Art Blog by Isabelle Bryer

Dilka Bear's Alien Madonnas

 

There is a long list of excellent artists that can be found on Etsy. Today I would like to share with you the art of artist and illustrator Dilka Bear. She is Italian and lives in Trieste. However, her work seems to be loved the world over. Dilka works in various mediums, watercolor, oil or acrylics. She mainly seems to paint girls (with a few boys) portraits.

 

All of them are drawn in a similar style, with large foreheads and small spread out eyes...

 

...and with softness and quiet beauty.

 

Her girls are little alien madonnas...

 

 

 who seem to have gotten lost in a soft countryside background.

 

 

It is hard to decide whether they are staring at us in a sad or accusatory way.

 

 

They appear to have been painted right after they stopped crying, their tiny noses are red

and their eyes still watery.

 

If like me you are smitten with Dilka's art...

....you can see more of her work on her fan page and you can buy her prints by going to Dilka Bear's Etsy shop.

 

My 3 Love Messengers

 

I have been painting legged birds from way back. They show up in various artwork, when a regular 2-wings-2-regular-feet bird just won't be enough. Yesterday I started these three small formats. My plan was to paint each bird carrying on its wings a plump red heart, like 3 feathered "Love Messengers".

Here are my three birds. I usually cover the canvas with a blue wash and go over my pencil drawing with a dark purple/blue on a hard bristle brush.

 

Here you see one of them almost done. I want the second one to be a white bird so I painted my undercoat in blue.

 

 

The two smaller ones were easy. The third one will take a little longer because I will change my mind several times as I am painting him...

 

Here you see the orange undercoat that I painted under the blue sky ( I like to paint an underlayer of the complimentary color of what my final color will be. Then I dry-brush on top).

 

Here I added the fat heart on his back and changed the shape of his face.

 

I liked him in a greenish yellow but I decided he could use a bigger belly.

 

I like to add feathery details with a fine brush. This might be my favorite part because I like to get lost in minute details...

 

My background was too plain so I added a few clouds...

 

 

I wrapped the sky, clouds and branches around the canvas as well.

 

And here they are, all three ready to deliver their message of love. The next step will be three coats of glossy varnish et voila! Done.

The Mythological Language of David Hochbaum

 

For a couple of years now I have been keeping images of New York artist David Hochbaum in my secret art files. Not that anyone in my house is even remotely interested in what I am up to when it comes to my art obsession. Still, David Hochbaum's work is haunting and mysterious. It has the strange appeal of old alchemy manuals mixed with surreal poetic beauty. Looking at his images speaks to my dark side and never fails to make me want to create something new, I hope it will have the same effect on you.

He calls his technique photo-construction. He uses layers of paint on top of photographic images taken of live models and props. I love the symbolism and the fantastical effects of impossible proportions between people and things.

 

 

He also creates story-books mermaids, one of my favorite subject...

 

....placed in unusual dreamscapes. David Hochbaum includes in most pieces a lot of architectural elements, seemingly historical prints of european cities.

 

I suspect his work might have been inspired by George Melies (image above), pioneer of visual effects, trick photography and "magic theater" in the late 1800's. I can see similarities between the two.

 

Hochbaum's images often remind me of old French Realist films taking place in Paris. The kind that always had a sad and dramatic ending.

 

He was quoted saying "The female is the source of ultimate truth and beauty. She is the genesis of all life".

 

You can see that in his work the female figure is always the central character, the source of the story.

 

To develope his latest work David Hochbaum traveled to Japan to research its folklore and mythology. He worked on representing yokais, Japanese spirits demons and ghosts.

 

This is his interpretation of the rokurokubi, a demon who passes for a regular person during the day but has the secret ability to stretch her neck, spy on humans and terrify them at night.

 

And this is his take on the futakuchi-onna, a female demon with two mouths, a normal one on her face and an insatiable one in the back of her head. Her hair is wild and moving like serpents.

 

I am always curious to know what very talented artists look like. I believe that David Hochbaum looks just like you would expect him to after seeing his work. He would have made an excellent actor in an old black and white French film.

Young and Promising

 

People are copying my work. And I mean cool young people. I am not going to waste that one chance to brag today because I just received the coolest email. 

A few days ago I got an order on my Etsy shop from Karla, a really nice lady in Slovenia. She bought a print of Snow Angel. It always pleases me to get a far away order, I like to look up the place online and get a visual idea of where I will be shipping it. In that case here is where Snow Angel is going:

 

 I couldn't think of a more fairy-tale place for her to be.

 

She got in touch with me today to say that when she was ordering Snow Angel her 5 year old girl was watching her and heard her comment on how much she liked it.

 The little girl looked at the piece closely. And then a few days later she gave her mom a pretty fabulous copy of her very own Snow Angel:

 

She didn't miss anything, all the details are here, orange foxes, pierced heart and all. She just decided to put a great big sun in the sky instead of a snowy cloud. I predict she will grow up to be a great artist.

Karla sent me that picture this morning and it made my day.

But it is no surprise that her daughter is creative. Karla has herself a shop on Etsy where she sells adorable images of her country guinea pig in an apron going about her life over there in beautiful Slovenia...