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Screen-printed Panels
Lately it seems that I can’t keep up with the demand for these smaller panels (this one is 24 x 12 in). In fact, last weekend I stocked up and pre-cut about 32 different small-to-medium-sized panels, so that I can work on them in batches. Working in batches is actually ideal, since each panel requires a certain amount of waiting time in between printing, painting, and varnishing. I’ve found that the screen-printing ink is much blacker and cleaner than using a marker, which I did for the first series of larger panels. Since I have many of the designs already burned onto screens for my shirts, I can easily reprint them onto wood to create new compositions. This year I want to take this a step farther. I’m now using sketches to create elements that can be mix-n-matched on different panels to create multiple and complex new compositions. I can’t wait to see how far I can push them.
From Painting to Screen Print
If you like my original art, please don’t forget to check out my hand-printed Eco-friendly t-shirt line called Forest and Fin. Click here to check out my latest post on how I transform my original art into affordable screen-printed apparel. 100% Made with Love. 
Solo Show @ Alice & Daisy
Kate and Gleason, owners of the Alice & Daisy shop at 54 1/2 Broad Street, invited me to hang a solo show for the First Friday Art Walk in their vintage clothing and antiques shop in downtown Charleston, SC. The event took place last Friday, November 4th, 2011. Here are a few pictures that I took before the evening began.
A Painting in Progress
I am putting this one aside for a bit to work on other paintings and to think about how I would like to finish it, but I will be posting the finished product soon.
Sketchbook Page: Swallow-tailed Kite
Here is a page out of my smaller sketchbook (I have two). This is a drawing of a Swallow-tailed Kite in flight. I mentioned in my last post that my drawings are becoming increasingly line-driven and this is an excellent example. I particularly like the line work on the back of the first bird. The way that the lines trace the curvature of the wing are particularly informative of the form of the subject. You can imagine the wind separating to curve over the top and subsequently racing underneath the wing to create lift. Particularly amazing is this birds unique ability to catch and eat dragonflies during flight.
Art in a Suitcase
Because I have been traveling for the past two years, I haven’t had the space to make large paintings. Instead, I turned my efforts towards mastering the art of watercolor and working out of a small tabletop suitcase that turns into an easel. These are a few of my recent watercolor drawings done on the “road.” My focus has become exceptionally line-driven. My thoughts on this are interesting. Each line represents a new view of my subject, creating a greater understanding of its form, an almost sculptural understanding begins to take shape. The repetition of lines mapping each form becomes a mantra, a meditation of form, shape, and movement. The lines and movement breathe life into the work. Pattern and shape break the form into manageable components. I connect to the subject again and again until a moment of understanding occurs; then I repeat the enlightenment, like the refraction of light, which is never a single occurrence, but the measure of many.
I’ll post a few of my recent sketchbook pages in another post to illustrate this point a little more.
Yes, I do Commissions!
Here is an example of a commissioned painting that I completed recently. If you are interested in commissioning a piece of fine art from me — perhaps a specific animal, plant, ecosystem, or even pet design — please keep in mind the style and tone of my work. I work on birch plywood and canvas with ink and acrylic paint or on high quality art paper using ink and watercolor, and my pricing is based on size and medium requested. As always, if you are interested or even just curious, send me an email to discuss it. Thanks!
Forest and Fin Tees on Sale at Vivo Boutique
I am pleased to announce that Forest and Fin hand-printed tees are now on sale at Vivo Boutique in downtown Annapolis. Womens’ osprey shirts and mens’ sea turtle designs can be purchased there in an assortment of colors for $28. Vivo is a cute little boutique that features “regional artists, emerging independent designers, and products by companies committed to making the world a better place.”
We believe that life is better off the beaten path, that finding one’s own voice is preferred to following the crowd, and that being different is not such a bad thing. With clothing and gifts for infants through adults, home decor, jewelry, and so much more, it’s hard to leave empty-handed. It’s even harder to leave without a smile on your face!”If you are in the area, please stop by and check out it out. You will not be disappointed!
Vivo! 6 Fleet St. Annapolis, MD 21401 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
NEW – Whale Prints Available in Society6 Shop
Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve had any art updates to make. Those of you who follow my other blog (Forest and Fin) know that I have been kept super busy with sailing preparations. I still have a project or two on the back burner though, including a couple commissions.
In the meantime, I decided to make one of my panels available for purchase as a slightly smaller print through Society6. The print is 17 x 17 inches (excluding the 2 in. white border) and costs $36.40. It is printed on heavy art paper and looks great in a frame.
Please visit the Lara Neece Art Studio on Society6 for full details and for purchasing.
Thanks!
New Year, New Blog
I was going to wait until the new year to reveal this bit of news, but I’m pretty darn excited about it, so here goes… I have a brand new blog set up at www.forestandfin.com. I’ve migrated my old posts over and the site is now fully functional. Minus any unforeseen glitches (let me know if you find any!), all is ready for you to check out. Cruise on over to see what it’s all about, and don’t forget to subscribe to the new feed, if you want to stay up-to-date. I will continue to operate Lara Neece Art as a portfolio site for my artwork. I will still be updating this blog with any important announcements concerning new artwork and upcoming exhibitions, but I will be revamping it over the next few weeks, so expect some construction time and a whole new layout and design. Out with the old and in with the new, just in time for the new year! Check out Forest and Fin for the documentation of my daily life, the joys and frustrations of working as an artist while living and traveling on a ‘37 sailboat. Happy Holidays!
Time to Move on
south that is. Now that I am officially out of my studio (and it’s actually getting cold), I’m devoting my attention and labors towards the boat to help Brian get her ready to sail again. Right now, he is still sanding and painting the deck, but once that is done, we will need to put all the hardware back on, get the mainsail repaired, get the engine running smoothly, clean, and get organized. We’ll be heading to Hilton Head Island in a few weeks, where we will be able to get hauled out for a few last projects (such as replacing the sea cocks and installing a holding tank – fun right? – and having a mounting system built for the wind generator and solar panel). And then, once that is all finished, we will set sail and begin the great adventure of navigating our way to the FL Keys and on to Central America.
In the meantime, I have an announcement to make: I just delivered my wood panels and t-shirts for exhibition at the Filling Station Gallery in Bluffton, SC. Unfortunately, I don’t have a link for the gallery right now as they are currently revamping their website, but if you are living on or visiting Hilton Head Island please pop in and check it out. The gallery is located on Calhoun Street, and if you make it over there this weekend, you might even catch the Christmas parade. You can check out the last two panels I finished up before I moved out of the studio last weekend. They are pictured below and are already up on the gallery page. I literally finished the big one the last night in between trips to load the car.
I also spent several days printing t-shirts before I left my press and ink supplies at my parents’ house in VA over Thanksgiving. The Young family “sweatshop” helped me iron and take inventory in Hilton Head this week. I’m contemplating selling some of them through the blog to help fund the trip. Anyone interested in buying a one-of-a-kind, hand-printed, Forest & Fin tee? The mens’ sea turtle design is printed on various color tees (but mainly blue and gray), and the womens’ osprey design is printed on two colors, black and teal fitted tees (designs pictured below). Please leave a comment or contact me if you are interested in purchasing one; if there is enough interest, I will look into setting something up. Also, here are some pictures of the most recent panels and current boat project.
Change is in the Air
I’m feeling a bit nostalgic today. This week I will start packing up my studio, print the rest of the blank shirts that are lying around, and figure out exactly what supplies are coming with me on the boat. Brian and I have a wedding to go to next weekend and, in addition, are making an early Thanksgiving trip to Virginia to see my parents and drop off the art supplies that will not be joining us on the boat. I have to be moved out of Sparks Studios at the end of the month and start helping Brian get the boat ready for our big sailing trip. The date is so close now that I am getting antsy. There certainly is a little more business to take care of at my studio, like another big panel that I am ambitiously trying to complete before the end of the month and a whole bunch of t-shirts to print for the gallery in Bluffton and to take with us on the trip. I am borrowing a hairdryer for this batch to speed it up!
Leaving the studio is a little bit sad for me, as it represents the new path I’ve chosen to follow as an artist. I’ve spent about as much time at my studio as I have on the boat over the past few months. It is my own little space to follow whatever inspiration or idea comes to mind, a place to think or be messy, to experiment, to be alone, and the place where I took my first real steps as an artist. I won’t say it was the ideal space for a painter (as the lighting was quite poor), but it suited my needs at the time and served me very well. Will I continue to practice art on the boat? I sure hope so, although I am not sure what medium will best serve me in such an unpredictable environment. I have a travel easel and plan to bring my sketchbook and some of my screen-printing equipment along, but there is no doubt that a few sacrifices will be made for the sake of space and practicality. We are talking about a sailboat here. In either case, I am hoping that this trip will encourage further artistic explorations with unexpected outcomes and I will continue growing as an artist. I suppose we will all just have to wait and see.
Also, in case you haven’t noticed, pictures of the panels have been uploaded into the Web-site gallery, except for the new panel I finished last week and the last one I am trying to finish up now.
*photographs courtesy of Ben Williams Photography.
A Successful Night
Thanks to all who came to my open studio event. We had a great turnout, in fact it was pretty crowded, and Chuck and Andrew put on a great performance. Thank you guys! I also had help from a couple of my other friends, Sarah and Katherine. Thanks to Sarah for helping me hang the show and for hand-making the title tags for my work, and thanks to Katherine for helping me make the food selections and setting up the food and wine. I really had a wonderful time, and it was great to get so much positive feedback on the new work, especially as I prepare to send out graduate school applications. I also sold some t-shirts, prints, drawings, and a wood panel, and now have the opportunity to hang my panels in a gallery in Bluffton while Brian and I are sailing to Central America.
I really couldn’t be happier. I will be posting high quality pictures of the panels in my gallery over the course of the next couple days. My friend Ben Williams of Ben Williams Photography was nice enough to photograph them before the show. For now, here are a few photos that Brian took during the show.
If you bought something at the show, I will be calling each of you to set up a time to pick it up over the course of the next few days. Thanks again for all of the support!
Announcing…
My Open Studio! Friday Nov. 6th from 6:30 – 9:30 pm at Sparks Gallery (12 Hagood Street, Charleston, SC). This is a free event with live music by Chuck Taylor and Andrew Hanson of Mad Cat in the Coffee House (check out a few of Chuck’s songs on his facebook page, my favorite is White Picket Prison). There will be wine and snacks, and possibly some of Daniel McSweeney’s ceramic sculptures on exhibit as well. If you are in the area please stop by, tell or bring your friends, and enjoy; it will be an informal affair with prices ranging from as low as $15 to $500. I will be selling paintings, drawings, screen-prints, and t-shirts (including the wood panels I have been working on, which have not been posted yet). All sales will help fund my sailing trip to Central America in December and hopefully art school next year. Exciting.
So now you know why I have been absent from the blog. Here are some projects I have been working on for the show and a sneak peek of one of my wood panels in progress.
In the Studio: Week 7
Figure drawing and portraiture are areas that I need to spend more time focusing on. Luckily, I love drawing people, so as challenging as it may be, the outcome is always quite rewarding. Although I have a number of drawings in my sketchbook, I wanted to have a few drawings created on high quality paper that would look polished and well crafted for my portfolio. With that in mind, I decided to focus this week on images of people with animals.
I referenced pictures in some magazines I had laying around the studio and a few images I printed out of myself and some of my friends. I tried to choose images of people in interesting positions that were large enough to include detail, in order to practice different angles and perspectives. After I had the model down on paper, I incorporated some of the animal images that have been showing up in my other work recently. I am pleased with the end product, which is a series of four pen drawings on toned paper that I colored with washes of acrylic paint.
I am beginning to really enjoy the illustrative qualities that go along with drawing people. I think that often they are more intriguing than some of my straight animal drawings. The qualities of the animal that I pair with each model seems to add to the character of the person. What do you think?
In the Studio: An Update
Last week I spent a great deal of time in the studio, which is why I haven’t been posting as often as I’d like. To be honest, I am starting to feel a bit pressed for time. Brian and I have a month and a half before we set out on our sailing trip (if you are unaware, in November we are sailing down to the Caribbean and, if things go well, Central America). If I am going to send out some grad school applications, then I need to get on it. I have made a couple of interesting breakthroughs in my work in the last week and am eager to share them with you, but I am not quite ready. I will do a post about my new projects soon. For now, here are a few more sketchbook pages, and I apologize in advance if I seem absent from the blog over the coming weeks. Hopefully I will have quite a bit to show from it, and of course there will be plenty of boat news soon enough and a small art show to plan before we leave.
In the Studio: Week 5 (plus a few)
As you have probably noticed, I’ve gotten a little behind on my studio updates, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been productive. I’ve been managing my schedule well and have been spending about six hours a day in there. The big news is that I finished my bee painting. It came along much faster than expected. I actually finished it last week and am already in the midst of a new one that is focusing on ants. I am pushing myself a little bit farther on this new one, spending a great deal more time on the background of the painting. My goal is to work on my perspective and draw the viewer into the painting. We will see how it turns out. I like the concept and layout, but it is proving to be challenging. I’ll take it as a good sign, but expect that it will take a little bit longer than the bees.
Also, over the past few weeks, I finally modified some curtains for the boat (just in time for the weather to turn cooler) and worked on several more pages of my sketchbook. I experimented with watercolor and also worked on some portraiture. I also included some design elements, playing with patterns and shapes within my drawings. In the beginning, I wasn’t sure how these experiments would turn out at all; it had been a very long time since I worked on the human form. Generally I am pleased with the results and had a lot of fun creating them. Expect to see more in the future.
Also, I signed up for a profile on Society6, which is an online artist community that I stumbled upon recently. If you are an artist or illustrator, you should check it out. The site offers a great number of art grants, all of which sound pretty awesome (designing cd cover art, magazine spreads, art zines, etc. for companies as big as Vans and MTV, or other smaller art magazines and publishing companies). Anyway, my webpage is: www.society6.com/laraneeceart/. Most of what you’ll find on my Society6 page has already been posted at some point on the blog.
In about two weeks, I will be starting a five week batik-painting class at Redux Studios. The class only meets once a week, but I think it will be a great way for me to facilitate some creative interactions with some other people and learn a cool new skill. I figured that compared to a college course, this was pretty cheap ($160, all materials included), and I think it will compliment my screen-printing endeavors in the future. If you don’t know what batik painting is, it is a process of dying cloth using wax to create a design. It’s kind of an advanced version of tie dye. A number of saris and beach wraps have been dyed according to the batik process.
In the Studio: Week 2
Brian and I are hopping a plane to the west coast this afternoon, so I wanted to post my studio update early this week. It’s been a short, but productive week. I spent about eight hours in the studio on Monday, five hours on Tuesday, and four hours yesterday. I worked on my sketchbook a little bit more, but more importantly, I started a new painting—and am nearly finished. This is a great sign, and I feel that all the extra time in my studio is paying off. Because I am sketching and color mixing everyday, I’m getting pretty fast at both of these tasks. I feel as though I am gaining confidence and precision. This may even prompt me to make a new studio goal: one painting a week. Judging from this week, I think it is a perfectly obtainable goal. Anyway, I’m off to the studio right now for an hour, to screen-print a tank top to wear on the trip. Hopefully I will get a post in during the trip, if not, then stay tuned for a big update when I get back. Ciao!
In the Studio: Week 1
It’s surprising how quickly Friday rolled around this week. I feel like I am busier now, than I was when I was working full time. I managed to put in time at my studio everyday this week (and will head over there after this post), although I didn’t quite stick to my schedule. All told, I spent about 20 hours there this week. I am really hoping to increase that number to 25 or 30, but this is the most time I’ve spent in there consecutively so I am not disappointed. Also, there were a couple of design projects, writing projects, and some research that I completed on the boat.
I think the most important project that I worked on this week was my artist statement. To begin, I was nervous about writing it because, to be honest, I didn’t really know where I wanted to push my artwork, and I didn’t really understand what my art was telling me. Writing the artist statement was probably the best thing I could have done for myself, to give me focus and direction and also some great motivation. I spent several days writing notes to myself about why I enjoyed making art, why I chose to use certain materials, what I wanted to explore, and how my work was a reflection of me. I also looked at several Web articles (this one was probably the most helpful) on the topic and read about the topic in The Artist’s Guide by Jackie Battenfield. Battenfield’s guide was actually quite helpful because it included some strong examples of successful artist statements. After generating about two full pages of notes, I sat down at my computer and tried to make sense of it all. I am pleased with the outcome (which you can read on one of my About pages), and I feel confident about it even though it is still a work in progress.
In addition to the artist statement, I stretched and prepared a canvas for a new painting, sketched some studies of my subject, worked on a couple pages of my sketchbook, printed a shirt for a friend, emulsified a clean screen to burn today, created a t-shirt design for my first commissioned project, printed out some photographs to use for various studies, and hung a bunch of inspirational images in my studio. Not too bad for my first week.