Tag Archives: beautiful

First Female Tattoo Artist Starts a Cultural Phenomenon

There is something magical about art. Music, poetry, dance, and drama all hold an enchantment so real that people will do just about anything to make contact with the particular art form that makes their life worth the living. Art is so captivating that many people desire to wear it, or even to become it. This is made evident by the millions of dollars that are spent each year on designer clothing and one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry. Those who just can’t seem to get close enough to art often become a living, breathing work of art. How? By getting tattooed.

Some would agree that tattoos are not only works of art, but means by which individuals become art. This is fascinating when you think of it. For relatively small amounts of money, someone can enter a tattoo parlor having 100 percent natural-toned flesh and exit having had a section of their body shaded with vibrant colors. What beautiful things tattoos are.

Tattoos used to be considered primarily masculine. However, the times have changed drastically. More women were tattooed in 2012 than men (in the United States). Also, tattoos are evolving into more feminine, beautiful works of art. In some ways, tattoos are becoming a female affair. This is due in part to a woman named Maud Wagoner — the first American female tattoo artist.

Maud Wagoner was a woman like no other. While most ladies of the Victorian era were studying homemaking and vying for a husband and children, Maud was doing all she could to become a skilled tattooist. She went so far as to “trade a date with her husband-to-be for tattoo lessons.” Her talent for tattooing was passed down to her daughter, Lotteva Wagoner, who was also a tattoo artist.

Thanks to artistic forerunners like Maud Wagoner, body art on women is becoming more the rule than the exeption. For art lovers, this should be good news. After all, when done by excellent artists, tattoos turn people into walking works of art, and that is a beautiful thing.

Sources:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2013/01/slide-show-a-secret-history-of-women-and-tattoo.html#slide_ss_0=3

Coming soon: Read our next blog post to learn what an artistic impression a colorful front door can make on guests and neighbors.

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Sea Urchins have left the Beach to Inspire Art

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Inspired by mythology, animals and Ernst Haeckel, Jennifer Maestre has created a beautiful, intricate and somewhat dangerous art design .

This talented artist builds 3-dimensional art with colored pencils. In fact, the South Africa native is internationally known for her creative use of these and other objects like beads, nails, and pins too.

Her color pencil designs are especially captivating because of her unique interpretation of familiar animals and plants seen in nature. She reveals how she builds the sculptures on her website. In short, she uses hundreds of pencils that are cut into 1-inch sections. Then she drills a hole in each piece, making them resemble beads. After sharpening the points she sews them together with a peyote stitch.

While this is all very interesting, there is another element to Jennifer Maestre’s art that is astounding: Her inspiration. In a statement about the sculptures, Maestre notes that the form and function of sea urchins sparked and fueled her idea. She talks about the paradox that exist between the beauty of a colorful sea urchin that invites an individual’s touch and the danger of the sharp points on its shell. With this in mind, she set out to create art with that same tension.

Maestre dose a wonderful job with this because sea urchins are dangerous yet alluring, and have sharp but beautiful shells. In fact, did you know that every ocean has sea urchins? They are known to travel in groups, with other sea urchins and those in the same echinoderm phylum family. This kin has a lot of room to move around ocean waters, considering they travel as low as 13,000 feet below sea level.

Visually speaking, the most catching characteristic of a sea urchin is its spiny shell. An interesting fact about these creatures is the name “Urchin,” which was once a common name for hedgehog. But the sea animal has dull colors and a globular form. This is makes for a clear distinction from the shrew.

In the same fashion, Jennifer Maestre’s pieces are quite different from her original source of inspiration. Perhaps the reason why this is so, is because, as the artist says in her own words, “I’m inspired by animals, plants, other art, Ernst Haeckel, Odilon Redon, mythology. In fact, it isn’t easy to specify particular sources of inspiration. Sometimes one sculpture will inspire the next, or maybe I’ll make a mistake, and that will send me off in a new direction.”

Get a better view of Jennifer Maestre’s work on her website: www.jennifermaestre.com

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Colors Change What is Beautiful

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What is beautiful? The term is a bit subjective, don’t you think? After all, isn’t beauty in the eye of the beholder?

It most certainly is, but one undeniable quality about color is its ability to make all things beautiful!

This is why color-field painting, with its abstract merging of vivid colors, is responsible for some beautiful works of art. In this post we will look at how color-field painting evokes emotions and has the ability to change an environment.

By now we know how color impacts art and also stirs emotion in people. Recent posts discuss color therapy, known as chromotherapy and the psychology of color, offering insight into how color can impact an individual. As artists, we know the emotional impact art can have on us. Vivid colors can stir emotions and hold an observers heart once they pass.

Sometimes, color makes beautiful what was not beautiful before. This is the case of color-field painting; color, shape, composition, proportion, balance, style, and scale change a blank canvas into a brilliant work of art.

This style of art is very abstract and those who are best known for its development are considered Abstract Expressionists. Color-field painting emerged in New York in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. It was a type of art inspired by European modernism and made popular by artists like Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman.

What sets color-field painting apart from other types of abstract art is the artist’s regard for paint. With the main focus being color, shape, composition, proportion, balance, style, and scale, there is less emphasis on gesture, brushstrokes and consistent actions that create form and process. In fact, the entire work of art is created by the artist who determines what elements he or she will add to convey a sense of place, atmosphere, or environment. In other words, what makes color-field painting beautiful, is its subjectivity.

Like most art, the beauty of color-field painting is in the eye of the beholder. These colorful pieces are nice accents for decoration and fun to paint too! But don’t let the look of simplicity fool you. This style is not easy to perfect and contrary to how it appears, cannot be replicated by a 6 year old!

Have you splashed your art palette with color today? Try it and see how color changes what you see as beautiful.

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