Adventures in Watercolor

Art is a family thing. At any and every time in my life, I was never discouraged from being and doing everything it was that I wanted to be or do. My father was an enormous inspiration in respect to me, making sure to always enjoy and display my art when I was a young child. Every year for Christmas or my birthday I would be gifted some sort of tangible kit full of rainbow colors of clay or pastels or pencils and I would spend my rest of the year creating whatever bizarre thing would come to my imagination.

As I got older, it slowly became a total obsession with acrylic colors. As I became more professional, it became an overhaul of every media I could get my hands on!
So over the holiday, I was in my mother-"out-of-law"'s studio where I found an unused watercolor kit and some fresh paper and pads. I dove in and suddenly, hours later, I came out with a couple cool pieces. Sticking with a theme, a kept the palette warm and rustic while I utilized my favorite Micron 3 pen. Here are the final results!

Racka Ram Skull

Roe Deer Skull

I have never really dabbled in watercolor before. For some reason it always intimidated me because I've seen so many artist perfect it. I didn't ever believe I really could. I was always a "stick with what you know" kind of person, but when the opportunity presents itself, I'll seize it. A fresh, unused watercolor kit seemed to radiate with opportunity. Thus, my new obsession was born. So, in keeping with tradition, I requested a watercolor set for Christmas. I feel like a kid again.

Both are available for purchase on my website, Art By Merc, and will be featured for purchase at The Greenhouse On Porter in January!

MOXIE: the success and the aftermath

So the evening of November 20th was the most fun I've had since putting myself out there as an artist. It was bigger and better than I could have ever imagined. 

The whole evening began around 5:00pm when James and I packed up the truck with all my party-goodies.  Mallisa and I met up at the Grocery, a local family-owned restaurant/bar that I frequent (that's an understatement). They were the gracious donors of two full party-trays of delicious food and enough Sweet Water and Blue Moon to keep customers and friends happy! We packed those, and some dinner for us, up in the truck and headed a block down the street over to Sarrah's Salon, where all of our work had been on display since Sunday. Nailing up the last pieces and hanging up all of our prints, Mallisa and I popped the champagne and began our evening. 

Me, with Dr. No and "Food for Other Fish", part of my ten-piece "Surf Rock" series.

Within the span of two hours, Mallisa and I had two full waves of people, from close friends and family, to customers and connoisseurs curious as to what was going on. I was so fortunate to have so many friends supporting my art. What I unfortunately didn't get to enjoy out of the evening was the band, who we hired to play an acoustic set. Mississippi Shakedown is a fantastic two-piece rock band hailing from Hattiesburg, and they just so happen to be wonderful people who support art and community here on the Gulf Coast!

A literal PACKED HOUSE; this is about wave no. 2 of people enjoying MOXIE!

 

It was so wonderful to have so many people come out specifically to see what Mallissa and I had been up to these last few months. Everything went off without a hitch.    

All the tireless hours spent in the studio, bent over a canvas or the drafting board, were worth it. All the worries were thrown out the window. All the anxieties were over. The response and feedback I received from everyone was fantastic. We put on a great show. 

So now what?

Now I begin my foray into the world of art and business. I just launched my online store via SquareUp.com and I've begun collecting orders for prints. I had over-sold my prints at the show, so I got myself new inventory and get to go right back to the drawing-board. I've got commissions to do and orders to fill. I'll be hanging up in other galleries and restaurants in town, with hopes to sell my pieces to observers and build a client base. It's pretty amazing to be able to contact and make face-time with people who enjoy, not just art, but the artist community we have here on the Coast.

 

I have to thank a long list of people here: Sarrah, for allowing Mallisa and I to hang our art in her salon and help put on the show and help us sell our pieces; Nick at Ivey's framing for coming up with combinations of frames and mats when I was completely clueless; Clark at Shaugnessy Printing for all of the prints and posters Mallisa and I tacked up; Rachel at the Grocery for putting together food and beer for our event; my in-laws for bringing the cake and the wine and the biggest thanks of all goes to this beautiful human pictured with me here, Mallisa. Her talent goes above and beyond her art. She has taught me so much about this whole experience and whenever I was feeling any doubt, she helped me laugh it off. She is fantastic!

Mallisa and I, the creators of MOXIE

Moxie, one week away!

It's inching closer and closer. Mallisa and I are on a collaborative journey to bring MOXIE to life. I couldn't be more pleased. We are pulling out all the stops in order to make it the best possible show we can! I am thankful for the continuing support I've been getting from all of my friends, old and new, whether it be on social media or IRL. There are a lot of people awaiting the excitement. I've got butterflies in my tummy, ha!

Back at it...?

Ideas pop up in the strangest of places.
I was sitting at my desk looking through my favorite Instagram account, @theweirdandwonderful, and saw a female Rhesus macaque skull pictures on their site. It took me back...waaaay back to my late college days of pouring over paleo and physical anthropology books. That is when my love affair with skulls took place.

Concept sketch on a sticky note, sitting at my work desk

I remember an old sketch I did of a female Australopithecus skull I found in one of my old textbooks. I remember just shading and highlighting my way through the page. It was so fun, yet so technical. This skull was unique. The skull had dimension and purpose. It was more or less a challenge for me, but a challenge I loved and wanted to perfect. 

To this day I still challenge myself with skull art. There is nothing scary or macabre about skulls to me. They belonged to someone or something once. To a creature with its own personality, and habits. That's how bone is built. That's how skulls should be expressed in art, to me, at least. 

"Late Bloomer" acrylic on gallery canvas, 10x10"

So I reverted back to an idea I had over the summer. I was going to stop pretending that I somehow needed to impress myself with new challenges, but, instead, go back to the things I am familiar with. I needed to find comfort in my art because my attempt to reinvent myself in some weird, impossible way was not working. After all, I am doing this because I love it. Why not continue painting or drawing what I love?

Marker markers markers

I have fallen in love. And I'm obsessed. Prismacolor markers have me all starry eyed.

They have been a great addition to this particular project I've recently dived in to. As in my last post, I finally got my prints back from the printers and I'm now working on hand coloring them to fit in to the original theme of my show, overall. So far I've had a lot of positive feedback over them and I'm really pleased how each of them is turning out. 

But these markers... I swear!

They come in a million different colors and they are so smooth and blendable. At first, I went ahead and purchased the highly pigmented ROYGBIV color scheme, which, I believe, was 12 markers. I tried them out on the prints and WOAH! I was amazed. But then I started looking at the kinds of pictures I had drawn and where I wanted to go with them. That meant I needed more. I took the plunge and purchased about 30 more markers, ranging from milky shades of white and neutral grays, to beautiful jade greens and turquoise hues. 

I couldn't be more pleased. It feels and looks really professional and all the colors I chose really bring the picture some life. Here are a few examples so far!

I asked my friends right after I drew this to give her a name. I'm not so good with giving my pieces titles!

This is a piece I just recently sold to a good friend! This turned out so much nicer than I expected it would. Those markers have changed so much about the way I see color now.

See more on Facebook or my Instagram!

Facebook.com/artbymerc and Instagram: @mmaexetoile

Back from the printers

Got a few more prints from the printers today! I'm officially selling hand-colored prints via Facebook, for now. 

Feeling pretty great about this show in November. My new markers come in on Monday, so I'll be ready to get to work as soon as I get them! So pleased with the way everything is turning out right now. 

I'm all smiles. 😄

Blank pages don't necessarily mean a lack of inspiration...

It has been quite the year for me. I've put a lot of things on the back burner in order to feel confident about my show next month. I started this journey back in March and I feel like within just the year itself my skills have been trained and perfected and my creative mind has released itself on to all the pages and canvases I've finished. I still have some lurking unfinished projects, but for the most part, I've got a solid group of pictures that is more than enough to fill up a small gallery. I wanted to be overly prepared just for the purpose of easing my mind. It's truly a wonderful feeling to look back on the year and consider the struggles and "lightbulb" moments I've experienced. I've matured in my art a lot and I'm getting closer to being able to relax and have people enjoy all the work I've put in to this project.

The theme of my paintings is "Surf Rock", inspired by my love of music, live entertainment, the beach, Hawaiian shirts and "wet" guitars. Motifs include a lot of high saturated colors, skulls, flowers, and jellies and octopuses. It's been fun getting all the pieces to become cohesive and I think the theme fits in to the ways see the world. 

I then started a new project with my sketches. I tried to remain cohesive to the rest of the theme, yet expanded on my skills a little more in order to really find my artistic structure. I enjoy my recent project the most, but will always have a soft spot for painting. 

So here I sit with a beer and a blank page, not necessarily hoping to find something to draw, but relishing in the idea that I can relax, not stress, over a blank page. This is a wonderful feeling and I can't wait to show the world what I've done.

Why Flamingos?

I gather inspiration for my pieces from all of my surroundings. It's why I love living where I do. But just because I live in the Coast doesn't mean I gather inspiration from pelicans or dolphins. Rather, I observe my surroundings and attempt to find the missing pieces to the broken puzzle I have buzzing around in my mind. Sometimes it's as simple as a walk in the park, but other times, like this particular one, I read the news.

A recent newscast broke last week about a young fraternity pledge attempting to steal a Chilean flamingo from our nearby zoo. I won't go in to much detail because of the gravity of the news story, but it really made me do some research on the Chilean flamingo. 

Flamingos are truly fragile birds. But they are also quite beautiful too. Conversations about flamingos rarely happen down here in Mississippi because we concern ourselves with local species like Loons, cranes, pelicans and Eagles. We have our share of endangered species, but flamingos are also a near-threatened species. Knowing what I know about our local cranes and how difficult it is for them to reproduce, flamingos are similar in that it takes a specific environment, climate, and little interruption in these things to convince them to breed. Zoo keepers do what they can in order to help them lay, but flamingoes usually lay 1-2 eggs at a time. 

So after the recent news story came out, I realized even though environmentalist in MS tend to focus on our local migratory birds, there is a representative species that acts in a similar manner to our cranes and loons. The flamingo is a fragile species, but with its magnificent colors, it's really an inspiring animal. 

Prints will be available of both versions of the flamingo. I'm also hoping to capture the pinks and oranges of the bird in some hand-colored prints. Find me on Facebook for more information!

Announcements and ideas

Today I did something I had been looking forward too since May. I announced via social media that everything I've been working on all year long is finally available for sale. 

I have been working pretty diligently since March to put together a complete show for November. As I've mentioned, at the end of November I will be collaborating on a show with Mallisa May at Sarrah Salon downtown Ocean Springs. There you can see ten of my paintings, and different sketches and colored drawings I've been working on. 

I decided to keep the theme alive, but also take from my past and focus on the things I know I'm good at. You will see lots of skulls, but nothing demure or gothic about them. Bright, saturated colors and unique concepts will fill this show, so I excited to get it all up there!

So please visit my facebook and Instagram for more updates on what I'm currently doing and contact me there for more information of pieces and commissions. 

Hot Off the Press

The first time I actually panicked was about a month before the last show I was in at the Walter Anderson Museum. It was a show based in a very prestigious gallery here in town and every local well-known artist and collector would be perusing the event. 

Three weeks before the show and I was hard-up on finding a frame. I talked to some friends who then pointed me in the right direction...

There's an amazing framer here in town that can customize any painting, picture or portrait and he was able to give me a sleek frame at a great price. I, myself, was so impressed that I easily convinced my boyfriend to get stuff framed by this framer as well. His name is Nick and he's the mastermind over at Ivey's framing, downtown OS. 

If you are the kind of person who goes for cheap, quick, and readily available, well you are missing out on the brilliance that is custom framing. When I was in college, I would paint something and then tape it to a peice of black matte board that I bought at Walmart and stick it in a $9 poster frame. That was my version of custom framing. Making everything look like shit. And then I had this big prestigious show to do and I felt like a dunce, looking for a quick 12x12 plastic frame to put my prize possession in. It's like keeping diamond jewelry in a shoebox. Luckily Iveys framing could do the job, and for just a little more than the cost of a bland plastic frame from the run-of-the-mill craft supply shop. 

If you are still not convinced that custom framing is worth the expense, just take a look at the recent customized frames my boyfriend got for two half-decent sketches I put together last spring...

I have another gemsbok that I did years ago that has a red background so James decided on a blood-red matte to follow along with the theme. That framing is also one-of-a-kind. So pleased with the way this turned out. 

I know you can see my reflection but just look at that beautiful dark frame! It's not completely black. It's more of a deep deep wood stain with some slight red accents in the contours of the beveling. It is amazing. 

Framing is just something I must leave to the professionals. Yeah, I know a lot of artist can do this shit on their own, but hey, everyone is an artist in their own right and Nick at Iveys is the kind of artist I prefer to collaborate with in my works. There will be more to come, seeing as I just dropped off two more large paintings to him. 

Concept sketches

As an artist, I rely heavily on my practice. It takes a lot of patience before coming up with the ideal piece that I can say I can be proud of. I play around a whole hell of a lot before really coming down to the brass tacks. In terms of concepts, I LOVE to sketch. I prefer the practice to painting because it makes me sit down, find my patience and put everything out there. With painting, I can try and try again and one canvas can host multiple paintings, if I so wish. But with sketching, there is a finality for it, and it requires me to be more understanding of my vision. It requires much more thinking and questioning: are all of the elements there? is it too bold? is it too bland? Sure, you can always erase, but there is something much more mature and original about a sketch. Here is a concept I've been working on for an upcoming piece I'm featuring in a Christmas show in November.

Detail of ram skull

8x12" heavy paper, ink drawing, currently for sale

Sometimes all it takes is a little inspiration, but even that can be hard to come by. Hopefully this will progress in to a large acrylic painting, but as for now, I am feeling the flow and I need to keep this train movin'. 

P.S. This is one of my first ink drawings. I feel like I've really been missing out, but here I am!

Surf Rock

Surf rock, as a genre, has always been very influential on my Spotify playlists, of course, because you can't live by the beach and not be in-tune to musicians like The Ventures or Dick Dale and the Del-Tones. It's like a rite-of-summer-passage the starts around mid-April when we start driving with the windows down and blaring that wet guitar while the sun sinks low. That music makes any gal daydream of palm trees and ocean breezes, yet in it's truest design, it was meant for a more masculine audience- one of adrenaline junkies, whether water-oriented athletes or spy-movie enthusiasts. And yeah, I can appreciate all that history, but it's more recent revival has me all sorts of inspired over here.

 Around the middle of summer I was at my usual hang-out spot downtown on a Saturday night. Everyone was telling me all week long I had to be there because this so-and-so band was on tour and they were worth checking out. I had heard rumors of their masked faces and performance of setting drums on fire...you know just the typical thing you get excited for in your hometown's alternative music scene.

An American surf-rock band that tours for a living, Daikaiju

 The place was packed and everyone was staying for the show. Only a select few really knew what to expect. The first band plays, a surf-rock revival group from Shanghai that was all sorts of fun, and as their set ends, I go to talk merch-buying with the drummer. He and I are making conversation when I hear the reverb of an electric guitar and the main guitarist of DaiKaiJu practicing a few licks. I forget everything and hold my breath for a solid minute. This was the most amazing show I had ever been to and I didn't even pay a dime for it. If they are ever in a town near you, you will just have to see to understand.

Me, in the pink, with the masked monsters of surf rock, DaikaiJu

 But that began the re-inspiration for this fall's show. Taking elements of the things I love and appreciate the most, music, surf-culture, coastal motifs, and the almost cartoonish and unique way a band conducts a live performance. It can make anyone dream in high-saturated colors. This was a show to remember. I hope to have the same enthusiasm about my art the way a band like this one cares about their art. With out that sort of motivation, an artist just can't get out of the box. I have a ridiculous amount of respect for bands like DaiKaiJu!

So if you, my reader, are interested in past and current surf-rock bands, here are a few for you to try out:

1. Dick Dale and the Del-Tones- Lebanese surf-style, taking elements from Middle East
2. The Ventures- American surf-rock, elements of Hawaii and California
3. Takeshi Terauchi- greatest Japanese guitarist of all time, very Japanese sounding with that high-pitched wet guitar that sounds citar-esque
4. Round-Eye- surf-metal out of Shanghai China
5. Daikaiju- Monsters of Surf Rock, taking elements from Middle East and Japanese pre-revival
6. La Luz- all-girl surf rock band, elements of Southern California (Burger Records)
7. Real Estate- calm, West Coast surf-rock, airy vocals

Stay tuned for some sneak-peeks to this fall's show and visit me on Instagram for up-to-date information on what I'm doing!

MOXIE

So here it begins, my first foray in to the world of the arts.

It all started back in March when the little office area in my house had become overwhelmed with old, blank white canvases and a dusty easel. 

It definitely showed my lack of motivation and inspiration that had taken hold since my adult life took over. Painting is a hobby for me, much like going to concerts or running 5ks. It wasn't ever supposed to be public, much less interesting to anyone but me and my family and some close friends.  But then... one fine day, as they say... my boyfriend (live-in life partner) walked me through the office, arms open and claimed, much like when Simba's father showed him all of the Sahara Kingdom, "Everything the light touches is yours... and it's dirty and you should probably start using it again." He was so right. But at that point, I didn't know what to do.
I live in this amazing little town on the Coast and it has such a strong artistic backing. I've heard it constantly said by my Southern family about how important the arts are to Ocean Springs, but not until very recently did I realize that EVERYONE here is in some way connected to the arts, whether they paint, own a gallery, work for a museum, or are just generally interested or collect. So with that being said, I was sitting in my office, talking to a friend when she said, "You know, Sarrah does small art shows. You should talk to her." And so I did.
Sarrah owns her own salon downtown and hosts small gallery showings in her salon, done completely for the artist she features. She's had awesome turn-outs and has been doing this for a long time, in other parts of the South as well. She also happens to be an amazing hairdresser, so I also get my hair done by her. She told me I would make a good candidate for her Christmas showing and it also involved other artists as well. She let me be responsible for choosing the person I would like to work with for the show and I immediately knew who I wanted to ask: a recent acquaintance-turned-friend, Mallisa of Mallisa May Photography. She is a fabulous photographer who I knew would come up with some great ideas for our show.
I met up with Mallisa on a rainy Thursday for brunch and all we needed was a little cold-brew and some conversation about the show. What bands, what food to prepare for the reception, et cetera et cetera. I showed her some paintings I had been working on, looking in to a whole theme for my presentation and that is when things began to snow-ball. She agreed with the idea of working on a theme (it just makes things easier and way more fun). After countless paper-napkin sketches and inspiration from one another, we decided on a poster concept and a title...

And so MOXIE was born. A collaborative effort for two self-taught artists to begin their separate journeys in to the world of the arts. On November 20th she and I will feature our creative abilities in the form of Mallisa's photography and my paintings and drawings to the world of art here in OS. Stay tuned for anecdotal evidence of our workmanship and creativeness. Thanks for the support!