Monday, July 11, 2016

I'm moving to cindytonkin.com/category/cindy-tonkin-art-work/

I've moved this blog here
Blogspot has mucked me around one too many times. 

This one's from the Institute of Art in Chicago. 
Archibald J. Motley Junior: Blues
See you there!

Hellena's Chicago Theatre Piece

I made this tiny 1" by 1" book for my friend Hellena Jang.
We met a few weeks ago in an improv class and she's not feeling well, so I made her a book.
The cover is from a Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind program.
The tiny pages have segments from the Art Institute of Chicago tickets, as well as tickets to see improv shows like TJ and Dave, and Harold teams at iO Chicago.








Rainy Paris Street: a tunnel experiment

Part 2 of my experiment with postcards of impressionist works from the Institute of Art in Chicago
A tunnel book, done with a postcard from Caillebotte's Paris Street Rainy Day.
The soft greys of this picture were hard to manage.
I think i made the gussets too long (7cmx2), but when you hold it up to your face some interesting things happen with the perspective.
Measures 14 x 12cm.
gussets from a Mariano's brown paper shopping bag.
Card is from good and plenty and rice bubbles packs. Covered with pages from America Dances (1927)







Front page is just an off-centre door. I added handles from a paper shopping bag.
I prefer the look of the print and the brown paper to some of the interior!






Saturday in the park: a post-card experiment

So I'm staying in Chicago right now.
I'm improvising a lot and seeing lots of shows, so not much time to make art.
But when I was visiting the Art Institute of Chicago I wondered what a carousel from the Impressionist masterpieces might be like.
Here's how it turned out.
It's Georges Seurat's Saturday afternoon at the Grande Jatte


I'm not super happy with this. More and more I realise it's hard to make a silk purse from a sow's ear: this one is a 1927 book I found dumped in the alley (America Dances). The 90 year old paper is a lovely colour, and the print is great, but the age of the paper means it pills easily and folds badly.
Measures 12 x 14 when closed.
I also feel it's very crowded (he worked it to work nicely with 2d, not with simulated 3d.
and I didn't do such a great job with colour matching: again the 90 year old paper tore and pilled when I tried to spread the watercolour pencil.
Here are some in-construction pictures, just for my own record.






Sunday, July 3, 2016

Chicago for the summer

I'm in Chicago for the (northern) summer of 2016.
I've joined the Art Institute, which I'm visiting often (not enough). I'm improvising mostly.
If you'd like to see whaat I'm seeing, then visit my instagram page.
Here's a Monet, a Cornell, a Chagall, a Van Gogh and a few paperweights , just to whet your appetite.
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