Iris Scott is an American professional contemporary finger painting artist based in Brooklyn, New York.Graduating from Washington State University in 2006 with a degree in art, Scott was a pioneer in the field of finger painting.Using just gloved fingertips, Scott works with paint like a malleable, nearly clay-like medium.Her vibrant rainbow palette depicts a parallel, but familiar universe, emitting an energetic optimism and a respect for the natural world.Scott stumbled upon finger painting when a serendipitous lack of clean brushes prompted her to finish a painting with her fingertips.In that moment she recognized how fingers could scoop oil paint better than brushes, and overnight she committed to leaving her brushes behind.“I was excited to force myself to stop using brushes because I was learning to ‘survive’ in uncharted territories,” Scott explains.“I recognized that although finger painting couldn’t do some things that brushes could, there were important advantages finger painting actually did have over brushes—and I am still discovering new ones every day!”More of Iris Scott’s marvelous finger paintings can be found at https://www.irisscottfineart.com/.
Guy Buffet was born in Paris, France in the district of Montparnasse on January 13, 1943.
His father took young Guy for walks in Montparnasse to show him famous landmarks where artists such as Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and George Braque would spend most of their days and evenings.
At 14, he moved to the south of France with his mother, and enlisted in the Beaux Arts School of Toulon to study art full time.
Buffet joined the French Navy in 1961 at the age of eighteen, and was assigned to the cruiser, “De Grasse”, headed for a seven month journey around the world.
The French Navy recognized Buffet’s artistic talent and named him their official artist.
Buffet’s famous images depict restaurants, people, landscapes, and cities with a humorous and light touch.
Buffet’s depictions often reflect the everyday working world, along with his love of people and food and exotic locations.
His whimsical rendition of sommeliers, chefs and waiters and other images are found not only in his paintings, but on every day items as dinner plates, napkins, tablecloths, and fashion.
I am not necessarily a fan of Cubism. It’s more that I don’t understand Cubism, let alone abstract art.
But I’m learning to take a few minutes and really look at some of the modern art that has made a difference to the Art World.
I was looking through my Pablo Picasso Gallery last eve, cleaning it up, straightening it up, when I came across the above painting. The Weeping Woman.
It has been described as “an iconic work within the history of British Surrealism” (says Wikipedia).
I didn’t look up the meaning behind the painting, the inspiration, the emotions. All I did was sit and look at the woman to see what I could gleam from its entirety.
I can’t say that most Cubism moves me, but this one did. Are her tears in her Kleenex, or are they just boxed under her eyes? Her fingers near her mouth — is that her chin or another hand? A star in only one eye, two different colored hairs — enough of an abstract image to read pain and/or sorrow or both in her face.
There is a lot of modern art in this world that has a lot of meaning behind it, both what the artist intended and what they intended the viewer to decide. A friend once explained modern art as whatever the viewer sees and interprets.
We all see landscapes and portraits for what they are … recreating the exactness of a scene or a person. I’ve always loved scenic landscapes, precise details, realistic portrayals.
The Crying Woman is none of these.
Or is it?
I hope to explore other artists and their paintings one by one. Not all of them all at once. But to take a closer look at the ones that “call” me. After all, I would not have showcased the artist has something not caught my attention.
Do you ever take a second look at art that calls you in a somewhat different voice?
What do you see when you look at the Crying Woman?
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Artist Raymond Logan paints a wide range of subjects with exquisite depth and color. His layered palette resembles sculpture, crafted of hue and shadow.
Frederick Douglass
The works have reverence and gravitas, coupled with a lively playfulness, born of both the artist’s execution and the connections he evokes between the viewer and the subject.
Benjamin Franklin
While each portrait is often recognizable, they are not realistic in the truest sense of the word.
John Coltrane
It is as if an explosion of colored confetti had descended from the sky and reshaped itself into the personification of a human being.
Harriet Tubman
Created in oil paint, using both palette knife and brush, all the elements are there, but it is those many disparate pieces that form a realistic whole.
Charlie
“My work is born through solid draftsmanship plus a liberal application of paint via a brush or a knife or anything I can get my hands on, plus plenty of color experimentation and the carving of my medium,” Logan explains.
Charles Darwin
“It is truly gratifying when a viewer, while being up close to my work, stares in wonder at the surface, then, while backing away, witnesses all that texture and color (that an art textbook tells them shouldn’t work) and abstraction somehow mysteriously develop into a recognizable subject.”
The little flower fairies have the same radiant beauty as their great guardians. Their size varies according to the size of their flowers. However, they are hardly ever over six inches tall. Since the enteallic nations are also subject to a development process, the daughters of the flowers fairies are consequently very tiny little creatures. All flowers, without exception, are under the fairies’ care. This, however, does not mean that there is a fairy in every flower; only especially protected flowers are directly cared for by the fairies. It is not too hard to spot these flowers, for in their luminosity and beauty they surpass all others. The flower fairies do not live in flowers of gross matter, but in the somewhat finer layer, which still belongs to the world of gross matter, and permeates Earth entirely, enveloping it as if it were another…
Japanese artist Naoki Onogawa has been fascinated with the traditional art of origami since he was a child.
Now, he incorporates the popular craft into his own artwork.
Using nothing more than his hands, the artist folds hundreds of tiny origami cranes that are small enough to fit on the tip of his finger.
Inspired by the legend of the 1000 cranes and the story of Sadako Sasaki, Onogawa folds hundreds of miniature origami cranes that later become bonsai trees of various colors and styles.
Those minuscule paper creatures are used as leaves on the delicate branches of his asymmetrical tree-like sculptures.
“Origami cranes sometimes feel like a solitary ceremony filled with prayers, entrusting the feeling of having nowhere to go, and going back and forth to places other than this world,” Onogawa explains.
“I can’t express it well in words, but the paper cranes I’m folding up now may be the result of such ‘prayers’.”
“By layering paper cranes on the threads and blessings of nature and such things and incorporating them into my work, I have created a “place” for paper cranes.”
April 18, 2011. It was a Monday. A partly cloudy day, the temperature peaking at about 46 degrees. It was before the tragic events of 9/11 and my personal loss of 2/22.
It was a few months before the Royal Wedding of William and Kate and long before the terror of Covid-19.
I was still under 60, still working as a catalog coordinator, and still dreaming of being a writer.
And it was the date of my first blog.
Originally called Humoring the Goddess: Managing the Madness Magic of Middle Age, it was supposed to mingle a bit of magic with the madness that surrounded us as we eased away from the dreams of our 20’s to the realities of life past 40.
In my first blog called Even the Universe Chuckles, I toyed around with the sections called Momentary Musings and Quimsical Quotations and Frivolous Facts and Falderal.
My first response was from my good, good writing friend Boyd, who passed away much too young, and my best friend Jillian, who is with me still.
It was working.
As I got older I grew up (just a little) and wrote about all the things that bothered/affected me/made me laugh as I got older. I followed other blogs and found inspiration in many of them, some of which are no longer active.
Eleven years ago I started on a journey that I’m still on. I found I enjoyed discovering and sharing unusual, unique art, whimsical quotations, and unique pictures and gifs.
I discovered I am no different than anyone else who reads and writes and feels, and I have made special connections with those who have commented on my blogs through the years. I found that I love encouraging others to find their creative muse and run with them to the ends of the earth and jump off at the end and follow that spirit through the stars.
I have come a long way from that young (under 60) woman looking to entertain and be entertained. And I have a long way to go, still wanting to entertain and be entertained.
Thank you all for 11 years of creativity.
Thank you for reading me, listening to me, and being a part of my life. It has been amazing. And full of love. Lots and lots of love.
Here’s to 11 more years of everything — for you and for me!
I wanted to chat with y’all this evening about movies. But I’m not quite sure what it is I want to talk about.
Our family got rid of cable a few years ago, substituting the paid outlets of Amazon Prime and Netflix as our entertainment kingdoms, along with an every day antenna that pulls in local channels like Grit and ME-TV. I’m sure you all have similar guilty pleasures as far as movies and old TV shows go, too.
The other day I thought I’d wander through some off the free, off-channels that are offered on various networks.
Holy Smokes, did I find the movies.
I would say I discovered hundreds — nay, thousands — of movies that I’ve never heard of. Movies I never dreamt existed.
All genres were represented on a number of free movie streaming services: drama, horror, comedy, documentaries, the black experience. I imagine the time frame stretched back ten, maybe even twenty or thirty years.
That’s a lot of movies…. a lot of movies I’ve never heard of.
Who made these movies? Who were these actors and actresses? Who wrote these stories and how did they ever get funded and made?
The world of movies is vast. I mean universe-vast. Like any other topic you can think of, us mere mortals usually only watch the tip of the iceberg. For every Titanic or Top Gun that steals the attention of the media, there are film names like Pete’s Meteor and In the Fade and Evil Bong 666 that make you add several question marks after the title.
It’s almost scary.
Like the bazillions of microbes that exist on earth (Dr. Universe says there are about a billion microbes in a teaspoon of soil), there are stories upon stories that have found their way from some obscure movie studio to a movie screen somewhere to today’s free movie land.
That doesn’t even cover the dozens of episodes on hundreds and thousands of old television shows you can watch, too.
But I digress.
There are dozens of free movie channels at our fingertips; if you don’t mind watching commercials, these avenues are wide open for you to explore.
Not that you will want to, mind you. We all have a million other things we’d rather do — and should be doing — than waste brain cells watching movies that probably never saw the light of day.
I know I won’t be exploring those worlds any time soon.
But still … like the billions of microbes floating around in our soil and air, they still exist. Waiting silently for you to click and watch.
Jewelry designer Anand Shah has the power to surprise each time he unveils a collection.
With no formal training, but a passion for design, Shah founded Ansaa Jewelry in Mumbai, India, in 1997, with the simple aim of creating exemplary hand-crafted 22 carat gold pieces.
Shah broke through established conventions to come up with a new and contemporary style, harnessing traditional Indian craftsmanship.
Much ahead of his times, the prolific and experimental artist uses alternative material like rosewood, oil paints, cameos, mother-of-pearl and glass in his extraordinary collections.
An artist par excellence, Shah uses gold, a medium he reveres, to stylishly replicate the bounties of nature.His pieces have a distinct design grammar bearing a blend of luxuriant grandeur coupled with an understated simplicity, which perhaps is a reflection of his own grounded nature.
Invoking the spirit of nature in gold is no easy task. It requires a high level of virtuosity to envision unexpected and intricate forms and to be able to turn them into sophisticated and wearable art.
“Nature is a fount of inspiration for me,” says Shah.“We are lucky to live on this planet which is full of beauty – and through my creations, I try to bring forth the synergistic relationship between Man and Nature.”
I love this writer, this artist, this blogger. Her posts always lift me up, inspire me, gives me a hint of what all this nonsense is around me now and then.
I hope you’ll wander over to Michele‘s blog and see how you feel when you’re done reading…….
Petals, stems, and hair whipped by the wind Rooted beliefs and thoughts twirl and toss becoming a new language when blended with the ancient Protected knowledge penetrates skin, blood, and bones creating shivers and swells Wings yet to be given this is the final ascent Secrets decoded confusion quells when the wind calms and the […]
Odilon Redon (1840–1916) was a French Symbolist painter, lithographer, and etcher of considerable poetic sensitivity and imagination.Redon depicted a variety of motifs including dreams, floral still lives, landscapes, and mythological scenes.His collection is associated with the Symbolist movement, which is typified by an interest in imbuing art with ambiguous metaphors and themes of romance, morbidity, and the occult.In both charcoal drawings and lithographic prints, the artist relied on the expressive and suggestive possibilities of black in his monochromatic compositions called noirs. Instead of drawing inspiration from what he saw, Redon preferred to paint images from his dreams, nightmares, and stories from mythology.This resulted in drawings and paintings with a tenuous grasp on realism, and a preferred emphasis on emotion, color, and atmosphere.His lithographs and noirs in particular were admired by the Symbolist writers of the day but also by later Surrealists for their often bizarre and fantastical subjects, many of which combine scientific observation and visionary imagination.In the 1890s pastel and oils became his favored media; he produced no more noirs after 1900.
You know me. A bucket full of confetti. Of confusion and magic andChatty-Cathy-itis. (I wrote a blog way back in 2012 about this very subject.. you can check it out and get a chuckle).
But now Spring is coming/here, I’m working on my next collection of Angel Tears (which I hope to get online very soon) and I thought there is no better time to promote myself here right in front of you all.
I would make a terrible salesperson — I feel uncomfortable suggesting and pushing and beating around the bush about my own creations. But if I don’t give them a shout out, who will?
The first free offering is my bookCorn and Shadows. Written way back in 2011, it has been edited forever, and now is available for a free download. It’s a story about a 40ish woman going through a midlife crisis, which happens to include time travel and a little love crush as well.
If you’ve already downloaded it and read it, please let me know what you think about it.
I also offer a free writer’s guide,Let’s Write That Book!It’s common sense advice if you are thinking of writing your life’s story or just a short story or two. Starting out is not as hard as you think.
Of course, what would advertising be if I didn’t shout out my full, blown out art gallery, the Sunday Evening Art Gallery. A full length extension of my Goddess Gallery blogs, each gallery is jam packed with unique delights such as the amazing glass works of Dale Chihuly,the imaginative weirdness ofStairways to Nowhere, the wild forest sculptures of Spencer Biles, the metallic sculptures of Kang DongHyun,the painted cups ofLuycho,or the original porcelain sculptures of Sophie Woodrow.
I could go on and on about the truly unique art I’ve found, but you’ll have to explore those worlds yourself.
I am STILL working on a website for my Angel Tears, and hopefully I’ll have something to show you in the near future. They are sparkling suncatchers that blend into their surroundings, bringing magic and delight to your world.
I hope to be posting the follow up novel to Corn and Shadows named Time and Shadows, a continuing of Annabella Powers’ time-travel adventure.
If every year is a marble, how many marbles do you have left? How many sunrises, how many opportunities to rise to the full stature of your being? ~ Joy Page
Three-Ribbon Divided Core Swirl Shooter
Blue Spotty Shrunken Onion Skin Marble
Deep Royal Purple Banded Opaque Indian Swirl Joseph Twist German Marble
German Amethyst Colored Glass Banded Lutz Marble
End-of-Day Lavender Spots and Blue Streaks Marble
Moonstone Red Marble
Hand Made Art Glass Alloway Dichroic Purple 9 Cane Marble
Japanese White Cross Through Cats Eye Vintage Marble
I was wide awake last night, all alone in my bedroom, snug under the covers (except for 2 dogs and a cat), listening to the rain thunder past at 8 o’clock in the evening, and I wondered …
How do you spend your evenings?
Everything I read says you shouldn’t go to bed and read your phone or iPad or computer. You’re supposed to go into your bed and SLEEP!
What’s up with that?
Climbing into bed early is a luxury most of us can’t afford. We work (or play) up to the very end and then flop in bed, exhausted, praying for sleep.
Not me.
I kinda enjoy climbing into the solitude of my bed, turning on some ambient music (any flavor), and either reading or wandering through the Internet.
That’s when I get my best ideas. My most interesting explorations. Where I can find inspiration and strange experiences and weird tales and visit worlds I never will set foot in.
From the quiet confines of my room in the evening I can control my world. My wanderings. I can call the shots and cruise through the galaxy with my brave dogs and bossy cat without leaving the covers.
It’s no wonder I can’t fall asleep at night. I am the antithesis of everything that I’m supposed to do and be. I eat pizza for breakfast and look for dinosaurs in the woods when I walk with my grandson and make wishes on fairies blinking in the dark.
I kinda get tired of doing all the things I’m supposed to do. Tired of following the rules. Tired of being the good girl.
Of course, what better place to get fresh and sassy than under the safety of my covers wrapped in comforting music? Who am I going to threaten? Who am I going to boss around?
Since my husband’s been on the night shift, I have come to be a night person. Sort of. I love the dark blues of night, the sounds of frogs or crickets singing their songs or coyotes howling as they play in the distance. I love the mystery of the unknown which exists just outside my back deck.
I doubt if I’ll ever explore all of that mystery outside my back yard — not at this age. But that doesn’t mean my mind can’t explore it. Besides. Thunderstorms provide such encouragement to exploration — coming and going!
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) was a Dutch-born painter whose scenes from everyday life in the ancient world were immensely popular in its time.Alma-Tadema, the son of a Dutch notary, studied art at the Antwerp Academy (1852–58) under the Belgian historical painter Hendrik Leys.During a visit to Italy in 1863, Alma-Tadema became interested in Greek and Roman antiquity and Egyptian archaeology, and afterward he depicted imagery almost exclusively from those sources.Moving to England, he became a naturalized British subject in 1873 and was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1879. He was knighted in 1899.Alma-Tadema excelled at the accurate recreation of ancient architecture and costumes and the precise depiction of textures of marble, bronze, and silk.His expert rendering of settings provides a backdrop for anecdotal scenes set in the ancient world.His paintings are marked by clarity of color, exactness, and smooth finish; he imagined a Rome of splendor, sunlight, and gentle sentiment.Though admired during his lifetime for his draftsmanship and depictions of Classical antiquity, his work fell into disrepute after his death, and only since the 1960s has it been re-evaluated for its importance within nineteenth-century British art.More of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema‘s classical paintings can be found at https://www.wikiart.org/en/sir-lawrence-alma-tadema and https://artrenewal.org/artists/lawrence-alma-tadema/8.
The Ballroom at the Grand Palace, Peterhof, Russia
All that is gold does not glitter; not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither; deep roots are not reached by the frost. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien
Like many artists, artist Dain Yoon enjoys working with paint.But it’s not a canvas that she puts pigment to — it’s her own body.Using an extensive palette of paints and brushes, she applies the pigment to her skin and transforms herself into amazing optical illusions.And most impressively of all, she does this all without the use of Photoshop or other photo manipulation programs.Each piece is 100% authentic, painted by herself, in mirror image, on herself, which can take anywhere from three to twelve hours.Much of Yoon’s early work focused just on her face, but she has grown her portfolio to include complex illusions that incorporate her entire body.The “complexity of human beings” stands at the root of Yoon’s body art.“Anything, even in a very ordinary life, could be great inspirations with different perspectives, ” she shares.“We are complex beings, our multitude of emotions, personalities, traits, viewpoints, our complex face expressions are what fascinates me and influences my work.”More of Dain Yoon‘s extraordinary body art can be found at https://dainyoon.com/ and https://mymodernmet.com/dain-yoon-optical-illusion-body-art/.
Graduating from Washington State University in 2006 with a degree in art, Scott was a pioneer in the field of finger painting.
Using just gloved fingertips, Scott works with paint like a malleable, nearly clay-like medium.
Her vibrant rainbow palette depicts a parallel, but familiar universe, emitting an energetic optimism and a respect for the natural world.
Scott stumbled upon finger painting when a serendipitous lack of clean brushes prompted her to finish a painting with her fingertips.
In that moment she recognized how fingers could scoop oil paint better than brushes, and overnight she committed to leaving her brushes behind.
“I was excited to force myself to stop using brushes because I was learning to ‘survive’ in uncharted territories,” Scott explains.
“I recognized that although finger painting couldn’t do some things that brushes could, there were important advantages finger painting actually did have over brushes—and I am still discovering new ones every day!”
More of Iris Scott’s marvelous finger paintings can be found at https://www.irisscottfineart.com/.
Humoring the Goddess 