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I went to see the Frank Romero show at MOLAA (Museum of Latin American Art ) in Los Angles. He is a famous Chicano artist who paints mostly of Southern California and in really bright colors. One of his paintings I fell in love with is called Cheech’s Downtown. Cheech Marin is the largest collector of Frank Romero’s work.

To better understand his technique and use of colors and composition, I decided to try and copy Cheech’s Downtown. He uses acrylic paint and paints very quickly. I learned a lot from the process. I used heavy cement and glass beads mixed into the acrylic to give it texture and reflective properties. I do not think the original used these but I know Frank Romero experimented with gels and molding paste textures which he added into the paint in other pieces.

See below for photos of Frank Romero’s original and my  final attempt hanging on my wall.  My cat also helped.

Collagraphy is a printmaking process in which materials are applied to a rigid plate such as Masonite, wood, or cardboard.  I used Masonite for this one.

I used oil paint with a paintbrush to ink the plate. After the paint was applied to the plate I used a printing press to print onto wet paper. Some artists use rolling pins to press the image and I have seen a few try to use their car. The more pressure the more the details of the image will imprint into the paper.

For this piece I used leaves I found on my walks around Los
Angeles, beads, and cut up window screens secured onto the plate with molding paste. The possibilities are endless.

After the print dried I created a jungle theme using collage, tissue paper, acrylic paint, embroidery threads and watercolor paint.

 

The resulting print and collage makes me smile. It’s a very happy whimsical piece that I think would look amazing in a child’s room.  This one comes framed.

I was commissioned to paint a painting using Rosalind Franklin’s x- ray diffraction image of DNA which proved the double helix of DNA as inspiration. See image below.

I used acrylic and spray paint for this project. Acrylic paint dries very fast and when you need very straight edges an artist can use tape on top of the paint to get a straight line. I liked the way the spray paint would soften the edges of the image and it made using the stencils easier.

I started by creating two stencils. There was quiet a bit of measuring and planning to get the images in the correct place. For the image of the DNA I used spray paint. The background colors are acrylic.

It is interesting to see an artists process and progress.  I painted a portrait of my husband over a few weeks.  I used mostly alla prima painting techniques or wet paint into wet paint.  I did let it dry between sessions.   When you let oil paint dry between sittings it allows the artist to adjust the colors more easily and if you make a mistake you can wipe off your last layer! Attached you can see the progress of the painting from my initial sketch which I tried to block in the drawing and determine where my darkest darks were going to be.  You can also notice that I changed the body shape a few times and adjusted the colors.

Painting out side from nature -or  “plain air” is hard!  This painting was done in Malibu and took about 2 hours.  The hardest part is knowing what to paint.  In a photo it’s obvious where the picture starts and ends- when you are painting from life there are no borders.  A fun lesson I learned was that I could move objects or change the colors- to improve on nature.  The palm tree in my painting was really way off to my left- the mountain range was more orange but adding blue/ purple showed that they were farther off into the distance.

Not a bad way to spend an afternoon!

My good friend (and talented artist), Laura Alvarez, is having an exhibition at The Shatford Library, Pasadena City College in the Chicano/Latino Heritage Room.

While getting her Masters degree in fine art she created a character she calls DAS , the Double Agent Sirvienta , a spy posing as a maid on both sides of the border.   Laura’s Mom was born in Mexico and was a housekeeper, and her Dad worked for the US government, but it still is a mystery to her exactly what he did.  Through the love she felt for both her parents she combined the ideas of a latino maid who felt invisible because she wasn’t seen as a person and the government employee who didn’t talk much about exactly what he did into one entity.

She gives the latino maid (DAS) back her power.  Her invisibility becomes her super power because  no one suspects her.

I was lucky enough to get one of the DAS T-shirts that Laura hand painted.  You can read more about her at

http://lauraalvarezart.wordpress.com

I went to visit The Marciano Art Foundation in Los Angeles today after reserving my tickets on line a few months ago. Its free but you need reservations to be admitted. The space is in a Masonic Temple built in 1961. A number of items including costumes, books and relics are now part of the museums collection.

The rest of the museum is dedicated to contemporary art. The installation by Jim Shaw was huge and something I’ve never seen before. He says “I’m creating sort of a Hieronymus Bosch-like hell within – the shopping mall hell that is our contemporary life.”

 

 

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