Category: Uncategorized

  • Live Sketch, Bravo! Vancouver

    During Sunday’s amazing performance, I couldn’t resist sketching with  Doodle Buddy on my iPod touch. Maria Manzo, pianist, is also co-director of Bravo! Vancouver and a powerhouse presence.

    Small screen, big fingers – can’t get too precise, which is a perfect way to work in the moment.

    Bravo Concerts

  • Back to the studio: portrait painting workshop


     I’ve spent the past few weeks re-connecting with my oil paints, and took a workshop with Eduardo Fernandez, a gifted artist and excellent teacher.

     


    All images © Copyright Karen Jones 2010-2011 all rights reserved

  • Love my iPod Touch!

    For years I’ve yearned for affordable digital finger-painting, and found it at long last, with the Doodle Buddy app. It’s free and wonderful, and I especially love that each stamp has a unique and silly sound effect.



  • These crayons rock!

    Soy crayons, shaped like rocks. They’re delightful when worked to full intensity and pure saturation. Crayonrocks. I bought mine while browsing at Granny and Nonna’s in St. John’s. They make a great base or under-painting for alkyds on paper. After two days, this is still wet but so far the colors are holding true:

  • Collage

    It’s delightful to get out the glue and scissors, and work simply and intuitively without deadlines, goals, or concepts.


  • Bound

    I haven’t created anything sculptural for a while, beyond the occasional cardboard prototype for a handheld product design. I’d like to share an art project created in 2005 at OCAC for Attachments and Connections class. The assignment required us to use any types of cables, crimps, strapping, hanging, rivets, grommets, to wrap / hang / strap. Serendipity intervened to guide me to the library where I landed on a book on foot binding in China. This horrific practice began sometime around 800 AD and was outlawed in 1911, yet lingered in some remote provinces through the 1950′s.

    I wanted my object to illustrate the trauma inflicted on a woman to achieve the ideal 4 inch foot, while conveying an unsettling combination of dainty/petite/decorative and forced/mutilation/broken/aggressive. I drilled through the bottom of my size 8 clog, wove a cable through the toe and the heel, and pulled like hell with pliers, (assisted by brute strength of roommate) and secured it with a u-bolt. I created a new upper with painted and stitched Rives paper, and attached it with glue and stitching. Finally, I balled up a stocking to create a 4 inch foot-like object, and bound it with a measuring tape.

  • Heartbreaking

    This image was created in response to the BP Oil spill off the Gulf Coast last year, but it also speaks to Saturday’s senseless tragedy in Arizona.

    © Copyright Karen Jones 2010-2011 all rights reserved


  • Happy New Year!

    The Department of Use and Beauty was chartered today. Welcome and happy 2011!



    In addition to featuring my new Department at kjdesign, I’ve also started a blog. The latest post will be featured here at kjdesign.com. Envisioned topics: all things visual, creative, innovative, and of course, useful and beautiful.

    Following a recent business trip the Seattle area, I stayed the weekend to see the Picasso exhibit at SAM. The show was inspiring, but I was more delighted to discover an Alice Neel portrait, and to re-connect with my long-lost friend Bonnie. Alice Neel (1900-1984 ) is by far my favorite painter. Bonnie lives an ever-beautiful life aboard her boat in Ballard.

    Richard Lang, 1978
    Oil on canvas
    Alice Neel
    American, 1900-1984
    50 x 35 in.
    Gift of Jane Lang Davis