Recap – Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper

Recently, a friend of mine and I went to see the Impressionism exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Although I brought my camera with me on this outing, I didn’t take any pictures in the exhibit as they don’t allow that. It’s going to be a little hard describing what I saw without any photographic evidence, but I’ll try the best I can.

Much of the exhibit was dominated by the more well-known artists such as Cezanne, Van Gogh, Renoir, and the like, although there were quite a few pieces from artists I did not recognize such as Camille Pissaro and Eva Gonzales. The biggest shocker from me was the stuff on display from Toulouse-Lautrec, who is more well-known as an “art noveau” artist, and not an impressionist.

Among Renoir’s repertoire was the painting that MAM is borrowing as per a wager with the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Pretty much how the wager worked was: if Green Bay won the Super Bowl, MAM would borrow this painting from Carnegie, and if Pittsburgh won, the opposite would happen (I forget the painting that MAM would have to loan out). It was interesting seeing this work and the story behind its arrival in Milwaukee, as I had completely forgotten about that whole thing until I saw it face to face.

The medium that dominated the exhibit was pastel or charcoal on paper. A majority of the pieces on display were sketches for paintings the artist later did. Degas especially had a lot of pastel work on display. Monet had a lot of drawings too, but I’m glad one of his paintings was on display as well as his paintings expressed what he was going for a lot better than his drawings.

The show is going on from now until the 8th of January. If you happen to be in the Milwaukee area, you should definitely see it at least once. More information and images of the show can be found at the exhibit’s website.

Recap of ArtWorks’ “Monster” show, plus some more updates

I’ve uploaded some more older artwork to the Portfolio section. I’m currently working on a new project at the moment, but I’m trying to keep it on the down-low until it’s complete.

I’ve also added another link, this time to another fellow artist, Josh Frazer. He is also a cartoonist/illustrator who has done a lot of work around Kenosha. Feel free to check his stuff out when you get the chance.

For the last four years, ArtWorks of Kenosha has been putting on a show called “Monster”, which is basically an art show featuring monsters, either as homages to classic movie and folklore creatures, or something invented from the artist. Last year, I had a piece in this show (The Giant Claw), but unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to make something this year. However, I like to check out the shows at Artworks, so I went to the Costume Party reception on October 29th.

There were a couple of relief prints that stuck out quite a bit to me, as they had this clean line look similar to what I’ve done with cartoons lately. In fact, I was almost envisioning what they would have looked like if they were given color via Illustrator. Then again, I’ve been seeing that a lot with line work, as I’ve been trying to improve my own color.

Another work that stood out to me was a pinball table made by one of my former professors. I’m not sure if it was usable or not (not exactly a good idea to just touch random artwork, after all), but it looked like it could be. I could recognize it as his work right away as he has a certain style to his work I have never seen imitated.

The reception itself was a pretty good time. Since it was a costume party, almost everyone there was dressed as something or someone else. There was a huge multilayer cake there that everyone had a slice of, and it was pretty good, I must say. There was also a dance routine going on featuring zombie/undead girls. I’ll admit that I was a little unnerved by it at first as I had no idea what was going on, but I figured they were in character.

The show is going on until November 7th, so if you happen to be in Kenosha until then, feel free to check it out. Maybe the next time I put up something relating to an event, I’ll remember to bring my camera so I can take some photos of it.