Catalina Cats

As a self-proclaimed tile addict, my favorite thing to do when I visit Catalina Island (just a short boat ride from Los Angeles) is to hunt down all the beautiful tiles that adorn the buildings and walkways in Avalon. (And I highly recommend the Jewels of Avalon Tile Walking Tour.) But just as ubiquitous, and beautiful, are the feral cats of Catalina. T-shirts and other souvenirs of the cats are easily found in the shops. So for me to paint a tile of a Catalina scene was well overdue. I just retrieved this one from the kiln this morning. I have a companion tile that I'm starting to work on now but for the first one I decided on the most famous landmark, the Casino Ballroom. Inviting you into the scene are my two friends, Friday and Pharoah!

(Designs and photos are copyright roslyn m wilkins)

Magical Night in Malibu The first thing you notice when turning off Pacific Coast Highway into the Pepperdine University Campus is the wave of US flags on Alumni Park paying tribute to the 2,977 lives lost in the September 11 attacks seven years ago.
We attended the reception for the opening of Carolyn Mary Kleefeld: Visions from Big Sur in the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, a very nice gallery space which I have never visited before.
Although I liked many of the pieces in the exhibit, I felt most attuned to the ink drawings (listed under "pastels" and "colored pens" on her website). Sometimes I can visit a gallery with all kinds of good intentions to be receptive to the artwork but I end up wondering what in the world I am doing there. But this time I was suitably impressed and felt a definite connection with the art on display.
The mood was enhanced by the excellent guitarist pictured in the corner of the photo.
The exhibit runs from September 13 - December 14, 2008. Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA 90263. General information: (310) 506-4851.
(Photo is copyright roslyn m wilkins)

Don't Listen to Grouch Marx

He said he would never belong to an organization that would accept him as a member!

You are invited to the Culver City Art Group 2008 membership drive, Saturday, September 13 at Graphaids, located at 3030 La Cienega Blvd in Culver City. That's between Jefferson and Washington. We will have an acrylic painting demo from 11:30 to 2:00.

You are welcome to attend the demo without joining the group but membership is only $25 a year and these days that's a pretty good deal. To find out everything you get for your money, come, meet and hang out with some of our members on Saturday.

Portrait of a Cat
My latest tile commision was for a portrait of Frida, a Maine Coon Cat. I was given photos showing her as either brown or grey but I was assured she is really grey. I did one drawing on the tile that I really didn't like, so started another. Then decided to paint them both. I was much less constrained painting the tile I had decided was not the final product. That should be a lesson as the client picked the tile (which I showed them before firing) I had decided was merely the backup. I probably felt I could take chances I couldn't with the "real" tile. (Designs and photos are copyright roslyn m wilkins)

Max Ernst, I Hardly Knew Ye
Since I fell down the stairs and sprained my knees almost three weeks ago, I've had some time to watch a lot of NetFlix movies and read books. Although not one to enjoy sedentary activities (is that an oxymoron?), it has been forced upon me to some small degree. As it was necessary to do some serious sofa time one afternoon I popped the "Max Ernst" DVD in the machine and prepared myself to take a nap. Ernst was always one of those painters on the periphery of my consciousness who I never bothered to be interested in. To tell the truth, the first time I did fall asleep in the first half hour, but as my knees needed to be rooted to the spot for a while I decided to try again. Second time the charm. Fully awake, I was intrigued from the get go. Not only did I find myself admiring his artwork, but the man himself led a hugely interesting life on two continents with the requisite array of beautiful and intelligent women falling in love with him. Had I been around at the time I might have done the same (not tooting my own horn as beautiful or intelligent, just for the record!). How did this artist manage to escape my attention all these years? Probably because I put him in the same class as Magritte, an artist who I know had an important influence on the art scene but gives me no or little emotional satisfaction. Not so with Ernst. I was immediately drawn to his work in a decidedly non-cerebral way. The same feeling I get when standing in front of a Van Gogh or one of Hockney's portraits.... it's a very personal experience. I admit, knowing the stories and influences behind the paintings helped my appreciation. Especially his love of the American Southwest which I now clearly see in many of his paintings. Nevertheless, that doesn't always work for me so there has to be something else.
I managed to restrain myself for 24 hours but then I researched all the Max Ernst books on Amazon and decided on "Max Ernst, A Retrospective" published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with the 2005 exhibit. Wish I'd been there! This has been my bedtime reading the past few nights. Of course, I can't say I absolutely love every single image in the book, some of his paintings I can't relate to at all. But some I didn't like the first time around are now beginning to grow on me! I like the fact that his work is quite varied. And as he said, "A painter is lost if he finds himself."

Rolling van Gogh
Just as The Rolling Stones have been my favorite musical artists since the first time I heard them in the 60s, so Vincent van Gogh has been my favorite visual artist since the first time I really became aware of him when a boyfriend took me to his exhibit at LACMA in the 70s. I can see Keith and Vincent sharing a smoke and some laughs together while Mick and Theo discuss business in the background. The same souls keep coming around in different disguises. This is a story about one of Vincent's over-paintings....
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-sci-vangogh30-2008jul30,0,7491968.story

Rabbit Hides, Egg Yolks & Mummies

Painting in the Ancient World is the day-long workshop I attended on Sunday at the Getty Villa. We learned Romano-Egyptian painting techniques led by artist Sylvana Barrett. We learned how to mix pigments with boiled rabbit hide (or cow hide) glue or egg yolks to make our own paint and prepared a poplar board (which is what the Mona Lisa was painted on) using authentic materials on which we created a tempera portrait. We started out in the museum gallery looking at the mummy portraits. I've looked at these many times but never noticed the fine (and not-so-fine) cross hatching before. We learned to use this technique to create shadows and highlights and soften the edges between them. I rather like this technique and plan to experiment in acrylics.

I'm not comfortable doing anything for the first time in a classroom situation so although I'm not happy with my finished product, it was a fun day and I'd like to use these pigments and techniques at my own speed. But for better or worse, I'm brave enough to post the portrait on this blog for the whole world to see! And you can see the mummy portrait that inspired this painting here. (So, mine doesn't look so bad now, heh....)

The instructor will be teaching a workshop on manuscript illumination later in the year and I already have the date penciled into my day planner.

(Photo copyright roslyn m wilkins)