The shop is now open!

Super excited to announce that I have finally gotten around to setting up the Etsy shop I’ve been daydreaming about for at least a year. I returned yesterday—utterly inspired—from a long weekend in the Great Smoky Mountains, where I was surrounded by such lovely and talented people. Today I woke up determined that TODAY is the day that this is getting done.

And so it was. Yay!

Right now, I just have about eight of my older, smaller works posted (at exceedingly reasonable prices, I might add), in an effort to clear out some space in le studio. I plan to add lots more new stuff as soon as I get comfy with the shipping logistics and all that stuff. There looks to be a learning curve, and I’ll to spend some time acclimating to the Etsy ways.

Pretty jazzed about it though. 🙂 Go check it out!

 

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New York: a triptych

I created this aptly titled Triptych (pun intended) using bits of ephemera and memorabilia collected during my trip to New York in April. As seen on They Draw and Travel.

[clockwise from top left] Downtown Manhattan: Statue of Liberty, Staten Island ferry (tiny origami boat!); Brooklyn Bridge; Very Large SUV rental & a couple of cabs; Red Hook, Brooklyn: Van Brunt Street, “WHATEVERRRR” crochet-bombed in a chain link fence near the ferry, the big R, Ikea (map/brochure)

Manhattan: Mood Designer Fabrics, as featured on Project Runway (business card); Gaia Italia cafe, panini to die for (business card); Hell’s Kitchen flea Market (paper bag from purchase); Empire State Building (photo claim ticket); Metrocard; Manhattan Bridge; Brooklyn Bridge Park, blue umbrellas at picnic tables lining the East River; weekly food festival called Smorgasburg; Brooklyn Bridge; Adam Yauch Memorial Park, “No Sleep Til*” (ransom letter cutouts)

*The Beastie Boys’ No Sleep Til Brooklyn was our theme song for this trip, as we drove all night—12 hours— to NYC from Charleston, SC, made a stop in Midtown before we checked in at our rental in Brooklyn, where we promptly napped. So, like, it kind of literally HAD TO BE our song, right?!

(wheatpasted poster flaking) Big Gay Ice Cream Shop (business card); Central Park; Manhattan Bridge; “Yes” and owl drawn from photos of murals in Dumbo; (backside of wheatpasted poster with rust spots); and me & my friends sitting on the rocks by the Manhattan Bridge.

Other materials used include photocopies of antique city maps, oil paint, ink, vellum, and various papers. And now I have to figure out where to hang it…

Proceed to the Route.

The past month has been a whirlwind. I finished the last piece of the collection commissioned by a New York law office, grabbed my BFF  (he’s an excellent driver), rented the biggest SUV ever, programmed the GPS (which said incredibly helpful things like “proceed to the route”) and headed off into the night to deliver the paintings to their final destination in midtown Manhattan.

The paintings look rather comfy in their new homes, and a big shout-out to interior designers Brooke and Yiannos of Input Creative Studio.

After the bizness was concluded, BFF and I roamed about the city, having various adventures and seeing many things. Turns out New York is, indeed, just as awesome as everyone says. Since I got back (and recovered from the bronchitis I picked up in the City), I’ve been working on a 3-panel collage incorporating ticket stubs, business cards and my Metrocard. I can’t wait to show it to you and the folks at They Draw and Travel.

Pet Portraits

Frodo, Bugsy, & Amelia

The perfect gift for any occasion: pet portraits! I started drawing dogs and cats last year as part of a children’s book project, and then sometime in the fall I began giving them as gifts to friends. First there were Joey’s cats in digital collage for his birthday, and then Joel’s cats in color pencil for Christmas. Adding to the repertoire, here’s Kelly & Tucker’s dogs in acrylic as a wedding gift. I think I enjoy the acrylic the best.

Eventually I’m gonna get around to opening an Etsy account and start hawking pet portraits and stuff to people I don’t know. That’s on my list of goals for 2014.

If you’d like to commission an affordable pet portrait for yourself or as a gift, tell me in the comments below and I’ll contact you about the details. As always, Thanks for stopping by!

New York, New Yoooooork

Have I ever mentioned my day job? I ‘m a graphic designer in the marketing and communications department of a large law firm. I’m bringing this up now because one of the attorneys I work with recently commissioned three paintings for the office in Manhattan. This one, bearing the working title Le Big One–NYC, measures 42″ x 42″. It’ll be the focal point opposite the reception desk in the lobby. I took progress shots along the way, because, hey– that’s fun, right? I like to look back at earlier stages and layers to see how it developed and evolved– it’s a bit like archaeology, in a way…

So as you can see, I started out layering in various papers–including maps–and blocked off areas with a little oil paint. I then worked in a few gel transfers and more paint (rinse & repeat) until I was satisfied with the result.

But the real take away here is that I’m going to have paintings on display in New York City. (pause to let that sink in.) Also, the beloved attorney that commissioned the works sent this to me via email: “To have personal, original, meaningful work from within the family in our space is priceless.” That brings a l’il tear to my eye, it does.

The Even Better News is that my BFF coincidentally just moved to the Lower East Side, and I’m going up to visit her this spring. We’ll take a jaunty little hike up to Midtown East and pop in to see my work in its shiny new home.

Cheers to that!

And hey,  –thanks for stopping by. Got any questions about my methods and techniques? Ask away!

Want to see more of my mixed media gel transfer art-making shenanigans? Yeah, ya do– click it.

Winter’s Night in 6 parts

This is Winter’s Night, a 36″ x 36″ mixed media on canvas, a recently completed commission. My client jokingly asked for weekly progress text updates, and I happily obliged– I thought it’d make great blog fodder. So here it is, an original Angie Brown abstract in 6 steps:

Gotta start somewhere.

  Taking shape. There’s quite a bit of work between the first shot and this. It must’ve been a long weekend. I’ve defined my black areas and my whites, and taped up some of paper elements to see how I feel about them.

The paper elements have been glued down, and now I’ve added a bit of frayed canvas that I distressed with an Xacto knife, and ripped away part of the paper I glued down the previous week.

Here, I’ve added quite a few new collage elements including fabrics, photocopies, an orphaned sketch of a metro area, and some found and altered papers.

Horrible photo, my apologies. I’ve added the black area above the “horizon” in the top right corner to balance the left. Added a few more drips, which I didn’t like…

Angie Brown © 2013 | Winter’s Night

And the final, taken with a camera that does not also text and make calls. Click the image to enlarge.

all the king’s men

Angie Brown | All the King’s Men

This week the topic posted on Illustration Friday is egg. I’m pulling one from the archives, since I just moved to a new apartment and have no idea where any of my supplies are, I’m exhausted and there are still boxes EVERYWHERE. So instead of a fresh and newly hatched artwork, you get this finely aged piece of dimensional collage, entitled All the King’s Men, which incorporates actual eggshells (that crumbly texture on the right.) It was done during my poured acrylic drippy phase, circa 2010-ish. I believe the crackle texture in the top right happened when I painted acrylic over semi-dry raw egg ooze. It’s a bit of a dark take on the ol’ Humpty Dumpty thing, but you probably figured that out already from the context clues, didn’t ya? Yeah, you’re smart, that’s why I like you. And you have great taste in blogs. 😉

As always, thanks for stopping by, commenting and following. I try to at least take a quick peek at everybody who leaves their mark here, and even if I don’t get a chance to respond, it’s very much appreciated. I’m very glad you’re here.

Mermaids Communicate Via Shell Phone

Angie Brown | Mermaids Communicate Via Shell Phone

I’ve been meaning to post this one for a while– and conveniently, this weeks Illustration Friday is swim. So viola!

Mermaids Communicate Via Shell Phone    48″ x 24″ oil on canvas.

This is a commission that I completed last month. It posed an interesting challenge, of how to paint a naked mermaid without exposing or drawing attention to her nakedness. So I gave her something to do– and solved the problem with a pun. Like all teenagers, she’s practically glued to her mobile device.

Her face looks better when it’s zoomed in a bit. Go ahead, click on it. It’s not the best photo in the world, my apologies.

In other news, sheesh, have I been busy, or what? I am putting together a portfolio to try to get into an upper level illustration class at an online art school. But more about that another day. Among other things, I’ve also been working steadily on the two children’s books, Square Dog, Round World and Annabelle & the Bear, and I’m blogging my little heart out for Illustration Friday. My next post will go live at 9:00 a.m. EST tomorrow. That’s generally the time slot I’ve adopted for my weekly artist feature. I’m still sort of random here  and the Square Dog blog, because that’s how I generally roll.

Questions? Comments? Accolades? I’d love to hear ’em. Go ahead– poke me in the comments. 🙂

a background with no foreground

angie brown | piove sul bagnato

This week’s Illustration Friday topic is “yesterday“. So I think of nostalgia, history, memories… I think of Italy. I fell in love with Italy a few years ago, the culture, the language, the art… and one architect in particular. His name was Angelo. He met and married someone else, and I realized that I was just painting empty backgrounds with no foregrounds.

This painting is typical of the work I was doing back then. It’s called Piove sul Bagnato, which is how the Italians say “when it rains, it pours.” It’s one of the last paintings I did in the Italian architecture series.

I moved on.

I’ve been exploring mixed media collage for a while– you can see more of that on my portfolio site, and now I’m learning character-based illustration.

Sometimes, though, I still miss Angelo.