Inspirational Dr. Seuss

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.  
Fantasy is a 
necessary ingredient
in living,  It's a way of 
looking at life through the

wrong end

of a telescope.”

~ Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss is inspirational to the art community on so many levels.  All his artwork is so "out-of-bounds" in colors that are unexpected and bold.  Even his wonderful trees, from the Lorax, are spectacular in their design and color.  They don't look like our trees at all, but when anyone who's ever seen Dr. Seuss' work looks at his lovely puffy fluffy trees, you can tell exactly what they are.

His fish are the same way.  Last I knew, our fish were pretty sleek and, forgive me for saying it, but slippery and slimy looking.  They have eyeballs on either side of their heads, for the most part.  They are NOT endearing, in my opinion.  But Dr. Seuss' fish look a little like puppies.  They seem to have fur and look nice to pet.  They're friendly in his books, rather than aloof and non-committal.  Who could resist such "fish?"

Art gives the beholder and the creator a whole new world to create *ANYTHING* your minds can imagine.  I've heard of people calling their imagination their "image machine."  I really think that shows through very clear in the art of Dr. Seuss.




And here's a little interesting tidbit about how to say Seuss properly.  Found at the official Dr. Seuss site at Random House books, his publisher, and it confirmed this quiet fact:

“If you want to pronounce the name the way his family did, say Zoice, not Soose. Seuss is a Bavarian name, and was his mother’s maiden name: Henrietta Seuss’s parents emigrated from Bavaria (part of modern-day Germany) in the nineteenth century. Seuss was also his middle name.”

Son of Man: Hiding in Plain Sight

"Everything we see hides another thing; we always want to see what is hidden by what we see, that it is impossible. Humans hide their secrets too well."
	- Rene Magritte

Surrealist Rene Magritte's (1898-1967)  Son of Man

Rene Magritte's art seems to point a silent finger to things we'd rather not recognize.  In Son of Man (a self portrait, by the way), he stands in front of a low brick wall with a sea and clouds beyond the wall.  But there's an apple floating in front of his face.  It forces a question of what each of us is hiding, right there in plain sight, where everyone can see it.

Apples, in Christianity, symbolizes the forbidden fruit.  It generally represents knowledge.  However, knowledge isn't particular about good and bad.  So, what does the apple in his painting mean?

The Lovers

Several of his creations show people doing normal things, but their faces are obscured, such as in The Lovers.  They're hiding themselves from the world, from each other, from the eyes of the artist...

Mona Lisa, up close and personal

I just found a really great page and MUST share it.  I've never really looked at the Mona Lisa, up close.  In fact, it's pretty unlikely that I'll ever get to see it in person, since it's literally on the other side of the world.  But sites like this one make me wonder if I should reconsider that trek and go take a look with my own eyes...

Just look at the detail in the bodice of Mona's gown...  Wow!

And, I never noticed that she was wearing a veil.  Did you?  But here, you can clearly see it...

You can see more artwork up really close like this from the site if you go to this page.

Vincent Van Gogh, Thoughts & Contemplations

I had absolutely no idea that Van Gogh did watercolors.  As it turns out, he did a LOT of watercolor works.  I suspect that it was used because it's an easy travel companion; you just need your colors, canvas, some water, and a brush and you're ready to hit the trail.

Starry Night

This is one of my favorite pieces by Van Gogh.  I love the way he did the moon and stars, 

as well as the way he shows the wind on that cold night.  

I can almost feel the need to wrap up tight and close...  Can't you?

Most Impressionistic Artists rather liked painting in the great outdoors, so I can see where watercolors would be a nice, light, easy travelling sort of companion for them.  It gives choices for color rather than being stuck with just a sketch or dragging bottles of ink around or turpentine and oils.  I think the turpentine and oils would be the most bother, myself.

Irises

This one is my absolute favorite that Van Gogh ever did.  The bunch 

of purple blue irises surrounding the single white iris off to the left looks 

like it could have right out of my Mom's garden.  Irises are 

my favorite flower anyway, but that single white iris just reminds me 

of the feeling you'd get when you find your Soulmate, some how.

Impressionistic Art is one of my favorite styles for the simple reason that it makes me *feel* when I see it.  It makes the world breathe and feels like there's just a small moment captured when the wind is dancing between the petals of the flowers and the leaves giggle from getting tickled by the bugs just underneath them, where we can't see them in the picture.

Winner Takes All game: Dogs

This month's WTA (Winner Takes All) game features Dogs.  I love dogs and often doodle comic strips about them in my journals.  A few years ago, I was doodling Dogs into famous art works, like Michaelangelo's "Creation of Man," Leonardo DaVinci's "Vitruvian Man," and a few others.  Then we went over to the local school and used chalk to put them all over their sidewalks.  It was a lot of fun, but I'd never done one of those as an ATC until this game.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out!

I chose to do a spoof on "Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Johannes Vermeer.  This is a picture of the original:

It's striking and the way the girl is looking at you evokes some pretty strong feelings, don't you think?  The colors are pure and you can almost feel the fabric.  I think it's the contrast between the humble everyday servant clothes and the pearl, however, that made this painting as famous as it is.

Here's my  version of it, "Poodle with the Pearl Earring":

I used oil pastels, water colors, sparkly water colors, and micron pen (just for the eye details) to get it done. Where it's certainly not to the standard of the original, I am most pleased with how it turned out.  I wish you could see it in person, as the scan just doesn't do it justice.  The "pearls" on my Poodle are built up water color, so they're 3D and that makes them really stand out.  So, it's not a lifelike Poodle or anything, but it does sort of evoke the same feeling as the original.  I probably should have added more shading to her back, but it's difficult to know where to stop that with fur!

I was going to make this with a black poodle, but decided that probably wouldn't work so well with such a dark background.  It would have to be named something more like "Floating Pearl Earring," then.  Hahaha!