Monday, September 27, 2010

More Body Painting photos and the plotting of self publishing a book

So, I have my fist exhibition of my body art/photography women's study series coming up in December. All of the sudden it dawned on me that i only have a couple months before its show time so i have begun pushing myself into the final stages of the creative process. This means i have combed through the photos of each body painting session and come out with about 53 that i would like to include in a book and for display.

Here are a few yet to be posted photos that i came across and wanted to share:
Mother Goddess
Body art and photography by Chelsea Rose
From the "Mother Goddess" shoot with Michelle Davis

Queen Omega
Body art and photography by Chelsea Rose
From the "Queen Omega" shoot with Deonte

Blissful Hope
Body art and photography by Chelsea Rose
From the "Blissful Hope" shoot.

....So yes, I have 53 photos selected for possible print( for my gallery show) and for a book that I am completing and will be self publishing. There are a lot of things to consider right now such as how many pages i want my book to be( i am thinking around 50 and that includes title page, introduction and an acknowledgements page.) So i have to go through those 53 and lower my catch to the Golden chosen. Meanwhile, Danny is working on the design and layout of the book and i have to begin writing an intro or asking someone else to write one for me. Once i have that all together i get to take a trip to the print shop and figure out if i want hard cover or soft, what kind of paper to have it all printed on and so on. Then i need to figure out how many pieces i should be printing for the gallery show/exhibition- what size they will be and how i will be framing and mattering them.
My head is spinning a little :)
So thats one big project i am devoting energy towards.
I am also working on a small painting and getting my stuff ready for Last Thursday Art walk on Alberta st which is this week!
Also, i am working on a music project with Bone and All where i am reciting poetry along with the super spacey psychedelic noise. I am not sure when the final tracks will be mastered but i will certainly be sharing when its all ready.
....So thats my news update!
Stay tuned.
-Chelsea Rose
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Monday, September 20, 2010

Spirit Walker pen and ink drawing + painting in progress and new tie dye shirts

This weekend was one of those rainy, stay at home, draw, bake goodies and watch a bunch of movies kind of weekend.

I drew Spirit Walker:
Spirit walker
( original pen and ink drawing by Chelsea Rose)
I have made 5"x7" prints of her available on etsy- click here!

and then i hastened to start a lil painting of her:
Spirit painting work in progress
...work in progress shot of my lil painting. I think its a 6" x 9" stretched canvas piece. I wanted to do her large initially since she has lots of detail and the image is long but realized i had this 6" x 9" to work on. I guess small is better these days because if patron's are interested in purchasing they are generally less then the bigger paintings. But i really do adore working larger and have often dreamed of doing a mural- it will happen one day!

Speaking of big check this out:

A photograph from my body painting series has been hung in the Portland Museum of Art!!!

...just kidding...
I WISH i could print my photos this big and have a place to display them but no. I had waaay to much fun playing with this website.

In other news..... new tie dye creations for sale:

Divine Purple Green tie dye shirt
size: large
bust: 40"
hips: 50"
On sale for $20. check out the shop listing here.

Also done up in Green and Blue:

Green Blue Vortex tie dye shirt
100% cotton
bust: 43"
hips: 44"
also selling for $20 here.

and lastly:

Divine Blue Green Spiral tie dye
100% cotton

Size: 2XL
bust: 48"
hips: 50"

also for $20 here.

Anyhoo....my 13th body painting session of my series was canceled for the 18th and is now on for the 25th. So hopefully some new body painting photos shall be created soon and i shall be sharing them next week.

Peace n Love!
-Chelsea Rose
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Friday, September 17, 2010

Maternity body painting commision, new art prints for sale

Yesterday i did a maternity body painting commission for a local photographer:

Waterfall of life body painting - work in progress shot
His idea was that he wanted a waterfall to come over his pregnant model's shoulder, flow over the breast, pool in the belly where a small/simplistic baby would be present.
...The idea was a clear departure from my usual style which generally consists of flowy/faery/alien goddess creatures so I wasn't sure how i would render this idea. i did some sketching to find my design:
Waterfall of life - concept doodle
this was the sketch i decided to pull from. As you can see in the actual body painting the waterfall is really the main focus of the piece. I had fun painting it! I started out by outlining all the shapes with black. I then went in and added white highlights to the shapes, then the blue. I then colored in the infant and the sun. Once the sun was in i added some yellow/sun glow highlights to the waves as well. I had an hour and a half to paint it. I wonder how the photographer's shots came out of the body painting. I know he was shooting the photos in his home studio. I will share some of his shots when he posts them.

In other news i listed a new drawing of mine for sale in our etsy shop:
Tree Maiden
5"x7" art print of original pen and ink drawing
"Tree Maiden"
by Chelsea Rose

Print will come sealed in a crystal clear plastic sleeve to keep it safe. Our prints are made on archival canson artist card paper( has a similar feel to watercolor paper). Makes a wonderful card, gift or decoration.

Print available for $7, see shop listing here.

Also have a new "Perception Mandala" silkscreen print for sale:

Perception Mandala silkscreen
8.75" x 11"
hand printed by the artist onto yellow washed watercolor paper

This original art work comes sealed inside an archival crystal clear envelope for protection.

Selling for $20. check out the sale listing here.

...Thats it for now!
I did have a body painting planned on Saturday but it was canceled and rescheduled for the weekend of the 25th. The model i will be using is of dark skin so it will be another white paint over black skin body painting for my series. She will be my 13th model for my project.
So now that i have my Saturday free i think i will be begin a new painting inspired by a very wonderful experience i have just recently had involving a wise/shaman woman teacher who did a Life time animal totem reading for me which was a very powerful thing. I am going to explore...what my soul might look like. Should be interesting painting project, no? My core totem animal is the Otter but i also am surrounded by my other totems which are the black panther, the snake, the deer, the ant, the butterfly,the swan, the fox and the rabbit.

Have a wonderful weekend.
Best wishes and much love,
-Chelsea Rose
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Monday, September 13, 2010

Mermaid Dreams- finished painting + painting process photos

I finished her...i finally finished my mermaid, whom i have been fighting with for months now!
Mermaid Dreams
Mermaid Dreams
20" x 24"
Original acrylic painting by Chelsea Rose
$330( see sale listing here )

....I am kinda surprised at how long i took to paint this one! I began painting her on canvas in July but the initial pen and ink drawing that inspired the painting came way way before then:
love thy self
"Love thy Self"
original pen and ink drawing by Chelsea Rose
Prints are available for $7 here.

......she was a quick drawing that i made last year sometime. Initially i loved her pose and the feelings she conveyed but disliked the drawing. Eventually i decided to make prints available and quickly noted she became one of my best selling drawings.

I also ended up making a pen and ink over acrylic version which was done on masonite for a commision. I created an extra one in yellow... which i still have:

...she is up for sale as well, going for $40. Check out the listing here.

After some time i felt the need to do a big acrylic painting of a mermaid and decided to model it after my pen and ink drawing above.
So i used the original drawing and projected the image onto canvas where i traced the basic outlines to create the framework of the painting.

A snapshot of the paintings humble beginnings:

work in progress
...this shows the very first layering's of color i began with. I was still in the "feeling things out" stage at this point. If you compare it to the finished product a bunch of these changed!
work in progress- mermaid
....as you can see here the very first thing i did was restructure the face and remake the headdress/hair. I got rid of the lil bindy and added a third eye instead. The lil "nubs" i had sprouting from the head wasn't cutting it so i added, tentacles, fin like dread tendrils instead- which was a lot of fun to paint because of all the lil loops and spirals i got to play with.
work in progress- mermaid
....I took the painting out to a few of the local art fairs so that i could work on her while i was tending the booth. It was this day that i did a lot of work on the tail. As seen here i added a lot more side fin to the lower tail. I was also beginning to contemplate the stark emptiness of the background and was throwing around the idea of adding fish, another mermaid....anything!
I was happy to get a lot of questions and general interest when out and about with the painting but what was most bazaar is almost everyone asked me if i was painting MYSELF as the mermaid. I really had not intended this to be some kind of self portrait but a lot of people insisted on it. This made me smile and remember something someone very close to me said as a lil girl. My mom worked for an old Hebrew mystic who was also an amazing painter( he was very old school and used egg tempera paint that he made himself) and he used to always say to me " A true artist only ever paints themselves," wether they mean it or not- this always made me giggle.
bubbles-work in progress
( sorry for this photos horrid quality)
....Here you can see i added big poofy hip side fins and finally began to remedy the "emptiness" of the background with bubbles.
The bubbles started out here and there...and i really liked the depth they began to suggest so i decided to keep them and expand upon them bit by bit.
Mermaid-work in progress
....the bubbles kept on multiplying. I started adding smaller lil jets of silvery bubbles and made the bottom of the canvas a darker blue to help hint at deep dark sea.
I took the above photo on my birthday- Aug.15 and so the painting sat untouched for quite some time. I was pretty unhappy with it at this point. I felt all the bubbles crowded the image...and i detested the fact that it was now time to work on the hands( my least fave part of any drawing/painting i do.) The painting was pretty much in this same state when i finally promised myself i would finish it up this past weekend- no matter what!
I did all the finishing work in about 6 hours which included darkening the bottom sea again, adding more bubbles, removing some bubbles, adding more shimming light from above, going back into all the of color for one last "ping" of color, going over all the black outlines and adding more spiraling and detail, added a few more spiral tendrils of hair, more color and volume to the closed eyelids, blue to skin and lips( to make her look more like she is in water), and finally the hands( which i spent about a half an hour muttering and cursing under my breath as i worked at them in a frenzy to some extremely horrible and chaotic sitar music...and was very close to having a nervous breakdown. Luckily Danny saved me by turning the music off which kind of broke the spell and i was able to get the hands to somewhat behave finally.)

So yes...she is done! Did i mention i love mermaids very muchly so and they have always been a folk symbol that i deeply identified with? I was drawing bare breasted mermaids when i was 5 and never did stop. I grew up at the beach, lolling in the whiteraff with my legs firmly held together as i pretended to be a lovely flesh eating mermaid hunting the local tourists and surfers.
They will always fascinate me and when ever i am in the water- be it a pool, ocean or river you ll see me swimming fast and furious, legs held firmly together like a mermaid.

Much love and many blessings,
-Chelsea Rose

P.S.
Lots of body painting coming up. This Thursday i will be doing a paid commission body painting with a local photographer. On Saturday i will be doing a body painting of mine for my body painting series. So stay tuned.
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Friday, September 10, 2010

The making of Perception Mandala screen print + more

Made it to Friday not without a few bumps along the way...but here we are. Another weekend is on its way. If only i could motivate myself to finish my Mermaid painting....she is almost done, i am not sure why i have had no interest to work on her what so ever. I guess i will just have to chain myself to my painting table till its done this weekend! We shall see...

Danny just recently created a new silkscreen:

Blue Perception Mandala silkscreen
8.75" x 11"
hand printed by the artist onto green washed watercolor paper
-Just listed this print into our etsy shop for $25. check out the listing here.

This silkscreen was created using the drawing fluid/screen filler method of production instead of the photo emulsion process. Personally i much prefer this drawing fluid method and had used it in creating my first two silkscreen prints: "The Goddess in All of Us" and "Behold."

What is super cool is we were able to fully document the creation process for the "Perception Mandala" drawing fluid silkscreen.
Check it out:
making a screen
The first 6 photos show the design being hand painted onto the screen using the blueish colored "drawing fluid."
The next 15 photos show the design fully painted on the screen and the process of spreading the "screen filler" which is reddish colored over the design and the entire screen.
The next 6 images show how the drawing looks with its coat of screen filler- also shows how the drawing fluid begins to crack as the screen filler dries.
The last three images show Danny rinsing the screen which ,as seen in the last photo, removed the blue drawing fluid to reveal empty screen where the design was drawn.
Thus, the "drawing fluid" resits the screen filler which then creations a workable silkscreen.
Interesting, no?

And here is a print done on a cotton shirt:
Perception Mandala silkscreen shirt
This shirt is listed for sale in our etsy shop. Its going for $15. check out the listing here.
....if the shirt is too small, or you want it in a different color and shirt style please don't hesitate to request a custom order!

In other news, we also just listed a new tie dye skirt:


New tie dye creation + silkscreen shirt
We are calling this tie dye creation " Purple Sky Maiden."
I listed her in our shop last night and she has already been put on hold/reserved for one of our frequent patrons. But have no fear- more tie dye is soon to appear.

More art, coming soon.
-Chelsea Rose
Lucid Optic Lab
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Tuesday, September 7, 2010

New Pen and Ink drawings + weekend projects and news

3 day weekends are a total blessing, i got a lot of work done!
Too bad i was oblivious to this fact come Monday morning. I got up for work 10 mins after my alarm was to go off... so i threw on my clothes, grabbed a hard-boiled egg and ran out the door to get to my bus stop. Got there 2 mins early and waited....and waited...and waited and then thought to-myself " why have i only seen a few cars go bye? why is this Monday so eerily quiet?" And... then i looked across the street to a stores signboard that read " Happy Labor day!"
.... So i laughed at myself, went home, watched "Howls Moving Castle" for probably the 42nd time and did some drawing:
Tree Maiden
Original pen and ink drawing by Chelsea Rose

-this was drawn for a commission I am working on currently. A patron requested I do smaller somewhat more "approachable" version of my other tree maiden painting called Rainbow Roots Dread Goddess. Hopefully she likes this preliminary drawing and i will soon be painting her on canvas.

I like the drawing enough to be considering offering prints of her for sale. what do you think?

Saturday and Sunday were also project filled art days.
Projects
As you can see my art table got quite busy in the process which resulted in a few finished pieces done in my pen and ink over acrylic style.
And if you are curious about how i make these here is the scoop:
more ink over acrylic
First i start out by painting a canvas or board with a single color of acrylic paint. I am then using india ink pens to draw directly ontop of the acrylic color. Often i am by hand reproducing some of my original drawings this way and because of this hands on process each one comes out slightly different in lineweight and detail. I have found this process works really well in creating an elegant and original art piece that i can sell for a very affordable price.
I have many more available for purchase in my etsy shop.

Also, over the weekend i had fun matting and framing some of my recent 4" x 6" watercolor paintings:
Watercolor display
......i found it really interesting how different the paintings looked when framed! Honestly its the first time i have nicely framed any of my work and i really enjoyed it. Too bad matting and framing can be so expensive because it can really make a huge difference presentation wise.

...Anyhow the ongoing list of projects continue. For this week's Friday blogpost i will be showing a step by step "work in progress" documentation involving silk screening and the drawing fluid method.
I also have a few body painting sessions coming up so stay tuned.

Best wishes,
-Chelsea Rose
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