Stuff in my head

I've spent the last several days in creative gestation (translation: I have nothing finished to show for them). It's always interesting to just stuff my brain with ideas, spark off them, scribble and sketch, bubble and boil, etc.. I've got several projects I'm working on, which makes my brain feel a bit like a small room in which a super ball has been energetically launched.

I mentioned this year's holiday cards, right? I think I did. Anyway, I'm brainstorming card ideas, which is a process of looking around, talking to Alisha and H, and just letting my own imagination rattle around while watching my dogs for cues. I write down the ideas as they come, some of which seem hilarious at the time, send them off to Alisha, who comments, adds, subtracts, and sends back, by which time I can't remember half my own ideas or figure out what I meant, or why I thought they'd be funny! *rolling eyes*

I think I got some good ones today, though. At least 4 I really like, plus 10 more that might just work out really well. We'll narrow that list down to the strongest as we go along. I can't give you any hints yet ... even though I'm dying to! *gritting teeth*

The body of work I want to do for the gallery is shaping up in my mind, too. I had two sketched out loosely, but I felt they were too small. The figures and animals in them would be merely a few inches tall/wide, and I want them to have more impact than that. That means the whole thing has to get sized up, which shoots me out of my relative comfort zone of smaller size paintings. Don't you wish you could get some visual clue as to what the heck I'm talking about? Heh. Well, we'll all just have to wait a leeeeetle bit longer for that. Once I get underway I'll start posting some progress reports with visual aids.

Meanwhile, my inspirational travels have brought me to many interesting corners of the WWW. This guy, for instance, is amazing. Charles Krafft is the artist, and he's come up with the clever idea to use cremains (people ashes, that is) to make bone china, which he then forms into a plate or suchlike with a portrait of the deceased in blue delft-style glazing. Like this:
He's an amazingly goofy, seditious, and talented artist. For instance, this is seasonal, eh?


On a more sober note, Patricia Traub (most of these are from Rodger Lapelle Gallery site) presents her haunting paintings of animals and humans.


What is she saying? It may be my personal bias, but I'm reading these as provacative calls to honestly examine our relationship to the rest of the animal world.

I just like this one with the dancing goat. :)
Jonni, over on her blog, is also having a stimulating conversation about the political climate. She's a paper mache artist, and it's annoying to some of her readers that she's posting about a non-art issue (or, that she's posting about being concerned about the rhetoric of the currently extreme right), which is making it lively!

Meanwhile, the dandelions are a profligate spill of golden coins on the new green grass, but the sun is battling it out with hail, heavy rain and winds, and chilly temperatures. I want to get out and take some more reference photos, but I'm hoping for the kind of weather that brings out people and their dogs (little clue about the concept I'm working on).

Stay on your toes: tomorrow is April Fool's Day! ;)