Modern Mixed Media

That's the title of a DVD I watched today. It's from American Artist. The Artist is Marshall Arisman. This was a 2 hour demo. He started by sculpting his subject (taken from a photo of a chimpanzee) out of paper mache. Reminds me that Frances just did a piece mounted on wood of three horses of paper mache over staples, to help hold it to the wood. Anyway back to Arisman. This part was quite interesting. Dusty and messy, but interesting. He made that glob come to life very quickly. It was hard to believe how few moves he made to get the facial features and shape turn into the "monkey". His whole dialogue during this segment were very interesting and I found him quite charming. Then he did a drwing of the same subject with a comb and india ink. Then another drawing but I nodded off about then and missed most of that segment. Finally he goes to oil paints, and this was really interesting. First he builds a texture on his canvas. When he applies paints, he does not use either a palette knife or brush. He also does not use a palette. He squeezes his paints directly onto the canvas and than works them in, blends them, etc with his hands. Fingers, palms, side of the hand, and a few cloths to wipe away excesses. OMG Talk about dirty hands. I'm afraid I would not want my hands covered with oil paints, so I won't be doing this. But I did find the process interesting. Then he applies gold leaf and more paints. All in all it was a good experience, and I enjoyed it. I do not give it a high rating for mixed media artists. Most of the ones I know personally would not get a lot out of it. But, for a rainy day - it was interesting and I know I"ll be thinking about it for a long time. And, I"ll go back and replay the part I missed and also the gold leafing parts again. Why dont' you google him and look at the images he's created.