VL Studio Vist with Marzena Oberc-Habzda

I was borne in Poland, where I lived in historic city of Krakow. My favorite activity as a child were, drawing, painting or creating figures from clay. I always could be found at my desk consumed by my latest art project. I participated in various art competitions, winning various awards.
My grammar school teacher encouraged me to focus on art as a future career. During high school at Liceum Plastyczne , I studied drawing, painting, sculpture and restoration of historic wall frescoes.
Toward the end of high school I have moved with my family to U.S.  After graduation I attended Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, for continuing education.
I also attended Pair Collage of Art in Hamden, Connecticut. There I studied Graphic Design.
I am captivated, inspired and challenged by various subjects in nature.  My main focus is on nature’s delicate yet powerful beauty, remarkable design and perfect color harmony. I am driven by a need to explore and capture a certain sense of light to evoke desired emotion and inner feeling not easily captured and expressed in words.
I am fascinated with perfect unity, relationship of shapes and harmony of color that nature delivers with such ease and perfection. This creates constant excitement, drive and spontaneous approach to the subject. Inspiration for every painting comes from seeing and experiencing something beautiful, something so captivating that it takes my breath away.
I love painting with acrylics! For health reasons, a while ago, I had to switch from oils to acrylics.
Once I discovered Golden Open Acrylics I never looked back. They offer slower drying time, therefore an ability to be manipulated with ease in order to create oil like appearance. My painting technique does not require  blending of colors, therefore transition from oils was rather quick and easy. I paint with small tiles for color gradually banding them to a desired value, warm or
 cool temperature, manipulating edges and texture to create a desired effect with ease. Because of their quick drying time, acrylics offer instant visual gratification and result. I am representational artist, therefore my painting style requires a specific canvas texture in order to maintain certain control and manipulate the paint to accomplish the desired effect. My favorite painting surface is the Cleassens #13, oil primed , fine weave  linen panel by Sourrce Tek.
Love the gliding ability of Golden Open Acrylics on panel surface. Acrylics allow me to paint faster with very satisfying results. Colors are brilliant, pure and easy to mix and manipulate . The felling I am trying to convey is accomplished in a quick and satisfying manner. I tend to favor cool colors; i.e; blues, purples. My very favorite color now is Naples Yellow.  There are many incredible artists that I admire as most of us do. However there are two artists of the past that made a very strong impression on me when I was still a young child. First one is wonderful Russian painter of late  1800 Ivan Shishkin and the other Franz A. Bischoff. There are so many wonderful artists today that I love and greatly admire, like Richard Schmid, David A. Leffel, Morgan Waistling, Huihan Liu,  Dan Gerhartz, Quang Ho, Sherrie Mc Graw, Karthryn Stats, Jeffery Watts and Scott Tallman Powers just to name a few. I am very gatefull to all of them for there willing to share their knowledge and experiences with the rest of us, therefore helping us become better artists and bystep some of the common mistakes and learning arrors.

Artspan Artist Interview with Jan Sasser

When did you realize you loved art and wanted to be an artist?

I can't recall a time when I wasn't aware I loved art.  Books, music, and visual arts were all valued in my family.  As a child, I loved to draw and was inspired by the sketching of an older sister as well
as my great uncle's amateur painting and sculpting.  When I asked for quality drawing supplies they were given, along with the imperative to treat them with respect and practice basic skills first.

However, family role models made their living in “more practical
ways.  I didn't conceive of art as a career choice until much later in life.  I flirted with the idea of applied art as a young adult, but didn't actually make the move to painting full time til pushing 50, after many years as a social worker.  By that time, the backing and support of an exceptional spouse made the risk more feasible.




Who has been your mentor, or greatest influence to date?

I wouldn't say I've had a mentor per se, though living in Charleston, I've had the luxury of example and interaction with many fine artists.  While few are traditional realists like myself, there is always something to learn from one's masterful use of
color or another's exceptional composition skills.  The generosity of successful artists with technical tips and career advice often amazes me.  I'm grateful to Rick Reinert and others who have nurtured my confidence along the way and “nudged” me at  key moments to shoot for a high profile show or opportunity that paid off.


Who is another living artist you admire and why?

One of several who come immediately to mind is Mary Whyte, a Charleston watercolor artist of international renown.  I've long admired her mastery of watercolor but did not recognize how exceptional she is until seeing a major body of her work recently in her “Working South” exhibition.  Each piece is an evocative gem of dynamic composition, rich color and texture, and masterfully rendered images that   express the character and personality of each worker and workplace environment.  Pieces are all part of a totally coherent and integrated concept.  It's as though she “wrote a book in pictures” that tells the tale of a disappearing way of life and makes you feel you know all the characters.  How can you fail to admire an artist who can do that?




What is your favorite surface to create work on or to work with? Describe it if you make it yourself.

I paint on prestretched primed canvas or linen.  As a slow painter, I find these far too satisfying to be tempted to invest time in making or preparing my own.  I love the “spring” of canvas against my touch.   A good even medium tooth weave interacts beautifully with my brushes and varying strokes to create textural illusions while
still being “flat” enough to allow precise lines and details when needed.


What are your favorite materials to use?

Simply, professional grade Winsor Newton Oils, odorless mineral
spirits for solvent, and refined linseed oil as a medium.  For brushes I like hog bristle for underpainting and certain textures.
I like soft red sables for details, clouds, blending edges, etc.

Do you have a favorite color palette?

My basic palette is:
   
Titanium White, Naples Yellow, Ochre, Cadmium Lemon, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Raw Umber, Rose Madder Genuine,
Cobalt Violet, Cerulean Blue, French Ultramarine, and Ivory Black
(added recently and used “rarely and sparely” in mixes of darkest darks).  Cadmium Red, Gamlin Radiant Red, and Gamlin Radiant Magenta are included occasionally for specific pieces.  Certainly, I could manage well with fewer colors, but find all these useful so
“why not?”

VL Featured Artist Dawn Waters Baker

Dawn feels like her first language was beauty. That was how her heart was stirred to art. Born and raised a missionary kid she learned to look for it in the cracks and crevices of lives much harder then her own. In college, she learned how to find her own way to express her heart through painting. Dawn’s husband is a gentle gift who likes quiet as much as she does. They have three kids and with them the quiet left. It birthed a joy found in working on what's important and striving for love in all things.


She likes to think of her work as a “glimpse of the mystery.”  The metaphors of life held in branches, cloud wisps and water.  There is something that compels Dawn to paint, not what is literally seen but what is felt.  For her, the window into the spiritual is nature. It seems to be the image that she is invited to pass through into something much richer and deeper and full of beauty.

Her art is collected by many businesses as well as private owners.  Some of which are: Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas Eye Care Associates, Dallas Baptist University, She currently finished five original drawings for the book, “Why, O God?” published by Crossway books.  She is a member of Artists of Texas. Dawn is affiliated with Mary Tomas Gallery in Dallas Design District, Smith Klein Gallery in Boulder, Colorado and currently with the summer group exhibit at White Stone Gallery in Philadelphia, PA.  Her work has been in National shows including The National Weather Biennale, CIVA Contemporary Images of Mary and Ex Nihilo at Roberts Wesleyan College.  Her work is available internationally through Veritasse based in London, England.

Artspan Artist Spotlight with Jean Howard

When did you realize you loved art and wanted to be an artist?
I don't remember exactly when I first wanted to be an artist. 

Who has been your mentor, or greatest influence to date?
My father was an architect and did some watercolor renderings of his projects.  I think that I always drawing.  When I was 13 he gave me some art books and about that time I knew that I wanted to be an artist. He was my greatest mentor.
Who is another living artist you admire and why?
The artists that I admire are Richard Diebenkorn and Hans Halls. I know that they are dead but I am not influenced as much by today's artists.


What is your favorite surface to create work on or to work with? Describe it if you make it yourself.
I like to work on handmade watercolor paper when I do watercolors and canvas for oils.

 Do you have a favorite color palette?
Not a favorite color palette.
 

How often do you work on your artwork? How many hours a week?   

I work in chunks, solid for awhile and then NOT for awhile.

What are your inspirations for your work?  

I am inspired by things that I see, sometimes unexpectedly.

 What is your favorite color in your closet? 

I don't have a favorite color.  I thought about this question a lot. I am more interested in a relationship between colors. My closet reflects this also.

What book are you reading this week? 

I am reading "behind the beautiful forevers" by Katherine Boo.

What is your favorite food? 

I love lobster.

What color sheets are on your bed right now? 

My sheets are beige.

Do you have a passion or hobby other than painting? What is it? 

My other interests include gardening and duplicate bridge.

Who would you love to paint? 

I love to paint the Ocean.


If you were an animal what would you be and why?      

I would like to be a seagull to fly around the banks of the ocean.

Share something with us that few people know about you.  

I am a very private person.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?  

I would love to live in Laguna Beach.

Artspan Visual Language Interview with Nancy Bossert

When did you realize you loved art and wanted to be an artist? 

Cannot remember a day when I wasn’t creating.  It definitely goes back to my elementary years.

Who has been your mentor, or greatest influence to date? I cannot say one in particular. 

Everyone I come in contact with I can learn something from.  This can be from the very young to the oldest.  However I had one graduate instructor who could put what I was seeing into words and that was Dorothea Builder.

Who is another living artist you admire and why?  Living?  I have many that are deceased; Lucian Freud and Antonio Garcia Lopez.  They both work tonal hues, craftsman, respectful of form, love of desolate spaces.  They are technically proficient and encourage the viewer to question the scene from multiple principles.

What is your favorite surface to create work on or to work with? Describe it if you make it yourself. 

Wow!  To choose one,  I would have to say 300lb hot press paper.  The paper must be archival, acid free.

What are your favorite materials to use?  I love gesso because it is a binder and provides a workable tooth to my paper for many other materials.  Adding a slight hue to gesso will provide harmony to a finished composition.  The key is to know your materials so well that mixing media becomes second nature, and technique can take over.

Do you have a favorite color palette? Very tonal.  I love browns, yellow ocher, muted greens.  However there is a need to balance these colorations with compliments.

 How often do you work on your artwork? How many hours a week? At least seven hours most days.

What is the one thing you would like to be remembered for?

Craftsmanship

There are many culprits that can crush creativity, such as distractions, self-doubt and fear of failure. What tends to stand in the way of your creativity? Normal family obligations.

How do you overcome these obstacles?  Understanding that these moments happen in everyone’s life, so make the situation positive

What are your inspirations for your work?  Love working with the human form, light, color, texture.

Which work of yours is your favorite? Paintings of my daughter

Getting to know you Q&A

What is your favorite color in your closet? Brown

What book are you reading this week? I am a news junkie

Do you have a favorite television show? Currently: Sons of Anarchy and Project runway 

What color sheets are on your bed right now? Cream

What are you most proud of in your life? My marriage and my children

Who would you love to interview? Not interview, but to have a conversation with the Pope

Do you have a passion or hobby other than painting? What is it? I crochet.

Who would you love to paint? My husband

If you were an animal what would you be and why? Bear, texture, size and movement.

If you were stranded on a desert island and could only take three things, what would they be? So hard.  I take Yarn on every trip, because My hands just can’t be idle.  I couldn’t imagine being somewhere without my family, but I wouldn’t want them to be stranded somewhere just because of my desire…..Crochet hooks, wine.  Not really great choices.   

Share something with us that few people know about you. I will be married 39 years this year.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? I love Easton.

https://nancybossert.artspan.com/

Studio Visit with Colorado Artist Carol Nelson

I wasn’t always an “artist.”  I put that word in quotes because, to me, an artist is one who works at his or her craft diligently every day.  Besides spending time at the easel, in today’s times, being an artist also involves networking, researching, marketing, and spending a great deal of time on the computer.  It is far more involved than sitting at your kitchen table and painting a pretty picture once in a while.

Going way back in my art career, I can see the embryonic form of the artist I have become.  I’ve always been attracted to vibrant color, and my earliest memory of anything artistic is that extra-large box of Crayola crayons I treasured.  When I colored a page, I put on LOTS of color, pushing the crayon deeply into the paper for a saturated color.  

In high school, my favorite subject was art.  I loved everything we did in class, and it was a straight-A subject for me.  As a college freshman, it was natural for me to declare an art major. However, sometime during that freshman year – maybe during a biology class or chemistry 101 – it dawned on me that perhaps I should think about how I would support myself when I graduated.  My right and left brains were in a battle for dominance.  The left brain won, and I graduated with a scientific degree and a profession (medical technology) that would prove to be both satisfying and supportive.

So my artistic side was buried for several years.  Actually, I “dabbled” a bit with artsy endeavors.  When my children were small, I had a stained glass business out of my basement.  I made custom stained glass windows for homeowners.  Although stained glass is one of the most beautiful mediums there is, it is also very expensive to produce.  When I figured out I was making less than 

$1/hour, I decided it was time to find a different outlet for my creative tendencies.

The momentous day that propelled me into a serious art career came in 1998, when I happened to be looking through the art book section at a Hobby Lobby store.  I picked up a copy of Maxine Masterfield’s, Painting the Spirit of Nature, and was instantly smitten with the images inside.  Looking at the beautiful poured ink abstract compositions, I KNEW I could do this.  I bought all the stuff and went home to start creating. 

Thus started a new passion.  I soon became aware of how much I didn’t know.  They say you don’t know what you don’t know, but at least I knew I had just scratched the surface of something huge and wonderful.  

Fast forward 15 years to where I am now.  I’ve taken many workshops in various painting media – from watercolor to oils and acrylics – and slowly my true love has emerged.  Although I can certainly appreciate the beauty of  rich oils and the flowing transparency of watercolor, it’s that “texture thing” with acrylics and all the acrylic mediums that pulls me back time and time again.

My studio, as you can see from the photo, is always in a state of chaos.  When your medium is mixed media, you have to save everything that might somehow end up in a painting.  I’m not above dumpster diving and picking up ephemera and junk off the streets.   

I love experimenting with new paints, materials and techniques.  Since I work in acrylic, the vast number of mediums available gives me unlimited options  in how I create.  Many of the techniques I’ve developed or practiced in my own work are of interest to other mixed media artists.  I love traveling around the country giving mixed media workshops – I meet the nicest artists!  I love their enthusiasm and delight at the things I present to them.

Last October, I completed a week of training with Golden Artist Colors. Golden chose 18 artists from around the country for advanced study in their Golden Art Educator Program.  Since I already was using Golden Fluid Acrylics in my work, the additional training with Golden’s many pastes, gels, and grits, was like a huge flood of information that I’m beginning to incorporate into my painting process.

Life as traveling artist is sometimes hectic – like when my plane is delayed by a blizzard – but the rewards of meeting and working with other artists makes it all worth it.

http://carolnelsonfineart.com

VL Studio Visit Slav Krivoshiev

“The Mythological Constructivism – this is each one of us”

Slav Krivoshiev

Member of :

ARTIST TRADE UNION OF RUSSIA

WORLD ART FOUNDATION- USA.

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF ARTIST (ISA)

Master of Culturology & Art Management  

 Teacher of Fine Arts.      

Freelance Artist.

© Slav Krivoshiev

Author of the “Mythological Constructivism” concept – a style in the modern art.  “The 21st century world is marked with active globalization processes in which a very important part is taken by the intercultural contacts. Through the language of the visual arts we build and share thought constructions, laying in our cultural archetype and defined by the instruments of the modern civilization. Realizing it or not, we are taking part and creating the myth of the global person. Each act of art is a part of the whole, part of the common story for us, the humanity, in the globalization era. This is why the sign of the new age is the Mythological constructivism which is made by us – doesn’t matter if we want it or not.”   S. Krivoshiev

Visit Slav Krivoshiev's website

http://slavkk.in.gallerix.ru/

Artspan. Visual Language Magazine Studio Visit with Elizabeth Chapman

ADVENTURE...in one word that would be how I would describe my love for painting abstracts.  There is the original inspiration or spark that sets the whole process in motion, with the belief that a wonderful work of art will emerge, yet navigating without a plan. Think going on a vacation without an agenda! The challenge is in responding to each new element that emerges on the canvas, capturing a sense of beauty through the use of color, shape, line, values and texture. Realizing that this is all but a glimpse of the bigger picture.

© Elizabeth Chapman

As a modern abstract expressionistic painter, I work intuitively quickly making decisions as I am painting with each new mark leading to the next idea. The initial inspiration for a painting can come from many different sources, but once begun, following the creative flow is important to me.  My work is always in the process of evolving as I grow as an artist. Many times the hardest part of this growth is in the letting go.

I’ve always loved art. A strong passion for creating my own art begun and grew during the years that I worked as a high school art teacher. Through the encouragement of others I began to see the artist within me. Intuitively, I knew that I was an artist first and foremost. This required a huge step in faith in order to pursue working independently as an artist and to believe in myself.

© Elizabeth Chapman

A verse from God’s word that was given to me in those first days and is still tacked to my studio board, spoke to my heart in strengthening me for the task. It reads: Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plum line in Zerubbabel’s hand.  Zechariah 4:10  I am often lifted up by these words- in that they speak to me about using the talents that have been given to us. Success is in realizing the way that each of us are made and in working to the best of our abilities.

I am very thankful for the support I have received from my family, friends, fellow artists and last but certainly not least those who have financially invested in my efforts. For all these people have played a role in supporting the arts.

“It brings me much joy just to be the brush in the Master Painter’s hand and to realize that His creations are made to bring great joy to all.”  Elizabeth Chapman.

http://melizabethchapman.artspan.com/