@dirt_birth is playing a Makolin (Makayla and Colin) acoustic set at Mt. Airy's Porch Fest tomorrow, 9/13 at 4:30pm. Hour long set. A few brand new songs. Open Jam/Open Mic following the set.
Flyer: @makaylabrochart
Photos: @clairvoyant.productions
A year ago I moved to Philly and it continues to be the best place I've ever lived. I've had so many cool opportunities and met so many great people here and it simultaneously feels like I just moved last month and like I've been here forever. No art in this post, just an assortment of pictures from throughout the year💗
I think y'all know that I joined a band as a bassist and we played our first show a couple weeks ago. I think you also know I've had the worst art block for a couple years and have barely been making anything outside of paid work. Well between learning/writing bass parts, coming up with visuals, making stickers/flyers, and learning how to screenprint on youtube, I realized I really wanted to paint. The past two months were too busy for me to work on any personal work, but we made it to the show date and now that things are a bit more relaxed for a few weeks, I wanted to start on some art. I did the self portrait last week in record time and this one I started last night, while still a WIP, came together *much* faster than I expected. Now that the first layer is drying, I've also picked back up on a project that has been sitting incomplete for four years which feels really good.
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I'm really trying to lean into these projects (and a few others) while I have a bit of wiggle room in my schedule and I'm hoping I can get enough momentum going that I start up a consistent, reliable creative practice again for both visual arts and music. I've got a list of things to cover in the next couple weeks and some ideas that I can start planning out and prepping for in the long term and it's the first time in a long time that I'm actually excited about the work.
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If you've read this far, drop some music recs in the comments, I need more late night albums for this. In return I'll give you a few of my long-standing ones: Depression Cherry by Beach House, Lift Your Skinny Fists.... by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Once I Was An Eagle by Laura Marling, Pale Horses by mewithoutYou, and Dead Man's Bones' Self Titled.
I drew a self portrait for the first time in probably 6 years. I haven't been very motivated to work with visual art in a long time but I think it's starting to cycle back, it felt good to make this even though it was a fairly straight forward portrait drawing. I've always had the thought of doing a self portrait once a year but never actually did it, maybe this will be the start.
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8.5" x 11", Charcoal on blue-toned paper. Took 3-4 hours total.
A month ago I moved to Philadelphia. I have some space to paint again and I'm excited to get back into making art. I have a whole sketchbook of ideas for paintings, mixed media pieces, materials I want to try, and some music stuff I want to explore now that I have my own space. I've also decided I don't want to really market or advertise my art anymore, I'm not a brand and thinking of an audience or bringing money into it makes me lose all enjoyment of it. Money isn't the point and I'd rather focus on the artistic process and finding/making a creative community. I'll still post my work here but it'll be less of a curated portfolio than it was previously. That being said, I'm looking forward to living here and if any of y'all are in the area and want to do something, hit me up:)
Detail shots of my pots fired with the foil saggar technique. I'm really in love with the textures, and even though I didn't get a huge range of color, it's still crazy what effects every day objects can give the clay. I sealed these with Renaissance micro-crystalline wax. Can't wait to try this technique again
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Materials: 3 kinds of salt, baking soda, aspen wood shavings, copper wire, guitar strings, steel wool, deer bones, a dollar bill, .22 bullet casings, Spanish moss, lichen, cotton string, twine, cobalt pigment, leaves, cigarettes, and coffee grounds.
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#saggar #foilsaggar #pitfire #primitivepottery #ceramics #pottery #reductingfiring #raku #reductiontechnique #kintsugi #clay #waterclay #wheelthrownpottery #potterywheel
Photos of the pieces from the foil saggar pit fire last week. I dropped the first one carrying it in from the studio the other day, so I glued it back together and mixed up some gold oil paint for a quick (and cheap) kintsugi fix. Detail shots coming shortly!
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Materials: 3 kinds of salt, baking soda, aspen wood shavings, copper wire, guitar strings, steel wool, deer bones, a dollar bill, .22 bullet casings, Spanish moss, lichen, cotton string, twine, cobalt pigment, leaves, cigarettes, and coffee grounds.
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#kintsugi #ceramics #saggar #foilsaggar #raku #reductionfiring #pitfire #primitivepottery #pottery #clay #watercraft #potterywheel #wheelthrownpottery
A collection of dead plant matter that I've found over the course of the winter. Prismacolor pencil on shizen pastel paper.
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#plants #deadplants #mushroom #fungi #spring #prismacolor #shizen #drawing #wood #flowrrs #nuts #driedplants #fyp #explore #artforsale
Currently untitled piece of my little tree root man. 16x5" blackwing pencil on grey Stonehenge paper. I want to do two more of these but I'm all out of grey Stonehenge, so unfortunately it'll be a while until those companion pieces come to be. .
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#blackwingpencil #graphite #pencildrawing #drawing #draftsman #stonehengepaper #linework #linedrawing #oddities #abstractforms
Here's a pet portrait commission I recently finished! Sorry for the slight glare. This is an 18x24" oil painting. I started out with some new techniques/ideas I picked up whole reading What Painting Is by James Elkins and honestly I'm in love with how it came out. The colors in the dogs fur especially. The most fun I've had doing a commission in a long time:) .
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#oilpainting #oiloncanvas #canvas #painting #jameselkins #whatpaintingis #petportrait #commissions #artistforhire #custompainting #landscape #dog #rhodesianridgeback #beach
