Airports and the arts

So I finally got around to pulling the museum maps, etc. Out of my backpack from Paris. I found these two with the others.

A pamphlet of the art in the international terminal at the Dallas - Fort Worth airport and a pamphlet from at the museum space in SFO. I think it's genius to have a museum space in an airport. I spent about six hours at both of these airports and while it was cool to wander around and see the art in Dallas, it was much cooler to see the curated exhibits at SFO. They have four exhibit spaces in different parts of the airport and exhibits rotate around. I think you could even go see them without having to be going anywhere. I think they were outside of security. I wish more airports would do this!

An American Artist in Paris

A few weeks ago I was able to take a trip to Paris and fulfill many dreams. One of the coolest things I was able to do, was to go to the Louvre. When I went to Italy there were several moments when I was geeking out over beautiful art and things I'd studied in art history, the Louvre is even more like that. In one room they have practically a whole semesters worth of French art history. The Louvre has at least five da Vinci's, some quick googling tells me that, that's about a third of his paintings! There was an amazing Vermeer exhibit while we were there, it was so cool to see tons of Vermeer's in one place and the work of his contemporaries.

We took a flying tour of the Louvre, it's massive and I wanted to see as much as possible. The top of my list were the Mona Lisa (beautiful but obscured by selfie-ists) the rest of the da Vinci's ( so cool just to see a row of da Vinci paintings!) the winged victory (so beautiful!) and the Venus de Milo (also quite beautiful but obscured by many people).

We hit the Islamic art section, that was cool, many beautiful things there. One of these days I'll have to get a camera that works better in low light because museums are often dark (to protect the art).
I was interested by all the students/artists that were making sketches and studies in the Louvre. I wish that I had been assigned or encouraged to do that more when I was in school, we didn't have the Louvre of course but the MOA and the SMA have some really great exhibits.
One sad note about the Louvre, it is not very accessible for those with limited mobility (I'm not sure any of Europe really is), if you can't or don't want to climb the stairs and do all of the standing and walking, you might just want to google it.
We also went to the Musee d'Orsay, which is where the major impressionist collection is, it's pretty cool as well. We got a little burnt out when we were there, it was our third sight seeing event of the day.

The Orangerie was also very cool, there are two oval rooms that Monet designed for panels of his water lilies. They also have a smaller collection of more impressionists.

 I think those are all the museums we went to but we also went to some beautiful cathedrals, Notre Dame, and to Sainte-Chapelle. I think Sainte-Chapelle is lesser known but it is absolutely amazing, just walls and walls of stained glass.
Really all of Paris is kind of a work of art and there are statues and monuments everywhere. It was an amazing trip and I can't wait to go again someday!

Tools of the Trade

I was working out a new design and I was reminded of how helpful colored pencils are. One grid can begin endless designs so until you're very familiar with the based pattern, it's to mark out your design so you don't forget. You can work with the colors you intend to use and see how they work or you can just use random colors.

2017

It's a brand new year and I'm hoping to make 2017 a big art year. I have two solo shows coming up this year, the first one opens on February 2nd. It's been refreshing having time off from my day job and being able to spend more time working on art.
Here's to making dreams come true in the new year!

Zion Art Exhibition

Update: I didn't post this in time, sorry.

This exhibit closes soon but I really enjoyed it so I want to share that if you're in the area you should check it out. I didn't love every piece but there were a lot of really great works and I was reminded of the things that I want to be as an artist and what I want to bring to my art. It's a good reminder and motivator for me to make art a priority in my life. I just started a new full time job and making art is giing to be more challenging but it's soo important to me.

I had an art filled weekend, I checked out the exhibits at the MOA, this was my favorite. Then we hit up the Springville Museum of Art, this was a fun and informative exhibit.
It's good to be visiting art exhibits again, I haven't done that enough recently. Here's to being better going forward.

The Getty Villa

So about a month ago I got the opportunity to go to the Getty Villa in Southern California and it was amazing! The Getty Villa is a recreation of a Roman Villa based on an actual villa preserved by Vesuvius at Herculaneum.

It was amazing to see the collection antiquities at the Villa, I am in awe of the talents and skill of ancient artists.

Possibly one of the coolest thing about the Getty is that they're an independently wealthy museum and as such they can do all sorts of cool things that most museums could only dream of doing.

Precision and Perfection

I've read or been taught that in Islamic art and designs, the artist or craftsman will make a mistake or a flaw in the design on purpose because only Alah\God is perfect. I am not anywhere skilled enough yet to need to include a flaw on purpose.

I generally need a lot more precision in my work and the above image is a perfect example of this. I started drawing this new design and I was a little off, I should have fixed things then but I went forward hoping for the best. I got so far off that I couldn't even complete what I was doing and it was a lot worse to try and fix.
I can still pull something out of this jumble but it won't be what I was hoping for.
Learn frommy folly! I will try and learn as well.