House No. 175: Cuckoo Clock

 

House No. 175: Cuckoo Clock
digital vector illustration
3 in. x 3 in.
175/365; 06/24/11

Today’s house is home to a cuckoo bird.

House No. 174: Little Found Object House

House No. 174: Little Found Object House
found plastic game pieces and repurposed card stock on found wood scrap
2 in. x 2 in. x 2.5 in.
174/365; 06/23/11

I found this block of scrap wood in the street in front of my office building and the plastic game pieces in a closet that I was cleaning out in my parents’ old house. The card stock is another piece from my paper samples collection.

 

If anyone knows what game these pieces belong to, please let me know. I am very curious. I suspect it is some type of triangular dominoes.

House No. 173: Neoclassical Mansion

House No. 173: Neoclassical Mansion
pencil, colored pencil, ink, and paper on found object
5 in. x 4.5 in. x 1.25 in.
173/365; 06/22/11

Today's house started with a dollhouse fireplace that the WerePanda and I bought at Replacements during a trip through North Carolina.

And some paper samples from my endless supply.

Add some illustration, and voilà, a neoclassical mansion fit for the American Southeast.

By the way, if you like the decorative arts, you must go to Replacements to see their private collection. It is amazing.

House No. 172: Paisley House

House No. 172: Paisley House
gel pen on paper
11.5 in. x 5.5 in.
172/365; 06/21/11

Inspired by paisley patterns and colors, a bright and sunny illustration for the longest day of the year. Happy summer!

House No. 171: Huguenot House

House No. 171: Huguenot House
colored pencil on paper
9 in. x 12 in.
171/365; 06/20/11

Today’s house is a little stone dwelling like those built by the French Calvanists in the Hudson River Valley during the eighteenth century. Drawn with waxy woodless colored pencils on heavy paper.

Monday Meet the Neighbors, Heather Addley of 365 Days of Me

My dear friend and fellow 365er Heather Addley is a Richmond-based photographer who is taking daily self portraits and posting them at her blog,  365 Days of Me.

Portrait #123

I love the way Heather captures images. They are always beautifully composed and illuminate details that might otherwise be overlooked. Every photo, whether a landscape or a detail shot, is a portrait. I love Heather’s eye.

Portrait #31

Portrait #34

Portrait #114 

I really enjoy seeing Heather’s examination of portraiture, of the self and other, of masterpiece of art, of herself, of the female form, and of her body.

Portrait #28  

Portrait #46

Portrait #169 

Heather and I worked together for one of my houses back in January, and she is amazing to work with.

House No. 11 Home in My Skin

 

House No. 170: Wedgwood House

House No. 170: Wedgwood House
acrylic on repurposed heavy cardstock
6 in. x 7 in. x 8 in.
170/365; 06/19/11

I found this heavy blue card stock in recycling, and the color immediately brought Wedgwood Jasperware to mind. I am a fan of Wedgwood, particularly the black Jasperware. I love the contrast of it. The blue Jasperware is so ubiquitous that its shade of blue is frequently called Wedgwood Blue.

For today’s house, I studied details of the Hellenic-style ornamentation used to decorate the porcelain, and then worked from my sketches to paint the house that I fabricated from the cardstock. I based the shape of the house on the Greek Revival style, with a low-pitched roof and gable-facing facade, to coordinate with the neoclassic style of ornamentation.

House No. 169: Grey Tree House

House No. 169: Grey Tree House
collage, pencil, and ink on matboard
7 in. x 6 in.
169/365; 06/18/11

Today’s house is an homage to Misha at 365 Trees. (What up, Misha? Shout out to a fellow 365er!) I have made a couple other tree houses already, and I am certain this is not my last of the year.

I started with a photo of a tree that I had clipped aeons ago and glued it to yet another piece of scavenged stock. (Again saved from my classroom’s trash.) This one was a thick piece of mat board with a lovely creamy texture. There is some vellum collaged on there as well. There are a few types of graphite and inks on the surface.

House No. 168: Bavarian Castle

House No. 168: Bavarian Castle
ink and paint on paper
11 in. x 5.5 in.
168/365; 06/17/11

Today's house is a drawing based on Castle Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, which was built by King Ludwig II in the late nineteenth century. While working on more houses based in fairy tales, I have been studying more fantasy architecture and like to sketch these structures to learn about them and get ideas.

I was first introduced to Castle Neuschwanstein by the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I recently bought that movie on DVD, and I have to confess that I still love it. I'm a sucker for musicals and Dick Van Dyke, what can I say.

The paper that I drew on here was a scrap scavenged from my classroom before it was thrown away. It came with the paint on it, and I liked fitting the castle into the paint. I used the blue streaks for the rock cliffs and the clouds.

House No. 167: Number 7 Eccles Street, Dublin

House No. 167: Number 7 Eccles Street, Dublin
pencil on paper
12 in. x 9 in.
167/365; 06/16/11

In honor of Bloomsday, I offer a portrait of Leopold Bloom’s house, Number Seven Eccles Street, in front of a rough map of Dublin with a sketch of the front door to Number Seven, now preserved in the James Joyce Centre, and a portrait of Mr. Bloom himself.

#5 - How did they know?! & Where the heck I've been ...

From the Onion, Amerca's Finest News Source.

What's Our Special Dish? "Individual saltine-cracker houses with tuna-salad mortar" I mean, I'd use cream cheese, but still! It's like they know me! This is so tomorrow's house.

In case anyone is wondering where the heck I've been lately, never you fear. I'm still making houses but haven't had a chance to photograph and post. I'm playing catch up this weekend, so there will be tons to see come Monday!

And in other news, I am going to be starting grad school in the fall. I'm so excited! Lots of new & exciting stuff going on here. Details to come.

House No. 128: Little Red House

 

House No. 128: Little Red House

polymer clay and acrylic paint

.5 in. x 1 in. x .5 in.
128/365; 05/08/11


I like the simplicity of this tiny house and its wavy sides. It has a lot of spirit.

House No. 127: Constellation Houses

House No. 127: Constellation Houses

pencil and white out tape on repurposed matboard

8.75 in. x 6.5 in.
127/365; 05/07/11

Today’s piece is sort of a variation on yesterday’s. Both have three houses and use some of the same materials, but yesterday’s deals with space and today’s piece is about line.

I like the idea of constellations: people playing connect the dots with stars to create pictures and mythology. It is a common trait amongst all people to find patterns and make visual sense out of randomness and stories to explain the unknowable.

I invented a sky in this drawing where I found houses pictured among the stars. For the Skull Appreciation Day exhibition in Richmond, Virginia, I did something similar.

House No. 126: Achromatic Trio

House No. 126: Achromatic Trio

ink, pencil, and collage on repurposed matboard

8.75 in. x 6.5 in.
126/365; 05/06/11

The process that I used to make this piece started with a piece of vellum. It is very similar to a thick piece of tracing paper. It is actually used to diffuse light for photography, and I had a piece of it that had been damaged on a photo shoot that I was on. I had been holding on to it in my collections for awhile. 

I worked on both sides of the translucent paper before adhering to the matboard, which was another classroom salvage.

The white is correction tape that I pull out and transfer with a pencil to make varied lines. Again, I like that the process is indirect and makes me give up some control of the drawing. (This is something that I do a lot in class with my students, removing them from the direct process of mark making. It really frees up the artist to lose complete control.) The process is similar to printing and transferring.

I made the white, transferred marks with the correction tape on both sides of the vellum, and I colored with graphite to the point of going through the paper. I love how shiny the pencil gets on the smooth surface of the paper and how the marker soaks up the light almost completely, making the surface a very flat black.

The texture and quality of the surface, along with the change in tonality, indicates depth in a mostly flat drawing.

House No. 125: White on White House

 

House No. 125: White on White House

collage on matboard

8 in. x 8 in.
125/365; 05/05/11

Today's house relies on texture rather than color, line, or contrast. And it was rather difficult to photograph because of it.

The matboard that I used as a background for this house was salvaged from my classroom, and the paper and strings were also upcycled. The paper is from the same source as House No. 121: Spring Cottage. The strings were left over from the tags from House Number 71: Tagged Houses.

House No. 124: Connect the Dots House

 

House No. 124: Connect the Dots House

collage and encaustic on chipboard

18 in. x 12 in.
124/365; 05/04/11

Those of you who know me in life outside of the innerwebs know that I am super Safety First Girl. Somehow, I threw that caution and conscientiousness to the wind whilst working on today's house.

I was not exactly thinking about what I was getting hot, and I had glue and packing tape on this piece that probably should not have been heated and inhaled. 

That customer card is from the late Minerva Books in Petersburg that closed down a couple years ago. I loved that bookstore. Sigh.

I just love the way the wax pooled and beaded-up on surfaces, especially the metallic paper that is most likely toxic when heated but oh, so pretty.

Below, you can see the packing tape that shriveled up from the heat. I ended up getting a headache and feeling light headed and nauseous. I'm not sure how much of that was from toxic fumes and how much is from working over a hot pizza stone and oven