LEO Often Pharaohs, Kings and mighty men of war depicted their victories in bas-relief friezes. Because Lions are such regal predators their images were often associated with royalty in victorious battle or royal hunting scenes. In creating this large bas-relief I imagined the joy of unearthing this ancient artifact, though greatly damaged, still having this […]
I only knew him as Mr. Aikins for all those many years his gifted son David came to me as an art student and eventually as an employee. David will be the feature of another blog as I am so proud of his art achievements. Back to Mr. Aikins … or Bob as I can […]
When you enter a piece of artwork into a juried show you must remember that juried art shows are relative. Your art piece is judged worthy or not according to the other pieces being considered. BEST IN SHOW isn’t the “best” in the world … It is the “best ” in the “show”… and all […]
I have, for my whole life, been in love with cartoons and cartooning. Cartoons are usually free and fun but when you are asked to consider illustrating a children’s book you are crossing a line. No matter how casual or “just between us Buddies” the invitation seems to be, remember when your cartoons are […]
Portraits are hard … not only do you have to be anatomically correct but you further have to achieve a likeness. When I jury a portrait in an art show I have no idea if the likeness was good. I can only judge by if the portrait is anatomically correct and how well it […]
Above are some of my bas-relief sculptures – each sculpture is only about 2 inches thick. I can imagine that most two dimensional artists from amateur to professional would probably never think of grabbing a hammer and chisel and start beating the snot out of a piece of sandstone or marble. Nor would they dream […]
I sculpted this piece many years ago and have always wanted to make a mold of it so that I could cast and reproduce it as an affordable production piece. This will be toughest mold I have ever made. I am just now coating the original in multiple (about 8-10) coats of latex rubber. The […]
For many hundreds of years people all over the world have been using a cooking vessel that since 1710 we call a Dutch Oven. It is simply a cast iron pot with a tightly fitting lid . With this versatile cooking utensil a cook can bake, boil, stew, fry or roast. Now imagine how much […]
“Cognition” is best defined as, “a knowing” and “recognize” is, “to know again”. Learning to be an artist is all about learning to see or re-cognize what you “know ” about the subject you are re-presenting. Let’s say you are doing a portrait and your subject is wearing a tee shirt. Let’s put aside the […]
Does it help an artist to know that one of the main muscles in the neck is called the sterno-cleido-mastoideus? Probably not. But it is critical for an artist to know how this muscle affects the surface and shapes the neck. These long Latin-sounding muscle names are merely describing its shape, size and/or location. For example, “sterno-cleido-mastoideus” is really just […]