DIY Franz Kline Large-Scale Abstract Art

I've been bookmarking paintings just like this for several years now. For someone who redecorates DAILY it's a real good sign when I like something for that long. It means I must really, really like it and I won't be trying to sell it to you on Craigslist within the week. It might even last a year!

I love the graphic face-slap of the black and white and the heavy strokes, and I feel like it really balances out the fussiness of an old home.

Dudes, it is NOT easy trying to introduce the 60s to the 20s. Sometimes you put them together in a room and they get all awkward and quiet and shuffle their feet and then you realize your intergenerational design marriage has failed. Slowly I'm learning how to make these opposites do the rhumba together in this neo-English mini manor house of mine.

So yesterday I finally got out some materials and made myself a real, live, super-fake Franz Kline.



It's not finished, and I hung it up unframed and wet being the instant-gratification princess that I am. It's crooked and hanging on an old nail. If anyone sneezes, it's a goner.



My art critic oldest child says, "You need to feather the lines more."

My husband said, "What's up, Picasso?"

My youngest has probably already wiped a booger on it.

After it dries, I might feather the lines more and maybe build up the paint a little for more texture. It's a simple and super-cheap project, but it's deceptively complicated trying to get a few lines to look just right.



Materials:

A pre-gessoed (prepped and ready to paint) canvas from Michael's

left-over exterior latex semi-gloss paint from Glidden in Onyx Black (from my front door)

oil paint in white

a regular 4" paintbrush from Home Depot (don't get those short, cheap ones...it would be impossible to achieve the look of a bold stroke)

a pencil for sketching

an old nail for impatiently pounding into your lovely wallpaper to see the results

Technique:

To make it easier to get the proportions right, I printed the picture out from my computer and divided it into quadrants. Then I penciled out quadrant marks on my canvas. This was really important and only took 15 minutes or so.

I sketched out the lines, and then painted the negative space white first. Then I added in the black strokes and spent about an hour feathering the edges, standing back to look, and adjusting elements that just didn't look right.

The total cost (because I bought the canvas with a 50% off coupon and had old paint) was about $25.

I plan to make a simple black frame for it, and even hang it on a real picture hanger. Soon, I promise.

Time Lapse

While I wait for my replacement camera to arrive, I have to share with you the work of photographer Irina Werning. I can't wait to see more of her "Back to the Future" project this summer. The pictures are haunting, sweet, funny, even cautionary.
The last I couldn't resist...it's from another series of her muse/pet Chini. Maybe the best dog portrait ever.

These are things

not made for trend or profit or notoriety or self-promotion. How often is that the case anymore?



Purely creation for the sake of it. And for the pleasure, maybe. The challenge? Yes, most likely that too.



Dalton Ghetti spends months, sometimes years, on each piece. And he refuses to sell a single one.



An extraordinarily evil thought struck me while reading this article. Say he has a wife. And say one morning without thinking she grabs a pencil to jot down her grocery list.

Later, he walks into the kitchen to find half a year's work lying broken atop a sticky note that reads milk, bread, eggs, pencils.










You can read more about him here.

Opera Lessons

Friday night some friends and I dropped a wad of cash to see the opera Turandot.

Here is a review of everything but the music.

1. David Hockney can design the poop out of a stage.

2. In San Diego "I'm going to the opera" is synonymous with "I'm going to Disneyland" and "I'm a Midwesterner going to the beach".

Apparently it's ok to wear a Hawaiian beach cover up with a Harry Potter sweater scarf and flipflops.

And if you're old and have bad taste, you're really in luck! You can wear orthopedic sandals with socks and shorts, so no, you are not the Greatest Generation that wore hats and ties and made everything all classy-seeming...you are a Schleppy McShlepper like Hawaiian Harry Potter lady and you should know better. Shame!

3. You can be the hottest (youngest, freshest-smelling, least wrinkled, lowest blood pressured, least likely to be part bionic) girl in the room, if you go to the opera.

4. You shouldn't panic if your friend shows up overdressed in a coat made of Chewbacca fur.

Sure, initially you will walk several feet away, and it will continuously startle your internal "bear alert" mechanism.

But later it will prove to be a good place to lay your head when the opera is still going at 10:45pm. You will dream that you are in Dr. Zhivago sleeping on a pile of Russian bear furs.

5. The real entertainment begins at 11pm, when 8,000 senior citizens are simultaneously released to wander the vast parking structure, like a mutant race of old people zombies, looking for their cars...with one policeman trying to assist them all. I hope they've all made their way home by now. I really do.

So, support The Arts. You can pay hundreds to watch an old guy play a young man singing about China in Italian. Through binoculars.

I'd totally do it again.

Pair of grand, curvaceous Italian ladies

seeking permanent American residence. Although rather old, they've kept up their appearances and, in fact, are lovelier now than when they were young.

Solid, hand-carved alabaster.
Available in the shop this eve.

Forbidden Fruit

Under what circumstances is it acceptable to pay $400 for a pear?

An Italian, screen-printed, limited edition, Enzo Mari pear?
I hem and haw about buying new underwear, or pencils, or a new broom, but heck yeah I'm trying to add "La Pera" to the week's budget.

I was trying to find images of the print installed in a home to get a sense of the look and scale...there are hardly any and mostly in Japan for some reason. Here is a pretty cool interpretation of the original from a Japanese blog.



I thought the color and scale would be a cool contrast to my intricate Cole & Son wallpaper in the "foyer" aka place where we dump our crap and the dog goes to shed a full flokati rug of fur every night. Unfortunately this photo looks like Martha Stewart threw up near my fabulous wallpaper, but you get the idea...intricate meets graphic. Yellow meets green. Contrast.




Plus I'm totally into Enzo Mari since I scored his Animali puzzle at the thrift store last year. You could call me a collector. With a foyer.

Also appearing under "images, La Pera" on Google, this hot Italian musical duo who are obviously going unicycling after they finish the photo shoot. Fruity indeed.

Gerald Thurston for Lightolier-Rare Swing Arm Pulley Chandelier/Light Fixture

I absolutely love this 1950s Asian-inspired piece by Gerald Thurston for Lightolier.

It has a very cool weighted pulley that allows you to adjust the height, and the arm can retract or extend to adjust how far it projects into the room...typical brilliant, flexible, multi-purpose Mid Century design, especially awesome for older homes where you require overhead light but have no ceiling outlets (we've still got a few rooms like that over at our house, although my house was built before matches were invented, so....)

Available tonight over at the Modernhaus storefront, along with a smattering of beautiful new art pieces and more lighting options!

Modern madonna of the Mid West

Not everyone will agree with me, but I consider this painting to be among my top three acquisitions since I've been in this business. I wrote in the auction details that "I love how her neutral expression complicates her relationship to the artist; is she mother, lover, wife?" It's interesting how you can decode a painting using nearly the same techniques as decoding a piece of writing. I think my observations are pretty much lost on the Ebay audience, although I'm sure there are some legitimate collectors who care about such details.

Stylistically, my first instinct was "Andrew Wyeth-meets-Alex Katz". Wyeth with his somber and bleak, yet warmly pro-female portraits of Helga, and Alex Katz with his trademark large central figure with mere hints of the outer environment. Oh-did you not know that I spent two semesters as an Art History major? (Just enough knowledge to make me annoying) I'll never regret it.

This painting is really good. It pulls you in and compels you to look. And the closer you are, the better the technique. It does not fall apart upon examination. This chick's for real, yo. From a famous gallery in Kansas City, it traveled with the gallerist here to San Diego. I think it's interesting that she kept it. I think maybe it's her and her lover painted it, and instead of trying to sell it for him she hid it in the back of the gallery or placed an outrageously high price on it, sort of like I'm doing now, to prevent it's sale.

Side note: Andrew Wyeth died earlier this month, along with J.D. Salinger, the great novelist. What an amazing body of work they've left behind.