs is contracting and designing all the print media for On the Edge Gallery, the artist's collective that I'm in. I get to take fine art images from any number of artists in the gallery and design magazine ads, programs, brochures, rack cards & postcards using our art to promote the gallery. I love this process because the artists give me a lot of freedom to design what I want and they're very easy to please. My goal is to make everybody's art look as good as I can in the space allowed.
These are the first 2 ads in a series of 3 editions of programs/booklets for performances by the Arizona Opera, Ballet Arizona, the Phoenix Theater, the Herberger Theater, the Tempe Center for the Arts and the Arizona Theater Company. Look for them in your program as you're waiting for the show to start!
On the Edge Gallery Awning Flags
Here's a fun project I just finished for my gallery, On The Edge Gallery, a 40+ artists' collective gallery owned and operated by the artists themselves. My job is to create the graphic design for print advertising and signage for the gallery. These are a series of flags I designed using gallery artists' artwork as a background to show the variety of ART available inside. These double sided flags hang under the front gallery awning and wave in the breeze beckoning visitors. See my mixed media monoprints, original pastels, and awesome artwork by dozens of other talented artists!
Happy New Year!
"Desert Sky" By Max Walker
This week I'm showing off a very special painting. This is a pastel done by my stepson, Max Walker. I have guided him in doing a couple different original pastels over the years and this is one he did for his grandmother for Christmas when he was 13. Isn't it beautiful? Look at how rich those colors are! He has made 8" x 10" prints of this image, called "Desert Sky" and sells them for $5.00 each. ($2-$3 to ship) Let me know if you'd like to order one by emailing me at jnassano@cox.net.