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Welcome to my Blog. My adventure in 21st century. - Melanie Hickerson

Sunday, December 28, 2014

TWO MORE POTRAITS FOR THE HOLIDAYS

This is Ayden from December 26, 2014, Boxing Day.


And his sister, Carmyn. They like those "y"s in that family.

Monday, December 22, 2014

PORTRAIT SKETCH

I did a portrait sketch of the granddaughter of my good friend, Jean Williams. Isabel was a good model.


Wednesday, December 17, 2014

NEW EXHIBIT IN FEBRUARY


I think, it looks like I may have a new exhibit in February at Mill and Leaf, The Arboretum, in Austin. Chalda Maloff has a wonderful exhibit there now as Featured Artist.


These are small paintings on gessoboard by Ampersand.

Saturday, December 13, 2014

SOME OF MY BRILLIANT STUDENTS

The Drawing II students had a semester project of "Draw four things, of your choice, 50 times".
Yes the same four objects and four of the drawings need to be quality renditions. The other 46 can be doodles, play, fooling around.



 Marcy Villafana with a couple of her starfish compositions.



Here is Katie Sutton with a couple of hers.

Life Drawing Students were assigned life size skeletons with the bones labeled. The skeleton had to be doing something, not straight from the anatomy book.


Joseph Brandimarte with his composition.

Armando DeLara with his seated skeleton.

Rhiann Rice with her back view of the skeleton.

Katie Sutton is in both of my classes.

Erin McRae had a sexy skeleton.

This is not ALL of my students, just a sample.



Thursday, December 4, 2014

CITY HALL - THE PEOPLE'S GALLERY, 2015

Hooray! One of my paintings has been accepted for the People's Gallery Exhibit, 2015, at Austin City Hall. The Opening will be Friday, February 27, 2015, 6-9PM. Ya'll come! 

This painting has been exhibited at Ceres in NY, NY; at the Old Bakery and Emporium in Austin, TX, and at ACC Cypress Campus, Cedar Park, TX. 

 MOM AT NURSING HOME WINDOW, 36" x 24" 

Saturday, November 29, 2014

SALT - NEW PAINTING

CrazyCarl was talking about geothermal energy from salt domes, my brothers', Russ and Brooks, patent and paper on hot salt. CC thought I could use my digital art class to make an illustration of the idea. I looked online and there were a lot of illustrations, papers, graphs, patents besides my brothers'.  It reminded me of swimming in the brine pits.
This painting is only 9" x 12". It is hard to show the buoyancy of swimming in 98% saturated brine.  I've started another painting  36" x 48".
Thinking about hot salt and energy generation.




Wednesday, November 26, 2014

AUTUMN - FINALLY

Walking around the neighborhood Monday, the trees are finally turning!!Texas Fall is pretty tame. (The live oaks stay green through the winter.)




Saturday, November 22, 2014

AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN

I sent out PR packets, "For Immediate Release", to all the Central Texas outlets I could find; TV, print, radio. the websites for media listings were a muddle for me but I tried them also. The newspaper, Austin American Statesman, bless them, has listed the OBE exhibit last week, the week before, this week, too! I don't have a TV so I really don't know about that.


Thursday, November 20, 2014

SOLD ART

I picked up the sold artworks today.




 I will be picking up the unsold work on Wed. Dec. 3 with assistance from Armando deLara, one of my students. It is peculiar to see these paintings the same size on the computer. The monochrome DAD, is 4" square. MOM'S FLOWERS is 24" x 36". Big difference!

stop-ACTION ANIMATION

My first attempt at stop-action animation in Digital Art class is so simple compared to clay-mation! Not my cup of tea and I still have difficulty with the simple steps.


Friday, November 14, 2014

OOPS! I FORGOT THIS ONE

I forgot about this painting! Named MOM, 16" x 20". I didn't get it in the show!

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

ART TALK

 Stacy, Phoebe, and Ravi on a cold morning at Old Bakery and Emporium.
 That's me and Lynn and Marcie.
 Cards and Flowers by the entrance.
 This painting, LOVE has a nice white wall.
 This painting called 1956 (WEST TEXAS) has some of its studies displayed nearby.
THANK YOU to all who came to the Artist Talk. Thank you to OBE for their hospitality event. At least 15 people showed up and asked questions. Lynn brought flowers!

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

CRITIQUE ON THURSDAY!!!

In Digital Art I, critique on Thursday, November 13. I'm lacking two projects in "double exposure". Double Exposures were so easy in the days of film, Kodacolor. They were a buggaboo that haunted our vacations and reunions. NOW I am going bonkers trying to imitate that phenomenon.
One successful, so far.



Artist talk on Wednesday. That's like a critique, isn't it? Golda brought me FLOWERS at the reception. I didn't get a photo of Golda OR the Flowers but here is Barbara Bogart with MOM AT NURSING HOME WINDOW.

And here is me and Bobbie with MOM'S FLOWERS, a painting that sold and has a New Home!





Saturday, November 8, 2014

RECEPTION

 Gaye and I with the Painting, LIFE. 

Good attendance at the reception last night. It was great to see old friends and New. A fellow student, Golda,  from the digital art class came and brought flowers! Friends I have not seen in years came.  FUN! FUN FEST was going on in Austin also which contributed to traffic.

I will be giving an Artist Talk at 10:15 on Wednesday morning. Come with Questions!

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

SEVENTEEN ARTWORKS



Paintings are all wrapped up for the trip across town. NOT like packing for shipping. Seventeen artworks wrapped. Bedsheets, glassine, bubble wrap and lots of tape plus replacing screweyes with D-rings. Why? They want D-rings. I think it is to keep from damaging other works. But if you stack back to back, front to front, it should all be okay. I didn't get enough D-rings. Oops!

More.

And more with my dog and #1 assistant, Foxy, and an old Self portrait of self screaming. Perfect. 

So I worked on cricket cards to calm down and get perspective.Like Austin Kleon in STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST advises - side projects!







Saturday, October 25, 2014

CRAZY CARL FILM

My brother CrazyCarl is featured in a documentary at the Austin Film Festival. First showing is Sat. Oct 25, 2 PM at the Long Center, Rollins Theater . There will be another showing on Thursday, Oct. 30 at the Village Alamo Theater, on Anderson Lane.

http://austinfilmfestival2014.sched.org/event/13cf4d0029903e2a5e3bd1711e9d22e5#.VEvITWd4CSo

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

BERNIE CARRENO/HERSCHALL SPRADLEY

Bernie Carreno is a sculptor. He will have wall pieces in addition to free standing work. Hershall Spradley is exhibiting photos on canvases from his trip to Africa.

<www.berniecarreno.net>


Sunday, October 19, 2014

WOMEN WHO PAINT ON WALLS



FREE TO A GOOD HOME!
 An amazing artwork that is 46 feet long and 12 feet wide.

I have decided that I am going to sell the property in Bastrop County where this structure is stored.

Mom's trailer house is no longer a mobile home. It is an artwork. It is 12 feet by 46 feet. A reliable friend came out and looked at it. He said that the floors (and ceiling) are in good shape. It's the walls or rather the corners where the walls meet the horizantals that are weak. That has been my observation. The doors are no good. So for moving, the only real option would be to put it on a flat bed semi trailer, reinforce somehow...box it.

It is disorienting to walk into this structure. It takes a moment to discern space. Many of these photographs were taken in 2008.  Ms Geraldine Hickerson (my mother) didn’t have the money to maintain the "physical plant" very well. She used paper mache’ for repairs. She painted the walls, the ceiling, the stove, refrigerator, bath tub, toilet, tables, chairs in acrylic paint interpreting famous works of art and inventing her own compositions.

The roof is in good shape.

It was moved to Paige TX  in February 1999 from Oltorf, Austin TX, where Geraldine Hickerson occupied it from about 1982.  It has not been hooked up to utilities since 1999. My brother Russell, gave the mobile home to Ms Hickerson. He bought it second hand. He had used it as station house/office at a brine well in West Texas.

It would be a great service to Mankind to preserve the artwork or at least some portion of it. I do not have the money to preserve or dismantle it.



 These are some exterior photos.
Interior 





Do you have any ideas?

My brother posted this link about painting the walls.
 

 http://intothehermitage.blogspot.com/2010/07/old-women-who-paint-on-their-walls_07.html

Thursday, October 16, 2014

BEE PAINTINGS

Some Bee Paintings for the exhibit/sale/fundraiser to save the bees. Our bees. Everyone's bees.


This one is 20" x 16". That is a big bee.

This one is 9" x 12" with gold leaf.
Then there is the BLUE BEE!



Monday, October 13, 2014

SAVE THE BEES EVENT

Art Opening! October 29th, 6-10pm! Omni Hotel – 701 Brazos!

Please join us at an amazing “Bee-centric” art show and help AHBPA save more honey bees! All artists in the show are local, and all the art is made in tribute the glorious bee and all that she does for our bee-utiful planet.
super-mock-up-FINAL-(1)Artists include:
Tony Romano
Scott Stevens
Bat Huerta
Liz potter
Melissa Mencini
Tina Sparkles
Haunted Farmgirl
Michael Merrit
Jason Tarver
Carol Lee Chase
Toasty Hancock
Christine Terrell
Laurel Stalla
Katie Rylander Cowden
Dale Detwiler
Daphne Holland
Sharon Smith
Jacqueline May
Anna Maul
Paul Drown
Lauren Jabon
Edmund Martinez

Entertainment will be provided by Future Sounds of Air Travel and Kathy McCarty (formerly of Glass Eye).
Come and celebrate the many triumphs and struggle of this extraordinary species!
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bee-the-change

Friday, October 10, 2014

NEW HOURS FOR OLD BAKERY AND EMPORIUM


 Old Bakery and Emporium has changed their hours of operation.Now Monday - Saturday, 10 AM - 4 PM.  Glad I stopped by yesterday. Also I had Bernie Carreno's name misspelled on my PR. Learning continues!!