Art Blog by Isabelle Bryer

How Michael Jackson fell in love with Martine

I am a huge fan of beautiful illustrations. As far as I am concerned a children's book with a well written and compelling story and well matched images is a small treasure. I have a pretty nice collection of these myself, somewhat stolen from my kids but then again if I recall correctly I am the one who carefully selected the books and handed my Amex at the cash register so that would make me the rightfull owner...

 

Growing up a girl in France in the late 60's the only illustrated books I was ever given were all from the same series. Each of them was a "Martine".

 

 

Martine was a cute brunette with a little brother (Jean). She had a dog called Patapouf as a sidekick. Each book showed her in various situations, on the farm, at the sea, as a little mommy, at themountain etc etc.

 

 

Your wealth as a French girl could be counted by how many Martines you owned (I had only three, but the best ones)

 

 

I am convinced that reading these books over and over left some kind of imprint on my brain and shaped my outlook on life. For one thing they are obviously responsible for my obsession with baking desserts...

 

 

 

The style of illustrations might be a tad too realistic for my taste as an adult but as a kid I just adored them. I loved how descriptive the style was, how good looking and well dressed the children were, how nicely their houses were decorated.

 

Their lives were so much more exciting than mine.

 

 

The illustrator's name was Marcel Marlier. His work was a little bit like a French Norman Rockwell minus the social commentary. He started illustrating the Martine series in 1950 and his last book was published in 2010, they are all together 60 albums.

 

You can see an evolution in the illustrations, his style of drawing, his skill as an illustrator and the all around fashion that changes through time. 3 generations of women grew up on these, I imported them to the US myself, in my suitcase, for my daughter...

 

 

 

 

Marcel Marlier died in 2011 at the age of 80 and as I was researching images for this post I found articles telling the story of how Michael Jackson himself discovered Martine on a puzzle in Germany a few years ago. He loved her so much that he got in touch with Mr Marlier and said that he would like to drop by his house..

Marcel Marlier said that he knew nothing about Michael Jackson so he and his wife rented videos of his music to get acquainted. He said that when Michael saw the original drawings of Martine he was jumping around like a little kid and told Mr Marlier that he was "gifted by God". He was so smitten by the illustrations that he offered to buy them all for a lot of money.

 

Mr Marlier refused and made a quick pencil sketch of Michael and gave it to him. According to the story, Michael mentioned that he would love to get in touch with Steven Spielberg and make a movie with Martine as the main character....

 

Sadly both Michael and Marcel Marlier are gone now but if Steven Spielberg ever makes a movie about Martine I will be the first in line to see it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photoshopped to Death: The Art of Oleg Dou

 

"I am looking for something bordering between the beautiful and the repulsive, the living and the dead. I want to attain the feeling of presence one can get when walking by a plastic mannequin..." This is how Oleg Dou, Russian fine art photographer and visual artist, describes his artistic goal. When I take a look at his work I think he has succeeded in doing just that:

His work combines the real with the artificial, a result he gets by taking conventional children's portraits and manipulating them in Photoshop.

 

Oleg's photos can be at the same time disturbing and adorable..

 

And depending at which one you look it is more disturbing....

 

...or more adorable.

 

Oleg explains that he is trying to deplete the portraits of their individuality

 

by removing their eyebrows, or photoshopping the eyelashes out and smoothing the skin until he reaches that unreal look...

 

 

where the human warmth leaves the face

 

and all is left is an artificial coldness.

 

I love that fragile balance between scary and cute, between attractive and repulsive.

Oleg Dou deliberately creates fascinating portraits by altering his photos to the extreme and remove all traces of humanity.

I can't help but thinking that this is what is happening with all images of people in the media.

Celebrities and model's portraits are manipulated and photoshopped until no one looks like a real person anymore. Because we are humans worshipping and trying to emulate these plastic mannequins we are doomed to never measure up....

Check out the stunning website of Oleg Dou to see more of his unsettling art.

 

With a Little Help from My Friend 2

This is my second and last post about my "Helping Hands" painting (you can see the previous post here). I am reasonably sure it is finished but the real closure happens when I apply on it three coats of varnish . An unvarnished piece in my studio is always in danger of being retouched and modified or at least stared upon suspiciously for hours until I figure out what could still be improved. Varnish brings a liberation of sorts, the sign that I finally accepted that it is an honest and decent piece as it is, that perfection does not exist in this world and it is time to move on to something new...

Since last time I shortened my girl's left arm and added claws to my bear (apparently he is a tamed bear but could be ferocious in a different situation)

 

I started lightening up her dress

 

Here I changed the neckline of her dress, I think off-the-shoulders looks better because it softens the vertical effect the trees give to the composition. I also chose black for her ribbon.

 

I wanted her to have a cameo around her neck with a detailed portrait of a bird in it.

After starting to paint it I didn't like the fact that, being exactly at the center of my canvas, the eye was immediately drawn to it. I wanted the focus to be on her face and on the hands doing her hair.

 

So the yellow bird is only passing by and I tattooed a small blue heart over her chest. Also, I pulled a few curly cues out of her ponytail so her hair is not so tidy.

 

 

The yellow bird needed a home so I placed his nest safely in the middle of the left tree. Also I added real pink to my cloud, a color I rarely use, to make this cloud even more heavenly...

 

Here is my final image :

 

I did enjoy putting this post together but I do have mixed feelings about showing a step by step evolution of a painting. Don't you feel that knowing what it took to get to that final image takes away a little of the mystery of the creative process? When a boy picks up his beautiful prom date does he want to know how she waxed her eyebrows and legs, curled her lashes and stuffed her bra? Don't you think that the practical details should be left out so the boy is mesmerized by the way she looks in the moment?

Please tell me what you think about this, I am curious...

 

State Of Red Alert: The Art of Bibi Davidson

Since Christmas is near, I decided to throw a little red at you in this post. I think few people do RED better than Los Angeles artist Bibi Davidson.

 

The main character of her series "Stories of My Life" is herself, a girl in clown shoes going through the tribulations of life.

 

Her adventures take place in a surrealistic landscape...

 

...where aliens with laser beams are watching you...

 

...even when you sleep.

 

Her story telling abilities remind me of artist Frida Kahlo...

 

...with a Dr Seuss kind of twist.

Bibi Davidson is also an exceptional portrait painter.

and her portraits are contemporary and beautifully loud in color.

 

 

And this is a portrait of Bibi herself.

She loves bright, strong colors, all the way down to her real life trademark magenta hair.

In Bibi's case, life imitates art just as easily as art imitates life.

With a Little Help From My Friends

I started this new piece last week on a whim. I had been missing painting on a large canvas and I was each day working on many things having to do with the business of art but never on art itself. And you and I know that all work and no painting (or writing, dancing, singing, filmmaking etc) makes Jane a miserable bitch artist.

So here are the first steps of my new and as yet unfinished painting. Painting in acrylics, I have given it the working title of "Helping Hands". These last 4 or 5 years I have been into more spiritual subjects. I felt the need to add a little magic to my reality and find some kind of meaning for things to be the way they are. After reading boatloads of books on Buddhist philosophy, a few hours of meditation and a lot of hanging in Topanga Canyon I slowly morphed into a classic New Age Cali girl with a French twist.

Well it turns out New Age might be the opium of the people because I am starting to imagine hands coming out of the clouds...

**please click on each image if you want to see it in it's entirety**

I love to paint fairy-tale maidens with animal friends and I decided this one would be watched over and helped by a mysterious being in the clouds. Of course the creepy factor of hands coming out of the clouds is not lost on me but creepy and pretty together have always been my cup of tea.

 

And these hands are not accusing, or threatening, they are helping her to tie her hair in a pony tail, how sweet is that??? The bear she is hugging symbolizes kindness and a connection with nature.

 

As usual I start to paint my background (very) roughly the complementary of the color I want in the end. I think it makes for more textured and interesting colors. I like dark blue or purple under the brown of the trees.

 

Here I dry-brushed my sky-blue on the orange undercoat and I might choose to have some orange still peaking through...

 

...my red leaves are turning a natural green...I dry-brush the tree trunks and the grass and start darkening my bear.

 

Then I add texture on his fur, starting with the darker tones and then adding the lighter ones.

 

This is where I am now.

I think I will make her dress white, then again, I often change my colors over and over until I am happy with them. And the arm on the right seems a little too long for her body. I will have to fix it so it looks more natural.

I will take more pictures as I work and make another post to finish this painting up soon. I hope you like how it's coming along.

 

 

 

 

The Frozen Children of Loretta Lux

In a previous post on this blog we saw that real kids (our kids) are wild, crazy and unpredictable and despite having to clean after them we wouldn't want them any other way. This said, if you explore the fascinating art of digital photographer Loretta Lux you discover a whole new breed of children.

Standing still in minimal landscapes they are wearing geeky outfits.

 

Their eyes might be eerily a tiny bit too big for their faces.

 

They are like frozen in time, a little sad looking and seem to be carrying within them a terrible secret.

 

We cannot quite figure out what subtle digital manipulation Loretta Lux uses to create these amazing pictures.

Is it the lack of shadows?

 

Or maybe the old-fashioned clothes or that stern Victorian attitude?

 

I think these portraits have a strange beauty that draws you in and makes you think.

 

I like their porcelaine doll poses, their serious demeanors and their haunting little faces.

 

I suspect she cut the original background out and replaced it with a more artificial one to create this unnatural and dreamlike feeling.

 

Loretta Lux herself doesn't offer an explanation about the meaning of her images. Like most artists she prefers to let the viewers find in them what they will. 

 

 

I can only extrapolate. Could it be sending a message about the dangerous world we created for the future generations? Could it be originated in Loretta's own upbringing in East Germany?

 

Here is a portrait of the artist herself, I think she looks like a school teacher. And by the look of her photos she obviously figured out how to get her students to keep quiet.

 

 

and the WINNER of my BIG GIVEAWAY is.....

My very dear friend, excellent blogger and all around writer extraordinaire Corine from Hidden in France hosted this month on her blog a giveaway of one of my signed limited edition prints, a favorite with real dazzling crystals and spiritual inspiration called "Felicity":

 

 

AND THE WINNER OF FELICITY IS.....JENNY LLOYD !!! Congratulations Jenny and thank you for participating.

 

As it turns out Jenny is herself an artist in the U.K and makes beautiful images such as these:

 

If you would like to purchase the print of Felicity you can go to my Etsy shop and take advantage of my 20 % Holiday discount.

Please keep on checking this blog for an upcoming very limited edition print giveaway.