Custom Fabric Printing!!! Crafter Alert!

Oh My gosh I am in love! I was reading this months Craft zine and I came across an article on printing custom fabric - with a company called Spoonflower which offers online custom fabric printing! Compared to pre-existing fabric printing companies, Spoonflower offers low fees, fast production, easy-peasy digital accessiblility and best of all low minimum yardage requirements!

The great things is that most companies that would allow artist to do such a thing in the past had large minimum orders, making it nearly impossible for artists to order small swatches or batches.

So I just couldn't wait to try my hand at it! If you have a photo-editing program (I use photoshop), either scan your artwork into the computer or take a high quality photo of your art. Then using your photo-editing program start to think about what I like to call a quadrant (a square that can be repeated to develop a pattern.) Spoonflower offers clear and easy instructions on how to prepare your art for uploading. I used some old collages, most of which my readers may recognize. Here is one of the many images I uploaded. However before you start I must warn you - it is HIGHLY ADDICTIVE! I'm going to place an order and update you all with the results!!! You can follow when I place the order - how long it takes to get to me, and what it looks like as fabric!

Marie Antoinette Fabric Design by marisol diaz

Political Art and Obama Gana!

Well my fears have been put to rest, and my dream was realized, Barack Obama won!! With that said, I have chosen to resurrect some Obama art pieces that I made for the 52 Chelsea art exhibit in the month of September.

El Valiente (the Courageous One) direct illustration on Shrinky Dink by marisol diaz September '08

I made these illustrations as part of a contemporary Loteria card game set. I will soon be posting all of the remaining Dinks up individually for sale on my Etsy Shop.

El Cotorro (The Parrot) by marisol diaz Direct Illustration on Shrinky Dink Sept. '08

To see the process of how I make these Dinks check out this video:

52 Chelsea Exhibit

My most recent gallery exhibit is opening this Thursday @ 2:00pm in the 2/20 Gallery in Chelsea, NYC.

Our Opening reception will be this Saturday, Sept. 20th from 6-8 pm. We'll have sangria, finger foods and MUSICA so if you're in the area - swing by!

So what's up with 52? Well fellow artist, Nova Gutierrez was motivated to stir up a mix of artists responses to a deck of 52 cards. Therefore each of the four artist in this show respond and investigate the probability of chance, risk and design that is involved with any kind of playing cards. I for one, really upped the ante and focused on some high risk illustration. Stay tuned to learn more!

Inspiring Artist - Sylvia Levenson

While I was taking the class at The Studio @ the Corning Museum of glass I got to visit the museum collection frequently. One of my favorite pieces (and there were many) was this piece by artist Sylvia Levenson.

It's Raining Knives by Sylvia Levenson

On of our class assignments was to seek out a piece from the glass collection to respond to via our own art work. As I get adjusted to moving out of NYC and deeper into the jaws of suburbia, and as I watch the continuing politics of fear immobilize people, I was deeply drawn to this sculpture. The title card also spoke volumes about our human exchange with fear.

For me, Sylvia's sculpture invokes the innocence of youth. The colorful houses and even the astro-turf are reminiscent of cloistered safety. The fact that she makes use of glass only adds to tenuous, fragile and volatile potential of the situation.

In my own work I am very drawn to the melancholy of loss, especially innocence lost. I had been feverishly illustrating a series of young girls in my sketchbook and was considering carefully composing them in a paper-doll fashion of sheets of glass. In addition I am very interested in stained glass, and really wanted to consider cutting my sheet glass into forms before I illustrated on them with the vitreous paint (this technique is explained in past post). I was inspired by the element of repetition as well. That is how my art pieces entitled Lost Girls was born.

detail of Lost Girls by marisol diaz

Lost Girls by marisol diaz

So with little time (for class was in its last three days) I cut sheet glass, painted and fired as many girls from my sketchbook and bunnies as I could. The scale is much smaller and less colorful than Levenson's work but the inspiration is there...in my way.
Lost Girls 2 detail by marisol diaz

More Sandblasted Glass from my time in Corning

Here are some sneak peeks at some more of my earlier sandblasted glass pieces from my time at the Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass.

Since I am really interested in graphic design and illustration I really tried to combine these varied interests. Often glass surface treatment is not narrative, but more decorative in nature. However, the images that I developed for the surface manipulation was more personal with a definitive narrative, so my interest in illustration and graphic line really started to show up.

Popped Balloon by marisol diaz

With this particular image - the assignment was to blast a hole entirely through the glass...I couldn't see how I would do that in manner that made sense me, unless it was through a heart. This piece is actually slightly smaller (than the on screen size) in real life and that adds to its charm - at this scale and with the flatness of the photograph - it loses some of its graphic pop.

Paz by marisol diaz

This particular image is actually much larger than this image (8 1/2' x 11') and the assignment was to create variations in the blasting tones, such as gradations. Since I was coming up with my design ideas on the fly (with no preset plan) I was even surprised to see the imagery I formed, all of which had to be cut out with an exacto knife of a protective sheet (buttercut) in stages to blast (see the last post to understand buttercut).

Think With Your Head Not With Your Heart Fool by marisol diaz

This piece is done on 1/2inch thick glass which is lost with the photogragh...and was most time consuming since the size is around 10 by 10 inches. I also 'royally messed up' by packing the glass in my backpack one evening to work after 11pm and after riding my bike, hence the side of the glass with no protection got scratched (good lesson to learn) and so I had to lightly blast the front edges of the piece to compensate...some say you would never notice if I didn't tell (another lesson to learn).

Still, these pieces are from the first few days of class...after which my work began to evolve in quite a different direction which I will share with you all next...so stay tuned.

Inspiring Artist - Judith Schaechter

Judith Schaechter, Stained Glass, Snakes and Ladders 31"X30", 2003

The first time I ever saw Judith Schaechter's work I was doing our yearly NYC Chelsea gallery walk with our senior high-school class and it was quite a few years ago. I was floored by a stained glass artist using the medium in such a fresh/new, illustrative way. To me, she is the first artist that has therefore given a medium that I felt had been relegated to sun catchers, imitation Tiffany lamps, craft fairs and cathedral metaphors of 'enlightenment' a new face. Not everyone may appreciate Judith's work since it has a macabre, sombre often deathly glow about it. She enjoys investigating "...sex and death, with romance and violence the obvious runners up. I'm trying to be as cliche, sentimental, and decorative as possible--not as a strategy for ironic commentary about how stupid sentimentality and clichés are, but because this is the stuff, that time and time again, I am obsessed with, in love with, and that I have faith in."- Judith Schaecter

Grant it my husband and I, appreciate this kind of sensibility. We are after all huge Tim Burton fans! We each are collectors of Nightmare Before Christmas memorabilia before we met...he had all the Jack stuff and I had all the Sally. In fact, my husband's cousin Facundo Rabaudi worked as a model-maker on the set of that film (along with quite a few other phenomenal animations), and we were able to see some of the actual pieces used in Nightmare in real life! We love Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, and Tim Burton's book of poetry - The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy...so you see Judith Schaechter's work doesn't jar us in any negative way.

Technically, Judith's art is brilliant and painstaking work. She uses something called flash glass, a material that I am still looking into which she sand-blasts, etches and layers to get the color. I am still researching the areas that look so painterly.

My understanding is that Judth Schaecter uses the copper foil method, as do I. If this is true, it makes me happy to hear since I haven't had the opportunity to learn the lead came method and I always berate myself for it. So yes, I enjoy stained glass too. Here is a sample of one of my older stained glass pieces of a Phoenix.

My work pales in comparison to Judith Schaecter, but I am looking forward to the inspiration she serves me and my newest adventures in drawing on glass with powdered frit. Right now though I'm working on a series of oil paintings for the Herstory project and it will be while before I get to play with stained glass again.

Whether you work in glass, are a writer, illustrator or painter, seeing the work of other artists can inform your own discipline in countless ways. So check out new artists working around you and get inspired!