Attending to the Sketchbook

I've been daydreaming alot lately in my sketchbook.

However, as I start to fall pretty deep into the rabbit hole and lose sense of the impending end to the summer- I have to keep poking my head out into reality for air - and I thought what better time to share some details of pages with you. These sketches are all unfinished and these photos are pretty shabby and taken with my cell phone...when they're finished I'll post better, clearer and protected images.

This is a sketch of the winner of the television show 'So You Think You Can Dance' doing a dance number while I paused the recording.

an idea of who is more animal by m. diaz - do not use any images off of this site a sketchbk feeling by m.diaz

Considering my beast sketch by m.diaz

Reminder:

Images may not be used off of this site with out explicit request, However independent bloggers may use no more than 2 images and must please give credit and link back to this site. Thank You.

thinking of Yemaya sketch by m. diaz

Hope you enjoyed this little wacky mind-meld with me and that you come back to see and read more about living an off beat ART full life.

Ciao -Amarettogirl

Illustrations for Two More Pen Pals and Indie shop Owners!

Ok so hopefully I could get back to doing some artwork for the exhibit coming up and stop being distracted by the urge to draw for my pen pals since these are the last two on my list!

Just call me the 'Queen of Procrastination' (though wouldn't it be cool to have a whole solo show on pen pal illustrations tee-hee) just kidding. Seriously I have to get serious...but for now here is some fun stuff.Little Illo for my penpal Marcie owner of Redstarink by m.diaz

First we have Marcie who owns a wonderful paper printing co. named REDSTARINK which you must see! My typography-fan readers will appreciate her clean, organized design aesthetic and her products to help you live more efficiently!
As you can see I reversed the words star and ink in my illo - hope Marcie doesn't mind the play with the words.

Then we have Bri who makes gorgeous head bands with butterflies and/or flowers- you need to check out her blog at Little Miss Famous to see! All my hipster lady friends will so want to buy one of those!

Little Illo for my penpal Bri owner of Little Miss Famous and maker of butterfly headbands by m.diaz

Well thats that for today. Thanks to all the wonderful responses I got to the last pen pal post about what kind of cupcake you would be if you were one- I got such creative and revealing answers!! And reader Emi found a seriously thorough what kind of cupcake would you be quiz that you should totally try.

Its hard to rival such a great q&a session but lets try...so in keeping with the cupcake you said you would be in the last pen pal post what would the ideal drink with which to accompany your cupcake be if one were consuming you?

P.S. It's not to late to join the April 4th Basket Giveaway Raffle! For some of us Spring Break has started and the challenge to stop by has just become more difficult so your chances of winning are actually good! Just comment on every post since the GIVEAWAY post AND be sure to leave a NUMBER on your last comment on April 4th before 9pm!!

Sweet Illustrations for My Penpals

Here are two illustrations for two out of my now four penpals from my Indie 2.o class!

Samia's Illustraion my Holland based Pen-pal, by m. diaz

I did this one by hand as a quick illo in my sketchbook and decided to keep it for Samia's letter.

For Salmezan, I decided to play with a cupcake drawing I did in my sketchbook that I scanned into photoshop. I layered the background with collaged digi pics and placed in a font that I later hand outlined. It came out a bit too green,but I still like it.

An Illo for my London based penpal Salmezan by m.diaz

So here's a silly question for you! If you were a cupcake what kind of cupcake would you be?

Let me hear about your filling as well as your topping. For example you might be a chocolate cupcake with ganache and raspberry filling and pink icing,or you might be red velvet cupcake with butter cream icing. Do you have any sprinkles or a cherry on top?
Be creative, you're a cupcake!

P.S. It's not to late to join the April 4th Basket Giveaway Raffle! Just comment on every post since the GIVEAWAY post AND be sure to leave a NUMBER on your last comment on April 4th before 9pm!!! We've decided we will VIDEO TAPE the number drop through the bingo cage to reveal our HONEST attempt to fairly choose a winner!

NYC Weekend Edition- Artist Gregg Emery at Azucarera Gallery

This Friday night, August 21st, at 7pm Artist Gregg Emery (a.k.a. my husband) will be exhibiting a show entitled The Drawn Line -On Reading The Human Soul. The Azucarera gallery is located at 414 W. 145th St. (basement) between Convent Ave. and St. Nicholas Ave., Harlem - if you're around stop by!!!

Cynosure by Gregg Emery

Some of you may remember when I wrote a blog post on Gregg and his work and I urge any of you curious about him and his process to check out that old post here! As a special treat the exhibit will also have a wall dedicated to his phenomenal gestural figure drawings from his numerous sketchbooks.

figure drawing by artist Gregg Emery

And for an EXTRA special treat for those who follow my work - Gregg and I collaborated on a piece entitled Fleeting Seedling and you can see that complete painting only at the exhibit - but here is a detail shot of my work. Come to the opening to see the whole thing!!!

detail of Fleeting Seedling Collaborative Painting by marisol diaz and Gregg Emery

Art House Sketchbook Event!!

Spread from My Arthouse sketchbook click HERE (or scroll down) to see it

The Arthouse Sketchbook Brooklyn event was this past Friday on the last day of school before our Spring break. And what a day that was...but that's another story. It was a beautiful way to end the day as we (my husband fellow artist Gregg Emery and I) accompanied our student Colin (who is also an artist featured in the sketchbook event) to the Brooklyn opening by public transportation from New Jersey. At the last moment, we were joined by two of our other art students, Ji Min and Nicole. What an adventure it was to take the bus, subway and walk through Brooklyn's warehouse district with our students in such a spontaneous, unplanned and informal trip.

All of us at 175th Train StationThe ArtHouse Event was at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn

The Arthouse Event was sponsored by 3rd Ward Creative Space in Brooklyn, NY. 3rd ward is an amazing space with art facilities from wood to computer center available for use by the public. There were over 2500 international participants in the sketchbook event. When we arrived there was already a major crowd spilling out onto the street, music blaring, and sketchbooks galore being perused.

Our three students checking out sketchbooksfolks checking out Colin's sketchbook

As soon as we realized how the sketchbooks were being displayed - simply laid out to be handled and traded we knew finding any of our own would be like finding a needle in a haystack, but we tried anyway. By a stroke of luck, Colin immediately spotted some folks checking out his sketchbook! He was overjoyed as they were commenting on how much they loved it!!

Colin peeking through an uber-creative sketchbookMy sweet cousins, Tai Tai and Kas came to the show too! ready to check out some art!Another amazingly creative sketchbook!We met up with some co-workers and alumni (students of ours from 1999 and 2000!)There were so many varied responses to the Everyone I know theme...it was mesmerizing!Sketchbook spread by artist Duncan Reid - my favorite sketchbook of the night.

So thanks for tagging along to our Art house sketchbook event in Brooklyn! Hope you are as inspired as we were when we left...we were so hungry we got off the subway in Manhattan and had some Gray's Papaya before heading back up to Jersey!

Art House Co-Op Sketchbook Complete-

all the images for the Art House Sketchbook project in a mosaic

Well here is a slightly zoomed in version of the completed sketchbook for the Art House Co-op Sketchbook volume 3 exhbit- just in time to run to the post office and have it postmarked by the deadline. The next time I do this I think I'll start well before two and half weeks (its easy to underestimate the amount of spreads -there were over thirty- in one of those little moleskines!)

If you would like to see the sketchbook in person (along with hundreds of other amazing sketchbooks) this is the list of cities the Sketchbook Volume 3 Exhibit will travel to around the US:

EVENT at Art House Gallery Feb 27th, 2009 Atlanta, GA The Sketchbook Project Tour - Atlanta Over 2,700 sketchbooks from around the globe.

EVENT at Museum of Contemporary Art DC March 3, 2009Washington, DC The Sketchbook Project Tour - Washington, DC Over 2,700 sketchbooks from around the globe.

EVENT at Chris' Jazz Cafe March 4, 2009Philadelphia, PA The Sketchbook Project Tour - Philadelphia Over 2,700 sketchbooks from around the globe.

EVENT at Laconia Gallery March 6, 2009Boston, MA The Sketchbook Project Tour - Boston Over 2,700 sketchbooks from around the globe.

EVENT at Antena Gallery March 8, 2009Chicago, IL The Sketchbook Project Tour - Chicago Over 2,700 sketchbooks from around the globe.

EVENT at Soulard Art Market March 11, 2009St. Louis, MO The Sketchbook Project Tour - St. Louis Over 2,700 sketchbooks from around the globe.

EVENT at 3rd Ward March 13, 2009Brooklyn, NY The Sketchbook Project Tour - Brooklyn Over 2,700 sketchbooks from around the globe.

EVENT at Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) April 2, 2009Atlanta, GA The Sketchbook Project Tour - Atlanta Over 2,700 sketchbooks from around the globe.