Reference books!

You guys, reference books are the best. Allow me to share my joy.

African Designs from traditional sources

The Art of Advertising

Erte

Drawing of the Masters

Peter Paul Reubens: the drawings

New Work

Earlier this summer my daughter decided to reenact a Greek myth and rolled a boulder up a hill. I say boulder because it easily weighed as much as she did.
"It would be easier from that way." I told her as she grunted. She was on the steepest part of the sledding hill. The place where she was too scared to go down this past winter.
Nope. Nearly vertical or nothing, ma.
Her target was a stump. She rolled the boulder onto it, and spent considerable time adjusting the position.
And it rolled over her pinky.

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth later, she became fascinated with the idea that her fingernail might fall off. I was constantly peppered with questions regarding timelines, color changes, and the benefits of band-aids.

You guys.

She made a journal recording her pinky nail at all stages of onychomadesis. I cannot even, right now, cause of all the awww.

Awwww! She's confronting unexpected bodily changes by sequential cataloging in minimalist line drawings!

New work

I know, I know. It's been awhile. Life got nuts, so I decided it was a great time to pick up a new medium.

Here's a thing I'm working on.

And another one.

ECRAC Show August 2017

The East Central Regional Arts Council is having a show of all the artists who won grants in 2017, including me! The show kicked off last weekend, during Braham Pie Day, and continues until September 29th.

If you find yourself in Braham, Minnesota, swing in for a peek.

Mythology Exhibit Time Lapse Video

Mythology Exhibition: Art of E. Belkholm

The Pine Center for the Arts presents: Mythology, Artist Erica Belkholm’s latest series of large-scale figure drawings.

*Read the Pine City Pioneer's artist interview.*

The opening reception will take place Friday, September 9th from 4 – 7 p.m. at 265 5th Street SE, Pine City, Minnesota. The exhibit will be open to the public until October 1st,  Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays from 3 – 6 p.m.

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the East Central Regional Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Sight - finally finished, you guys.

You guys.

It's finally done, you guys.

Colored pencil on paper. Gold leaf for the final touch. 42"x34"

It's huge, and I didn't realize how much time huge takes.  I've done pretty big before.  I've even done oversized.  But this,- this stupid drawing is so stupid big I can't store it anywhere, or transport it flat, or use my regular drawing board.
And you know what?
I'm starting another drawing the exact same size.

WOO!

North of the 45th Exhibition

You guyyyyys!

I have got two pieces in this show, and am so proud.  It sounds amazing, and seeing a few of the other accepted artist's work, I'm pretty floored to be in it.  It includes artists from above the 45th parallel.

If you find yourself in the Marquette, Michigan area, stop into the DeVos Art Museum in Northern Michigan University from June 3rd to August 7th.

Video - Bold: Part 1

My first art video!

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the East Central Regional Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Satiate your voyeuristic inclinations; watch me draw! Am I wearing pants? Who knows!?

ECRAC Grantee Art Show

Opening: Saturday, April 2nd at 5 p.m. at the East Central Regional Arts Council Gallery in Braham. I am one of the featured artists!

The show will also be open weekdays April 4th to May 20th, 2016 from 9 am to 4:30 pm each day.

It should be a good time, I hear many of the grantees are musicians who will be performing at the opening.

Map to the gallery

This activity is made possible by The McKnight Foundation and also the voters of Minnesota thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

I AM - Altered Esthetics Exhibit

I am participating in the Altered Esthetics show I AM, opening this Friday, March 4, from 5-7pm, at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis.

This is a exhibition of self portraits, and is part of the Guerrilla Girls Twin Cities Takeover.  I am beyond excited to be a part of this.

It looks like a great show, and will be up until April 5th.

ACHF Grant

I have been awarded an Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund Grant by the ECRAC!  I’ll be using the funds from the grant to exhibit a solo show in 2016.

You guys, I have gone all out for this thing.  This will be my first solo show (as one of the grant review board said “I can’t believe she hasn’t had a solo show yet.”) so it’s kind of a big deal.  I’ve included a video/demonstration aspect to the grant which will make the opening interactive and spectacular.

Await more details as things progress.  The show will be happening in 2016.

2015 IMAGE Show

Left: my work, right: me.  Photo courtesy Terri Huro

I won the Excellence Award (first place) at the East Central MN Regional Arts Council IMAGE show this weekend! The show is up until November 6th, and has something like 170 artists this year. Go check it out while it lasts. http://www.ecrac.org/news/image-2015

The Imagination Game: Calvinball on Paper

Bill Watterson, probably the best ever.

This is the kind of game that sucks to play with boring people, and is absolutely a blast to play with interesting, creative people.  You’ll find out pretty quickly which of your friends is which.  It goes like this:

1. Get a sheet of blank paper, a writing utensil and at least one other person.
2. Draw one thing.
3. The next person draws one thing.
4. The next person draws one thing.
5. And so on. 

“One thing” is really whatever you want it to be.  One penguin.  One herd of penguins.  One iceberg full of penguins.  If you’re really creative you could draw something besides a penguin.  Like a walrus.  The idea is to build a world that each of your objects or characters are interacting with.

I draw a mug of steaming liquid, and you draw a penguin relaxing in my mug, which is now a mug-shaped mini-hot tub for flightless waterfowl, apparently.  So I draw a bonfire under the mug and turn it into apathetic penguin soup.  You draw an ice block strapped to the penguin’s head.  I draw the mug in the tiny arms of a tyrannosaurus, heating his mug of penguin tea.  It’s quite the snowball effect.

As I said before, you find out pretty quickly which among your friends have a stunning lack of creativity.  Maybe “lack of creativity” isn’t correct; it's their fear of being creative.  Because really, creativity is just another name for being weird.

This game is amazing for road trips and adolescents, because kids aren’t afraid to draw.  Which brings me to my next post: People Get Weird About Art.

Copying

From my previous post you may think I’m against copying.  That’s really all a how-to-draw book is, after all.  But not so.  I’m all for copying.  Copying is an extremely effective way to learn how to draw,- to learn how to do anything really,- but you have to go about it in the right way.  The point is the process, not the product.  

If you ever go to art museums, you may see a person sitting in front of an Anguissola or Cezanne, carefully painting a copy.  They’re not doing this for fun or profit, or to hang a oil that’s nearly by a master on their wall.  In all likelihood their finished painting will get thrown away or painted over.  It’s the process they’re after.  By mimicking the masters, they learn their painting techniques.  

Pictured: Learning.

Many have said (and this sentiment has been attributed to tons of people, from Leonardo to Rembrandt) that by drawing you learn. Meaning that you can look at something as hard as you like, but you’ll always see it a little more completely when you draw it.  Kind of like the fact/theory that you retain what you hear better if you write it down.  Studying the old masters isn’t enough, because you don’t really examine something until you try to faithfully reproduce it.

Here’s an example you can try, to show you how well you understand something after you draw it.  

1. Draw a dandelion from memory.
2. Draw a dandelion from life.  Be as detailed as you can.
3. Wait a day, then draw a dandelion from memory.

Your third dandelion will be miles more accurate than the first one.  It will be nowhere near as accurate as the dandelion from life, but look at how much more information you retained.  I bet you thought you knew what a dandelion looked like before; I mean, they’re everywhere.  How could you not know what a dandelion looks like?  But things like that sort of blur into the rest of living.  Few people really look at things, especially closely enough to reproduce them.

I imagine the same technique would apply to writing.  If you sit down and try to faithfully reproduce the spirit of the words in Pride and Prejudice, but not the actual words, you’d have to examine each sentence much more carefully.  Suddenly you’re looking at the details of the sentences, seeing things you didn’t catch before, forming new theories about the characters.  Maybe even developing your own style in the proxy copying of Jane Austen.

The Best How-To-Draw Book You've Never Read

Let me guess, you like art and your mom or another well-intentioned relation bought this book for you, thinking it was like all those other crappy How-To-Draw books with insipid drawings of puppies, mythical creatures or busty amazons.

Well it is your lucky day, my friend, because you didn’t get one of those terrible books, you got this one.  This one will teach you how to draw well.

First lets pick apart why How-To-Draw books are just the worst.

Here’s a typical excerpt from a How to Draw book.

YOU can draw amazing dragons, too!

First, draw a circle/triangle/square.

Then draw a triangle/circle/tetrahedron for the head and tail.

Now add scales and fire.

Amazing!

Apart from stifling creativity, it also produces a pretty shitty drawing of a dragon.

How to not draw a shitty dragon.

Step 1. Draw 100 dragons.  Make each one different.

Step 2. Draw 100 more dragons.  Make each pose different.  

Congratulations!  You’re now a pretty awesome dragon drawer.  If you don’t think so; good!  This means you’re not content with your level of skill and will not stagnate like your more easily appeased peers.  Draw dragons every day until you are happy with your level of skill and then draw dragons every day because you are awesome at it.

How to become a Master Dragon Drawer.

Step 3. Spend 10 hours drawing one dragon.

Step 4. Repeat steps 1 through 3 endlessly.

Probably not their first dragon. by Dragolisco

For whatever reason the people who make How-To-Draw books are solidly mediocre artists.  Or maybe they’re dumbing down their art for the simple masses.  Either way, if you only learn from them, you can only get as good as they are.

Grand Marais Art Fair

Yesterday had all the Grand Marais locals wandering around town in a sweaty daze, telling everyone they met "It really isn't like this.  It's never this hot."   Strangely windless and sticky on the shores of Lake Superior, but still beautiful.

My demo piece did not take nearly enough time.  I'm mostly done, and still have a whole day of art fair.

Hard to see, but here's the sketch.

Park Point Art Fair

It was a ridiculously gorgeous weekend on the shores of Lake Superior. 

This is five minutes before the fair officially opened.  Wow.

This was the Park Point Art Fair's forty-fifth year.  Holy crap, you guys.  No wonder it's easily the best run show I've participated in.

And as an extra surprising bonus, I won the Judge's Choice Award!  This is a large, well-curated show with stiff competition, and I am absolutely floored to have won.

And here's the demo piece I worked on for the duration of the fair.

I finished it at about 2pm on Sunday, which means,- allow me to math,- it took about 15 hours.

Directions to Gorecki Gallery

If you missed it, I've got a show up at Gorecki Gallery at the College of Saint Benedict from June 20th, 2015 to September 27th, 2015.  The artist's reception will be on Friday, September 25th, from 5pm-7pm, and features myself as well as the two other best in show winners.

The Millstream Art Fair will also be taking place on the 27th, in conjunction with the exhibition.

Here is a map with the exact location of the gallery pinned, as well as the nearest parking lot.

Gorecki Exhibition

Turban, by me.

Last year at the Millstream Arts Festival in Saint Joseph, MN, I won third place in the Best in Show category.  This year the three winners will be showing at Gorecki Gallery at the College of Saint Benedict.  The other winners are Bill Gossman and Dan Mondloch.

Directions to Gorecki Gallery

I started this series this February, and completed it in early May.  For the size and hours each drawing took, I'd say I made pretty good time.  There are nine pieces total, and will be shown in a solo show at Cambridge Center for the Arts in Winter 2016.