Featured Artist

Jenny Belin
Jenny Belin is a redheaded, Los Angeles expatriate. She began taking art classes when she was very young, and then studied art more seriously in high school and college. She graduated from Skidmore College, with a bachelor's degree in painting, and then moved to New York City, where she currently resides Her work is largely autobiographical, inspired by the photographs and diaries that she kept when she was a child. She has worked as a professional artist for fifteen years. Her drawings have appeared in the New Yorker and in the NY Daily News. She has exhibited her work both in New York and Los Angeles. She also shows her work at the Brooklyn Collective, a community based art collective in the neighborhood where she lives. In addition she has spent the last several years running her own pet portrait business which has provided an opportunity for her to meet many wonderful neighborhood and celebrity pets.

What do you find interesting about painting portraits?
In general, I am easily charmed and highly attracted to all kinds of people. I think that the portraiture I do is narrative. There is usually a story that I'm trying to relate, which is based on the impressions I have of someones personality and mood. My hope is to create an emotional portrait, and one that honestly conveys a piece of a person's individuality. 

When I am given a commission to paint a portrait of an animal, my first concern is to capture the likeness of the subject that I am hired to paint. Just like I do with people, It is important to show an animal's personality and unique character. "Personality" might not be the right word here... But I am an animal person, and I have always felt that animals have their own individual personalities, psychologies and temperaments. An animal portrait should give insights into charm and character just as much as any other kind of portrait should. 
     I mostly work from photographs. I always ask my clients to send a few different pictures.  I ask for favorite pictures, ones that are special to the pet owner. I also want to hear the stories behind the photos that are sent to me. I usually work from a combination of different images

What do you like about working with water based materials acrylics, gouache, and watercolor paints?
Gouache, acrylics and inks are all familiar to me. With the commissions that I do, I often have tight deadlines, and so water based paint makes the most sense-when I send a painting off in the mail, I need for it to be completely dry!

     I learned to love gouache during a year I spent in college, when I studied painting in Paris. There is something really lovely and fluid about Gouache, especially when it is wet. Oil paint is a lot of fun too, I would like to start using oils again in the future. But I also hesitate to use it in my home. I'd make big messes, and then probably blame them on my cat!

Many thanks to Jenny for sharing her fantastic portraits and animal paintings.

What do you think of Jenny's paintings?

Western Avenue Series

Mile 11:
This in progress painting is a part of my Western Avenue Series, through which I'll be making 24 watercolor paintings, one to document each mile of Western Avenue, in Chicago.  I started this project because while it is not considered to be among the most “beautiful” of Chicago’s streets, Western Avenue is a perfect place to document the humanness of Chicago, the positive and the negative. In the words of Stuart Dybek, "Western, with apologies to State Street, is a great street,  Unlike State, it is a street that goes to the interior, the heart of the city, as it glides and glows through a United Nations of neighborhoods."  Check back next Monday to see a post about the next mile of Western.

    This corner store located at the corner of 38th street seems fairly indicative of the surrounding area.  The store remains open, but it is clearly a shadow of what it once was.  In the same way, this industrial stretch, still pulses faintly, but it seems clear that it no longer reflects a former vibrance.  I imagine that 50 years ago, every factory was running at full steam, the streets bustled with factory employees and the homes and schools nearby were filled with families of these men.

Stay tuned for the completed painting.  I'm hoping to complete the pencil drawing and watercolor painting this week!

Other Projects

New Blog Schedule

The summer has brought many new projects, which have consumed my waking hours and some of the hours when I should be sleeping!  Therefore,  for coming months I'm planning to switch to a "summer blog schedule."  On Mondays, I'm be continuing to update you on my progress on the Western Avenue series paintings.  The series is nearly halfway complete and I'm hoping to complete by the series by January 2012.  Stay tuned for updates as I make way north on Western and begin framing the painting in preparation to show the work in 2012. 

On Fridays, I hope to continue to feature the work of other artists.  If you would like to be featured or you know someone who you would like to see featured, please be in touch! On occasional Fridays, I'll be show something from one of the other projects consuming my time--a new wedding invitations or map, commissioned painting work, perhaps an architecture project, or something I concocted in the kitchen! 

Hope your summer has brought many exciting projects for you!

Featured Artist

Cloudery

Cloudery draws in pen & ink and paints with watercolor. Drawings, using a pen with a point just .2mm wide, take hours to create. Organic, abstract, a stream-of-consciousness on the page. Sales from Etsy support child literacy by donating to First Book, a non-profit organization that gives children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books. One of the studies cited by First Book states that in middle-income neighborhoods there is an average of 13 books for every child, while in low-income neighborhoods there is an average of 1 book for every 300 children. As a book designer and avid reader, Cloudery feels very much in tune with both the importance of reading to develop one’s imagination and rich interior life, as well as the joy in owning one’s own books. Cloudery thinks that children feel a sense of wonder and pride in ownership that makes their own books very treasured possessions. The desire to read follows naturally.

Does your experience as a book designer influence your drawing and painting practice?
As I design "coffee table" books for museums and galleries, I'm constantly exposed to the work of artists and artisans spanning hundreds of years, including contemporary and emerging artists. While all artists use their work as a voice to express their world view, or their belief systems, or the particular philosophical ideas and aesthetic ideals in which they are interested, the artists I tend to find most compelling are those that are self-taught, and create because they "have to," in order to express themselves — and not because they are part of an art scene or caught up in the gallery world; those artists that find their voice, their language, their best form of communication through their creative expression. I draw and paint because it is integral to how I navigate life, because I need to express myself visually, and because creating images is meditational and sustains me. Even if all the drawings just ended up in a drawer (and many do!), I'd still create.

Your work seems to be informed by the natural environment, what are some of your favorite geographic areas or habitat types from which you draw inspiration? 
My drawings are very "organic" — meaning that rarely do I set out to draw something in particular. While I may be influenced by an idea, a sentence, a snippet of poetry or song lyric, it is generally in an abstract way, and I do very little planning. Most often, when I finish the drawing, or am close to finishing the drawing, I step back and look to see what I can see in it, and that becomes (for me, at least) what is is. Or what it may be. An example is "Portrait of a Bird Skull," which was titled and "identified" only after I finished. But often I choose not to give literal titles to the drawings because I like when the viewer determines their own idea of what they see. I love the ocean, and I love animals, and I'm really interested in the natural sciences like biology and zoology, and I think that the particular shapes I create tend to mimic natural forms, and create this organic mosaic, rather than a rigid construction. Even when I work with specific shapes — like in the "Horses" and "Foxes" paintings — I am still filling those shapes in a non-literal, free-flowing manner.

Are there particular themes or mediums you hope to explore through future work?
In late April I started a project titled "27 Minutes" for Peculiar Bliss, a quarterly juried illustration magazine. Their theme for issue 6 was "Pastime." I decided that I'd draw for 27 minutes every day, eventually filling a 9 x 9 inch square — my pastime. I'm still working on it, but the work was accepted and published in an in-progress state, clocking in at 50 days / 22.5 hours. The process of this drawing has had a pretty radical effect on my drawings since; it's as if I am building a vocabulary of shapes, symbols, and glyphs that I have started to employ in my current work. That piece went a long way in shaping my current style.
I've only been using watercolors since March, so I have a lot to learn. But I've become very interested in combining watercolor and pen & ink in unexpected ways. As in the "Horses" and "Foxes" series, I have embarked on exploring shape recognition, optical illusion, perspective, positive and negative space, and color harmony. I'm perfectly happy to work on the same forms over and over again, exploring the possibilities. This is something I plan to pursue more in the future, while I continue to develop my "watercolor voice."

Many thanks to Cloudery for sharing this beautiful work!

What do you think of these meticulous illustrations?

Custom Wedding Map

Shelter Island

This custom map was commissioned for a couple who recently visited Shelter Island located in Long Island, New York.  I enjoyed seeing the images of this charming island,  The small cafes, boutique groceries, and lovely beaches make the island seem a delightful place to visit.

This map includes roads to facilitate navigation through the winding roads of the island and small illustrations of some "favorite" spots on the island.

Have you visited Shelter Island?

Western Avenue Series

Mile 11: 42nd-34th Streets
This sketch is a part of my Western Avenue Series, through which I'll be making 24 watercolor paintings, one to document each mile of Western Avenue, in Chicago.  I started this project because while it is not considered to be among the most “beautiful” of Chicago’s streets, Western Avenue is a perfect place to document the humanness of Chicago, the positive and the negative. In the words of Stuart Dybek, "Western, with apologies to State Street, is a great street,  Unlike State, it is a street that goes to the interior, the heart of the city, as it glides and glows through a United Nations of neighborhoods."  Check back next Monday to see the painting completed based on this sketch.

This mile is similar in character to the one which proceeds it.  The street remains wide, with the avenue split by a boulevard-style median.  One feels aware of the large volume of asphalt forming the street.  The buildings are a mix of residential and industrial mingling to create a strange balance. 

The width of the street is accentuated at a portion of the street which is crossed by a highway and a set of train tracks.  One finds some relief near the northern end of this mile, with McKinley Park running along the eastern edge of the avenue.  


I was particularity drawn to making a painting of this corner store because of the Schlitz logo on the side of the building.  It's a common marker on old eating and drinking establishments in Chicago.  The Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company was an American brewery based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and was once the largest producer of beer in the world. Its namesake beer, Schlitz, was known as "The beer that made Milwaukee famous" and was famously advertised with the slogan "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer" The Schlitz company began to succeed after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, when Schlitz donated thousands of barrels of beer to that city, which had lost most of its breweries. He quickly opened a distribution point there, beginning a national expansion. Schlitz built dozens of tied houses in Chicago, most with a concrete relief of the company logo embedded in the brickwork.

Do you know buildings in Chicago with the Schlitz logo?

Western Avenue Series

Mile 10: 50th-42nd Street
This painting is a part of my Western Avenue Series, through which I'll be making 24 watercolor paintings, one to document each mile of Western Avenue, in Chicago.  I started this project because while it is not considered to be among the most “beautiful” of Chicago’s streets, Western Avenue is a perfect place to document the humanness of Chicago, the positive and the negative. In the words of Stuart Dybek, "Western, with apologies to State Street, is a great street,  Unlike State, it is a street that goes to the interior, the heart of the city, as it glides and glows through a United Nations of neighborhoods."  Check back next Monday to see a post about the next mile of Western.

One of the things that I love about Chicago is that evidence of it's industrial past still remains.  If one wanders north along the river near to North & Clybourn, remnants of the of the manufacturing that helped to build our city remain, like the Finkel Steel Factory.  Western Avenue is certainly a place where this industrial past and present remain a part of this fabric.  I was a bit surprised at the sprawling Wheatland Tube Company that occupies the same mile stretch as this pumping station.  



The pumping station reflects that which attracts me to Western Avenue.  It's real, it's part of what make our city run.  It impels water to our homes and businesses, fulfilling the most essential need of city residents.  And yet, while its a functional element of our city infrastructure, it is also beautiful.  It is elegantly designed and yet solid in appearance.    


Click here to purchase this painting.