Mike Estefan is an illustrator, painter, graphic designer and bedroom composer. This jack of all trades has his work on Band Camp, Soundcloud and Instagram while carrying a robust Etsy store. Estefan’s work is filled with an interest in multi-culturalism, the supernatural and the surreal.
Recently, Mike Estefan has taken all of his artistic inspirations and mashed them all together, creating watercolor and ink paintings that are now up for sale from Weridhaus Warehouse. In his past work, Estefan has shown a penchant for a more doodled, animated style in his artwork. At times it reminds me of the more unsettling bits from Ahh Real Monsters or Spongebob Squarepants when he’s drying out. Estefan’s recent release of watercolors puts this style on display in full force. The pieces feel like collages of the artists imagination, densely populated by strange faces and characters. Or showing his interest in the artwork of past cultures. Dousing ink dot drawings of totems and masks in a shade of yellow, both suggesting their place ago place in history and the bright eternal energy one feels when looking upon these items.
His other watercolors can perhaps be thought to be the mirroring of the totems and monoliths in Estefan’s mind. His most recent piece at the time of this writing is a series of faces, melding to fit the frame of a dour balding man with thin lips and a potato head above the words Low Life. His head is surrounded by log shaped otters, sinister roosters, smiling three-eyed aliens and a Snoopy look-alike named Buddy. Booger green is spattered in places all around the ink line drawings, pooling in a sickly puddle at the bottom. It’s uncomfortable, overwhelming and compellingly hilarious all at once. Whether you’re getting the strangely powerful or simply just the powerful, everything Mike Estefan does is worth a look.
Internet trends come and go. It’s as simple as that, especially on TikTok. But with over 44 million views, the #aitimemachine trend that went massively viral on TikTok in November and December is still going, spreading to Twitter and Instagram, too.Users upload photos of themselves to the genealogy platform MyHeritage, which for $10-$18transforms the images into digital portraits in the style of famous paintings and “historical figures” like an ancient Greek, a Viking or a sultan.
Many TikTok users say the images made them feel beautiful and more confident in their unique features, even those they usually feel self-conscious about.
“I usually dislike my key features (thin lips, weak chin [and] soft jawline) but I kinda want to cry at these,” @coreyisnothome wrote in a TikTok video that went viral with over 300,000 likes and 2.5 million views. “I’ve never felt so beautiful,” said user @marymargaret14.
Student Savannah Caughey explained in her own viral TikTok video that she always felt insecure about her nose, but the Time Machine images made her change her mind.
“This trend allows people to connect with a part of themselves that is not distinguished by modern-day beauty standards,” she told HuffPost, adding that “the images allowed me to see myself in another light.”
“I learned to see that I have more of a classic beauty than a modern one, and this trend allowed me to feel confident and happy with that,” she said.
The MyHeritage program produces images that resemble drawings and paintings that imitate real art. Could that be why people feel so beautiful in their images?
Portraiture dates back at least to ancient Egypt, and throughout history portraits were used to showcase wealth and power. “I think it’s important to know that humans have been creating portraits for thousands of years; it’s really not a new phenomenon,” said Ella Raphëlle Dufrene, a French-Haitian American visual artist and registered art therapist.
Before photography, portraits were also a way to be remembered after death — physical proof of someone’s life. But in the selfie era, when it’s easy to capture your own image with the click of a button, the AI Time Machine images combine the digital world and the love of portraiture humans have had for centuries.
If there’s anyone who can speak about people’s love of portraits, especially in the form of paintings, it’s Melbourne, Australia-based artist Rebekka Lord-Johnson, who specializes in photorealistic and hyperrealistic drawings and paintings. She went viral on TikTok for creating live wedding paintings in which real-life couples and their wedding celebrations become the subjects of her art. She has more than 500,000 followers and 32 million views on TikTok, where she posts the work she describes as “family heirlooms.” “It’s a family portrait, essentially,” said Lord-Johnson.
In her opinion, the AI Time Machine trend went viral because art is a celebration of uniqueness. People are generally excited to see themselves in images resembling art.
“I think when you see yourself in the context of an artwork, when you’re a part of making an artwork, your recognizable features, and your recognizable face is part of the whole painting that makes everything beautiful, I think it can really capture and feature your uniqueness,” she said.
Lord-Johnson said that art has the opposite effect of social media, which promotes beauty standards that have people trying to look extremely similar to one another in order to feel beautiful. By contrast, art celebrates each person as they are, no filters needed.
But while images from the AI Time Machine might resemble art, she said, they aren’t really. “It’s almost like a filter to me, like an Instagram filter,” Lord-Johnson said. “It’ll adjust your features to current beauty standards or standards of beauty back then, historically. So people aren’t actually seeing themselves, necessarily.”
In her experience, people do feel prettier when they see themselves in artwork. In a painting, a person’s uniqueness is highlighted and appreciated in a way that’s not commonly experienced, which many people find refreshing. The couples Lord-Johnson works with, for example, often express how beautiful they feel in her paintings. Not only are they seeing themselves portrayed as they are, but “there’s a lot of emotion behind what I do,” she said. “When I create a work of art, a lot of love and attention goes into that painting.”
But if the AI Time Machine creations can’t really be interpreted as art, why are people feeling beautiful? “I think people are seeing themselves as beautiful because they’re seeing themselves in a different context,” Lord-Johnson said.
Dufrene offered a similar theory. “I do think that it’s because of the fact that they’re being turned into an ‘artwork’ that it’s increasing their sense of beauty,” she said. “But if we think of the origins of the word ‘portrait,’ coming from old French ‘portraire,’ which means to draw, reveal or expose, the A.I. portraits are allowing people to play a role, to reveal a more beautiful or empowered part of themselves. What that’s really telling me is that people are longing for a sense of wonder, play and creativity in their lives.”
“If you think of a little girl dressing up as a princess, we all have that inner child that wants to feel fantastical, wonder and play,” Dufrene said. She explained that when people see themselves as famous paintings and historical figures, it may help them to tap into their inner child — which might be why people are so drawn to this trend.
“We have a lack of playfulness, wonder, and spontaneity in our own lives,” she said. It’s not often that people exercise their will to play, like by creating digital portraits of themselves that resemble art and feel fantastical and special.
“People are really stressed out, especially after COVID,” Dufrene said. “Many people work 9-5 day-to-day jobs, where they’re doing these redundant activities that don’t necessarily explore their creativity and bring out their sense of play, and I think that can kind of dull our sense of self.”
It’s understandable, then, that people felt beautiful participating in the AI Time Machine trend (and thankfully, given facial recognition and online privacy concerns, the company says it does not save the photos that users upload).
As internet fads come and go, Dufrene said, there are many ways of exercising our inner child in our day-to-day lives, as well as increasing our own sense of beauty through art. If we have the means, of course, we can contact artists we admire to create a portrait, or we can do it ourselves with an art therapist. It’s also possible to add more play to your life by yourself; your inner child lives wherever you want them to.
“Playing dress up, creating a storyline, there are many ways that we can push it a little bit more,” Dufrene said. “Paint it. Dress up. Create a story.”
Apollo and Allegory of Painting, from the Loves of the Gods Giulio Bonasone (Italian, active Rome and Bologna, 1531–after 1576) from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
With Flickr, Facebook and Instagram all becoming such a big part of everyday
lives, people can often forget their legal responsibilities when using
images and photos online.
In order to ensure consumers have a better understanding of copyright law the government has launched a
‘copyright notices service’.
The first notice published today, provides guidance about things to be aware
of when uploading and using images on the internet. This includes advice for
situations where you want to use photos taken by a professional photographer or
what you need to consider before uploading images to social media sites .
A well-organized dishwashing station isn’t just a prerequisite for a high-functioning kitchen – it’s also a cornerstone of a harmonious domestic partnership. Often considered the heart and soul of any culinary space, the Dish Pit is a rite of passage for many in the food & beverage industry, and a perfect stage for studio WE ARE ONA’s latest immersive gastronomic collaborations with Crosby Studios.
Internationally recognized for their avant-garde approach to design, Crosby Studios’ Harry Nuriev and WE ARE ONA’s Luca Pronzato spotlight the back of house and dish pit setting through a brutalist setup of artistic experimentation. A perfect backdrop to unveil Dirty Dishes, a limited series of irreverent tableware in a minimalist installation and pop-up showcasing the plant based contemporary Thai gastronomy of Michelin-starred Chef Dalad Kambhu.
Hailing from diverse culinary landscapes ranging from Texas and Bangkok to New York and Berlin, this self-taught chef draws on her gourmet upbringing to master the art of flavor by seamlessly incorporating local produce from various countries. Chef Kambhu’s plant-based menu not only defines the essence of her renowned restaurant Kin Dee in Berlin but also set the tone for a unique community gathering of food enthusiasts recently.
From the 17th to the 22nd of October, the ninth arrondissement of Paris buzzed with a series of soirées, marking the 9th edition of PARIS INTERNATIONALE – a daring, multi-generational, and inclusive art fair alternative featuring a select cohort of 65 galleries from 25 countries. Against this vibrant backdrop, studio WE ARE ONA’s curated pop-up event offered a one-of-a-kind meal synchronizing off-screen and real-life experiences where elegance meets the primal.
With the help of their extensive network of talented ceramic, design, and floral artisans, the WE ARE ONA team is redefining conventional fine dining through innovative happenings. The creative culinary studio collaborates with young and celebrated chefs to contribute and embody the spirit and uniqueness of major international events, including the likes of PARIS INTERNATIONALE, FRIEZE Los Angeles, and Milan Design Week. Moreover, it serves as an esteemed art direction studio catering to prestigious clients within the realms of luxury, fashion, and media industries.
TJ Girard is a sought-after food designer and creative consultant, celebrated for staging theatrical, interactive food + beverage experiences. She now resides in California where her creativity is solar powered! TJ writes the Design Milk column called Taste.
✓Join us for the art event you’ve been waiting for in Mesa, Arizona from October 25-28, 2023 and enjoy a terrific lineup of educational workshops, a marketplace to shop, and community building activities. Whether you’re looking to learn a new technique, gain knowledge from a top instructor, or meet other artists, you won’t want to miss Art Fest Mesa!
This how-to guide to working with acrylic paint mediums, gels, pastes and more will help you expand the possibilities in every painting.
By Sandra Duran Wilson
Mix It Up (acrylic on panel, 14×14) by Sandra Duran Wilson. “I love to use light molding paste to veil areas,” Wilson says. “I initially used a gloss gel through a stencil to protect the colorful background. When that was dry, I used a palette knife to drag the light molding paste over the top portion of the painting. The gloss gel resists the paste, and the numbers show up.”
When you walk into the art supply store, are you befuddled by the rows of acrylic products and acrylic paint mediums that all look the same? You’re not alone. In this article, I’m unraveling the mysteries of acrylic paint mediums, gels, and pastes. Each product has qualities that enable acrylic painters to achieve a multitude of special effects and textures. For the best results, I recommend starting with artist’s grade acrylic paint, even if you’re just getting started with acrylics.
1. Gels
Gels are available in a variety of viscosities (the product’s thickness), such as soft, regular, heavy, and extra-heavy body. There are also sheen options including matte, semi-gloss and gloss. When choosing a viscosity, remember that the higher the viscosity, the higher the peaks. Gels can cause acrylic paint to shrink; test for this, and consider a high-solid gel product to avoid shrinkage.
White When Wet, Clear When Dry
Sandra Duran Wilson’s sample chart of gels and paste
In general, gels are white when wet, and transparent when dry. They’re like colorless paint. One benefit of incorporating gels is their ability to extend your paint, thus saving you money. It may take some hands-on practice to become accustomed to how gels interact with color. When gel is added to paint, the color of the paint becomes lighter, but dries to its out-of-the-tube color. I recommend making a chart illustrating the differences until you become familiar with gel’s effect on paint, such as my chart above.
Creating Texture and Sgraffito Effects With Gels
Left: Create texture with gels. Right: Try a sgraffito technique.
Create texture. You can create soft folds or high rigid peaks with your acrylic paint depending on the viscosity of the gel. To create a transparent layer without much texture, use a palette knife to spread a layer of soft gel gloss. Let the layer dry before adding additional layers. This method creates wonderful visual depth. Or, mix color into the gel and spread it over a background color to create layers of color.
In the example above, I painted the background violet and let dry. I mixed a small amount of quinacridone red into soft gel semi-gloss and used a knife to spread the mixture. I then applied some of the mixture in thin layers and some in thick layers and left other areas unpainted to allow the violet background to show through. To create high peaks, mix heavy gel with your paint. This technique also extends the paint’s volume.
Sgraffito is a fun way to add broken color to your surface. In the above image, I painted the background with pyrrole red. When dry, I scraped a layer of heavy gel gloss mixed with diarylide yellow over the surface using a palette knife. While the gel mixture was still wet, I drew on the surface with a knife tip, revealing the underlying color. Notice that I didn’t thoroughly mix the paint into the gel. As a result, I achieved an almost marbled effect with the yellow rather than a solid mass.
Altering Sheen With Gels
Left: Altering sheen with soft gel gloss. Center: Semi-gloss gel in thin and thick applications. Right: Matte gel and semi-gloss gel over dry paint.
Acrylic paints tend to be glossy when dry, but you can take control of the sheen by adding acrylic paint mediums like semi-gloss or matte gel to the paint.
Gloss: The background color is Liquitex bright aqua green. When dry, a layer of phthalo turquoise was mixed with soft gel gloss and spread with a knife over the surface. On the left side, I applied a thick application; the right has a thin application. The black lines were painted on the background to indicate transparency.
Matte: I mixed Naphthol red light into semi-gloss regular gel and spread the mixture in a thin application on the left and a thicker application on the right. I also was able to control the paint’s transparency.
In the final example, I altered the paint’s sheen by applying a layer of gel over the dry paint. I applied matte gel on the left side and semi-gloss on the right.
Extending Paint Volume With Gels
Extend your paint by mixing it with gels. I often add a few drops to a tablespoon of gel into my paint, working it together with a knife. I prefer using a knife over a brush because the gel can clog a paintbrush and create unsightly brush marks.
2. Polymer Mediums
Adding polymer medium to opaque colors such as red iron oxide increases transparency (left).
This product is a pourable acrylic paint medium. As with gels, it’s white when wet and clear when dry, and is a great paint extender. I like to use a knife to mix my paint into the medium. You may also use a brush since polymer medium has a lower viscosity than the previously discussed gels. Polymer medium makes opaque paint more transparent.
Red iron oxide, a mineral color, is opaque, and it becomes more transparent when a polymer medium is added. You can see how the dark lines show the transparency.
Blending and Glazing with Polymer Mediums
Left: Color blending with polymer medium. Right: Glazing with polymer medium.
Blending. Polymer medium makes it easier to blend colors together and, when a bit of water is added to the mix, the open time is extended. In the image above, used a combination of Payne’s gray and permanent violet dark, both mixed with polymer medium, and blended the two colors together.
Glazing. The difference between a mixture of paint with polymer and glazing medium with paint is that the glazing medium has a retarder added so it doesn’t dry as quickly. You may add some water to the polymer mixture to increase its open time.
In the example above, I painted the background with quinacridone magenta. When dry, I painted a glaze made of polymer medium and permanent violet dark on the left side. Next, I painted the right side with a similar mixture using transparent pyrrole orange. The strip down the center of the image reveals the quinacridone magenta background color.
Color Mixing by Layers with Polymer Mediums
Color mixing by layers with polymer medium
Create vibrant colors by layering paints rather than blending colors. For example, paint a color, let it dry, then layer a new color that has been mixed with a polymer medium. In the image above, I painted the left side with permanent violet dark. When dry, I painted a mixture of cobalt teal and polymer medium over the surface. On the right side, the colors are reversed. I find that making a chart of some of my favorite layer combinations comes in handy while painting with acrylic paint mediums.
Working With Fluid Matte Medium
Fluid matte medium is pourable with a matte appearance.
This is a pourable medium with particulates added to give it a matte appearance. This product lightly veils, or pushes color intensity back, creating a wax-like appearance. When I’m building a surface with many color layers, l use polymer medium gloss with the color layers and finish with fluid matte medium at the end.
In my demonstration image, I painted the background a light green and allowed it to dry. Next, I applied a layer of fluid matte medium and let that dry. To add a design element, I drew on the left side of the canvas with a soft pencil, and applied additional fluid matte medium over the drawing. On the right side, I mixed permanent green into the medium.
3. Pastes
Here, we’ll examine modeling paste, coarse paste and light modeling paste. You might also see hard and flexible pastes. Pastes are white when wet and opaque when dry. Pastes contain marble dust to give them opacity. Manufacturers name their pastes differently, calling them molding or modeling, but they’re the same.
Modeling Paste and Embossed Textures
Left: Modeling paste. Right: Embossed texture made with modeling paste.
Modeling Paste. The paste has a thick viscosity, so spread it with a palette knife. I prefer to spread the paste, let dry and then add paint on top. Molding paste is a bit more absorbent than the gels, but not as absorbent as the light molding paste. Depending on the thickness in which it’s applied, it may be translucent or opaque. In the example above, I applied modeling paste on the left side and light molding paste on the right. Then I brushed watered-down quinacridone gold over both sides. As you can see, the right side is far more absorbent.
Embossed Texture. In the example above, I painted blue azure as a background. When dry, I applied a thin layer of modeling paste. While wet, I pressed a textured paper into the paste and removed. When the paste was dry, I brushed on watered-down quinacridone gold paint.
Light Modeling Paste and Textural Peaks
Left: Light modeling paste. Right: Textural peaks made with light modeling paste.
Light modeling paste. Light modeling paste has the viscosity of whipped cream and is very absorbent. When it’s applied in a thin layer, it can act like a veil. If it’s thicker, it becomes opaque. I painted phthalo turquoise as a background color in the sample image above. When the color was dry, I spread a thin layer of light molding paste on top of it with a palette knife. Notice that in areas where it’s thicker, it shows as white.
Textural Peaks. Light modeling paste can hold extremely high peaks and is a lightweight alternative to heavy modeling paste. You can apply it in thick impasto layers onto large stretched canvas without fear of the canvas pulling off the stretcher bars due to its weight. In my example above, I mixed vivid lime green and yellow ochre with the light modeling paste, and drew the paste up with my palette knife to create peaks.
Opacity and Lightening Colors With Light Modeling Paste
Left: Light modeling paste makes paint less transparent. Right: Light modeling paste lightens colors without dulling them.
Opacity. Where gels and mediums make opaque paints more transparent, light molding paste makes paint less transparent. This works especially well with modern colors. In the example above, I mixed transparent pyrrole orange with light modeling paste on the left-hand side. The right features just paint.
Lightening colors. Light modeling paste has a unique quality that’s very handy. Mixing modern colors with white tends to yield pastels, but light modeling paste lightens colors without making them dull. In the sample image above, I mixed quinacridone magenta mixed with light modeling paste on the left; on the right, I mixed the same paint with titanium white. I used equal amounts of paste and paint.
Combo Exercise: Light Modeling Paste and Iridescent Bronze Paint
Light modeling paste and Golden iridescent bronze acrylic paint creates a beautiful finish.
Try this combination. Light modeling paste is very absorbent, holds textures well, and when combined with the unique properties of Golden iridescent bronze, makes for a beautiful finish. Here’s a fun exercise: I applied light modeling paste and while wet, pressed a dowel into the paste to create interesting marks. When the paste was dry, I brushed on a very watered-down iridescent bronze paint. This only works if the paint is very diluted. It takes a few minutes for the bronze particles and the green color to separate.
Coarse Molding Paste
Coarse molding paste has some tooth and is ideal as a surface for drawing or pastels.
This paste has a bit of grit to it and it dries to an off-white gray finish. The tooth makes it ideal for drawing or using pastels on top of it. Try using it to prepare a surface for pastels or as a unique painting surface. For the example above, I spread the paste in a thin layer. When dry, I applied fluid paints on the surface, creating almost a watercolor paper look. When the paint was dry, there was still enough tooth to draw on it with a red pastel pencil.
4. Combining Acrylic Paint Mediums, Gels, and Pastes
Two or More Pastes
Combining two or more pastes allows you to create even more effects.
Combining Pastes. Mixing two or more of the pastes together can create even more viscosities, absorbencies, transparencies and textures. I placed a small amount of the three different pastes onto the surface and used a palette knife to blend them together in the image above. I didn’t completely mix them, but let their properties overlap. While the pastes were still wet, I pressed plastic lids or other objects into them to create texture. I let the pastes dry and then brushed on a watered-down paint of cobalt blue.
Combining Gels and Pastes
A mix of modeling paste, light modeling paste, and gel gloss created a deep texture.
Gels and Pastes. When you combine the transparency of gels and the opacity of the pastes, you get an interesting surface texture. I often jump-start a painting by creating a surface using both pastes and gels. I created the background above by roughly mixing modeling paste, light modeling paste, and regular gel gloss. Then I spread the mixture using a knife to create deep texture. When dry, I brushed on a watered-down green paint. When dry, I brushed a brown glaze over the top half. Adding the darker color enhanced the texture.
Golden Extra-Heavy gel molding paste is a mix of paste and gel.
Hybrid. Extra-heavy gel molding paste by Golden is a hybrid mix of paste and gel. In this example, I applied a background color of green/gold. When dry, I added the hybrid mix. This hybrid mix is opaque in a thick application and translucent in a thin layer.
Pumice Gel and Combination Pumice Layers
Left: Pumice gel. Right: A combination of pumice and gel with additional layers.
Pumice Gel. This is really a specialty gel. I like to mix it with a gel so it’s easier to spread. I can also change the transparency and the absorbency depending on the gel I mix with the pumice. You may find it as coarse pumice or ceramic stucco depending on the brand. In the image above, the left side has pumice applied, and the right side has pumice mixed with soft gel gloss. I could alter the absorbency and transparency by mixing it with matte gel, or I could even make my own coarse molding paste by mixing the pumice into the paste.
Combination Pumice Layers. Here I, put a combination of pumice and gel onto the surface and let the products dry. Then I flowed a watered-down quinacridone gold paint over the surface so it settled into the recesses. When dry, I added a gel layer. The right side has cobalt turquoise mixed into the regular semi-gloss gel, and the left side has untinted gel spread over the surface. When this layer was dry, I rubbed an orange color over the surface.
Acrylic Paint Mediums and Gels as Collage Adhesives
The acrylic gels and mediums we’ve been reviewing work beautifully as archival collage adhesives. Match the weight of your paper to the weight of the gel. For example, if you’re going to glue a thin paper, use polymer medium. A regular-weight paper would take soft gel, and a heavyweight paper would need a heavyweight gel. I prefer to use gloss gels when gluing because they dry the clearest. I can always alter the final sheen by adding a layer of gloss, semi-gloss or matte.
The techniques and textures that gels, pastes and acrylic paint mediums make possible are priceless. I find I buy paint a lot less frequently, and I love creating textures with the assorted products. I know how to alter the transparency, change viscosity and create rich colors by layering colors with mediums and gels. The key is allowing the layers to dry in between and compensating for the shift from white to clear. Experiment and chart your results!
Meet the Artist
SANDRA DURAN WILSONis an abstract American painter and sculptor based in Santa Fe. She’s been painting professionally for more than 20 years, and her work is represented in public and private collections. She shares her knowledge through workshops, writing and DVDs. Learn more atsandraduranwilson.com.
A version of this article first appeared in Acrylic Artistmagazine in 2021. Updated October 2023
Iris Cintron is a freelance illustrator and designer working in Puerto Rico. Driven by a love of color and shape, Iris draws inspiration for her work from novels, comics, nature and day to day life. I was thrilled when I stumbled upon her work on Instagram where I was drawn (pun intended) in by her takes of some classic characters like Carmen Sandiego and Batgirl. What made me stick around was the flair of Cintron’s aesthetic; color and shape indeed.
What I love about Iris Cintron is just how versatile she is as an artist. Her character work is reminiscent of Darwyn Cooke with less angles and anyone who reminds me of Darwyn Cooke is a winner in my books. When you look deeper into her portfolio though, you discover a love for the surreal, a more abstract bent. It wasn’t until Cintron’s mermaid streak, mermay, that she merged these interests, building a run of mermaid characters contorted into bizarre, twisty postures ornamented with colorful tail designs and heads of big bold hair.
A favorite of mine came out on Day 7 of mermaid week. Under her pseudonym Sirimme, Cintron posted an illustration of a macaroni-and-cheese-skinned mermaid. Here the tail is accentuated by splotches of read with clouds of white and a smattering of black, some of the white and black coming out in her skin. The eyes are a signature of the series, huge round kaleidoscope swirls of color, a sort of plum in this case which gives the character an almost cult-like sense of joy. In other pieces, like Day 5, it presents a confused fear. Turns out kaleidoscope eyes can be just as expressive as our everyday norm eyes. Back to Day 7 and another signature of the series I’ve mentioned, the hair. A tweedy plume of blue, like Bettie Paige on one side and loosed, pulled away by the waters on the other. It feels classic and active and odd all at the same time. Everything in these pieces feels classic and new, an unrecognized recognizability with swirls of color that just hit somewhere inside. It’s an interesting appeal that keeps me coming back, looking forward to seeing what Iris Cintron will create next.
The U.S. Mint announced last week that legendary Cuban American singer Celia Cruz will appear on the U.S. quarter. She will be the first Afro Latina featured on the American coin, according to NPR.
Cruz is among a handful of new honoreesin the Mint’s American Women Quarters Program, which recognizes people of diverse ethnic, racial and geographical backgrounds for their accomplishments. Known as the Queen of Salsa, she was one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century.
Cruz first made her mark as the lead singer of La Sonora Matancera, a well-known orchestra in her home country of Cuba. In 1961, she immigrated to the U.S., where she helped shape and define salsa music. Her music career spanned 60 years, during which she received multiple Grammy awards and a National Medal of Arts. She died in 2003 at the age of 77 and later received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Along with Cruz, the Mint named four other women as honorees: Patsy Takemoto Mink, the first woman of color to serve in Congress; Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, a Civil War-era surgeon, women’s rights advocate and abolitionist; Pauli Murray, a poet, writer and lawyer; and Zitkala-Ša, a political activist for Native American rights.
“All of the women being honored have lived remarkable and multi-faceted lives, and have made a significant impact on our Nation in their own unique way,” Mint Director Ventris C. Gibson said in a statement.
“The women pioneered change during their lifetimes, not yielding to the status quo,” Gibson added. “By honoring these pioneering women, the Mint continues to connect America through coins which are like small works of art in your pocket.”
Coin designs for the new honorees areset to be revealed later this year. The quarters program, running from 2022 to 2025, releases up to five new designs annually.
The 25 longlisted entries for this year’s Book
Illustration Competition run by The House of Illustration have been published as a Gallery on their website here They illustrate Joseph
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The winner and five runners up will be
announced in September. The winner will be asked to provide a total of 9 illustrations for the final Folio Society book, as well as a binding design, and must agree to complete the commission within the given deadline
There is a a gallery
of past winners of the Book Illustration Competition here
In 2013, Ugo Rondinone’s 20-foot stone figures took over Rockefeller Plaza. In 2016, his 35-foot towers of fluorescent-colored boulders landed in the Las Vegas desert, and now this month at Gladstone Gallery in New York, Ugo Rondinone debuts his newest astounding sculptures: 3 solid “lightning strikes” made from bright yellow painted bronze, each reaching over 20 feet tall.
Ugo Rondinone: bright light shining. Gladstone Gallery New York
Rondinone’s work often ignites surprising contrasts between the natural and unnatural while twisting perceptions of material, time, and scale. His latest exhibition, bright light shining feels like a dream while you’re still in it – both familiar and bizarre. The sculptures initially appear to be upside-down trees or massive roots – but are in fact bronze. The large skylight and gray walls (painted for this exhibition) give an odd sense of time – neither day nor night, while the lightning itself invites you to perceive a phenomena that naturally occurs in a millisecond to the blink of an eye on permanent pause.
Ugo Rondinone, glorious light, 2023
Ugo Rondinone, sublime light, 2023
Ugo Rondinone, blissful light, 2023
Visitors who walk under the jagged 3-dimensional forms may experience another strange suspicion: If these were cast from real trees, the branch structure isn’t “growing” like any familiar tree on earth (even if upside-down). The texture, grain, and splinters look hyper-real, and yet the form feels impossible.
Ugo Rondinone: bright light shining. Gladstone Gallery New York
The answer may lie in Rondinone’s 2021 exhibition in this space. There, the artist presented a series of work titlednuns + monks that looked like gigantic boulders but were actually created from bronze enlargements of much smaller 3D-scanned limestone rocks.
Are these new works also bronze enlargements of small twigs, technologically transformed into a giant scale where physics is simultaneously familiar and impossible? Whatever their origin, Ugo Rondinone’s sculptures float between material categories, time perception, and the scale of the natural universe – providing a unique sense of wonder that spans across all his work.
Ugo Rondinone: bright light shining (detail) Gladstone Gallery New York
Ugo Rondinone: bright light shining. Gladstone Gallery New York
Ugo Rondinone, alluring cloud, 2019
A quiet final sculpture becomes visible only once inside the space. The gray alluring cloud is a blob-like form made from sand, gravel, and concrete. It too is a material transformation – heavy stone describing weightless vapor – as if it too is frozen in time.
Ugo Rondinone: bright light shining. Gladstone Gallery New York
The author with Ugo Rondinone’s bright light shining. Gladstone Gallery New York, 2023
Ugo Rondinone’s bright light shining is an exciting must-see experience that changes the air in the room while prompting a sustained and altered curiosity about the environment beyond the gallery’s walls.
David Behringer visits over 200 galleries every month to uncover and share the most exciting contemporary art in New York today. Subscribe to his exclusive weekly newsletter at www.thetwopercent.com and learn about his private gallery tours. And be sure to check out his YouTube.
✓Join us for the art event you’ve been waiting for in Mesa, Arizona from October 25-28, 2023 and enjoy a terrific lineup of educational workshops, a marketplace to shop, and community building activities. Whether you’re looking to learn a new technique, gain knowledge from a top instructor, or meet other artists, you won’t want to miss Art Fest Mesa!
As artists, we often draw inspiration from the world around us. Our “inner landscapes,” however, can also ignite a creative spark.
Splash 25 is here, featuring Thomas Schaller as Awards Juror!
Artist Network and Watercolor Magazine’s premier watercolor art competition is turning 25! Splash: The Best of Watercolor features an international palette of watercolorists from all over the world. With more than 100 finalists selected for publication in the special issue, The Best of Watercolor, plus cash prizes for top award winners, this is THE watercolor event of the year.
As a young art student, I often heard the phrase, “Mother nature is the best teacher.” The implication from instructors was that an aspiring painter could hope to do no more than to honor and reflect—as honestly as possible—the world that we see around us every day. Naturally, any painter’s work will improve through ardent study of light and atmosphere, and the people, places and things that compose the observable environment in which we live. Yet even when I was an inexperienced painter, I knew that if I had any hope of one day developing a unique style—an artistic voice of my own—I had to channel what it was that inspired me to paint in the first place. In time I realized that, although I love to study what I see “out there” as I move through the world, I also gain equally from studying what I see on the inside—within my own internal world of dreams, memories and imagination.
Images of Ideas (watercolor, 22×15) was inspired from my sketchbook doodles. This abstract composition consists of rectilinear shapes colliding with diagonal light. Each image represents a part of the creative process—from blank paper to finished painting.
Many years have passed since I was that young student, and I consider myself fortunate to have achieved my dream of becoming a professional artist. Even now, though, I meet many fellow artists and art students who believe that they must produce lifelike replicas of their subjects. This breaks my heart a bit. I’m grateful for the many compliments my work has received over the years, but to be honest, the one comment that unfailingly makes me wince is, “Oh, it looks just like a photograph!” I know this comment is always meant with the best of intentions, but it’s not my goal as an artist to create an exact replica of a scene. I’m not an abstract painter—my work often looks like something quite recognizable, but it rarely looks “real.”
The imagined scene for End of Day (watercolor, 15×22) was inspired by the Venice Canals in California, near where I live.
The imagined scene for Inside (watercolor, 15×22) was inspired by themes of juxtaposition—warm/cool, dark/light, inside/outside.
Interpret What You See
I’ve come to believe that my job as an artist is not to try to replicate exactly what I see but rather to interpret what I’m seeing and convey that to the viewer. In other words, I don’t paint what I see; I paint how I feel about what I see. And what I see is just as likely to be found in the internal as much as the external world.
Imaginary City View (watercolor, 22×15) began as a bedside sketchbook doodle —an abstract compositional dream of dark and light shapes. The finished painting conveys a fictional urban landscape and explores the ideas of distance, scale, time and connection.
Teaching has been a large part of my life over the years, and I’ve been fortunate to travel all over the world to paint in some of the most wondrous places imaginable. Painting on site, en plein air, has been an integral component of my teaching. Naturally, if you find yourself in some amazing place like Shanghai, Moscow, London, Rome or the Catalonian coast, for example, painting the beauty of actual scenes is an undeniably compelling thing to do. So often, though, I see students struggle with the demon of “accuracy” and duplication. It’s such a revelation when you finally learn that any scene, no matter how gorgeous, is just a starting point for a painting. It’s one reality only. Your reaction to it is another, and your interpretation is yet another reality still. This is the one that most matters, for it is the stuff of art.
Imaginary City View (watercolor, 22×15)
Stay Local
Of course, there will be times in all our lives when we can’t travel. Any number of constraints—physical, familial, financial or professional—can keep us closer to home than we might wish. For some, myself included, constant travel became a way of life. The downside is that it can begin to fool us into thinking that traveling to some far-flung place is the only way to find inspiration for paintings. This is wrong. Great paintings are everywhere—wherever we are—just waiting to be found. They’re in our backyards, on our kitchen counters, inside our own minds. A wise painter once told me, “There are no bad subjects to paint, only bad paintings.” Another great artist, Chuck Close, famously said, “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just get to work.” These may sound like harsh words, but there’s truth in them. If you want to paint, if you need to paint, you will paint. I think the genesis of all art is found not in what we see, but rather in how we choose to look at what’s around us—and within us.
Gone (watercolor, 22×15) is an imagined scene based on the universal themes of absence and loss.
Consult Your Mental Library
Lately, I’ve found enormous joy in investigating my sketchbooks and in rummaging through my memory, as well as paying close attention to my dreams. I keep a sketchbook by my bed and jot down anything that pops into my mind. I’m constantly amazed by what can be made of the simplest, most abstract idea. We all have deep wells of creativity, so make an effort to have a closer look inward. We hold vast sources of material inside, a kind of visual library that we can tap into whenever and wherever we choose. Everything we’ve seen, heard, felt or thought is all there just waiting to be interpreted into the next painting.
Washing Up (watercolor, 20×20) is an imagined scene, loosely based on my memories of my grandparents. It explores the theme of the contentment of solitude found in the unspoken connection of enduring love.
I have the utmost respect for Mother Nature, but I think the external landscapes she provides for our inspection are just the beginning of her lessons. She also has gifted us with a vast internal landscape that can amaze and inspire us no matter where we happen to find ourselves. Don’t hesitate to explore those cities and shores, but be sure to look within yourself as well.
Meet the Artist
Thomas W Schaller is an award-winning artist, architect and author based in Los Angeles. His work is widely collected and has been featured in scores of exhibitions across the world. He’s a Signature Member of many arts organizations including the American Watercolor Society, National Watercolor Society and Transparent Watercolor Society of America. He’s also a member of the International Masters of Watercolor Alliance, the California Watercolor Association, the California Art Club and the Salmagundi Art Club, NYC. He sits on the advisory board of American Watercolor Weekly, is president emeritus of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators, and a founding member of North American Watercolor Artists. We are pleased to have him serve as Juror of Awards in the upcoming Splash 25: The Best of Watercolor competition.
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Adam Burn is a digital artist with a new take on old characters from myths and legends. Burn found his artistic muse when he started a new project a few years back. Taking the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as his inspiration, he started redesigning them as fully formed characters along with their corresponding harbingers. Using it as a learning experience, Burn developed his style through new techniques, producing works that garnered lots of attention as he exhibited them at comic conventions in their finished form. Due to the enthusiastic response to his work, Adam Burn now has a budding Patreon that allows patrons to witness how an image comes together from reference to finished product. When you look at the original, Four Horsemen series, it’s easy to see how these redesigns became essential to his brand.
In Burn’s Horsemen series, each of the four Horsemen as accompanied by their harbinger. To elucidate his work, I’ll focus on one of the sets, Conquest, as they each follow a similar pattern. With each set we first get the Harbinger, in this case the Harbinger of Conquest. Each of the four Harbingers comes in a supernatural, humanistic, female form. They’re each surrounded by displays of their powers/abilities. Here we have the Harbinger of Conquest holding a sharpened spear. She’s adorned in a form fitting, golden, metallic looking armor while her lower body descends into a cloud of smoke. In all of his pieces, Burn shows off his ability to throw light and shadow into every crevice of his images. The Harbinger of Conquest has a flaring ring of golden light bursting out around her, fading into shimmery golden curls. This ring returns in spades in the image of the Conquest Horsemen who appears floating in mid air with golden rings of light intersecting each other, radiating off of the body and head of the creature. Like all of Burn’s Horsemen, Conquest gives off an aweing sense of power. It has four arms that look at once muscular and decaying. Black cloth tatters impressively sway off of the character giving Burn the chance to show his proficiency with depth of field, blurring the focus of a piece of cloth swaying out at the viewer. The level and skill of detail give the impression that the image itself contains Apocalyptic powers. All of his pieces do. It’s the kind of tease that makes you want to become a Patron. He’ll be working on ancient gods of Egypt, starting with Anubis and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
Burt Bacharach, the singularly gifted and popular composer and Oscar winner who delighted millions with the quirky arrangements and unforgettable melodies of “Walk on By,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” and dozens of other hits, has died at 94.
Bacharach died Wednesday at home in Los Angeles of natural causes, publicist Tina Brausam said Thursday.
Over the past 70 years, only Lennon-McCartney, Carole King and a handful of others rivaled his genius for instantly catchy songs that remained performed, played and hummed long after they were written. He had a run of top 10 hits from the 1950s into the 21st century, and his music was heard everywhere from movie soundtracks and radios to home stereo systems and iPods, whether “Alfie” and “I Say a Little Prayer” or “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and “This Guy’s in Love with You.”
Dionne Warwick was his favorite interpreter, but Bacharach, usually in tandem with lyricist Hal David, also created prime material for Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and many others. Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Frank Sinatra were among the countless artists who covered his songs, with more recent performers who sung or sampled him including White Stripes, Twista and Ashanti. “Walk On By” alone was covered by everyone from Warwick and Isaac Hayes to the British punk band the Stranglers and Cyndi Lauper.
Bacharach was both an innovator and throwback, and his career seemed to run parallel to the rock era. He grew up on jazz and classical music and had little taste for rock when he was breaking into the business in the 1950s. His sensibility often seemed more aligned with Tin Pan Alley than with Bob Dylan, John Lennon and other writers who later emerged, but rock composers appreciated the depth of his seemingly old-fashioned sensibility.
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - JULY 26: Burt Bacharach performs on stage at Kelvingrove Park on July 26, 2019 in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Roberto Ricciuti/Redferns)
Roberto Ricciuti via Getty Images
“The shorthand version of him is that he’s something to do with easy listening,” Elvis Costello, who wrote the 1998 album “Painted from Memory” with Bacharach, said in a 2018 interview with The Associated Press. “It may be agreeable to listen to these songs, but there’s nothing easy about them. Try playing them. Try singing them.”
He triumphed in many artforms. He was an eight-time Grammy winner, a prize-winning Broadway composer for “Promises, Promises” and a three-time Oscar winner. He received two Academy Awards in 1970, for the score of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and for the song “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” (shared with David). In 1982, he and his then-wife, lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, won Oscars for “Best That You Can Do,” the theme from “Arthur. His other movie soundtracks included “What’s New, Pussycat?”, “Alfie” and the 1967 James Bond spoof “Casino Royale.”
Bacharach was well rewarded, and well connected. He was a frequent guest at the White House, whether the president was Republican or Democrat. And in 2012, he was presented the Gershwin Prize by Barack Obama, who had sung a few seconds of “Walk on By” during a campaign appearance.
In his life, and in his music, he stood apart. Fellow songwriter Sammy Cahn liked to joke that the smiling, wavy-haired Bacharach was the first composer he ever knew who didn’t look like a dentist. Bacharach was a “swinger,” as they called such men in his time, whose many romances included actor Angie Dickinson, to whom he was married from 1965-80, and Sager, his wife from 1982-1991.
Married four times, he formed his most lasting ties to work. He was a perfectionist who took three weeks to write “Alfie” and might spend hours tweaking a single chord. Sager once observed that Bacharach’s life routines essentially stayed the same — only the wives changed.
It began with the melodies — strong yet interspersed with changing rhythms and surprising harmonics. He credited much of his style to his love of bebop and to his classical education, especially under the tutelage of Darius Milhaud, the famed composer. He once played a piece for piano, violin and oboe for Milhaud that contained a melody he was ashamed to have written, as 12-point atonal music was in vogue at the time. Milhaud, who liked the piece, advised the young man, “Never be afraid of the melody.”
“That was a great affirmation for me,” Bacharach recalled in 2004.
BACHARACH '74 -- Burt Bacharach with actress and singer Sandy Duncan. (Photo by: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Bacharach was essentially a pop composer, but his songs became hits for country artists (Marty Robbins), rhythm and blues performers (Chuck Jackson), soul (Franklin, Luther Vandross) and synth-pop (Naked Eyes). He reached a new generation of listeners in the 1990s with the help of Costello and others. Mike Myers would recall hearing the sultry “The Look of Love” on the radio and finding fast inspiration for his “Austin Powers” retro spy comedies, in which Bacharach made cameos.
In the 21st century, he was still testing new ground, writing his own lyrics and recording with rapper Dr. Dre.
He was married to his first wife, Paula Stewart, from 1953-58, and married for a fourth time, to Jane Hansen, in 1993. He is survived by Hansen, as well as his children Oliver, Raleigh and Cristopher, Brausam said. He was preceded in death by his daughter with Dickinson, Nikki Bacharach.
Bacharach knew the very heights of acclaim, but he remembered himself as a loner growing up, a short and self-conscious boy so uncomfortable with being Jewish he even taunted other Jews. His favorite book as a kid was Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”; he related to the sexually impotent Jake Barnes, regarding himself as “socially impotent.”
LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 08: Musician Burt Bacharach poses with his award for Best Pop Instrumental Album in the press room at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center on February 8, 2006 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Kevin Winter via Getty Images
He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, but soon moved to New York City. His father was a syndicated columnist, his mother a pianist who encouraged the boy to study music. Although he was more interested in sports, he practiced piano every day after school, not wanting to disappoint his mother. While still a minor, he would sneak into jazz clubs, bearing a fake ID, and hear such greats as Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie.
“They were just so incredibly exciting that all of a sudden, I got into music in a way I never had before,” he recalled in the memoir “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” published in 2013. “What I heard in those clubs turned my head around.”
He was a poor student in high school, but managed to gain a spot at the music conservatory at McGill University in Montreal. He wrote his first song at McGill and listened for months to Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song.” Music also may have saved Bacharach’s life. He was drafted into the Army in the late 1940s and was still on active duty during the Korean War. But officers stateside soon learned of his gifts and wanted him around. When he did go overseas, it was to Germany, where he wrote orchestrations for a recreation center on the local military base.
Burt Bacharach, left, Carole Bayer Sager, Christopher Cross and Peter Allen, right, accept their Oscars after receiving the award for best achievement in music in connection with motion pictures (original song) during the 54th annual academy awards presentation in Los Angeles on March 29, 1982.
After his discharge, he returned to New York and tried to break into the music business. He had little success at first as a songwriter, but he became a popular arranger and accompanist, touring with Vic Damone, the Ames Brothers and Polly Stewart, who became his first wife. When a friend who had been touring with Marlene Dietrich was unable to make a show in Las Vegas, he asked Bacharach to step in.
The young musician and ageless singer quickly clicked and Bacharach traveled the world with her in the late ’50s and early ’60s. During each performance, she would introduce him in grand style: “I would like you to meet the man, he’s my arranger, he’s my accompanist, he’s my conductor, and I wish I could say he’s my composer. But that isn’t true. He’s everybody’s composer ... Burt Bacharach!”
Meanwhile, he had met his ideal songwriter partner — David, as businesslike as Bacharach was mercurial, so domesticated that he would leave each night at 5 to catch the train back to his wife and children on Long Island. Working in a tiny office in Broadway’s celebrated Brill Building, they produced their first million-seller, “Magic Moments,” sung in 1958 by Perry Como. In 1962, they spotted a backup singer for the Drifters, Warwick, who had a “very special kind of grace and elegance,” Bacharach recalled.
The trio produced hit after hit, starting with “Don’t Make Me Over” and continuing with “Walk on By,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” “Trains and Boats and Planes,” “Anyone Who Had a Heart” and more. The songs were as complicated to record as they were easy to hear. Bacharach liked to experiment with time signatures and arrangements, such as having two pianists play on “Walk on By,” their performances just slightly out of synch to give the song “a jagged kind of feeling,” he wrote in his memoir.
Composer Burt Bacharach is at the piano for the first rehearsal of his first Broadway musical, "Promises, Promises," Sept. 6, 1968. Pitching in with their voice are, from left: actors Jerry Orbach, Jill O'Hara, director Robert Moore, author Neil Simon, producer David Merrick and actor Edward Winter.
Besides Warwick, the Bacharach-David team was producing winners for other performers. Among them: “Make It Easy on Yourself” for Jerry Butler, “What the World Needs Now Is Love” for Jackie DeShannon and “This Guy’s in Love with You” for Herb Alpert.
The partnership ended badly with the dismal failure of a 1973 musical remake of “Lost Horizon.” Bacharach became so depressed he isolated himself in his Del Mar vacation home and refused to work.
“I didn’t want to write with Hal or anybody,” he told the AP in 2004. Nor did he want to fulfill a commitment to record Warwick. She and David both sued him.
Bacharach and David eventually reconciled. When David died in 2012, Bacharach praised him for writing lyrics “like a miniature movie.” Meanwhile, he kept working, vowing never to retire, always believing that a good song could make a difference.
“Music softens the heart, makes you feel something if it’s good, brings in emotion that you might not have felt before,” he told the AP in 2018. “It’s a very powerful thing if you’re able to do to it, if you have it in your heart to do something like that.”
The late Associated Press writer Bob Thomas was a contributor to this report from Los Angeles.
10am – 4.30pm, Wednesday 14 May, 2014 National Museum Wales Reardon Smith Lecture Theatre, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NP
If you are interested in the ways
artists have interacted with Museum collections then this is the event for you.
The event will include:
·James
Putnam, curator and writer, discussing shifts in
the way that artists are working with museum collections and their role in
activating engagement.
·Andrew
Renton, Head of Applied Art at the National Museum
of Wales, in conversation with artistSarah
Younanabout their
collaboration and what artists can bring to the interpretation of collections.
·Jon Monaghan, artist and animator, leading a workshop on 3d printing
as a tool for creating user-generated content.
·ArtistHelen Snell, talking about
collaboration and what it's like to work in the 'institution' of a museum.
·Emma
Price, independent art consultant, offering
practical advice on developing projects that utilise museum collections.
This
event is free to attend but places are limited so booking is essential
For
more information contact Alicia Miller, Axisweb Associate in Wales: alicia@axisweb.org
