Inspiration, Repetition, Meditation and Illustration

Thank you to everyone who supported the launch and debut of the Little Red Wolf line this past week...all you fans will be getting much more info and I know many are anticipating the internet reveal which I am preparing as I write this post for the new 2012 year! Both my hand illustrated pillows sold to wonderful homes :)

Earlier this week while working in a frenzy on my new artistically altered clothing line one of my students shared this amazing video (below) by Miguel Endara with me. As an artist the documentation, content and stipple technique is worth the watch alone, but as an educator - the artist's answering of questions and sharing of information is as much gold as the video - so I have included them here as well all the questions and answers after the video are his.
Over all this stuff is inspirational, revealing of the time and energy that could be invested into creating a single portrait and...its a pretty good inadvertent ad campaign for micron pens as well...lol!

So while I'm on my self-love retreat this week and getting ready to debut my Little Red Wolf Artistically Altered clothing line to the world wide web for the new year... enjoy this post!

OH AND BTW!!! I have been receiving wonderful suggestions for my soul-gutted doll's name. I will be making a decision by the end of this week and giving the person whose name for the doll that I choose, a signed picture of the doll!! So someone will receive a holiday gift and YOU STILL have time to submit name ideas (just click on post a comment on the name that doll.

Hero from Miguel Endara on Vimeo.

The making of "Hero," a drawing of my dad composed entirely out of 3.2 million ink dots.

Music by Bonobo - Noctuary
Created, Filmed, Produced and Edited by Miguel Endara
www.miguelendara.com

Update:
I am so overwhelmed! I can't begin to thank you enough for the wonderful comments you all have given me in the past 4 days. I truly did not anticipate such a tremendous volume of traffic, but I am pleased to see that there is a new and rapidly growing interest in the art technique known as stippling. There are many other stippling artists out there who deserve just as much recognition as I do, if not more, so please please continue to investigate this unique form of pen and ink art.

FAQ:
How did you count all the dots?
The number of dots is an approximation, not an exact number. But it's a very very close approximation. I filmed myself in just about every section of my drawing and got an average of 4.25 dots per second. That translated into 3,213,000 dots if you multiplied that by 210 hours, which is what I logged in for the entire drawing. Because I know it can't be exactly accurate, and because I think I might be off just a few thousand dots or so, I rounded it off to an even 3.2 million.

How long did this take?
I logged in exactly 210 hours of just stippling, but it took nearly one full year to complete from start to finish.

How many pens did you use?
Just one! I had many pens as backup, but I never had to use any of them. Go Sakura!

So, is this a Sakura Pigma Micron advertisement?
Absolutely not. They were not a part of the production of this video in any way.

What camera and software did you use?
All shots were done using the Canon EOS Rebel T1i (18-55 mm standard lens), and edited/rendered in After Effects CS4.

What equipment did you use for those panning shots and time-lapses?
I built all of my camera sliders and tracks using pvc pipes and rubber wheels that can be found in any local home improvement store. If you'd like to see how I built them, send me a message and I can send over some pictures of what they look like.

Is this piece for sale?
The original for "Hero" is currently not for sale, but the limited edition prints will be very soon. You can find out more information on this link: http://miguelendara.com/prints

Do you have more artwork?
Yes. But not too many. Because stippling is an extremely time-expensive process, I do not have a large collection of art pieces. More can be seen on my site at www.miguelendara.com.

Thank you all for the continued support!

Artist Assistantship with the De La Torre Brothers in Ensenada, Mexico

"Creativity is the defeat of habit by originality."-Arthur Koestler

This is the perfect quote to surmise my summer thus far. It implies taking a wet rag to the set ingrained dirty lines of dust on your windshield and wiping them clean of routine, it implies an end to the repetitiveness and turning your life inside out and upside down by taking a 6 hour flight and landing into undetermined circumstances...to endure something new, something unadulterated and fresh - never before witnessed by your sensory powers. Hence something original is born.

I was super fortunate this summer to be asked/selected by the my long time prof glass artist friends, the De La Torre Brothers, to assist them with their work for three weeks this summer.

And so after kissing my fam goodbye, flying into San Diego and driving down to Baja California, I am finally here. And I am loving the wine region, fish port land, the people, the spanglish and the creative studio gig! The flora and fauna is absolutely stunning...I'm mesmerized. I feel like the ranch we are stationed on is right out of a Georgia O'Keefe movie. So I thought I'd share some vignettes of my beautiful trip so far- oh n my trailer...I hope you like!!

Creatively Invoking The New Year with Sorority, Intention, Incantations, Stitchery & Felt

All of Us CC's photo taken by Erin with Annamaria's Camera- thanks Erin!

I was fortunate this New Year's eve to have an opportunity to get together with a portion of my CREATIVELY CONSCIOUS Sisters (some of the original collection of women from my women's art retreat this past summer) and do a crafty version of a New Year's Invocation.

My gift to the women were little precut and personalized embroidered heart sachets that had charms, wishes and love stitched onto them.

One of the unsewn, unsealed, unstuffed New Years sachets I made for the Ladies of CC

As part of the process, I had each woman consider what the people, places and things that impede their daily dreams and goals are and on that sheet of paper physically write and name those things as what I like to call our 'Chief Censors'.

Beginning the incantation photo by CC Sharon

After that we wrote down what our deepest desire was for this up and coming new year...not so much a resolution but more something we wanted to see realized and manifested in our lives.

I wanted us to ritualistically experience a metaphor for being released by that chief censor into action towards our deepest desire. So I brought a stainless steel bowl in which to individually 'torch' the chief censor and watch it burn into ash and into the ether while asking to be released from it verbally. Our Burning Bowl photo by CC Sharon

We rolled up our our deepest desire and placed it along with stuffing and fragrant filling into the core of our heart sachet. Each woman went through the process of physically stitching her deepest desire into her heart....

the unstuffed sachet I made for CC Kesha CC Kesha Sewing her sachetCC Khadine Sewing her sachet CC's Khadine & Sharon working on their sachet's together CC Annamaria's sachet The Other side of CC Annamaria's Sachet

"Wishing you all a wonderful New Year!!"-Amarettogirl

Creatively Conscious Women's Art Retreat Continued For the Holidays!

My womens art gathering from back in August (Click HERE to see the post about it)has continued and is giving birth to some new opportunities! Sharon will be hosting another one (a Ceramics one) next and hopefully with some deliberate intentions on my part we will have our over night retreat soon! We need to name ourselves still, but so far Creatively Conscious has stuck!

Sharon reading her quote Busy Bees - Mandi, Linda and Esther (my momma) Kesha working on her design Sharon working on a silkscreen with glitter Sharon's card The Art & Design Girls (highschool mates)

Altered Book Pages

This weekend I get to start my holiday vacation with a blast- the continuum of my Creatively Conscious Ladies Art Class! During our last August Retreat day we started Altered Books, which can be very much like a sketchbook or more highly resolved pieces of art. I just realized there are many pages of which I never shared here- so I thought it seemed to be a fine time to do so.

My altered book cover by m.diaz Altered Pagealtered page by m.diaz matador altered pages by m.diaz Barren Queen altered page 1 by m.diazBarren Queen altered page2 by m.diaz altered page by m.diaz Ausencia altered page by m.diazRue de Reves altered page by m.diaz

Would have been nice if I would have shown you what the book looked like before I messed with it! Well hope you enjoy!

Ciao- Amarettogirl

On How to Be ALONE...

For all my creatively conscious readers, here's a bit of inspiration of a different sort. Folks often ask how I do much of all the things I tend to busy myself with. Well it is true that I am childless and while that certainly helps... I also know how to be alone with myself.

So my bro Orph just hooked me up with a video he knew was totally me and he was so right!

If you have only four minutes and thirty five second- this video is worth every iota of it.

A video by filmaker, Andrea Dorfman, and poet/singer/songwriter, Tanya Davis. Davis wrote the beautiful poem and performed in the video which Dorfman directed, shot, animated by hand and edited. The video was shot in Halifax, Nova Scotia and was produced by Bravo!FACT http://www.bravofact.com/

Enjoy! and Ciao I'm off to see the new Harry Potter Movie...wink wink