By: Ellis Nadler,
on 4/18/2012
By: Nina Mata,
on 3/20/2012
Last month the good people at the Montana Skatepark Association invited me to create work on a skate deck for their annual fundraising gallery show called ON DECK 7.
The money raised will go towards construction and maintenance of Missoula’s MOBASH skatepark. The art decks will be displayed on May 4th, at the Brink Gallery in Missoula, MT where they will also begin the silent/online auction. So lookout for that come May! Visit the MSA website for more information.
Anything that keeps us active and off the streets is A-OK with me!
I was super psyched to be given the opportunity to create work on a skate deck since I’ve never worked on a surface like this before. Prior to receiving the skate deck I had a few ideas in mind but nothing sounded as fun as creating a tree house and possibly a place where Animal Chin lives! (Special thanks to the BF, for telling me the Legend of Animal Chin.)
Here’s the fun process of finding Animal Chins House:
Step 1: I started out with a quick sketch of the tree and a faint mapping of where I’d like to see the leaves.
Step 2: I painted a thin layer of gesso on top of the sketch.
Step 3: Laid out some color for the grass and painted layer of green as an underpainting for the tree.
Step 4: Started to lay in some actual color for the tree trunk..There goes my boss…micromanaging.
Step 5: Once I got the trunk texture down, I worked on the house, and added a thin layer of gesso on the stairs for later.
Step 6: I started to work on the stairs, and the little look out point on the middle left making sure to use a slightly different wood tones for the stairs so the tree and wood wouldn’t blend.
Step 7: I was really planning to keep the natural wood exposed for the finish but it was looking too brown and very monochromatic. (Boo.) So I placed some contact paper on the tree hou
By: Mattias Adolfsson,
on 3/6/2012
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By: DIANE SMITH,
on 3/2/2012
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| Current Work in Progress |
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| Original "doodle" from the sketchbook |
By: Ellis Nadler,
on 2/12/2012
By: Claudette Young,
on 2/9/2012
I spoke about those memories of Grandma, as opposed to Granny, who was Dad’s mother. Have to keep those straight, you know. I’d like to talk more about my maternal grandmother for one more day.
She was a tiny lady, who loved to shop when she had the opportunity. By the time I knew her she was already in her sixties and had triumphed over many obstacles and trials during her life. She had the soul of an artist, of a healer, and of a naturalist. Bundled within the diminutive frame resided a wicked sense of humor and a passion for professional wrestling.
Of course, the weekly broadcast of wrestling took precedence only when Perry Mason or Oral Roberts were not.
Her faith kept her going, I think, through all the lean years. In short, she was indomitable. What I learned from Grandma was reinforced by my own mother. She reflected many of her mother’s traits and strengths.
I will admit that oddities abounded around the little woman. Two massive native persimmon trees kept sentinel at the rear of her yard. In the spring, beneath those trees, grew mushrooms, morels to be exact. Those wrinkled beauties returned each year, spring and fall.
“Fall?” you ask. “Yes,” I reply. Morels aren’t known for appearing in the autumn, but hers did. The brilliant yellow buttercups would act as backdrop for them in the spring and the hickory nut bounty would accompany them in the fall. Sort of a two-fer event for the equinoxes.
She also had a passion for flowers and plants. Zinnias were her favorite annual, and she worked for years to develop a pure white zinnia. She didn’t get her project finished before she died. The ten thousand dollar prize must have gone to someone else, because not too many years ago such a flower was introduced to the public.
Grandma wanted a blue rose, as well, long before they were bred. My grandfather couldn’t find one for her and so settled for a favorite fruit tree instead. He brought her home a larger sapling peach tree. The first year it produced peaches, we were taken to see the tree. There, sprouting from the base of the tree was a blue rose; not a pale purple one, but a blue one.
At least that’s the memory of I have that event. She was ecstatic with her “miracle.” I can’t remember any other time seeing her that happy. Something precious had been validated for her that day, having to do with that rose. The rest of the adults seemed more stunned than ecstatic.
Grandma was one of those people who believed in all things being possible within nature. She could be staid, practical to a fault sometimes, and definitely opinionated, but for her things were always possible if she believed strongly enough.
She had her rules to live by and taught them with quiet modeling. If we were lucky, we got to learn those rules and emulate them within our own lives. That’s quite an accomplishment for anyone on this earth, I think.
By: Ellis Nadler,
on 2/2/2012
By: David Hohn,
on 11/5/2011
Posted on 10/14/2011
I sprayed some of my owl stencils on really thin Chinese painting practice paper to see how they would paste to things. I found that I really liked them on smooth trees because they completely adhere to the surface in a way that looks natural. In fact from a distance it looks like someone carved the image into the tree. I think I might got for a new line of natural looking wheatpasted images on “wild” surfaces.
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By: Mattias Adolfsson,
on 10/9/2011
Posted on 8/28/2011
By: David Hohn,
on 7/22/2011
By: David Hohn,
on 7/21/2011
By: nicole,
on 2/24/2011
i'm so happy that these are done!!! and, i'm even more excited to ship them off tomorrow to liz so she can hang in them in her baby girl's room:) i am actually pleased with the way these turned out. i love the colors and the concept(s). i hope baby isabelle looks up at them and they make her SMILE:)
liz and i spoke today about doing a piece for her niece miley who LOVES cows! so, i'll be sketching some ideas for that this weekend. super excited for that one as well!:)
BTW~I WILL BE SELLING PRINTS OF THESE IN MY ETSY SHOP NEXT WEEK...STAY TUNED...
By: Ellis Nadler,
on 3/11/2011
A pleasant enough evening round at Brinsley's discussing, amongst other things, debt factoring at Royal Bank of Scotland and a tree with fish for leaves.
Pen and ink with grey marker. 18cm x 12 and 9cm x 9cm. Click to enlarge.
By: Ellis Nadler,
on 3/12/2011
This strip is sung to the tune of How Much is That Fishstrangler in the Window?
Click to enlarge.
By: Mattias Adolfsson,
on 3/14/2011
By: Ellis Nadler,
on 3/15/2011
Card 27 in the current series.
Woodcut 30cm x 20cm. Click to enlarge.
By: Ellis Nadler,
on 4/7/2011
Card 29 in the current series is now ready.
Woodcut 30cm x 20cm. Click to enlarge.
By: Ellis Nadler,
on 4/10/2011
In trying to work out a decorative back to my Cards of Uut series of woodcuts, I got a bit carried away with the drawing and created this pen and ink version.
Ink and watercolour 36cm x 26cm. Click to enlarge.
By: Ellis Nadler,
on 5/16/2011
Another attempt at a decorative back to The Cards of Uut. Still not sure about this one.
Woodcut 30cm x 20cm. Click to enlarge.
By: Ellis Nadler,
on 6/14/2011
Four more sketches for the latest card game.
Pen and ink with watercolour, 11cm x 5cm each.Click to enlarge.
By: Ellis Nadler,
on 6/26/2011
A fragment of the artwork from the game board of The Game of Spodunk showing the first two squares. It's very unlucky to land your goose on La Popesse.
Pen and ink on watercolour 28cm x 9cm. Click to enlarge.
By: Ellis Nadler,
on 7/8/2011
This is inspired by the book of Dede Orkut which I'm reading at the moment.
Pen and ink with watercolour. Each page 25cm x 17.5cm. Click to enlarge.
By: Gigi Moore,
on 7/14/2011
are planning to rip someone's eyes haha
excellent!
Lovely leaves as usual Mattias.
Beautiful! Your work is so inspiring. :)
StudioSakiVI.blogspot.com
Awesome, as usual.
Sweet!