I made these guys for Spring YART 2022. I’ve got a few of them left up in my Etsy shop as 4×6 prints signed and drawn on with metallic copper ink, and otherwise as with all of my creations, you can always find ’em on my Teepublic and Redbubble shops.
In the meantime, SPRING YART 2023 is just around the corner!!!
I made this little dude for my dear friend Cora Dean. (I need to show y’all the gorgeous magical girl plague doctor she sculpted me sometime.) But anyway, she loves the Mothman and so do I.
And here’s progress shots of me making him, at my cheerfully Christmas Penguin themed kitchen table. Yes, my kitchen table is and shall forever be my art studio.
Undine premiered November 14, 2015 at the “WONDER” art exhibit held by OneLife East in Evansville, IN as a 16×20 canvas and will be on display there until January.
I’ve got her up on Society6 and Redbubble now as a print, all-over shirt, and other stuff.
Hope you enjoy her as much as I enjoyed making her!
I’m scheduled be on News44 this Friday, 6am with my ‪#‎nature‬ ‪#‎art‬ to promote Saturday’s ‪#‎ArtintheWild‬ show at Wesselman Nature Society. Hooray! Just a local news channel naturally, but I’m still pretty thrilled to have an opportunity to show off my art. I’ve made some new pieces recently that I can’t wait to show.
ART IN THE WILD THIS SATURDAY 12-4pm:https://www.facebook.com/events/1655411888036570/
Pieces from my June-July 2015 solo show, BEYOND.
I’ve got a 36 piece solo show running at Wesselman Nature Center, Evansville IN through July 25! Here’s the event page. It’s full of tons of photos of the new art, but even those photos don’t touch the actual number of pieces I’ve got hanging. It is an immense show.
Come in and check out the nature and sci-fi/fantasy themed art, as well as lots of cool critters and beautiful nature trails and birdwatching!
Amy Wilke has been known in the past for her wonderful cut-paper works, but more and more recently she has been letting us see her equally marvelous talent for clean, hyper-detailed ink drawings. Paired with her whimsical and macabre subject matter, her rich and delicate linework will have you staring raptly at each piece for minutes upon hours. There’s always more to discover. But don’t take my word for it, have a look at these pieces from her “Still Lives: Wunderkabinett” show.
I was reminded of this amazing show a few days ago when I saw one of Amy’s pieces over at a friend’s house. The show actually took place last year, but since 2014 was a very busy freelance year for me I haven’t been able to document it properly until now.
When I first saw the show I was immediately reminded of the concept of studiolo, something a former art history prof of mine told me about long ago. The studiolo (or “study”) was a special room that was richly appointed with interesting and mysterious paintings, myriad books, curiosities, tools of science and writing, and objects d’art. The room’s function was to serve as a place for a learned man to sit musing or contemplating deep and interesting things. He would turn over the room’s curiosities in his hands, examine a book or skull or sculpture, and perhaps come away with a new understanding of some minute aspect of our universe.
It came as no suprise when I went to find the meaning of “Wunderkabinett” that it was basically the German counterpart of the Italian studiolo, a “cabinet of wonders” that contained strange and interesting objects that invited the owner to handle and contemplate them in quiet moments.
The insects, skulls and other curiosities in these delicate and exacting drawings bring to mind that same appreciation and worship of the natural world, while at the same time underlining how beautifully disturbing and uncanny it can really be. Every cell and and scale is lovingly imagined, giving almost infinite facets to these gems. I think these particular pieces might all be sold by now, but you are always welcome to check out Amy at Paper Raven Art + Design and see what she has brewing now…or even better, commission something of your very own.
Another sketch I made into a 4×6 print for the Earth Day art crawl. I’m definitely planning on adding a little gold ink to it. I changed the colors somewhat for the print.
This is a sketch warmup I did that I decided to try as a 4×6 print for Earth Day. I might make it a background or element for something else later, or ink or paint on it, haven’t decided yet. For the art crawl though I’ll just have the prints as they are.
I have more roses I made since these, but for now here’s a garden of some of my early duct tape roses. I always bring these babies with me to every show I do, so yes these will be at the Earth Day Art Crawl this Saturday April 19th as well!
When I find my new roses I’ll make an even more gargantuan gallery! And then I’ll keep making more…and more…haha! (Seriously they’re fun to make, I want to decorate my house with them)
Following on the nature theme of Art in the Wild [tomorrow!] and the recycling theme of the Earth Day Art Crawl, I was going to make more animal skeletons! I still might, but last night my creative process was curtailed by massive local flooding and I’ve been bailing water, moving possessions, disinfecting contaminated textiles, and shoveling mud all last night and today.
However, I can certainly show you the process by which I construct my skeletons.
I cut each individual bone from white card stock left over from hand-trimming all the digital prints I sell. Then I decoupage them into the form of a skeleton onto materials like recycled metal and plastic lids and pieces from broken furniture!
Art in the Wild is tomorrow…can’t wait!!
I figured I’d use the next couple of days to show off the nature-themed art that I’ll be taking to Art in the Wild on April 5th and then to the Earth Day Art Crawl outdoor sale on April 19th! First up are the prints, both digital and traditional, that I’ll be bringing. I have 4×6’s and 5×7’s for $3 each, 8×10’s for $5-$10 each depending on medium, and 11×17’s for $7 each.
And no those prices are not an April Fool’s joke, they are REALLY that low!
You might notice two bird skulls cut out of paper mounted on lids on the far right. These are from an earlier show, there will be new animal skeleton art later this week!
No rest for the wicked, right after I finish with Evillecon this weekend I have to go straight into final preparations for Art in the Wild! This nature-themed show takes place at Wesselman’s Nature Center in Evansville, IN on April 5th from 12pm-4pm.
I’ll be spending all next week making more animal skeletons like these:
But in the meantime, I’ve made several cute animal designs which will be turned into 1-inch pinback buttons. Here is the full set I made!
And just in time for my next three shows! Yggdrasil 11×17 posters will be proudly present at Evillecon, Art in the Wild and Earth Day Art Crawl…at least, while they last!
Here’s some process shots for you to sink your teeth into:
There are a few interpretations on which worlds make up the Nine Realms of Norse Mythology, and where exactly they abide in relation to the world tree. Here’s what I decided to go with:
1) Asgard [Aesir gods] 2) Vanaheim [Vanir gods] 3) Alfheim [light elves] 4) Midgard [humans] 5) Jotunheim [frost giants] 6) Svartalfheim [dark elves] 7) Muspelheim [fire demons] 8) Niflheim [ice and the dishonored dead] 9) Helheim [the land of the dead] And of course the rainbow, Bierfrost and the Midgard Serpent.
This is a digital painting of a lovely tree we used to have in our backyard. The cicadas loved it. Unfortunately it died one year and we had to cut it down. Our neighbors lost a tree as well, I heard it was some sort of worm epidemic that claimed a lot of the trees in our neighborhood. I did an earlier version with much brighter colors but ultimately decided on the more autumn-colored piece.
I did this piece so large that I was able to isolate one of the cicada shells on the tree and make the small print from this post!
This piece featured recently in my November 2013 solo show as a collage with added thread and bead elements augmenting the tentacles. I may make more little collage pieces from it for the upcoming April 5th Art in the Wild show at Wesselman’s Nature Center in Evansville, IN.
You may recognize this art from my Franklin Street Outdoor Art Sale post! This is the full piece here, entitled “A Message” and conceived by me as an environmental statement after I watched the old Charlton Heston classic “Soylent Green” for the first time.
After seeing that callous and weary depiction of a dystopian and colorless future, I envisioned a bleak city where the only suggestion of beauty and nature was found on the advertising blimp hovering above the smog. While I originally feared this blimp may be advertising a beauty that no longer exists, others have told me the blimp represents the hope we cling to by a green thread (environmentalism). I prefer their interpretation, don’t you?
This creepy little piece is a digital collage consisting of two pen and ink drawings, combined and finished on the computer, to fulfill a “ghost” prompt back in late 2012/early 2013.
The title “New Land” refers to destination of the ghostly herd ascending into the night sky.
These lovely turtle skeletons (or Chordata 5 and 6 as I uncreatively call them) debuted in my November ’13 “Patchwork Dragon” solo show and have since been sold. They were very fun to make and consisted of hundreds of small individually cut pieces of paper glued onto painted wood. I used a damaged art print for the brilliant colors of the shell.
They will not be the last turtles I make! I hope to have a turtle or two in the works for the upcoming Art in the Wild group show on Saturday April 5.
11/4/2014 EDIT: Took me longer than I wished, but yes I am currently making a black-skeletoned turtle for the Patchwork Central Holiday Art Sale this coming Saturday! He looks pretty neat so far, I hope to have him done tomorrow.
Sandpaperdaisy Art 