Weekly Wrap:
This week I did a little watercolor and pitt pastel doodles, made an illustration trying to learn Clip Studio, painted a bit in oils, made some posters playing in ps for iPad, downloaded the new Cara platform (and can’t seem to make it work), and my doggie Cece turned 15yo! Also I took advantage of Affinity Studio’s half off sale and had a little chuckle to myself with their trolling of Adobe who seems to have blunder pretty badly with both their term updates and explanation of the changes. I’m looking forward to having a vector program and publishing program again as i couldn’t justify the cost of continuing my adobe cs subscription whose monthly fee continually ticked up. I still pay $23 a month for photoshop and wow it would be nice to move fully to Affinity and the vastly more affordable one time price tag for the version model. I’ll see how it goes!
Product Review:
My favorite watercolor brush: Escoda Reserva travel kolinsky watercolor brush size 6
Before biting the cash bullet and springing for this pretty spendy brush I had an escoda vermil (synthetic kolinsky) travel set and still do. Watercolor brushes are small enough that it might be silly to make them more compact but I like how the “cap” both protects the brush head and also when open makes the brush a full size handle. Very clever. The synthetic brushes are just fine but to be honest I rarely use them because I absolutely adore the size 6 kolinsky version. It holds an incredible amount of watercolor that can be laid down in fairly large washes and then also comes together into the finest point! It’s amazing! So much so that i eventually decided to spring for a size 4 and I’ll tell you i find that it has both a less fine tip and also of course doesn’t hold as much juice in its bristles. One day I may get curious about the size 8 but when my 6 needs replacing I won’t hesitate to repurchase.
BLUM Gallery Culver City showing works by Sebastian Silva’s through June 29, 2024
Sebastian Silva’s large scale paintings based on childhood iconography like Disney characters and picture books are on view at BLUM Los Angeles until June 29th. The Blum overview suggests likenesses to artist DuBuffet and Philip Guston. I would add Mike Kelly’s stuffed toy sculptures to this list. The paintings might start with Disney characters and use joyful colors but there is also a sense of seriousness and weight here. In one painting I saw a falling angel to then realize it was definitely Goofy’s nose. At least in my eyes, why can’t it be both? Inhabiting the silly joy of Goofy while also the sadness of being cast out of the heavens of childhood. So like the very used toys in Mike Kelly’s sculptures there are some similar feeling of the love, drama, joy and loss of childhood and the emotional attachment to and incomplete remains of memory, especially those memories from young age.
Before reading the gallery document a friend and I were having fun spotting hippos and bunnies and naming the “Untitled” works things like “trip to the zoo” and “mushroom magic” These works are like a playground, lots of fun and also some of the scrapes and bruises that go hand in hand with play.
The paintings are massive and I suppose do a wonderful job filling the walls of all the LA houses that look like they were built for giants to inhabit. My favorite (pictured above) was on the smaller side and still its dimensions are around 6ft by 5 ft!
Also showing on the ground floor of BLUM are large scale works by artist Ryan Sullivan who works in resin. Upstairs there are two more shows: the drawings and sculptures by Roberto Matta (architect turned artist making imagined universe) and pascALEjandro, a union of two artists Alejandro Jodorowsky (makes the drawing) and Pascale Montandon-Jodorowsky (makes the colors) of works based on their life together. Interesting stuff.
Open call:
Myma artist grant June edition
Fee: $0
Due: July 4, 2024
I joined Myma a few months ago and to be honest I’m not fully sure what it is all about. I do like the parts I have used and it seems as though it is creating a space for artist to more easily go about their business. They have a calls section with listings of various upcoming calls that have easy to navigate links to find out more about the call and potentially apply. They also do a monthly Myma call that is free to enter. You do need a Myma account to participate but once you have one and have populated it with some of your works entering the call is as easy as hitting a button. I love the minimal friction of this!