livefunky

Etsy shop: livefunky
listing: Mid Air
artist: Jessica Torrant

Jessica currently offers a huge body of work in her Etsy shop. There's a great deal of variety among the 200+ items. I selected "Mid Air" for this feature because it reminds me of Paul Klee, one of my favorite artists. Many of her paintings display a strong Cubist foundation. Others are abstract studies in color. Whatever the influence, all of Jessica's work has a creative sense of curiosity about it which makes viewing her work fun and enlifting.

artatelier

Etsy shop: artatelier
listing: The Moon nr2
artist: Paulina Archambault

Paulina's paintings are reminiscent of some of Paul Klee's paintings. Klee is in my list of top 5 fav painters of all time.

asleeponatrain

Etsy shop: asleeponatrain
listing: descending
artist: caleb

I really like this series. "asleep on a train" is a journalistic study of urban life. The raw drawing style is raw and honest, as is the medium of ball point pen and roughed up notebook paper. And of course there's the subject matter of every day folks catching a much-needed snooze on the train or bus. The stories behind the those people are mysterious and unending. Kudos to caleb for catching these moments.

So far this blog has featured 47 artists. I'm surprised that New York has not been represented until this post. I think caleb's "asleep on a train" is a great way to introduce New York to etsyart.com.

phraser

etsy shop: phraser
listing: Louis Armstrong candid portrait in two tone wood
artist: Drake

Drake's etsy shop, phraser, currently features three unique portraits on oak plywood. I am very impressed by the technique used on all three. Each portrait is "done on high quality oak ply, stained with a gun stock base coat and then a mahogany top coat for all of the dark areas," as described by Drake. I've tried doing something very similar in the past by "painting" stain onto various woods to create high contrast graphic portrait. I failed miserably. The stain bleeds like mad even if you use strong tape as a masking agent. I don't know what gun stock base is, but it does a great job. I'm happy to see someone make this technique work.

The feature of this blog post is Drake's "Louis Armstrong candid portrait in two tone wood". There's an ample amount of compelling things going on in this painting. (Yes, I call it a painting because he painted on the stain.) There's a great sense of depth in this portrait which is a nice visual play because of the high contrast imagery and simplified color palette. The seat of the chair against the wall is crucial in defining the depth.

The chair also serves an excellent background from which to define Armstrong's trumpet. I'd love to see tighter details of the trumpet area. I'm just amazed at how much detail Drake was able to attain with this staining technique.

Whether intentionally done or not, the background is partially defined by a wall which speaks to the use of oak plywood. It's subtly implied that the wall is made of oak.

And the most alluring aspect of this painting is the reflection in the mirror of Armstrong. It allows us to see two interesting portraits. The first is the large, dominant portrait of Armstrong on the left with its sharp details defined by open light. The other is smaller, subdued, mysterious mirror image bathed in darkness.