The King

copyright 2011 Mollie Bozarth

It is finished! I finally had a chance to finish up the “portrait” a couple of weeks ago and have been waiting for a day with decent lighting to photograph it.  I took all of the suggestions/critiques people sent in and am very happy with how it turned out.  If you have any further tips or things to keep in mind for the next oil painting I tackle, let me know.  This was the first time I’d touched oils in about 6 years.  It was both fun and frightening!  In the last 10 minutes of finishing touches, I was afraid I’d ruined the whole thing…but was able to pull it back and save it.  Phew!  Will probably start another portrait for fun this month, but am definitely going back to my safety zone of watercolor.  Happy New Year to all!

 

copyright 2011 Mollie Bozarth

Here is the complete mural!

Mural

copyright 2011 Mollie Bozarth

copyright 2011 Mollie Bozarth

Well, it’s been a hectic few months with school starting, coaching soccer, and my dad going through major surgery.  In the midst of all that, I’ve had the chance to work on a mural in our downtown parking garage.  My segment is one illustrative panel (approx. 24″ x 30″) in a series of smaller murals.  Eight students and two teachers from our high school each took a panel, so it was a fun opportunity to work with my students outside the classroom setting.  The theme for our floor was “Inspiration & Empowerment.”  Immediately, I thought of a local theater group called Christian Youth Theater.  I know a number of young people in our town who’ve loved being a part of CYT, and I’ve been extremely impressed with the professionalism of their productions.  So, this was a fun illustration for me to pull together!  The above images are sections of the mural.  Color is difficult to capture on camera, especially in a parking garage hallway.  But I’ve tweaked the coloring in Photoshop to get it close to the actual painting.  Timm Etters, a professional mural artist, was in charge of the whole project.  I have seen Timm’s work around town for decades, so this mural gave me a chance to get air-brushing tips from a pro!  I hadn’t touched an airbrush since 1997 and was definitely rusty.  Playing on the safe side, I mainly used airbrush for the background, then did detail work with my acrylics and finished off lighting effects with airbrush over top.  As a bonus, each person who worked on the project received a free Badger Airbrush…very nice perk!

Recent Sketches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been working on revisions to the portrait I posted last month.  However, summer travels, a recent mural opportunity, and other responsibilities have kept me from finishing that portrait.  So, today’s post consists of a couple of sketches from my summer travels.  As you can see, I’m quite happy to study architecture if there’s nothing else around that catches my eye!  I’ve sailed past the Shedd Aquarium many times each summer, but had never noticed the detail within its roofline or facade until I took the time to draw it.  The sun was just beginning to set and cast smooth shadows across each facet of the building.  As for O’Hare airport…I had never realised how spoiled we Chicagoans are with non-stop flights.  I can get a direct flight almost anywhere – including London – and usually enjoy plane travel.  Most of my out-of-state friends have quite a different experience.  Baggage claim seems to be a universal meeting spot where everyone stands around for 15+ minutes trying to look nonchalant while waiting for their belongings to appear on the magical snake-like conveyor belt.  Personally, I’ve always wanted to take a ride on that conveyor belt but figure security guards would snatch me up before I had a chance to even think the word “fun!”.  I guess I’ll have to live vicariously through Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and Bullseye who took the ultimate airport conveyor belt ride in Toy Story II.

copyright 2011 Mollie Bozarth

Here is the portrait I mentioned in my last post.  While it doesn’t fall into the category of ink or watercolor, it is an example of “telling the story between the lines.”  Whether working on a portrait or a children’s book illustration, I like to let my imagination play into the story being told.  This particular portrait was inspired by my friend/co-worker’s father.  I met Mr. Jones at an art reception and immediately loved the twinkle in his eye.  He was a man who had obviously lived a full and adventurous life, and he regaled us with a number of stories throughout the evening.  Before we all went our separate ways, I asked if he would mind sending me a few photos of himself so that I could paint his portrait.  His son, Steve, took the photos and sent them along to me.  That was nearly 5 years ago, and while I knew HOW I wanted to paint him, it wasn’t until last month that I finally pulled out my oil paints and began sketching.  I always pictured him as a king with rich purples and that look of mischief that says, “I’ve a story to tell if you’d like to hear it!”

This painting is still in progress.  I need to soften the line between the cloak and the lower garments…right now it creates too much of a triangle around his shoulders.  And, I’m still playing with the textures and “smoke” around him.  Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

 

It’s been a while since my last post.  Though I haven’t had a chance to sit down with my watercolors recently, I have been doing a little of this and that at work.  All of the images in today’s post are jobs I was asked to do for the school where I teach.  The above logo was created in Adobe Illustrator – a vector graphic program that works mostly with flat color or gradient shapes to make images that can be recreated at any size without becoming pixellated (blurry)…anyway, that is the best way I can describe it in layman’s terms.  The school needed a logo that would read well in black & white or full color.  They wanted something with clean lines that would appeal to students age 14-15 since this image will be the letterhead and logo for our freshman career-fair.  The warrior design is a simplified version of our school mascot.  Movement within the arrows signifies never standing still but moving toward future goals.

These two images are the front and back of a shirt design for testing week at school.  My administrator wanted to play off of characters from Jersey Shore (a show that I’m glad to say I’ve never seen).  While this was drawn in Photoshop, I approached it the same way I would an ink drawing: playing with line width, black massed areas, and a loose caricature style.  The bounding box on the back of the shirt mimics the show’s title logo.

On the home front, I am in the middle of an oil painting portrait and will post that upon completion.

Copyright 2009 Mollie Bozarth

 

Two years ago I had the opportunity to travel to California for the first time with a group from my master’s program.  I spent a week in San Francisco, walking over the city hills, wandering down by the Bay and Wharf, soaking in so many sights, sounds, cultures.  Our master’s homework was to create an illustration based off of our trip.  So, I sifted back through my favorite impressions of the week, and three things stood out:  pigeons, the Powell St. cable car, and a group of street dancers we’d seen one day.  This illustration was a fun challenge in pulling together 5 or 6 photos from the trip and making them feel like one cohesive scene.  I cut and pasted all of my images together in Photoshop, printing out the composition to use as my final reference.  It was a big step in the right direction of where I wanted to take my watercolor paintings (as opposed to the more stiff and over-worked look of my previous illustrations).

I have since graduated from that program with an MFA in Illustration.  However, some of my friends currently in the program will be headed to San Fran in a few days for the same trip I took two years ago.  So, this blog post is a tribute to them.  I hope they’ll enjoy the city as much as I did!

Calligraphy

copyright 2011 Mollie R. Bozarth

One thing I’ve always enjoyed about poetry is its use of line.  Size, shape, capitalization, division of space, all create a sense of rhythm and emphasis within the written word.  Funny that these are all the same elements used in the visual arts!  For me, lettering (specifically calligraphic lettering) gives me a chance to play with line and rhythm, written word and washes.

I often incorporate lettering into my children’s book illustrations.  But these two paintings are my first attempts at true calligraphy in a while.  I had been talking with a friend recently about the idea of hope, and both the Hebrews and 1 Peter verses came up in the conversation.  When life is difficult and things seem to be continuously crashing down on top of and around us, hope is what keeps us going…hope, and faith.  I cannot see God.  But my gut instinct and an inexplicable sense of peace make me certain that He is alive and at work in this world. 

With these verses bouncing around in my head, I sat down with brushes and watercolors.  The painting shown above is my 2nd attempt at that verse.  I like how the crayon wax-resist turned out for the words “you cannot see.”  And there are a few other things I feel are going well in the piece.  But it still feels like a work in progress.  So, any suggestions are welcome.

copyright 2011 Mollie R. Bozarth

I am happy with how the 1 Peter verse turned out.  This was actually completed in one go, over the span of a day and a half.  Some parts of it were planned out, others were happy accidents.  And, I paused my work a number of times to get opinions from my mom (art critic) about color usage and word spacing.  This painting shows the influence of Timothy Botts, a local and rather well-known calligraphic artist.  I had the privilege of seeing Tim complete a live calligraphic painting a few years ago.  He had had a violin solo composed for the occasion.  Then, he had timed out his painting to fit the strains of the violin.  The musician and artist’s movements synchronized as the painting took shape…a performance I’ll never forget!  If you’re not familiar with Timothy Botts’ work, I’d encourage you to check it out.

Sketchbook

                                                                                                                                         

About 8 years ago, my best friend gave me a package of Uniball Vision Fine-tip Waterproof/Fade-proof black ink pens.  A few months later, I was headed overseas to England for the first time.  So, I picked up a cloth-bound sketch journal and figured I’d put my new pen to use recording some of my adventures in the UK.  By the end of the England trip, that blue book was nearly full and was followed over the next few years by 3 more of the same.  I can’t say that my sketchbook use remains faithful or consistent, but I’ve found that I often prefer it to a camera.  With a camera, you see something and think, “Oh!  I like that!”  Then you snap the shot and have the lovely memory to look back on.  But sketching forces (and enables) you to truly study the scene that you love.  For example, one of my first blue-book sketches was a portrait of the guard at Tower of London.  I studied that young man for a solid 25 minutes…and, yes, he didn’t move a muscle for that whole span of time. When finished, I knew how many buttons were on his jacket; I saw how low the heavy hat sat upon his head; I knew the length of the bayonet that would be pressed in my face if I dared come too close.  And, I understood the patience and sense of honor that must go behind someone that young being willing to stand expressionless for 25 minutes at a time while unflinchingly guarding his Majesty’s jewels.  For the record: he did move just as I was standing to go…he turned, marched to the other end of his post, marched back, and was again motionless.

                                                                                                                                  

Obviously, not all “models” stand quite so still, which is one of the challenges I enjoy with sketching.  I prefer sketching in ink because it forces me to consider each stroke before I put it to page.  At the same time, I have to hold my drawings loosely, willing to scratch out, scribble, or abandon a sketch unfinished if it’s not working out.  People may not stay in the exact same position for long, but they DO tend to fall into patterns of motion, mannerism, or stance.  All I have to do is wait for them to return to a position that is similar to where/how they’d been standing when I started the sketch.  The other intriguing challenge when drawing people is keeping them from being aware that you’re drawing them.  As soon as they realize someone is studying them, they become self-conscious and stiffen up.  So, you have to learn to scan a space…seeming only to glance past them…and memorize the fold of the jeans or the bend of an elbow for long enough to spit it back out onto paper.

                                                                                                               

I was recently assigned hall duty outside of the school cafeteria.  It’s a duty in an area that is busy enough and inconvenient enough for me not to be able to get any real work or grading done.  However, I’ve found I can catch a few moments here and there to sketch.  So, out comes the old blue book.  Right now, I’m sketching in generic ball-point pen.  Ball-point pens have a little more drag/friction to the pull (as well as a slower ink flow) than the Uniball pens.  This allows me to slow down my hand and build up values or shading if I like.

                                                                                                                              

Lonjezo

Portrait of a Young Lady I Support through World Vision

 As I head into this realm of blogging, the plan is to update periodically with sketches, paintings, and current projects.  The above image is a portrait I’ve been wanting to do for years now.  It’s based off of a photo of Lonjezo from when I began supporting her.  Lonjezo is in the white dress, and I’ve always loved the little bit of attitude/confidence in her pose.  Something in the photo reminds me of myself at that age.  To me, this portrait is a testimony that no matter how much mileage and culture may separate us, we are all similar.  Some part of the child in us connects to the child in others.

The painting was done for a gallery show in my hometown.  I sketched the figures, did the outlining with black ink and brush, then began painting in watercolor.  I wanted to mass together the bricks in the background to really help the foreground figures pop out.