Flower Power

During yesterday's blast of Georgia spring I bought myself some flowers and then proceeded to stay INSIDE all day painting.  Thankfully, I finished my painting and because of the time change, managed to squeeze in a stroll downtown to enjoy the later last hour of light and perfect 70 degree weather.

Since I now have a bouquet of flowers sitting on my kitchen table, I spent my entire day looking, drawing, and painting them.  (Now it is raining so I don't feel so guilty being inside.)  Today I made a number of quick watercolors from direct observation and also played around with some pattern ideas using my tulips and lilies as inspiration.  

The more I think about why I make paintings, the more I keep coming back to the idea of putting something into the world that is positive and uplifting; something you want to look at everyday and just makes the day better.  It goes without saying that flowers fits the bill.  After following a hunch last year to start painting them as a way to practice painting from observation and to feed my more non-representational work, I am coming back for round two.  

Simultaneously simple and complex, flowers are just beautiful, period.  Here is a little of my enjoyment of them, today:

And here is some of my inspiration.  The following are flower paintings by some of my favorite artist and designers.  Take a breath, relax and enjoy as you ease into the week.  

Holly Coulis

Carol Marine

Luli Sanchez

Leanne Shapton

Lulie Wallace

A Studio Peek

If you are like me, you are not good at keeping new year's resolutions.  This year is different though because there is one I can say I am following through with.  Here is the photo evidence, I am wearing gloves when I paint.  Everyday.  While they make me feel like I'm sitting in a dentist's chair each time I put them on, they make clean-up so much easier and help to put my mind at ease that I'm keeping certain pigments out of my body.  As far as some of the other resolutions, well, they need some work.  

While I am getting ready for my show at Gregg Irby Fine Art, I thought I'd give you a look at the place I work.  My studio is a bit of a wreck right now as I am finishing a few last paintings.  Paintings get delivered to Atlanta on the 18th of March!  

These days I typically work on an easel, although sometimes I work with my canvases on the wall and sometimes at a table.  One thing is sure, I am almost always standing when working.  My hamstrings and lower back are not my friends right now, but I am getting myself back into yoga to try to ease those little pains.

When you walk into my studio at Chase Street Park Warehouse, this is what you'll see.  There is really beautiful daylight from the skylight each afternoon.  And I love high ceilings, makes the space feel so open.   I've been in this particular studio for a little over a year now.  With a great space and even more wonderful neighbors, I couldn't be happier than I am right here.

Remember when I said I have a small collection of books, well, most of them, as you can imagine, are art books.  Exploring the Invisible is one of my favorites.  It was one of those stumble upon books that I found while wandering the isles of the UGA library.  After checking it out multiple times, I finally broke down to buy it, naturally.  This book has greatly informed my work.

There are lots of stuff in the studio, it is usually a little crammed.

Concrete floors, while not good for standing always look good with paint drops.

I have a few fresh tubes of paint.  Sap Green is a new color for me, I've never, ever used it until now.  I have found I can mix it with white to get a color that reads as a great gray against some yellows.  

And lastly, my work table, ready for more.

Gary Graham Fashion Designer

Gary Graham Fall/Winter Collection 2011

After an evening swooning over red carpet gowns, I felt inclined to share some looks of a fashion designer I've been eyeing recently.  As I am slowly learning about who's who in the fashion design world, few have caught my attention the way Gary Graham has.  I've not been all that into very fancy dresses, but, if I were to have an occasion to get really dressed up, I think I'd be looking for something like this one pictured above.  The one below, while not as elegant, is really more my style.

Gary Graham Fall/Winter Holiday Collection 2011

Normally I would spend my time researching painting online, but lately, I've been shifting to looking at fashion, interior design, and architecture.  When I was in graduate school, one of my painting professors gave the advice of looking to other media for influence.  Look at sculpture rather than painting, for instance.  Over the years, I have really begun to internalize this advice and feel it time to put it more into practice.  While there is really nothing I would rather look at than a good painting or drawing, I think there comes a time where it is necessary to look beyond to what is so close to home, to pull inspiration from other creative forms. 

Gary Graham Spring 2012 Collection

With recently taking up sewing, naturally, my eyes and head go to fashion.  But, this is also circling back to one of my early loves as a young child.  Growing up, I was drawing constantly.  What did I draw?  People and the things people wear.  I loved making paper dolls and dressing them up with not only everyday dressings but also costumes.  Very involved in dance (ballet mostly) and performing growing up, costumes were frequently on my younger mind.  

Gary Graham Spring Collection 2013

I am drooling over some of these looks.  I could easily imagine wearing this dress above or more casual skirt outfit below.

Gary Graham Anagram Spring Collection 2013

This jacket is really simple, elegant, and sharp looking....

Gary Graham Anagram Spring Collection 2013

And if I were going on a vacation somewhere, Venice ( I wish), maybe this....

Gary Graham Anagram Spring Collection 2013

...and this to me is just too quirky and cool.  I love the overall shape, the jacket especially.

Gary Graham Spring 2013 Collection

Which designers you love?

*please note that the links below each picture do not go directly to the page, please look for the collection name on the website and click accordingly.

Cups and Collecting

I've never considered myself an avid collector of anything in particular but I suppose if I were, I would be a collector of cups.  When I think of a collector, I think back to the CBS Sunday morning story on people who collect toasters.  Did you see that one?  Rooms fully dedicated to toasters, hundreds and hundreds of toasters.  Watching almost made me want to run out to the nearest thrift store and start my own toaster collection.  Yes, almost. 

I have a modest collection of books and an even smaller collection of art.  I'll admit, I've always been a little bit envious of people who have something they passionately collect; dolls, jewelry, quilts, spoons, rocks, etc., these are all worthy of an enthusiastic search and carefully curated home.  Maybe I do collect something and just haven't realized it yet?

Since I'm sticking to a resolution to post once per week and was not sure what to write about today, I followed my gut as it told me to photograph my small collection of cups.  I realize too, the subject of collecting could easily fill a day, a week, a month, a year just researching this fascinating human behavior but alas, this blog is meant to be light, easy, and relatively quick to both read and write.

On a related note, there is a book sitting on my shelf in my little book collection, waiting to be read based around this very subject - Umberto Eco's The Infinity of Lists.  Have you read it?  This may be a pool-side read for the summer.  For now, I will share with you my tiny cup "collection."  If anything, it was fun taking pictures using the lovely afternoon sun streaming through our windows.  Here they are!

What do you collect?

Start Again

One of the things that I wanted to do in 2013 is to actively write on my blog again.  I have left the thing high and dry for over six months!  While I'd rather not make excuses, I suspect my dwindled attempts is mainly due to becoming rapped up in reading other people's blogs (which is SO much more interesting than writing my own).

Starting again; slow and steady.  My goal is to post once per week and share with you things I'm up to in the studio, updates with my gallery, and other interesting things I come across whether it be revolving around other makers, interior design, food, fashion, travel, etc.  This seems manageable, and here we go...

Erin McIntosh, Connect no.117, watercolor on paper, 11x14 inches

To begin, I'll share something that I've also started again: sewing.  Mind you, I never have been much of a sewer.  Sewing was a regular part of growing up in the McIntosh household; my mom frequently and lovingly sewed clothes for my brother and I.  I tried to sew a few times with a machine my parents gave to me around my 21st birthday, but, I never really took to it.  With a measly attempt at a horribly constructed patchwork shirt under my belt, I consider myself a total newbie.  When I heard a beginning class was starting up at our very cool local Athens Boutique - Community, it didn't take much to get me to sign up! 

photo courtesy of Community Board,  photo credit: Ian McFarlane Photography

Feel inspired yet?  The photo above was taken by my awesome boyfriend who is one incredibly talented, bad-ass photographer.  Pictured here was a look from Community's recent fall collection.  Community is owned and operated by Sanni Baumgartner and features vintage clothing and hip upcycled re-designs.  Beth Graham teaches the sewing class and she is super sweet, patient, and knowledgeable.  Only after a few classes I feel I may become hooked.  Just yesterday, we learned how to construct a pillow and as soon as I got home, I started working straight away on my second project.

Here are the results so far; one pillow and one re-usable grocery bag made from a free pattern from BurdaStyle.  These were very satisfying to make!

This past week I've been sick, so I had some extra time to research sewing blogs.  I'll leave you with a couple I found, hope you enjoy!
Tilly and the Buttons
Colette Patterns (and here's the link to their blog)  

What are the things you have started, and then started again?

Hot Summer

Well, it's not too hot yet here in Georgia, but things are heating up.  We have had some beautiful days of temps in the low 80s with a gently cooling breeze.  This photograph of the sun was from an afternoon of pic-nic-ing with Ian at the State Botanical Gardens of Georgia after a long lie in the grass and getting a wee little sunburn.

It has been a productive month in the studio.  The month has been solid painting, exercising (running, swimming, visits to the Y) and a few social outings sprinkled in here and there.  It has been a very nice break from teaching and am feeling recharged for teaching this summer semester, which commenced Friday.   

A number of 20-50" paintings are in the works  (and a forthcoming show at GIFA in February 2013...details to come).  Playing around with thicker paint and a palette knife, just for kicks.  Hey, it's summer.  Feels like time to experiment.

A recent project (also on the playful side) is this skate board deck that I painted for a show titled "The Board Room" which is opening Thursday night June 14 from 6:30-9:30pm.  The walls will be "boarded up" with 55 skate decks, each individually imagined and hand-painted by local artists.  The show takes place at our Hotel Indigo Art Gallery in Athens.  Curated by Didi Dunphy, this gallery has an ongoing lineup of lively, beautifully curated, thoughtful shows featuring many local Athens artists, and...it is open 24 hours so you can see art whenever you want!  

Of course, I painted the main design on the top....it seemed a logical place for a design to go....can you tell that I have never been much of a skater?  Or does this count; a brief stint at age 7 where my "Joe Cool" Snoopy board (won at a Chucky Cheese) attempted our gravel driveway at my family's Ohio farm house? Ya, I didn't think so.

Happy summer to you!

Design Milk!

Super excited and grateful for some Design Milk love today!  CMYLK