IF: Sky

This week's Illustration Friday theme is "Sky." So I chose an old robot illustration that has some mixed media cloud stuff going on.

Ragebot Coffee Mugs

The wonderful people at FineCraft did an amazing job on my coffee mugs! They feature the image from my Ragebot reduction prints. They came out really nice and now I just want to make more designs to put on coffee mugs...

IF: Crooked

This week's theme was "Crooked" so I'm posting my favorite pairs of crooked furry ears! (I promise to post new stuff once I'm done printing these new woodblocks for ZaPow!'s Dia de los Muertos show coming up in October - more details on that soon too!)

Shop Update: RedBubble

Although I'm working on getting more designs out on the Shirt-A-Day sites, I've gone ahead and set up a RedBubble site for tees and stickers, and soon there will also be art prints! This is a nice option since the buyer can pick more colors and tee styles, like my favorite, baseball tees!

Illustration Friday: "Identical"

Illustration Friday: "Tall"

An old print, but an appropriate submissions for this week's theme, "Tall." This is a linocut where I cut two puzzle style cuts into the linoleum to fit together the background, and then printed the robot individually on top.

It's going to take a while to finish designing and assembling, but I'm working on a book of robot illustrations that I'll be self publishing. : ) More updates on that soon!

Velociraptor Oil Painting

After the insanity that is doing a solo exhibition, I wanted to do a fun project so I decided to make a present for my boyfriend's birthday. I have been wanting to do something like this for a while, especially since we share a love for Jurassic Park and dinosaurs and all that kind of stuff. This is a 30" x 30" oil painting on canvas. I don't like to use oils much because they smell pretty offensive and can create a terrible stainy mess, but I made an exception for this one. I'll admit, they are drastically easier to mix and layer than acrylics since they don't dry a fraction as fast.

I won't be satisfied til my walls are smothered in creatures and robots!

Broken World: Exhibition Dates!

 My senior thesis exhibition, Broken World: The Uprising of the Condemned, will be on exhibit in Gallery Two on the second floor of the Humanities Building at the University of West Georgia. The exhibition features a series of 11 large scale pastel illustrations that sequentially show the unfolding of an action adventure story inspired visually and narratively by comic books, video games, and movies.

Exhibition Dates: July 30th - August 3rd
Artist Talk and Closing Reception: August 3rd, 5:00 pm -7:30 pm
(There will be food at the reception! : D)

For directions go to the University of West Georgia website here:
http://www.westga.edu/

They have PDF maps and other directions there!

The galleries at UWG are free and open to the public Monday through Friday, from 9 am to 5pm. There is parking available in the staff lot at Humanities after 5:30pm and guest parking anytime in the adjacent lot.

Prints of the exhibition works are available here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/MertsPrints?section_id=11778244

For purchase of originals or other questions, please contact me: mertsprints@gmail.com

Reproductions now available!

Lately I've started doing more original illustrations and less (printmaking) prints these days mostly due to time constraints, so I've begun to make those available on Etsy by printing reproductions! One of my latest straight up illustrations is this watercolor of a calaca mariachi band:

Available here ---> https://www.etsy.com/listing/103457580/mariachi-calacas-print

The random side projects are helping me blow off some steam from the pastel drawing series I've been working on. On that note, prints of those will soon be available as well! 

I'll probably do some idea crossovers for relief prints from these eventually, but for now, it's all about the Senior Show and getting that thesis wrapped up!

New on Twitter

Hello everyone... Just wanted to put it out there that I started a Twitter to stay in tune with the scene... There are so many people on there posting work and updates, if you haven't checked it out it's worth doing so.

: )

https://twitter.com/#!/Mertabert

IF "Space" Illustration

Here's the final submission for this week's theme! : )

'Seeing Stars' Teaser

I am working on a small painting for this week's Illustration Friday theme, "Space." It was an old painting that was originally intended for the Triple-R show at ZaPow! (rockets, ray guns and robots). I've been excited to finish it, but with all the ongoing stuff with my Senior thesis show, it was on the back burner. I'll be posting the finished painting later tonight after I submit my link to IF. : )

Preview Works for BA Summer Exhibition

Here's a glimpse at the drawings I'm working on for my solo show coming up in July. The red one with the computers is nearly done, and the other one is in progress (you can see where I'm making revisions and still refining things). All the drawings will be about this scale and hopefully I will have at least a dozen of them to put out for the show.

If you are interested in the exhibition or the works, feel free to email me (mertsprints@gmail.com). I can answer any questions or send you an announcement postcard for the show (or one through email if you prefer!). I'm currently working on finding a good printer to get some giclees or similar qualities digital copies of these to sell. : )

New Facebook Page

I've just set up a new and improved Facebook Page for my art. I'm posting new content and related links there.  The main thing is that I can finally assemble my work into photo albums without the fussiness of Flickr.

Like my new page. : )

https://www.facebook.com/MeredithBertschinArt

Artfest This Saturday

Spring Artfest will be on the Square in McDonough THIS Saturday, from 10am - 5pm. There will be art demos from 11am - 3pm, and I will be doing relief printmaking demos! Hope to see you there!

Spring Artfest 2012!

Mandala Woodblock

The Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University has a special exhibition up right now that is about the Mandalas that the Tibetan Buddhists make. Some are drawn on fabric, a giant sand art style one, there were carved ones, and here's an amazing woodcut of one! They were amazingly detailed and beautiful.

Go here to exhibition site, and go to this one to see the press packet/pdf that has a gorgeous, fully detailed image of one of the paintings. It's only going to be up until April 15th, so if you're in Atlanta, you'd better get up there soon. :)

Streaming Live Reception Party for Out of This World!

Out of This World: Rockets, Robots, and Ray Guns 

Tonight is the opening reception! Watch it live here at 7:00pm:

http://www.zapow.com/live.html

When is the opening reception? : Friday March 30th, 7:00-9:00pm

Will there be FREE BEER & Live Music? : Yes, there will be free French Broad Wee Heavier and Live gypsy swing music performed by "The Buskbox Players". 

Where: ZaPow/Spellbound 21 Battery Park Ave. Suite 101, Asheville NC

Cost : You guessed it FREE! 

ZaPow Gallery Setup Complete!

I just finished setting up my first display at ZaPow! Gallery in Asheville, North Carolina. It's not a huge section now, but if it does well, then I will expand my space and add more work and crafts. I'm super excited to participate in an Illustration based gallery. It suits my taste perfectly and will be beneficial for me to be a part of as a growing artist and illustrator (oh dear, I'm starting to sound all Disney... no more of that, lol).

Check it out! http://www.zapow.net/

 

These last two pieces are a print and painting for the "Out of this World: Robots, Ray Guns, and Rockets" show that is opening next Friday at ZaPow! Sorry for the shoddy cell phone picture, but it was the best I had on me. I resurrected my old robot linocut and cut the new background block for it. Surprisingly, I didn't really have any ray guns or rockets in my collection other than my unfinished Better Brave than Bored big block. So for the painting, I basically took the design concept for the BBTB block and redid it in a better way. I had another painting of a space couple on a foreign planet watching the stars that is super darling, but it isn't finished yet. It's next on the agenda to do. Even though it didn't make it in the show, it'll still go up for display.

Leftovers III and TRex Skull Prints

I finally printed a tiny block for the Leftovers III print exchange! The size limitation was no larger than 5" x 7" and I have been wanting to reprint an old Resingrave block I made a while ago. The block is only 2" x 3". So in the spirit of using scraps (aka Leftovers) of paper, I tore down those skinny scraps you get when breaking down a full sheet of printmaking paper. I never had a good use for those, so this was perfect! I remember back in the print studio in school, most people just trashed those strips, so it's nice to put them to use instead of wasting them. Although it was a strange mix of papers... mostly random Japanese rice papers and a little Stonehenge.

Here's how they came out:

Hopefully whoever receives them won't mind the goofy dimensions!

While I still had a wet block, I went ahead and made a more formal edition of prints as well. I printed these on a natural Stonehenge paper. 

I loved using that Resingrave block. I have messed with a lot of the composite (non-linoleum) block surfaces, but so many of them break down or pull weird. I could use a Dremel on it for textural effects and still retain nice edges where I wanted them. Those blocks cost double what the normal ones do, but it's worth it for the quality. Plus, they ink amazingly! 

I decided to name it "Omnia Mors Aequat" as a sort of reference to the original print I used this block for, which has a "frame" linocut that this block fits into, and has a space in the bottom of the image for letterpress. The letterpress part quotes an old Memento Mori medieval poem which says, "Omnia mors perimit et nulli miseretur."

Anywho... the edition prints are available in the Shop if ya want one!

Chinese New Year Dragon Block Prints

I had another print exchange come up in January and I just hadn't had a chance to get the images up! So here are the blocks and final prints! (If you want one, they're available for sale in my shop... ^_^)

I like the gray version the best, I think... I'm also fond of the crimson on green, but it's difficult to tell the darker color is red based because of the way the ink dried.

^ I love how the lines transferred in these proofs!

    

^ The main block before cutting!

    

^ This is the one that went into the exchange. I named it "Yang" in honor of the Chinese lore. I hand drew the cloud outlines on these, but I'm going to finish cutting out the cloud block and do some more runs! Maybe even some reduction style ones with the clouds too. Those will have to be the *deluxe* dragons. :)

Calacas Prints are in!

These are a few of my favorites from the exchange. Carlos Barberena did an amazing job on the exchange and exhibitions! I hope he does more like this. It was fantastic seeing everyone's interpretation of Hispanic culture and the calaca imagery. : )