Tshirts Featuring Mingo Yale by Sarah Atlee only $20

OVAC Tshirts, featuring Mingo Yale by Sarah Atlee
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Limited Edition OVAC Artist T-Shirts Just in time for holiday gift-giving, limited edition, hand-printed t-shirts featuring original designs by OVAC member artists. Proceeds benefit OVAC's Artist Survival Kit program, offering professional development for artists. Get them while they're hot! (And, while they last.) Price: $20 (Shipping: $2.25) Click here to order.

Tishomingo "Mingo" Yale is one of the characters from Normal, OK.
Drawing for Normal, OK: Tishomingo Yale, ink on paper, 2007 by Sarah Atlee. Click image to view source.
Drawing for Normal, OK: Tishomingo Yale, ink on paper, 2007. Click image to view source.

Tishimingo "Mingo" Yale teaches pilates. On weekends, weather permitting, she has a roadside fish fry stand. Bass fishermen stop there on their way back from Lake Goodnight. Mingo came to fitness instruction in her mid-forties, after years of wearing high-heeled shoes had all but ruined her spine. At the urging of her chiropractor, Mingo took up yoga. The improvements in her health were so significant she decided she must help bring this lifestyle to others.

The final painting, which you can see here, was created using the acrylic gel transfer process detailed here and here.

You can see Mingo in person at Legacy Bank in Edmond through January 2010.

Worldwide Sketch Crawl Day, 2009.09.19

This is what happened today, mixed media on paper, 2009 by Sarah Atlee. Click image to view source.
This is what happened today, mixed media on paper, 2009. Click image to view source.

Get your sketchbooks out, tomorrow is Worldwide Sketch Crawl Day # 24.

Sketch Crawl is an excuse to draw whatever's in front of you or inside your head for a whole day. (It's like a pub crawl, but a lot more productive.) Challenge yourself, and don't forget to stretch first. Click here to read more about participating.

I am at the end of my summer sketchbook, an upcycled beauty made by Lindsey Zodrow at Collected Thread here in OKC. I'm transitioning over to another upcycled sketchbook by Sparrowtracks, and I may dip into some Moleskine kraft-cover books.

Looking for some ideas? Have a look at the sketchbooks of Doug Chayka and Debby Kaspari. Or, download one of two pocket guides created by artist Michael Nobbs, 75 Ways to Draw More and Start to Draw Your Life. Go!

Project Idea: Object Sketchbook

Are you looking for a way to jump-start your creativity? Get a small sketchbook and devote it entirely to studies of a single object. Draw (or represent) your object as many ways as you can think of, using as many media as your book will hold. Here are some ideas, with links to examples, mostly of my work, some from other artists:
Mary, figure session 2, ink on paper, July 2009 by Sarah Atlee. Click image to view source.
Mary, figure session 2, ink on paper, July 2009 by Sarah Atlee. Click image to view source.
STYLES AND TECHNIQUES gestural, blind contour, continuous line, sketchy, graphic or hard-edge, fat lines, thin lines, no line, busy, calm, realistic, abstract, cartoony, calligraphic, using your non-dominant hand, local color, non-local color, cross-hatching, rectilinear, curvilinear, verbal description, typographical illustration, dark, light
Two sketchbook heads, acrylic on paper, June 2009 by Sarah Atlee. Click image to view source.
Two sketchbook heads, acrylic on paper, June 2009 by Sarah Atlee. Click image to view source.
MEDIA AND TOOLS pencil, pen, marker, colored pencil, conte crayon, crayola crayon, charcoal, digital, photograph, collage, frottage, xerox, watercolor, pastel, ink wash, fabric, thread or stitches
Valuables in here and Non-tweets, ink on paper, July 2009 by Sarah Atlee. Click image to view source.
Valuables in here and Non-tweets, ink on paper, July 2009 by Sarah Atlee. Click image to view source.
POINT OF VIEW close up, far away, all positive space, all negative space, static, dynamic, alone, with other objects, from above, from underneath, in profile, on edge, repeated or in a pattern
That should keep us busy for awhile, yes?

romy from 24 Works Featured on OVAC Blog

Detail from romy, ink on paper, 2009 by Sarah Atlee. Click image to view full-size.
Detail from romy, ink on paper, 2009. Click image to view full-size.

The OVAC blog is featuring an ongoing interiew series with the artist from the current 24 Works on Paper show. Click here to read my thoughts on the process of creating romy.

24 Works on Paper is on display at Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa through October 14. The show will travel to venues around Oklahoma through August 2010. Click here for a full exhibition schedule.

Normal, OK: Edmond "Mundy" Tulsa

Pencil underdrawing of Young Mundy Tulsa
Pencil underdrawing of Young Mundy Tulsa. Click any image to see larger.

Edmond "Mundy" Tulsa was born to a man who was hoping for a boy. Everyone calls her Mundy. She is a prodigious baker, and wins many bake-offs and Opteemah County Fair ribbons.
Young Mundy Tulsa, first underpainting.
Young Mundy Tulsa, first underpainting.

The Tulsa family's money went down with Penn Square Bank when the bottom dropped out. But Grampa Dewright Tulsa had placed gold and silver coins inside sections of pipe and buried them in the backyard. One day Mundy undertakes to dig a vegetable garden and discovers the coins. This becomes the startup capital for Miz Mundy Cookies, and later Mundy Buns.
Young Mundy Tulsa, second underpainting.
Young Mundy Tulsa, second underpainting.

Mundy Buns grows so successful that Mundy gets a buyout offer from Nabisco. She declines on account of her personal integrity. Soon after, she strikes a deal with Dobbin Wynn to be the exclusive concessions distributor for the Dobbin & Dixie Family Film Fest.
Young Mundy Tulsa, third underpainting.
Young Mundy Tulsa, third underpainting.

The Mundy Buns plant remains the economic heart of Normal. Mundy hires Katie Hennepin to help her branch out into organic baked goods.
Normal, OK: Young Mundy Tulsa, graphite and acrylic on paper, 2009 by Sarah Atlee
Normal, OK: Young Mundy Tulsa, graphite and acrylic on paper, 2009

Mundy is seen here at the Opteemah County Fair in 1944, with the blue ribbon she won for her Sweet 'n' Spicy Blackberry Pie.

Back To Normal: Normal, OK Revisited is on display at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum in Oklahoma City through September 19th.

I would like to thank everyone who attended my talk at the show last Saturday, I had a wonderful time. Please join us for the closing reception on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 5 pm.