overload!!!

okay so i've been putting my artist research into my sketchbook and forgot that all 50 artists need to go onto this thing too... sooooo today is going to be an upchuck day of everything that has gone into my skechbook thus far. ugh, this is going to be a long day.... D:


"Reincarnation" Greg Howes
manipulated photograph
prints available for purchase: http://www.silvaticus.co.uk/g3.htm

Woo woo!! a photoshop piece!! Howes took a picture of this really awesome tree and then multiplied, flipped and inverted the images to create this seemingly infinite looking tree. the color has been adjusted to bring out the yellows and greens more to give this piece lots of life. i really like this one because of the infinite feeling and because of the color. i wasn't planning on adding color to my paper, but i think i will try to add some green and yellow into the pulp to see what i come up with!



"Stegosaurus" Leo Sewell
assemblage sculpture
8'x 5'x 3.5'

that's a dinosaur. and he is not pretending to be a tree. :P but, even though he's not a tree doesn't mean that this piece isn't inspiring. Leo Sewell has been making sculptures for over 50 years now!! he lives in Pennsylvania and just so happens to live right near a junk yard, which is where he gets all of his materials. Sewell strategically places his objects to create his works of art. everything he uses is recycled, and i believe he does not alter the objects in anyway to make them "fit" into the assemblage. he's inspiring because he takes trash and turns it into something new and exciting. something that i am also trying to accomplish. plus his pieces remind me of puzzles, and who doesn't love puzzles?


"Bats in Your Bell Tree" Jim Trask
mixed media w/ recycled baseball bats and bells

this sculpture, along with 29 others, is located along the boardwalk of San Diego Bay in California. this piece is part of a really cool public art project known as "Urban Trees." this pieces are installed annually (this one being part of the 6th installation) around the San Diego Port. Trask was inspired to create his piece after finding a ton of baseball bats at a local garage sale. he has taken these recycled bats and created a sculptural pun of the saying "bats in the belfry," which is an olde english phrase for being crazy or eccentric. i especially like this piece because it consists of recycled materials (wooo!!!) and because it is an interesting concept for an "urban tree." it doesn't directly resemble a tree, but you still get the idea without having to think too hard about it. i'm going to try to abstract a few of my pieces so they give more of an idea of a tree than a direct representation of one.


"Elysium" Gretchen Mars and Brian Salmon
mixed media w/metal and wood

this piece was also apart of the 6th Urban Trees project mentioned above. i especially like this piece because it focuses on the relationship between man-made and organic. the leafs of the tree are laser cut wood while the stems are stainless steel (i think). elysium is a place or state of perfect happiness, and this piece definitely shows that. the harmony of the natural world and the world of man is definitely communicated in this piece. one of the major themes i'm working with is the relationship between man and nature so i'm definitely looking at this for some inspiration. there is also a youtube video showing the building process of this work so i'm posting that too. :D






okay i'm going to end this post here and then continue with the other artists in another post. don't want to overwhelm anyone with a ridiculously looooooong post!! :P