Recap of Amazing Show

Yesterday I participated in a show at Dixon Place called The Secret City
(a little theater on the lower east side in Manhattan). Its a variety, cabaret, service celebrating
the arts. One of my lovely followers, Maritza is involved in the production and sent along an
email to see if I'd like to be involved. It sounded a little different, weird, odd but fun.
It was one of those times where it felt right to just say yes and see what would happen.
And the theme was COLOR!!
I decided to do 9 22x30" monochromatic paintings in a rainbow show of color, I chose mainly
a table top theme so I would know what to do each time I went to work.

I painted these in acrylic and gouache, It was fabulously fun, I've been wanting to paint larger
for some time but just never seem to get to it. But in reality 3 weeks wasn't enough time
to paint so many, I got 5 done.
Here are 4 plus a purple one...

But the wall behind the stage where I was going to hang my work was huge and I wanted
impact.
So I chose 13 pieces of art from my sketchbooks and blew them up to 30x43" and had them
printed. I scan all my art at 400dpi, for this I used an app called alien skin blowup that converts
the art to vector for a sec, blows it up to whatever size and then returns it to pixels, It WORKS!!

At home on Saturday my husband and I put command strips on the back of each
piece so when we got there we could just hang it up. It still took over an hour, there were
singers, and musicians and dancers all practicing at the same time. But it happened.
Everyone was so welcoming and fun.
When the show started, the MC, Chris Wells came out, who had been in jeans and a very
plain button down shirt like this:

What a hoot! He was funny and interesting. There was great music, poetry, stories and
meditation. A dancer from American Ballet theater danced a gorgeous blues piece,
we laughed and and really enjoyed ourselves. Everyone involved was so professional
and creative. They brought me up to ask questions, which I have a video of but cant
seem to upload, If I can figure it out I will add it later.
Thanks for looking !

Please see my whole sketchbook project here

The Secret City: Show in NYC on Sunday

New York Friends: My art will be featured at this fun event on Sunday morning the 27th at 

11:30 on the Lower East Side. It's all about COLOR! totally me!! I'd love it if you 

could come!! 

See info here!

It's the big kick-off to our 9th season! Join us for a glorious celebration of COLOR,

 in food, story, music, performance and art. We've had a little rest since the season 

closer and we're gearing up for a beautiful new season of art+community+joy. 

Don't miss out, it's going to be a special day.

The Secret City NYC
COLOR
Sunday, September 27th, 2015
11:30am
Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street
btwn Rivington and Delancey

$15 suggested donation

We also welcome your baked goods, fruits or other treats for our refreshment table 

after the service.

**FREE CHILDCARE**

"Color is my daylong obsession, joy and torment." - Claude Monet

www.thesecretcity.org

The Secret City is an Obie-Award winning performance ritual combining art, food, 

music, storytelling, meditation, singing, performance and community interaction in a joyful

 event that is part tent revival, part cabaret, part ceremony. With events monthly in New York, 

quarterly in LA, and annually in Woodstock, we're creating an ever-growing community of

 artists and art believers connected by the creative spirit.

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Creative Style: Victoria Johnson

I am starting a new weekly series featuring artists I know and love, looking back through

their creative journey to see what path was taken to arrive at the style they are currently working in.

First in the series is Victoria Johnson a fellow artist with our amazing agent Jennifer Nelson.

She has had a long career in the industry, we recently discovered that we had crossed paths

20 years ago when she had a studio that I was buying art from. Small world! Her work is so

lovely and delicate yet powerful. I love how she has come to using a beautiful mix of media.

See her journey here!

1. How did you arrive at the style you are working in currently?

It was a long circuitous journey. In college I did a series of paintings that represented

everything I love about creating art. They featured people (my family) in different highly-

patterned environments and focused on color, form and texture.

I'm going to build a series around this painting this year.

Immediately after I graduated I was employed in New York as a fashion textile 

designer and embarked upon an entirely different path to that which I’d been exploring.  

Fashion textile design is a very specific field and tuning in to what sells was very difficult 

at first (flowers!!!). During this period I started designing for the paper products market too. Christmas was always a huge seller.  

Since then I must have created hundreds of commercial Christmas designs - 

a huge departure from my college paintings. 

Hand-painted and collaged Christmas cards from 15 years ago!

We painted everything by hand for several years then gradually everyone switched to 

computers.  I learned Photoshop pretty quickly and started ‘painting’ commercial 

themes with that.  

Photoshop brushes - limitless possibilities.

A few years ago I taught myself illustrator and my work became very crisp, flat and graphic. 

I love Illustrator.  So clean and sooo easy to edit.

Throughout all this I still harbored ideas of getting back to the paint but couldn’t see how I’d do it commercially.  I’d built a lot of 'rules' in my head about what was required  to earn a living in this industry and was too fearful to deviate from them.  However, in the last couple of years I’ve had a break through and, particularly since last Autumn, I really feel I’m creating art that I want to create - artwork that is commercial but very much represents my taste.  I feel so enthusiastic about this and want to take it as far as it will go within commercial parameters - and beyond.  Meeting a huge community of artists through MATS, and the MATS course itself, has exposed me to the million ways of working successfully. Being represented by Jennifer Nelson and seeing the breadth of styles and techniques used to beautiful effect by my fellow JNA artists has opened so many doors in my mind. 

2. Are there any other styles or techniques you are playing and experimenting with now that you think will incorporate into your work?

I am using collage, embroidery, pen, pencil, pastel, Photoshop, Illustrator, watercolor, ink and acrylic, often all in the same piece of art.  I just started a project on Instagram that really encourages experimentation and exploration.  I’m creating a tiny piece of art everyday - just 2.5” wide - implementing the different media and techniques that inspire me.  The scale is so small because I think it makes the goal very manageable.  I encourage all my fellow artists to join in - just tag me (@victoriajohnsondesign) and #alittleart.  If your work complements my feed I may feature it but the main point is to experiment in tiny doses.

I’m not sure where these little cards will lead me but I’m already making artistic decisions and discoveries that will feed my commercial design work.

A few of my #alitttleart cards.  Can’t wait to do something with these!

You can see more of Victorias work at victoriajohnsondesign.com
Or at Jennifer-Nelson-Artists here.

Patternbank Feature

I'm excited to share that I've been featured on the Patternbank blog!!
A friend forwarded it to me, I would never have known!!
See the feature here.
Here are 2 that they have on the post....

Uppercase Magazine!

I feel like the luckiest person in the world! In April, Janine Vangool who is the brains and genius
behind the absolutely gorgeous Uppercase Magazine contacted me about featuring my sketchbook
in issue 22 of the magazine. I was blown away, delighted and so honored to have this amazing
opportunity to be published. Of course immediately said YES!
A few weeks later she requested the pages she was interested in featuring, I sent them and waited
patiently until July. Well, it's here now and it's just beautiful. The issue is about color and paint,
set up as Roy-G-Biv, going the full spectrum throughout the magazine.
I'm thrilled to be in the same issue as Janet Hill, Belinda Marshall, Kristen Texeira and many more!
The sketchbook is my personal project that I chose to put out into the world daily, to keep me
accountable to painting every day. It's been rewarding in so many ways, personally, creatively, and professionally.
At the moment I'm illustrating a cookbook for Abrams Books that really came about
due to the sketchbook.. That is one of the reasons it has taken so long to writing this blogpost.
I'm so busy, just painting all day. How great is that?
Here are the pages:

Nautical

This month in Bootcamp was Nautical for Wall Art month, To be completely honest I was sort of
stumped by the theme. It's just not my thing.. and when I think of wall art that I would
purchase it wouldn't be nautical.. 100% no. So I did lots of paintings that I hated. The one
above looks sort of old, for a dusty old house with bats in the attic that you rent for a week
on Cape Cod. (I've rented that house before)

I went a little younger here, but still it's off to me, Still good for that house.I actually have
ideas on what to do for nautical if it was a greeting card or book illustration, but I let the
fact that this was supposed to be for wall art get to me... Oh well. I ended up submitting a
cool looking sailor, but can't really imagine that going on someones wall either.. I will revisit
nautical when my head is in the right place. On another note, there is amazing work in the
Bootcamp Gallery from all my classmates. Here

Meditation and other things

The May Bootcamp assignment turned out to be an editorial illustration for an article
on meditation. I really enjoyed this one, and the other benefit is that I've been meditating
daily since starting this which has had a very positive effect. A little more clarity. Now to
keep it up!
I've added lots of pages to my sketchbook.. You can follow me daily @augustwren on
instagram. This project has really been amazing for me. It's been eye opening for me to
learn that I can produce like this on a daily basis, that I have the resolve to do it
everyday. The best part is that I have inspired others to start their own sketchbook,
that is the best part by far, it makes me so happy!
Here are a few recent spreads..

Book Launch Blog Party!

Remember High School? Well my fellow classmate from #makeartthatsells class has written a book 
How Being Stubborn, Unpopular and Depressed Saved my Life. Her blurb on the book: 
I wrote a super honest, encouraging, vibrant book with the intent to help others [especially teens!]
 feel less alone in this world. By using MY story, and LOTS OF colorful illustrations, I want 
others to realize they aren't alone on those dark, lowest of low days! This is my doodle dream!"

She is a vibrant, sweet honest soul and I'm so happy she asked me to do an illustration for her
book launch party! It's at her blog Nightly Doodles. Lots of fabulous artists have done 
gorgeous work for the party!!
This painting went through a few revisions to be honest. But the premise was there from the start. 
There is isolation and sadness when you are left out but  please, please remember who you are,
and you are special and have so much to offer. Believe in yourself!

New Things

Week 3 of #Make Art That Sells class is children's books. We had to illustrate the cover of this fable by Aesop. I haven't done too much character development and it was fun working on this fox. Of course the
decorative stuff always comes into my work.  I paint all the icons separately and scan them in and do the background in photoshop.

Week 4 is Wall Art. I don't have much to say about this one, It's not the direction I want to be going so
even though I like it I will be moving on from here.
Thank you for voting for me in the ecojot cover contest, I came in 2nd place!!!
Jen

Succulents

This week at #makeartthatsells we worked on painting and drawing succulents for the mini.
I love them and even bought a few recently, what great shapes. Then we made them into
designs for plates. I restrained myself from using too much color this time. I love colorful
ceramics but I just felt like this is what I would want to set my table with right now.
I did one that is in color and I like it as well so I'll be making it into another group of 4.
Yay, I got 2 pieces out of this weeks class.

A friend from class has featured me on her blog today and she will be giving
away a print of one of my sketchbook pages if you comment.
Giveaway and Interview Here

Catching Up

I've painfully neglected my blog here lately so I'm making a commitment today to post
at least 2 times per week if not more. (Now I have to!)
I seem to be an ecourse junkie, I signed up for another round of Lilla Rogers Make Art
That Sells class. I thought at first no way, I don't have time, but isn't it amazing that the
more there is to do, the more you can get done. Week one was Bolt fabric, Tropical Fruits
and Vintage Pyrex. I have some ideas to expand upon the white ground coordinate but first
I'm onto week 2, Mini Succulents, my favorite!!
Here Is another version of the assignment.

I also signed up to do MatiRose's Daring Adventures in Paint again. I love the structure
of the class, I learn more each time and I get so much done. I just finished this painting
which is now hanging in the Preview Show exhibit for the studio tour which will be
happening at the end of April.

Off to work, I'll be back in a few days!

March MATS Bootcamp

This is my final version of the Jelly print from our March Assignment for Bootcamp.
I wasn't sure when I started what I was going to do with this but the hats just made perfect
sense to me.

These are the paintings before I started playing with them in photoshop.

Here  is a link to the whole gallery of all the fabulous artists who participated.

Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap

I've been thinking about stitching things lately. Then along came the stitched
Postcard swap with Do What You Love. #GBSPS
So I dug into my stash of fabric and found this lovely piece of linen. I only
had about 4 colors of thread so thats what I used. The last time I did this
was many years ago.. I don't really remember how to make the different
stitches.. So I pulled out whats comfortable to me.. Paint.
I have loads of beads and buttons so I stitched them on, cut paper flowers
and added them.
I also got to use the sewing machine a friend gave me for the first time. I want
to do more. Now I need to find the time. This is getting mailed up to Maine
today.

Jell-o, Jelly and Moulds

I can't believe its almost a month since I posted. I just can't keep up with
everything.. I try to do too many things and then sometimes nothing gets done.
Like the blog.
I'm in month 2 of Make Art that Sells bootcamp. The mini is Jell-o, Jelly
moulds. My first reaction on monday morning was Oh, Gross. It took a day
to sink in before I even could start the assignment. Once I got over the fact
that I wouldn't touch the stuff with a 10 ft pole it got more interesting, (and
disgusting) In the 50's and 60's people made Jello with other foods suspended
in it. Like fruit, meat, spaghetti, I don't know what else but GAG. But the good
side is that the shapes are sort of awesome and the colors are happy.
Don't they look like they could be cool hats? I did..

We'll find out what the assignment is on Monday morning. I'm sure a wrench
will be thrown in.