Anton Pieck

I fell in love with Anton Pieck's work when I was 6 years old, and I still am very much in love with it today. Anton Pieck is a Dutch painter, artist and graphic designer, born in the Netherlands in 1895 and died in 1987. His rich imagination was very fairy tale like, and his playful line reminiscent of Albrecht Durer. He was incredibly prolific. In addition to the hundreds of fairytale inspired paintings, woodcuts, and etchings, he designed the first and most important theme park in Europe, The Efteling. I don't come across his work very often here in the states and wanted to share some of his paintings with you.

So beautiful.

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My Brooklyn Studio

I just read an fascinating article about artist's and writer's work spaces. The article came with pictures and I couldn't get enough of them. Some people work in tiny messy spaces, or large sprawled out places. Others work in organized minimal looking rooms. Everyone is so different. It made me look at my own space. My studio is on our home. I initially carved out a small section for myself, but my stuff keeps spilling over into other areas. I have many interests and thus need and use many different supplies. There are paints, pencils, paper, pastels, clay, beads, felt, fabric, wool, thread, ribbon, spread out everywhere. I like to have an overview of what I am working with and I'm always running out of table surface space. Here are some pictures. I did clean up a bit...

btw, it is national hugging day today! 

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Winter Sculpture

I am in the very early development stages of a series of sculptures based on the seasons. 

For some cold  reason, it made sense for me right now to start with winter. This might evolve into a book, it might not. We will see.

The initial research and sketches for the first sculpture are mostly done.

 

I made and armature and filed it up with aluminum foil, next I took wood paste and started sculpting. 

I still have a lot of sculpting to do and the wood paste is much harder to manipulate than I imagined. I am worried about the hands because I want them very long and slender, almost skeleton like. And the face!? Another concern is if the armature is strong enough to hold up the weight of the entire sculpture. I guess I will find out soon!

Stay warm.

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Gris Grimly

Gris Grimly's art work is dark, whimsical, fun, cool and inspiring. His pen and ink line work in particular is stunning. If you like Edward Gorey, Tim Burton and Henry Sellick, you will love Grimly's illustrations. 

He both illustrated and wrote quite a few children's books over the past few years, among which many picture books. Be sure to check them out. Be warned though, they are not for the very young or the faint at heart.

Here are a few of my favorite Grimly illustrations. 

Enjoy!

These are 3 of the 9 Freakatorium prints.

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