Two Museums: Looking at Life through Art from Japan, Europe, and Africa.

I recently had a chance to visit two museums and below are some of the notes and sketches I did there. 

The first exhibition was "Japanese Prints in Transition: From the Floating World to the Modern World" at the Legion of Honor Museum of San Francisco centered around 250 years of the history of Japan seen through many woodblock prints by many artists. Some of these were pieces I knew and there were many discoveries. I had a lot of fun tracking down different patterns, plants, cats, and facial expressions! A very interesting part about propaganda and pop-culture too. If you get a chance to visit this art show I would highly recommend it! 

I am now on the hook: getting books on Japanese folklore and art books filled with more woodblock prints!

The second museum was Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University where I split my time between In Dialogue: African Arts and Auguste Rodin: The Shock of the Modern Body. Rodin's exhibit nicely segues to the outdoors where sculptures were available in a park setting with lots of live people around them. A lovely experience! 

p.s. an idea of a fantasy coffin sent me down the rabbit hole of exploring this amazing part of culture of Ghana. (This is how I found out about existence of The National Museum of Funeral History).

Experiments with printmaking: gelli plate

I've been experimenting with some new (for me) printmaking for a little while. There are some forms of etching and gelli plating, as well as more stamping and new ways to do diatipia. So far none of it actually made it into my workflow for bigger projects but little bits and pieces of knowledge are accumulating! Interesting textures and colors can be found in the detritus of this learning process and they are showing up here and there in my sketchbooks - as a part of a collage, as a background for a portrait sketch or on-location painting - things like that. 

Most of these experiments happen when I work on my own but lately, I started to log some of the experiments that amazing teacher and friend Suhita Shirodkar shared with me. 

Images below are image transfers and I decided to log some results and a snapshot of some tools here - as a way to record where this whole thing might be heading :) You cannot see the gelli plate because it is transparent and freshly washed - but it is a big part of current adventures!

If images below look like a variations of the same theme bordering on repetition of the same - it is because they are - that is part of a printmaking fun.

A Garden Outing

On a lovely breezy day, I got to paint phloxes and lilies. Both of these flowers were growing in my grandma's tiny street garden under her window, and both of these flowers smell like summer holidays for me. So I reminisced, sniffed, sneezed, and smiled while painting these. 

I was using my gouache and watercolor palette (freshly refilled) plus some pre-mixed gouache paints and got overwhelmed by the colors. I will pay more attention to shapes next time - unless colors swipe me away again :) Perhaps I might invite Suhita to this place and learn working with her amazing new black and white minimal kit - that should do it! 

On My Table: Beginning of August 2024.

First of August had too many things in it to take a photo but here is what was on my table by the third:

I am still figuring out how my workspace will function in the new studio. Quite a few materials were unpacked and some got lost after I thought that unpacking was completed. I am figuring out video set-up and light for different parts of the day and just waiting for the deeper feeling of the space.

But I am busy working on several commissions and this is the exciting stage when lots of sketching is happening (you can find a hint of three different projects here). I try to go paint on locations as often as possible, enjoy tomatoes and stone fruits from farmer's market, read new garden-related mysteries (more about it soon), and look for opportunities to insert frozen yogurt breaks in my summer life. And how is your summer going? 

A Complicated Fig Tree Situation

We planted a fig tree! In the short three weeks since that day, we went from having a bushy little tree with ten little figs on it to a beautiful stick with a few leaves (most of which are still green) and five fruits. Some of them are growing by the hour and getting darker and darker - so not all is lost (I think :)

Here is how it went: