Archive for the ‘Art and Artists’ Category

New Art: Digital Rain

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Digital Rain digital art painting
Digital Raindigital painting

Added some new art the other day to my Nature Art Gallery - a gallery I’ve ignored for far to long. Titled Digital Rain, this was simply an experiment in painting a heavy rain - so heavy as to make the sky opaque. The idea came to me while watching a rain storm last year while at Bryce Canyon National Park. From my mountain side viewpoint, a heavy rain in the distance connected the sky to earth and was sufficiently heavy so as to obscure the landscape beyond.

It’s a hazy boundary between being clever and the opposite. We frequently see people creating something that forces us to ask ourselves what on Earth were they thinking when they did that? Now I’m not sure if I’m crossing that boundary here but the thought struck me to write a limerick about my painting to accompany this post - the goal being to make this post a little more entertaining. So for better or worse here goes.

My digital painting of rain
won’t pose a challenge to your brain
As fine art it’s not much
But it does give a touch
To the scope of nature’s domain

For details about the painting, visit the Digital Rain web page.

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New Art: Emergent Hand

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Emergent Hand
Emergent Hand

I had a tough time naming the newest addition to my Computer Art Gallery. Emergent Hand
started out as a landscape scene inspired by what I observed last year while visiting Bryce National Park in Utah. Upon completion of the piece I realized that I had created a hand. In fact, turning it sideways brought to mind that flying Blue Meanie glove from the Beatle’s movie Yellow Submarine. I found the ambiguity of the piece particularly appealing.

For more information about the art and to see a wallpaper sized version, visit the Emergent Hand web page.

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To Be Anonymous Added to Computer Art Gallery

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

To Be Anonymous
To Be Anonymous digital art.

To Be Anonymous is the newest addition to my Computer Art Gallery. Looking at this piece you may find it ambiguous and you’d be right. The subject is anonymity. To the outside observer, everyone in this crowd is anonymous. However, inside this digital painting there is one who, while a part of the group, is separate from it. What you the observer need to work out is this: is that individual turned away from us while the crowd face us, or is it the crowd that has their backs to us and the individual who stares out at us anonymously.

Back tomorrow with another new digital painting.

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Atmospheric Disturbance Added to Computer Art Gallery

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Atmospheric Disturbance computer art
Atmospheric Disturbance computer art

I just finished adding another work of art to my web site. Atmospheric Disturbance is a piece I created earlier this month and which I’ve added to my Computer Art Gallery.

The piece came about as a consequence of considering the invisible turbulence that a particle, ball, or planet creates when moving through some intangible medium. Actually it all started with thinking about that old idea that there was an invisible ether that permeated all space and which would affect the speed of photons as they moved through that medium.

I added Atmospheric Disturbance to my Computer Art Gallery because of the tools and workflow used to create this piece. This piece was created using a combination of my own personal computer graphics software and Adobe Photoshop.

I must confess that one of the reasons that I make use of my own software dates back to a number of years ago when I would be walking through the art shows at science fiction conventions. At that time the range of graphics software used by digital artists was less diverse than today and I prided myself on being able to correctly identify the software the artist used in the creation of their artwork. Especially easy to identify were those pictures created using either Bryce or Poser.

To escape being typecast it seemed best to avoid using mainstream software - Adobe Photoshop being the principal exception. It also seemed like a good idea to diversify and to not become too dependent on any one software package - once again with Adobe Photoshop being the exception.

In the early days I would write using the C programming language. Once Java came along I began using that language. In fact I’m proud to say that I used Java to create the first (as far as I know) web accessible database of Martian feature names which included cross references to Viking images. Java has changed substantially since then. Some recent and useful books on graphics programming with Java are:

In addition to Java, I also make use of a great extension to Java called Processing. While the Java programming language can be pretty intimidating, that is not the case with Processing and I highly recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in doing their own graphics programming. To learn more visit the Processing web site.

I seem to be getting off topic here so to conclude, for a better view of Atmospheric Disturbance, you should visit the Atmospheric Disturbance web page which has a link to a wallpaper sized version of the image.

Look for another new art addition tomorrow

Jim.

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Life Pulse - New Digital Abstract Art

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Life Pulse abstract art
Life Pulse abstract art

I must confess. I’ve not been very good at adding art, either old or new, to my web site. In fact I have a rather large backlog for each of the genres of art that I create. To make amends I plan to focus on adding my newest works of art over the coming weeks. The bulk of this art will be added to my Computer Art Gallery.

The first piece I am adding is Life Pulse. This work is currently on display at the Advocate Good Shepard Hospital in Barrington IL as a part of an exhibit of a selection of my digital art. For more, see Art Exhibit at Advocate Good Shepard Hospital in Barrington IL

Additional information about this digital painting and a wallpaper sized version are at Life Pulse abstract art page. Given that the original is 20 inches wide by 15 tall, not much detail is apparent in the wallpaper sized version. It does however provide a good representation of what the full size artwork looks like.

Check back in a day’s time to see what gets added next. And no, I haven’t yet decided what to add next.

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A Visit to the Harper College Art Gallery

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Lift Off space art painting
Lift Off digital space art painting

Yesterday I visited the Harper College Art Gallery. The impetus was my decision to enter the 33rd Harper College National Art Exhibition, featuring Small Works juried exhibition. It was my first visit to Harper’s art gallery. Currently on display is an exhibit titled House Painting.

The artist behind House Painting is Matt Irie. The exhibit featured 8 latex paint on wood panel paintings. The common element of all the paintings was the use of only straight lines of paint, each a little more than 1/8 inch wide. The paintings were of two compositional styles. One type featured straight overlapping lines of paint laid out in a horizontal and vertical grid. The second type featured the same straight lines but oriented so that there were no horizontal or vertical lines in the composition.

The House Painting exhibit runs January 19 through February 11 2010. There will be an artist’s reception on February 3. For more information, phone 847.925.6568.

Probably planned to coincide with the main exhibit, on the wall adjacent to the gallery exhibit was a collection of 16 lithographs by conceptual artist Sol LeWitt. The 16 lithographs are from the Suite 1 series dated 1970. Suite 1 consists of tightly packed squares of short vertical pencil strokes.

The Illustration

To illustrate this post I’ve used the digital painting Lift Off which I completed last spring but am only now adding to my web site. My choice of colors and brush style for this piece are meant to impart to the viewer something of the exuberance of witnessing the launch of a space ship. The model for Lift Off was a NASA photograph of a Space Shuttle launch. To view larger versions of this picture, and for additional information, see Lift Off

Ad Astra, Jim

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Art Exhibit at Advocate Good Shepard Hospital in Barrington IL

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Life Pulse digital abstract art
Life Pulse digital abstract art by Jim Plaxco

Monday 01/11/2010 saw me setting up an exhibit of my digital art at the Advocate Good Shepard Hospital in Barrington IL. The art exhibit will run through April 4, 2010 and is sponsored by the Northwest Cultural Council’s Corporate Gallery Art Program.

For the sake of consistency I had to decide on what style of art to include in the show. My choices were either astronomical art, space art, or abstract art. I chose abstract art as that was most likely to have the broadest appeal. Note that some of the abstract art I create is done using a technique that I term algorithmic gesturalism. To elaborate, in algorithmic gesturalism I make use of an algorithmic based art program of my own creation which takes as input the "brush strokes" of my hand. Two examples of this technique are Geometer’s Dreamscape and Finding My Center of Gravity - neither of which appear on my web site.

Included in the art exhibit are four new works of art that I have not previously exhibited:

  • Life Pulse
  • Impression of Water Lily
  • Bionic Cnidaria
  • Microscopic Metropolis

The five other works of art in the exhibit are:

  • Geometer’s Dreamscape
  • Shades of Escher
  • Harmony of Spheres
  • Contemplating Infinity
  • Finding My Center of Gravity

Of the nine works of art, the only one listed on my web site is Contemplating Infinity. Unfortunately I just haven’t been able to find the time to post more of my art to my web site. I should make that a belated New Year’s resolution.

The Illustration: Life Pulse

I created Life Pulse, a 20 by 15 inch abstract, earlier this month. The idea for this painting came to me while sitting in a doctor’s office in Arizona last month and watching the ever changing pattern of lines on an EEG display. Wave like yet irregular, long periods of tranquility with brief bursts of storm like activity. That was the inspiration for the painting Life Pulse.

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How to Prepare Your Art for Galleries Seminar

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

A Mondrian Gone Bad
A Mondrian Gone Bad

Yesterday I attended the seminar How to Prepare Your Art for Galleries presented by Jason Peot. This was one of six seminars for artists sponsored by the Northwest Cultural Council and was held at the Barrington Library. Jason Peot teaches sculpture at Harper College and is curator of the Harper College Art Gallery. I didn’t know it but Jason too got his Masters Degree from Northern Illinois University. Go Huskies.

Jason’s presentation was not so much about how to prepare your art for galleries but how to get your art out on public display. According to Jason, art galleries are not currently looking for new artists. The economic downturn has been particularly hard on the art galleries and many have closed. Jason confessed that of the Chicago art galleries that have exhibited his work, all are now out of business.

Jason began by stressing that the first question an artist needs to answer is what do you want out of your art? What you want your art to do for you helps determine your path. Answering the question "Do you want your art to be seen or sold?" affects the path you take on getting your art in the public view. Mr. Peot was very big on building your resume by participating in juried competitions and shows. His suggested path was to begin by getting your art into juried shows. The next step is exhibiting in invitational and curated shows. Finally at the top are solo exhibitions.

As a part of his talk, Mr Poet gave a brief slide show of several of the exhibitions he has had over the years. Most impressive was his public commission for a permanent work installed at McCormick Place. Titled Intersect 102, it is a work of installation art that combines light and shadow to represent Illinois’ 102 counties.

Jason also shared that these days he is more interested in having his art acquired by museums and that he is actively pursuing that path. In response to my question about how does one go about getting a museum to acquire your art work, Jason said that it is primarily through collectors who have an association with an art museum. He pointed out that much of the work on display in museums has been donated to the museums by collectors as the museums themselves just don’t have the budget to be able to purchase art.

The next seminar in the Northwest Cultural Council series will be held January 9 2010 and is How to Write a Winning Resume, Bio and Artists Statement by Deborah Rosen who is a published poet and editor of RHINO, an award winning poetry journal.

The Illustration: A Mondrian Gone Bad

The illustration used for this post is A Mondrian Gone Bad. So how did this picture come about? A couple weeks ago I was in the process of creating 12 pictures in the Neo-Plasticism style of Piet Mondrian. These would serve as illustrations for my Faux Mondrian 2010 calendar for my just created account on Redbubble.com. I had completed 11 and was working on the final image. In fact I had completed the 12th image but then felt the urge to wreck this final image as a form of rejection of the strict formalism of Mondrian’s Neo-Plasticism.

An early example of this style is Composition with Red, Blue, Black, Yellow, and Gray which can be seen at the Museum of Modern Art web site - or this example from the Guggenheim:
Composition No. 1; Composition with Red, 1938–39.. While these are typical of Mondrian’s best known style of work, I much prefer his earlier output. For example, Church in Domberg painted in 1911.

For more information about Mondrian’s Neo-Plasticism, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has a nice interactive web feature that explores Mondrian’s Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue.

For a better look at my bad Mondrian, visit my
A Mondrian Gone Bad print on redbubble.com.

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Art Quotes and Artists & Art Materials USA 2009

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Not A Flying Saucer
Not A Flying Saucer

Last night I added two new pages to my Artsnova web site. The first is A Small Collection of Art Quotes which consists of both some funny and serious quotes about art. I’ve been collecting quotes for some time and figured it was time to share some of my favorites.

The second addition - Reflections on Artists & Art Materials USA 2009 - is an overview of the Executive Summary of the Artists & Art Materials USA 2009 industry survey. As an artist, the most interesting aspect of the summary is the information about the categorization of artists and the amount of artwork created last year.

The Illustration

The illustration I used for this post is not a flying saucer. It’s not even a flying sausage. In fact it only flies if flung. This is the result of some Photoshop manipulation of a … well I’ll let you use your imagination.

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Corporate Gallery Artist’s Reception

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Geometers Dreamscape
Geometers Dreamscape digital abstract art

In July I was accepted into the Northwest Cultural Council’s Corporate Gallery Program. The Corporate Gallery Program is supported by funding from corporations in northwest suburban Chicago land and involves approximately 30 area artists whose art is on display in 9 corporate art galleries. The public may view the art during each gallery’s normal business hours. Artists display their works - oils, watercolors, sculpture, photography, mixed media (and now digital) - at the gallery sites on a rotating basis.

Upon being accepted into the program, four of my digital art works were put on exhibit at the Arlington Green Executive Centre at 2101 S. Arlington Heights Road in Arlington Heights IL. The art went on display July 21 and will remain on display until October 5. The four art works that I have in the exhibit are:

  • Finding My Center of Gravity - an abstract panoramic gallery wrap canvas giclee.
  • Geometer’s Dreamscape - the abstract shown above.
  • Butterfly Effect - another abstract panoramic gallery wrap canvas giclee.
  • Harmony of the Spheres - an abstract similar in style to Geometer’s Dreamscape

Unfortunately I have made none of this art available for sale on either my web site or at Fine Art America. However, I did use a small scale study of Butterfly Effect as the illustration for my blog post Mensa, Algorithmic Art, and Monty Python

2010 Corporate Gallery Artists Reception - Saturday September 12

Following is the text of the reception announcement.

The public is invited to view works by seven new NWCC Corporate Gallery artists at a reception on Saturday, September 12, 2009 from 1pm to 3 pm at Arlington Green Executive Centre, 2101 S. Arlington Heights Road, Arlington Heights, IL. There is no admission fee, and refreshments will be served. Works will remain on exhibit through October 5, 2009; the gallery is open Monday-Friday 9am-5pm, Saturday 9am-Noon.

Exhibiting artists are:

  • Gail Baar of Buffalo Grove - Art Quilts
  • Liz Buckley of Mundelein - Photographs
  • Dianne Martia of Darien - Mixed Media
  • James Plaxco of Schaumburg - Digital Art
  • Donald Stillman of Buffalo Grove - Cellulose Polymer Resin Sculpture
  • Len Upin of Buffalo Grove - Ball Pen Drawings
  • Kevin Wisor of Schaumburg- Photo Collages

The Corporate Gallery Program is supported by corporations in the Northwest Corridor. The program showcases regional artists in attractive, modern corporate settings. Artists in a wide variety of media are accepted after a rigorous 2-step jurying process. The Council’s goal is to enrich the life of the community through exposure to the arts where people work and visit.

All art is for sale. A percentage of the sale price is a tax-deductible donation to support the Council, a not-for-profit community agency bringing visual art, music, dance, theater, poetry, and our unique Kids Meet Art program to the northwest suburbs.

For additional information about the reception please call the Council at 847-991-7966, or e-mail nwcc at northwestculturalcouncil.org.

About the Northwest Cultural Council

The Northwest Cultural Council was established in 1988 to respond to the need for cultural enrichment and development in the northwest suburbs and covers an area with a population of 800,000. The organization’s quarterly publication Spotlights is read by over 7,000 people and includes information about cultural events held in the northwest suburban area, focus articles on artists, and the value of art in education.

In addition to their work in support of the visual arts, NWCC also has literary programs and sponsors poetry workshops. It also sponsors a classical chamber music series featuring members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with concerts presented at NWCC Corporate Gallery sites.

The NWCC Kids Meet Art program is a three day arts education program that brings professional artists into elementary, junior and high schools, to introduce students to the various art forms. It offers hands-on, one-on-one training in art, music, theater, writing, dance, and special units on the Mayan and Japanese cultures.

See you at the Artists Reception

If you would like to attend the September 12 artists reception (1:00-3:00pm), you can use the following Google map for directions to the Arlington Green Executive Centre. I hope to see you there.

Ad Astra, Jim

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