Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Mozart on the Web

In celebration of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 250 anniversary of his birth, all of his sheet music can be downloaded for free of the internet.

The "Digital Mozart Edition" (DME) website features over 600 of Mozart's works.

Article continues:
Sheet music of all Mozart's works online for his 250th anniversary AFP

Post-it Animation

Very cool animation created with Post-its. Though I can see some amazing potential beyond what these guys have done, it's still pretty bad-ass.

The Fletcher Capstan Table

I get the impression that this was designed for luxury yachts, but I want one for my house.



Well, apparently there is one for the home:

The Walking Table

I don't know if this is art or not, but it's damn cool, that's for sure.

I don't even know if it's more convenient than a table that you can simply slide over the floor. I guess it would be helpful over carpet?

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Phoenix Art Group

Well, I had my interview with Phoenix Art Group. I think it went well, but I'm not sure. I had less time than I'd have liked for the painting tests and I think that might go against me. I paint pretty fast and actually almot finished the first one in the 2 hours I had, but I dn't feel like I got the colors right and I would have liked a bit longer to work on it. But... having to catch a plane at 4 made that impossible.

I did manage to get first class seats for both legs of the trip back to Orlando though. Maybe that's a good sign.

Sunday, December 10, 2006





Painters Paint
Blogger's Blog


You may have noticed that there is something different about The ArtHouse Project. There are ads in the middle of the content. I've been a member of Payperpost.com for a few months now. This is how I make money on the side to fund my single-dadness.

Here's the deal: You post an ad onyour site and you get paid. Simple as that.

Payperpost.com has their own blog too. You can read company news, meet the people behind the scenes, read their blogs and even watch goofy videos from them and other members like myself. And you can join too. Make some money yourself. Click the icon in my side panel to check them out.



Paintings from Photographs

There is an age old debate on whether it's ok to paint from photographs. The argument against it is often that by simply copying what one sees, there is no artistic interpretation involved in the process, merely copying. Aside from the obvious fact that the artist makes numerous decisions on how to treat the image being 'transcribed' to canvas, such as the medium used, the technique employed and the saturation or lack thereof of color involved, the artist also chooses whether to render that image faithfully, or to interpret it differently.

A simple photograph takes a relatively short time to render to film. In some circumstances it can take minutes or hours to get a specific image. By contrast, the painter can take hours or days or even months to put that image to canvas. He can also choose to emphasize certain elements in the image, or enhance certain attributes, such as the quality of the light or the clarity of the image presented.

Quite aside from all of this, the simple (or complicated) act of painting the image, changes it. Unless one is going for complete photo-realism (which is an artisitc process itself and has merits all it's own), the image is altered from the photographic one. There is the hand of the artist in the work. The brushstrokes, the depth of the color, the turn of the paint on the surface makes the piece immediately different from the photograph. It also makes it a unique piece. Though one could turn to the photograph and say, "there, that is the same image", it is not. That is a photograph, this is a painting. You canreproduce the painting, but it would still be a second painting. Perhas its value would be lessened somewhat, but is the second or third version of Munch's "The Scream" less valuable for it's being a secondary or tertiary interpretation? No, they are separate pieces, viewed as their own entities, almost as part of a series.

Tomma Apts Wins Turner Prize

The Turner Prize for 2006 has been won, not only by a painter, but by a woman painter. The German born painter Tomma Apts, which sounds like the name of a housing sturcture, has won the prize for her complex, yet simple and intuitive works.

"Tomma Abts’s paintings are the result of a rigorous working method that pitches the rational against the intuitive. She works consistently to a format of 48 x 38 centimetres in acrylic and oil paint. She uses no source material and begins with no preconceived idea of the final result. Instead, her paintings take shape through a gradual process of layering and accrual. As the internal logic of each composition unfolds forms are defined, buried and rediscovered until the painting becomes ‘congruent with itself’. "

Full Article

Monday, December 04, 2006

Going To Phoenix

Heading to Phoenix, AZ to interview for a job in an art firm. It seems like I might already have the job, or rather, the job is mine to lose. The interview seems to be about whether or not I really painted what I say I've painted LOL.
I'm going there to meet the Art Director and some other key people and then I'm going to receive a painting test. They're going to give me a standard painting assignment and see hwo I do with the time I have. Seeing as I'm only going to be there for a few hours at best, it should be challenging. I do paint pretty quickly and I do well under pressure, but it's still a little unnerving being out under the 'scope like that.



Free Wallpapers

American Greetings has tons of nice wallpapers for you to put on your desktop. The selection they have is pretty darn good. They've broken their desktop images into different categories, like Inspirational, Graphic Patterns or Seasonal and they never have adware or spyware in their files. Another nice feature with their free wallpapers, and one that I love, is that you can download in a number of sizes from 800 x 600 to 1600 x 1200. I cannot stand it when you find a wallpaper and it's only available in 800 x 600. Who uses that sceen size anymore anyway?!




Dogskull

This is something that I've worked on, on and off, for a number of years. I found this skull outside of a storage facility in Miami when I was there renting a moving van. I held onto it for years before working on it. Originally I painted color onto the bone with a translucent psuedo-stained glass paint. I abandoned this and the skull sat on a shelf for about 12 years before I picked it up and completed the design I had in mind, in ink.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Orlando Museum of Art

The Paths to Impressionism

I went to the Orlando Museum of Art to check out their exhibit on impressionism. It was a small exhibit and I'm hard pressed to say it was worth the money I spent on admission, but as it's art, and impressionism, of course it was worth it. I would have paid twice, but still grumbled, poor artist that I am. To make matters worse, they're gearing up for their new exhibit on Kipniss, so the large room was closed off.

The exhibit, Paths to Impressionism was still very good. I was pleasantly surprised to find a number of pieces by Hassam, one of my favorite American impressionists. The centerpiece of the exhibit was a Monet from his water lilly period. A very nice piece indeed and it certainly stood out. There were a few works from Iniss and a couple of Pizarros as well. All in all it was a very good trip to the museum.

Maureen Gallace

Maureen Gallace at the Art Institute of Chicago

When I was in Chicago with my fiance, of course I had to see the Art Institute of Chicago. They had an amazing collection of works, from Van Gogh, Gaughin and Monet to Hassam and Cassat. I'm a complete sucker for the Impressionists. They had a beautiful painting by Gustave Caillebotte as well: Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877

One of the contemporary artists that they were exhibiting was Maureen Gallace. Her simple, almost bleak landscapes really caught my imagination. Not usually the kind of thing I go for, but her pieces spoke to me. Her paintings are almost always dominated by these minimalistic structures, usually houses. Mostly devoid of windows or doors, they are simplified almost to the point of abstraction, but in all honesty, it's the landscapes around them that usually catch my attention. Something about the shorthand way she has of representing the snow and grasses.