Self Portrait

Art Calendar is having a "self portrait" contest and the winner will be featured on their March issue cover. They said it could be 2-D or 3-D and abstract was fine. That was an interesting assignment to give myself... what would I use to represent me as an abstract self portrait. I thought about using an owl since I'd had a dream recently about an owl. However, I decided it should be a raven since I've been using ravens in my art of late and I admire their intelligence, trickster nature and sense of play. I decided to add the rice paper spirals to the image to also reflect a recent theme in my art. I put my green eye in place of the raven's black eye. :-)

I'm calling it "As a Raven, I'd Breathe Spirals to the Clouds."

Blurring the lines

My husband and I have a graphic design business together, in addition to both being artists (he's a sculptor: Dr. Stone's sculpture blog ). We just completed a 100-page catalog for our client who sells training equipment for dogs. I decided to make a collage for the front and back covers of their 2010 catalog and use torn papers inside for page headers and backgrounds – blurring the lines between my design business and fine art. In the printed catalog, the J&J Dog Supplies logo will be at the upper left above the jumping dog for the front cover; the horizontal collage will take up half of the back cover with 800# and other information reversed out of the left side of the image. They were very pleased with the look, so I'll be taking these out to hang in their offices.