Summer 2012

      I had a great summer this year! I am very excited about moving into the Fall.  The change of weather brings a fresh crispness to the air.  Before moving on though, I wanted to post some memories of this summer to let you know a little more about me and what I do when I am not painting.  I hope you enjoy!

My wife Cara and me hanging out at our friend's house.  A Sunday treat!

I work at Starbucks in Charlotte.  I have been with the company since February of 2008.  My favorite drink is my custom "Grande, 3 pump Chai, 1 pump Pumpkin, Soy, No Water, extra foam, Stirred to perfection, add chocolate sprinkles, dolce sprinkles, and pumpkin spice sprinkles, ... Chai Latte"  I'm a mad scientist at work. :)

A street lamp in Miami I found very interesting.

My family likes to play 'Settlers of Catan'! This is my Cool Brother Christian.  Happy 21st birthday soon!

Cara and I went on vacation to Miami Florida with my parents and brother Christian.  My "big splash" attempts proved to repel other resort swimmers... Hehehe... :)

The big white building is where we live.  This is a picture we took when coming home one evening this summer.

Early in the summer our friend Abby was about to have her first baby! Brittany and Cara helped with the photo shoot. 

This is Benjamin Dirk Richardson.  Isaac and Abby's beautiful first born.  Congratulations!

In only a few weeks, Benjamin is growing fast! 

Cara and I went to the Cabarrus County Fair with friends a couple weeks ago. 

I showed the trash talking fair vendor who was boss! I threw a baseball through his beer bottles and won my Lady a prized red panther! :) Fun!

My friend Josh and I at the beach just before summer came! We couldn't wait!

Brittany and Cara when we went out to dinner at the beach.

The four of us (Josh, his wife Brittany, Cara and I) went mini golfing while on vacation in Orange Beach, Alabama.

Thanks!

Heaven's Many Lights!

This painting breaks into new territory for me.  I have been researching famous quotes and poems, all the while feeling dissatisfied with my findings.  No famous poem or writing really fit how I was feeling or what I wanted to say with this work.

So I thought...

Then I wrote a poem for myself.  From my memories, I laid a line of thought for the viewer to travel down when experiencing this work of art.

The Poem reads:

     With closed eyes

     the soft sound of breeze through the leaves

     crackle of the fire

     warmth of the glow

     leaning back

     with opening eyes

     Heaven's many lights!

     Reminds me of a time

     when our fingers touched

     and fusion lit a star.

Each line of the poem is written in gold, on gold lines connected to the compass in the top right corner.

This map is also stretched over a cork board panel so that the viewer can pin the places he or she wants to travel to or has already returned from.  There is a very small gold heart over Charlotte, NC. My home city.

In Search of Treasure!

"In Search of Treasure"... A reoccurring day dream of mine.

I learned a few lessons from the last map that my wife Cara and I painted together.

We had some friends over Sunday evening and it amazed me at how subjective art really is.  I asked what seemed to be strait forward questions, and inevitably everyone would confidently answer... differently.

So what did I learn then?
Consistency, unity, cohesiveness, selective variety, sensitivity.

All these terms are a book unto themselves to an artist.  My goal in this series is to create a series of interactive maps that integrate line-work, color, and... gold, into every work.  Why gold?  Because every time I think of a map I think that the maker of the map was trying to show the viewer a treasure if only the viewer were clever enough to discover its secrets.

I have for years collected gold and silver coins and old bills.  Why? It began because my Uncle Mark started my younger brother a quarter collection in 2000.  Year 2000 was when the quarters first began having the states represented on their reverse.  The face or Obverse side stayed the same, but variety was introduced in the minting and over the years, the quarters have continued to expand beyond the 50 states and onward to the territories and such.  Interesting as it was in the beginning for me, I moved on to bigger value coins and developed my collection from there.

In 2007 I had an amazing idea! (At least to me).

When Cara and I have children around the age of 8 or so, I will send them to the attic or basement to find something trivial like a flashlight or something we haven't touched in years.  Little will they know I have hidden a map somewhere nearby but out of plane sight.  This map they find will be an apparently old map.  This map however will lead to a very real, and by then, quite valuable, Treasure.  My idea is that they will come to me and Cara to show us what they've found, and I will act like its fake, so that they will be all the more interested to search it out to find out the truth.

Children love the idea of being the first to discover something even if it was man made...   Some of us never grew up... :)

This interest of mine, in treasure maps, and making memories, has motivated this series in a very different way than other projects in the past.

Here is an image of my second map in the process of being painted.  This time the map will have a blue background.  My thought is that when laying gold leaf on top of the deep blue paint, the contrast will be far greater than the previous map on neutral brown tones.

Thank you Cara for taking and editing the picture!

A joint 'Ad'Venture

     My beautiful wife Cara and I love spending time together.   We often enjoy finding ways to improve our home by discussing our interests, and putting our ideas into action. One of our interests in life is travel.

     Just the word 'Travel' brings joyful imaginations to mind that inspire us both to act. We know we may not be able to fly away like a bird just yet, but we can express our interests exactly where we are now... at home.

     So Cara and I were bouncing ideas back and forth with one another. I was wanting to paint a world map by hand, and she had the genius to make it interactive! I said How?

     "By stretching the canvas painting of the world map over a cork board backing, we can not only have a painting of the world map, but we can put in map pins where we have been and draw out a plan of where we want to go." (Cara)  That way anytime we get back from a new place, we can add another pin and dream all over again. Each pin represents memories of shared experiences that can never be taken away. So without any further a-du, here is what we made. :)

My Class sign up is ready!

I wrote recently about a class I will be teaching at Donna Downey Studios in Huntersville.  The sign up is now ready online at:

http://www.donnadowney.com/studio-workshops/transformation-workshop-september-15th-10am-2pm.html

The "Transformation Workshop" is a 4 hour class for beginners to intermediate painters who want to come without any supplies in hand and leave with a painting.  This first class you will be painting on this:

You can paint it any way you want!  All supplies are included.  you don't have to worry about a thing!  You are welcome to bring a bagged lunch or order delivery from any of the local restaurants!

I framed my finished product and it is at Donna Downey Studios now advertising the class.

The class is $50.00 for 4 hours, all supplies, and a beautiful custom painting of your very own to take home and frame if you wish. Saturday September 15th, 2012 from 10am - 2pm.

I will continue to expand the line, so if birds aren't your thing, soon you will be able to choose from many other themes like: World cities, World landmarks (natural and man made), other animals, and abstract patterns!

I hope to hear form you soon!

Stephen

Check out my previous blog to see How I painted the painting!
http://stephenlursen.blogspot.com/2012/08/before-and-after-ii.html

Friday Night Art Event

I am excited to be a part of Donna Downey's Art Crawl tonight at Donna Downey Studios in Huntersville, NC 28078.

The event is from 7pm - 10pm.  Please feel free to drop by to check out the art, studio space, and get to know the teachers of the upcoming classes.

For more information, please check out the website at: http://www.donnadowney.com/studio

I look forward to meeting new people tonight!

Sincerely,
Stephen

Before and After II

Before and After #2

I recently started a project where I painted an image from which to begin.  Millions of artists do this, so you may ask: "so what? how is this different?" It is different because I create my starting points  by collage, drawing, and painting to create an image to scan.  I scan the original at over 300 dpi to ensure high resolution printing.  Next is printing said image onto primed canvas sheets via a simple inkjet printer.

My task is to produce a product from which any would-be artist can begin.

One of my professors at Winthrop University once said "there is nothing new under the sun, there are no new art pieces that can't be related to another previous artist or category of artists.  Even if the concept is completely original, the end product, if created via traditional means (drawing, painting) on traditional substrates (canvas or panel) will ultimately fall into a category along with other artists even if it's based on general terms and qualities of art." Here's the kicker: "The only thing that makes a piece of art original is you, what you bring to it, what comes from within your heart and mind outward in your own form of expression." This is one way of explaining honesty in art.  It is what separates honest art from derivative art, where one sees someone else's art and says to one's self, "I could do something like that!"

So at first glance, you may think, What hypocrisy! You are causing every individual to begin from the same point! Thereby creating a culture of derivative art! To that I say you have missed the point entirely...

When everyone has the exact same beginnings, but no two ends are the same, my point about honest art is exemplified in their differences.  This is a lesson that encourages any beginner artist to follow their own heart in the art they create.  Furthermore, they will learn to appreciate the unique qualities that are found in their own art. Qualities which are found in no one else's.  These are the qualities that are original.

So without any further a-du here is my before and after picture for you to see where I took the beginning point.  I thought the poem in the background reminded me of a bed-time story, so I enveloped the character in a starry night.

2nd paintable canvas print

Here is the 2nd paintable Canvas print in my line.

The text background is meant as a texture.  My "before and after" picture coming soon!

New Opportunity

I have been given a new opportunity to teach and I am very excited about it!  I will be teaching in September at Donna Downey Studios in Huntersville, NC.

About a month ago I celebrated my two year anniversary with my wonderful wife Cara.  We spent a portion of the day painting together.  Her favorite thing right now to look at is bird art, so to peak her interest in the painting project we purchased a few inexpensive bird prints on canvas.  We bought them with the intention of painting over them to transform them into our very own bird paintings.

Since we purchased art that was intended on being finished, we could paint however little or much we wanted and at any point it could be resolved.  So we agreed to just paint over the birds and a few details, but leave the background so as to save time.

This project, paired with the opportunity to teach got me thinking...

Many people out there who are interested in art, would love to hang their very own painting in their home, but don't know where to start.  Buying a white canvas and art supplies leaves someone like this uninspired and ultimately unproductive.  

I am creating a line of canvases that give the artist a solid starting point.  After painting over the canvas print, they can hang their very own painting in their home with pride.  Here is the first example.  This is a before and after example of what someone can do on my canvas prints.

You can paint whatever you want, however you want.  What would you come up with?  If you are interested in a canvas, just let me know.

Thanks,

Stephen

Art updates July 2012

Over the last 10 days I have been able to deliver a couple paintings.  I wanted to add pictures of what the art looks like on the walls of their new homes.

The first is an oil painting on canvas of poppies.  3' x 3' x 3" deep.  Standard poppies have a dark center, but I took the liberty of brightening up the middle to make the overall image brighter.  The underpainting is a cool blue color scheme which can be seen around the edges of the flower petals.

The next painting is a framed 6' x 4' x 2" deep oil painting on acrylic, on canvas.  I usually paint the under painting in acrylic because it allows me to paint the complete image with very little drying time.  After the base image is laid down, I choose to use oil paint because it is much more forgiving thanks to its long drying time.  Another benefit of the slow drying time is that oil paint is much more easy to blend to create custom colors.  Often times when one artist looks at the work of another artist, we can almost immediately tell when colors have been mixed or used straight from the tube.

The image of a mountain scene in the fall was painted from a photograph, but the rays of light were my own personal addition.  I believe is activates the space and draws the eye to move around.  The sun is certainly in a nontraditional location as far as focal points go, but it works and I am proud of it.

My favorite part of the painting is the top section where the light is coming through the leaves.

     In the same house as the Poppy painting, two other paintings of mine hang.  When the owners saw the painting of mine which hangs in the Starbucks at East blvd. in Charlotte.  They wanted their own version.  This painting was my first attempt at painting light through branches and leaves.  Mondrian's paintings focused on the negative space (the space in-between the lines) especially in his earlier landscapes.  Seeing his work helped me to see my own in a different light.

Thank you for reading!

Sincerely,

Stephen Lursen

7/30/2012