Art in Strange Places

While on vacation, I always have my eyes open for art. It comes in all kinds of ways. It may be architecture, sculpture, textile, painting, ceramics etc. While out wandering the streets near our apartment in Lisbon, Portugal, where many of the surrounding buildings are being renovated, we discovered some art that was out of the ordinary and in a very unexpected place.

We almost missed it completely, because it was dusk but also because there was a lot of construction in the area. On retracing our steps back to the apartment we looked up and then did a double take.

We thought this was just a construction barrier, which, of course it was, but looking closer we noticed some identifiable shapes. An artist had used a drill and possibly other tools to scrape of the top layer of plaster from some plaster board to create his art. In the photo above you can see how we missed it. Unless you were standing right in front of it, you couldn't see the images clearly. Below are some of the other images.

The signature of the artist was "vhils". Googling this signature, we found that the artist's real name is Alexandre Farto who is a Portugese artist who was born in 1987. His art is called bas-relief carving technique which literally "scratches the surface". He has had exhibitions around the world in both indoor and outdoor settings. His art reflects identity, and life in contemporary urban societies and their saturated environments. He was particularly inspired by the way the city walls absorb the social and historical changes that take place around them. And there is a wealth of history in this city as well as MANY walls.

"Alles en Nog Wat"

My title translated from Dutch means, Everything and then More. My latest completed project was my zine which took a lot of my time and attention to complete so I haven't really been working on anything else that I can blog about today.

I will post a few photos of some little things I have been working on.

This is the title cover of my zine. I posted a flip through of the complete zine on my Sketchbook Skool site and received some really encouraging comments from fellow zine makers. Makes me want to do another. If you want a copy, let me know as they are going fast.

I continue to do baby portraits but I am a bit behind. The babies keep coming!

I am also continuing to try to use up my scrap fabric so I've made a few more fabric cards with them.

Recently had two grandchildren become a year older and  gave them little portrait fabric cards.

I will be travelling for the next 2 weeks so I doubt that I will be blogging but I am going to try. I will be posting on my instagram account so you can follow me there if you like. www.instagram.com/aspeel/

A Novel Idea - Zines

You've read here about a group I am a member of, Sketchbook Skool. Sketchbook Skool is constantly changing and expanding to include all things sketchy. There is a group within this group that produces "zines".  A zine is just what you think it is, a magazine. But it is different than the magazines you subscribe to or buy at the magazine stand at Indigo/Chapters.

A zine is a self-published mini magazine that is created by the author or authors using pen, pencil, collage, paint, stencils, stamps, anything easily attainable to someone without a lot of money. A zine has a wide variety of subjects such that they can be about art, poetry, cartoons, editorials, short stories, anything you can think of. Zines are usually mass-produced by photocopying and given to friends or sold for a few dollars to cover publishing costs. Zines cannot generally be purchased in a bookstore or magazine shop but are sold by specialty zines shops or online on the author's website. Zines are artistic, personal, can be political, cultural or experimental. A word of caution when looking for zines, many are dark and cover subjects not suitable for everyone's consumption. Despite this, I think zines can be positive and up-building as well and this is what interests me.

In the 1920's and 1930's many of the first zines were created for science fiction fans. Then in the 1950's, poets and artists would promote their work in zines. In the 1970's punk was all the rage. Zines continue to popular in certain circles.

Well, I have become interested in producing a zine and have been working on something recently. It is not quite done but I can tell you what it is about. In the last few years, I have started to see that although we live in a large bustling, busy city, there are pockets in which we don't realize we are in the city. Places that we can explore and have adventures in. My first issue of my zine is about Urban Adventures in Toronto. True to the first zines that were published, this issue is in black, white and grey. There is artwork in it and narrative about the adventure. I'm not sharing photos of it because I want it to be enjoyed all at once as you read it.

If you are interested in a copy when it is done, send me a message. I will be handing them out or mailing them depending on your proximity to me. I will only be mailing them within Ontario, Canada at this point.

If you are interested in a tutorial on zines put out by scholastic for elementary school students check out this link.
https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/john-depasquale/zine-making-101/

Fabric Scraps Card #3

This card was going to be inspired by the Georgian Bay area with water, rocks and trees. I could used the small green pieces I cut for the first card for the trees on this card.

This time I needed blues for sky and water, grays for rocks and greens for trees.

I drew a 4"X6" sketch of the scene on tracing paper so I knew where to put everything. Below the sketch I've started placing the sky, background trees and rocks.

Once I knew where I wanted these pieces, I ironed them onto the felt and will put the foreground trees on top of the fabric already put down. Once the card top was finished, I trimmed the edges to clean it up.

I added a bird in the sky and embellished with quilting and then put a back fabric on it.

Fabric Scraps Card #2

The second card I made, I wanted to layer fabric so I decided to do a seascape. I started with my felt piece as I do all my cards and started to work out a composition on it. You can see I am using complimentary colours here.

I love sunsets over water so that was what I settled on as a subject.

 I started with the orange sky and the brighter orange sun and then placed a dark blue at the horizon and layering different blues getting lighter at I got closer to the shore.

Again, I embellished with quilting.

What to do With all That Scrap Fabric?

As you can see this blog has arrived on Friday. I've decided to start blogging on Friday instead of Thursdays due to the fact that Thursday is my art day and the blogging takes time from art.

I have LOTS of tiny pieces of fabric that are left overs from my art quilts. I just can't bring myself to throw some of them out. I keep them in clear containers by colour. I decided that I would try to use them up making fabric cards. I haven't been making as many fabric cards lately due to other larger projects I wanted to tackle but now I am once again inspired to start producing them again. I created 3 different cards so here is the first one.

I use a thick felt as my middle layer for the quilted cards. It is much sturdier than quilt batting and easier to work with. I start with this layer and built the image on that.

I had a lot of green fabric scraps and I also had a piece with birch trees on it that I thought I could use to good effect.

After ironing some Heat N Bond, a fabric adhesive, to the backs of the scraps, I cut them into small pieces and began arranging them on my felt.

When the whole felt piece was covered I ironed them down to give the effect of a forest. I then cut some birch trees from the fabric scrap and ironed them on top of the green background.

The final step was to embellish with quilting to bring the whole thing together.

Sketches From the Past

After my dad died, I kept a lot of his sketch books, drawings and paintings. I am in the process of putting together a digital book of his art that is still in our possession. Because we can't display it all, I thought it would be nice to have a book that I, and other interested people, could leaf through. It will be a book that realistically represents his best work but also some not so great art. It is important for budding artists to know that even very good artists do bad work or stuff that doesn't work out the way we would like. Artists often take several runs at a project in order to solve the problems and learn. We will never make any really good stuff unless we keep trying.

I thought I'd share some of his sketches with you today. Dad loved to go for drives to find something to sketch (barns were some of his favourite subjects) but he also used his lunch hours to sit and sketch buildings in downtown Toronto. Sketching on vacation was another thing he did when he wasn't sailing his boats.