PS

By the by, if anyone was interested in purchasing one of these most recent prints, or any others that I have created thus far, they could easily contact me at alex.r.m.thompson@gmail.com and we could arrange a reasonable price. Thanks!

As promised, screenprints!

This is an image of my final screenprint project, which both my prof and I were pretty happy with. The registration on this edition is pretty spot on throughout, thanks to a demo given by one of the print techs, Eric. Let's just say that registration pins are the best thing that ever happened to screenprinting.
This is the fourth print in my "Fatale" series, since I counted the first experimental edition I did. Deciding on colours took a while for this project, but in the end I wanted something offbeat, and without black line work.

Final Sculpture and Christmas Break

So it has been a little while. Shameful, really. I ought to update more, don't you think?
I certainly owe you an update.
It dawned on me a while ago that I hadn't posted photographs of my final sculpture for SCIN 2B19. So that's going up today. Also, my final screen print project failed to make the blog, so that must be rectified. What with it being Christmas break and everything, one would really assume I had no excuse for not posting. A simple explanation would be a lack of enthusiasm in my own work, which is quite distressing.
I believe this is due to a general lack of work produced over the past term that I was really happy with. I find it really unfortunately. So this break might be a time for recalibrating the grey matter and getting back into 'the zone' in which I can create artwork.
Sitting down in my girlfriend's studio the other day, not a single worthwhile idea passed through my brain, and a negative number of worthwhile drawings were created as a result (several sketchbook pages paid the terrible price). This is something I'm aiming to fix.


This is my final sculpture project. Unfortunately, this poor chap had to be torn down after it was finished.

Final lithographs

Another fatality...

I finished another print in my "Fatale" series on Thursday. Here's an image of the finished print. The medium is screen-printing, and I really feel like I'm starting to get some sort of handle on the medium.

Sculpture

Frustration

Lately I've been feeling incredibly frustrated with art school. Part of it has to do with my program, I'm sure; I feel a little constricted by the printmaking media, and it seems like I don't have enough room to run with my ideas as I'm spending too much time trying to work out how to go about actually making the prints. Also, two of my violin strings broke on Wednesday, which is great cause for sadness. I still haven't gone out to get new ones.
With respect to all things artistic, I'm currently in the process of planning out a few paintings, which I really hope I can get around to doing. I've started the process of preparing my next lithograph for printing. Today the first layer was drawn onto the stone and I did the first etch. I also did some screen printing today. That's what I'll be showing here.

This is a print of a photograph I took and photoshopped to turn it into a halftone. Have a good weekend, folks!

Lithographs done

Hello again! This has been a fairly productive week, apparently. I finished this print on Thursday night. The results were very consistent, and I'm very happy with the way they turned out. This image is the artist proof, and the edition is made up of 6 lithographs.

A walk in the park... or the financial district

Earlier today, I ventured downtown, into the financial district with a little packet of prints in my backpack, eager to prove a point. My goal was to distribute at least three prints, and to see what value the fancy suits and ties would place upon the work of a student artist. As it turns out, not much.
Few people would even spare the time to talk to me, let alone have anything they were willing to part with in return for a piece of original artwork. One man, cornered while ordering a hot dog, said he wouldn't take it because he didn't like it. Another, after sparing me around a minute of his valuable time, wouldn't even take the print when it was offered to him for the expense of his time. One woman returned the print as payment for the print.
I found it interesting how even when there was no price tag, and the individuals themselves could determine what they would give in return, many of the people I encountered couldn't come up with anything. They were even reluctant to take the print. Perhaps they thought it was a trick.
For my efforts, I received a lighter and a pamphlet, the pamphlet being from a girl who was handing out environmental information and looking for donations.

These are the prints that were being distributed. It's a representation of Michelangelo's Pièta, executed in screen print, and placing the focus upon Jesus lying in Mary's lap. While it was rather disheartening to receive such poor feedback and have such sparse participation, it does play into my project quite perfectly.
We have a couple more trials to put Pièta through before Monday, so wish me luck!

So here we are again. Somehow it went and decided it was going to be November already. This morning I awoke, and upon looking out my window, found there to be frost on the roof. Good lord.
And of course, with November come looming deadlines, approaching exams and studio projects, and a general insane flurry of activity. Yes ladies and gentlemen, it's crunch time once again. Regretfully, I have very little finished work to show off at the present; everything currently exists in a middle stage, or as sketches. I do, however, have some prints of the Pièta at a reasonable stage of completion. That's the part where I get your hopes up. Now i dash them. There are no photos of the prints as of yet.
I do have some preliminary stages of Andy Warhol and David Bowie to show at the moment. These are just the first layers; they'll be getting plenty more ink in the near future. never fear.

Please note that the lighting isn't super. I really ought to scan these images rather than photograph them. The ground should actually be a quite brilliant white.

Canzine

Yesterday was a trip down Queen West to the Great Hall to experience the cultural event that is Canzine! There were tons of independent publications to be seen, from postcards to zines to full fledged books (one about an army of cats and pirates stands out in my mind). The event was visually overwhelming, with some fantastic artists showing and selling work.
The new venue, however, wasn't so good. The event has, to the extent of my knowledge, always been held at the Gladstone Hotel a bit further west on Queen Street. That venue has space for workshops and actual MANOEUVRING. MY major complaint about Canzine this year was the lack of space. It was incredibly difficult to get around some of the rooms, and I admit that I did skip looking at some artists' work simply because I didn't want to fight my way into their tiny aisle, and then have to fight my way out again. I feel bad, but it is the unfortunate truth.
On another note, I know it's been a while since my last post. That isn't to say that I haven't been productive. I'm currently working on a couple of different projects, of which the most exciting is Whodunit, the annual mystery art sale fundraiser. I've finished two pieces for that show, out of a hopeful five. However, given the nature of the sale, I feel like I ought to withhold photos of the work until after the sale takes place.
Instead, I have a painting and a couple of drawings that are well on their way to becoming a screen print.



It is my hope that you will be able to recognize the famous gentlemen I've depicted in the drawings. The painting is acrylic on canvas with pen and ink drawing over top.

My, haven't we been productive?

So this week has been fairly productive.
I'd better rephrase that. This week has seen the results of the past few weeks of work get to a point I am reasonably happy with. Basically, it means the "Fatale" prints are finished, I got my lithographs printed last night, and on Monday I finished a two week life study in my sculpture class.

Two new paintings

Hello there all, and happy October! Not only that, but it's a Friday night. What more could you ask for? Anyways, it's been a little while since I've posted up here, so I think it's high time that was remedied.
I have some fun stuff for you today. Some paintings, some print stages, and perhaps even some sculpture. Combined with a little rant. So it should be a good day.
First, paintings! These are two works that I finished within the first week of school. I'm reasonably happy with the results. They're kind of an extension of a painting I did during the summer, meant to show the natural world overcoming the man-made. They were quite fun to do. Started with an Unbleached Titanium base, taped off sections, and blocked out straight colours. Medium is acrylics, ink, and conté.


I've started running the second version of the Fatale prints. Unfortunately, the registration got a little messed up when i drew the ink across the screen for the second colour. I'm hoping I'll be able to fix that as much as possible in the final stages of working on the print. I also did another colour earlier today, but there aren't any photos of that yet.

I also have a touch of sculpture to show this week. This was a three hour study of a live model, done in clay.

And now, for those of you who are still with us, a small rant.
I will try to be brief.
I feel like artists should really respect each other. It can be challenging sometimes what with visual art being such an opinion-based field of study; however, simple differentiation of opinion should not permit an artist to downright bash another artist's work. I don't mean criticizing, as often that can be constructive when done with the proper degree of care and respect. I mean statements such as 'my piece is so much better than yours'. While you're free to enjoy your own work and be proud of what you've done, saying this really yields zero constructive advice for the artist who is the butt of the comment. This applies all the more if it is that artist's first experimentation working with a brand new medium.
Frankly, it will gain you no friends to talk like that to other artists, and help you to lose some instead. Instead, construct. Point out what you don't think is working in the image, what could be touched up, or elements you think are working and could be built on.
So just give your fellow artists the respect that they deserve, and you'll receive the same respect in turn.
Thanks for reading, sorry that this has been such a lengthy post! I hope to have new work going up within the next week.
Have a good one!

First set of prints done!

The preliminary set of prints have been finished! This was an interesting process, and I consider these more as studies than finished pieces. I've already shown the original stencil, and here's what came out of it.


After doing the first set of print, I made another pair of stencils, along with an 8 x 10 frame stencil, and then experimented with a three colour print. I'm not entirely pleased with the colours, but this was more of an experiment in working with the medium. These images are the results of this venture.


So this is some of what I've been up to lately. I've just finished cutting the final stencils for the "Fatale" print series, and have selected a colour palette that I like, so within the next little while, final prints will be appearing. If you're interested in owning one of the prints or experiment prints (they've been numbered as a series), feel free to contact me. Experimental prints I'll sell for $15, and final prints I'll probably run around $25-30.

Stencils!

So we're back in school now. Today was my first exposure to screen printing; I did a few test prints and then did a little set of six prints from a stencil I made. It has a definite Art Nouveau feel, which I enjoy. The drawing itself, posted here, didn't really take too long, but cutting it out took a good chunk of time, and required me to go out partway through to get new sharper blades for my knife to minimize tearing of the newsprint.

The drawing was done without photo references, and actually came out of my little brain; remarkable, I know, because sometimes it really seems like there's nothing up there. The image was drawn at an 8" x 10" size in pencil, drawn over in pen, and then carefully cut out. Some of the hairs changed a bit on the finished stencil, simply due to the fact that it was impossible to cut some of the incredibly fine bits without ripping the newsprint.

As an aside, it turns out newsprint is probably the best paper for stencils. Don't use Cougar. Do yourself a favour.

Living in Toronto!

So I just recently moved back into the big city. That was an event, and was then followed by a lot of cleaning. I've decided that the new place isn't so bad. Anyways, with the move and getting to see my room mates again after the summer, not a whole ton of art has gone on in the last little while. However, I did manage to finish a new painting this morning.

One nearly new painting!

Why yes, it has been a while. And as I prepare to move back into the big city of Toronto, I put off my packing in order to update my blog. Clearly, I am a winner. Anyways, this week has been a bit hectic, and hasn't really involved a lot of artwork. However, a couple of people have requested that I design tattoos for them, so I've been doing some rough work for those. There aren't any real finished pieces to show this week. So instead, I'll post this painting, which I finished a while back.

This was largely an experimental piece, done without any plan or goal in mind. The medium is primarily acrylic on canvas, but also involves a little bit of ink, collage, and crackle paste.
As I said, this was an experimental piece, and it was my first exposure to the wonder that is crackle paste. I wasn't happy with its performance on this canvas, although I believe that may simply be due to the ratio of crackle paste to paint it was mixed with. My second crackle paste experiment yielded much more satisfying results.

New painting.

This is a painting I recently finished, based on a photograph I took last spring. It was my first attempt painting directly from a photograph, and I think it went reasonably well.

This is a fan that I created to be used as a prop in the show my campers were doing this summer. It's ink on rice paper, with bamboo skewers as the arms. This was finished in about three hours, but I really wish I had had more opportunity to work with prototypes so I could get the design into a better working order. As it was, it was just a pretty prop.

Commission finished!

please excuse the last post, the first image was incorrect. THIS is the correct image. Enjoy!

Commission Numero Uno

I got a commission for a pen drawing on Saturday, and here's the result of that.
The commission was requested when the client saw a pen drawing in my sketchbook done after an image by illustrator Arthur Rackham.

New painting finished!

Finished a new painting! It's acrylic on canvas, based on an old drawing I did. It started life as a red canvas with no planned fate.

A POST!

I dearly apologize for the long break in updates. I didn't feel like updating for a little while, and then my internet hasn't been working for the past week and a bit. So now I'm going to update! Hooray!

This is a painting i did just for fun. I feel like it's better suited to being two separate paintings, and I put a pencil line down the middle because I didn't feel the two halves really matched up. This was my first experiment painting with acrylics on wood, and I feel like next time I try this I need to sand down the wood a bit more before I go to town.

This here's a creepy bloody fox head floating out in the middle of nowhere. I'm not pleased with the way the background turned out; it's difficult to get an even dark grey with ink on a large surface while working around fangs and hairs. However, I do enjoy the head itself.

Willow charcoal and all its friends

So today we've got another little willow charcoal experiment. This was a 15 minute sketch of some foxglove. I'm decently happy with it, but I find the willow charcoal smudges very easily, and doesn't stay on the support when it does smudge. The result is a piece that is covered in a significant amount of Helene Curtis Salon Selectives Sit Still (registered trademark, thank you mum for loaning the hair products).

This one here is just a little bit of fun.

These are some little ink turtles that I doodled the other day while watching Harry Potter. I asked my girlfriend what I ought to draw while I watched the movie, and she said painted turtles. And here they are. Personal fave is the one with its mouth open.

Ah Monday Night...

A lovely night to post on one's blog, don't you think? So, lately I've been doing a little more watercolour work, and am experimenting with layering tons of colours over top of each other. I have to say, I've kind of been enjoying the results, and watercolours are creeping up on my list of 'mediums I don't completely despise' list. One thing that's taken a little free-fall on my list of 'mediums I don't completely despise' list is willow charcoal. It started out so nice. The first date, seemed cheerful, friendly, looked pretty good. The second date, however, wasn't so good. I'm getting an impression that there really isn't that much substance, and that it isn't nearly as heavy-handed as my previous charcoal. In all seriousness though, it really does disappear fast, and I find it more challenging to get heavy darks out of it, especially when trying to blend it (i.e. smudge. sorry smudge-haters). I miss my old charcoal =(. Tonights creation may surface in a later post, but tonight is reserved for some gnomes. Please enjoy.


So, here are the gnomes! In all there... stunted, flamingo-riding glory! Funny story about the rough pen sketches- they were done in the cab of a moving furniture delivery truck. I'm amazed they turned out as decently as they did!

So, keeping in the vein of doodles done in the truck, this one just entertained me. So I decided to post it. Makes sense, yeah?

No picture make Alex sad

Now, having published that post, it really just doesn't seem right without posting any pictures. I don't really have any really recent work that's been finished, although I have two or three pieces on the go at the moment (mostly in the sketchbook stages).

This little guy here is probably the latest decent project that I've finished. Yes, it's cartoony. Yes, the colours are painfully cheerful. If that's not your style, that's ok, I understand. I find that I'm painfully defensive about this piece, due to a rather condescending comment my father made about it when i was finishing it. I feel like that also may have contributed to the lacklustre rendering of the rabbits; I am, however, reasonably happy with the way the central figure turned out, and particularly like the shadows around his feet. Yep, I'm an artist, and I enjoy weird little things like that. The medium is acrylic on board.
It may also be worth mentioning how many times today I was asked if I work in oils. It seems like this is really something I need to start doing, as many people appear to be fans. But oils are expensive. Anyways, have a good evening! Hopefully I'll have more worthwhile work to post within the next week or two.

Art Show!

Earlier today saw the Annual Brantford Collegiate Institute Arts in the Square, which is a celebration of the arts programs which BCI has to offer. Music, dance, drama, and of course visual art, were all represented.
The event featured some skits, several musical acts, and a smattering of dance numbers, along with a dozen or so grade 12 students exhibiting a small collection of artwork from their high school careers. I had spoken to my high school art teacher previously, and she welcomed me to come and display some of my work, as a BCI Alumni. There wasn't a huge turnout, as well as the looming (and eventually realized) threat of downpour. Nonetheless, it was a good chance for some young artists to get a little bit of exposure. Sadly, I left the house in a rush and forgot my camera, so will be unable to share some of the works being displayed on this blog.
There were certainly some nice pieces of artwork. A particular standout for me was Dana Deming-Watson. I had the pleasure of having an art class in grade 11 with her, and had the chance to see her at work. She's terrifically creative, and excellent at rendering images cleanly and precisely. She's graduating BCI this year, and is off to study art. I look forward to seeing her future work, and you should all stay on the lookout for her, because her work is really quite awesome.
Eventually the show did get rained out (in fact, on my way home, I got drenched. Luckily my art survived the downpour unscathed), but it was definitely good while it lasted.
As I said, apologies for the lack of photographs from the event! There was definitely some quality work being shown.

Hello there! Today is art updating day! Hurrah!

This one surfaced out of a little experimentation with inks on watercolour paper. just a quick little bit of fun, no big deal! Enjoy!
This was experiment number one with willow charcoal. Verdict is that I still like charcoal, so that's a good thing.
That's all the goodies that I really have to share with you all today... not too many big projects have been going on lately. But I have just received another assignment, so at some point that may be appearing on a blog near you!