Spotlight on Local Artist | Hadas Tal

Escape in Blue, Oil on Panel, 24" x 30"

July's Art Murmur, Oakland's bustling friday of the month art walk, proved once again that Oakland is a great destination to find amazing art! Despite all the stimuli (ie. the street vendors, food trucks, block parties) stealing my attention away from the art, the Galleries prevailed at peaking my interest. The Wall Gallery on 25th Street, though really a glorified hallway, made the biggest impression on me. What really blew me away were modest sized, oil on panel paintings by Hadas Tal.

Escape, Oil on Panel, 24" x 24"

Tal, a 2012 graduate of the Academy of Art University MFA Program, is making a splash on the Bay Area Art Scene. Hailed by California Home & Design as a Top Ten Artists to Watch in 2012, Tal has nabbed 1st and 3rd place Awards in Landscape Painting at the Academy of Art Spring Show, exhibited (and won awards) at the deYoung Museum, and garnered representation at the Paul Thiebaud Gallery in San Francisco. Born in Israel and raised in New Jersey, Hadas Tal currently lives and works in Emeryville, California.

Violet Door, Oil on Panel, 20" x 30"

What really strikes me about her urban buildings are their harrowing presence and mood. I should note that there she did show a portrait in this solo exhibition, two if you count a dog painting as portraiture, but her strengths are more clearly articulated in her paintings of crusty city structures.

The compositions are grid-like, the buildings are depicted frontally, often dominating the entire picture plane. The in-your-face view of the buildings makes them intimidating, coupled with the fast and loose style, darkened, hallowed windows, these images are downright creepy. While the structures (and often titles) are menacing, they are also beautiful. The images are detailed and loose, buttery and grimy, alluring and repulsing. Such dichotomies add a richness to the work; disparate elements emulsify to form arresting works of art. I look forward to catching more works from this up and comer!

More works and info can be found here: http://www.hadastal.org

Oakland Mural

Here's a mural in the city I now call home. Pretty swell.

Some Valentine Etsy Items I put together

YUM!

Shaved ice never looked so fun! Thanks for intoducing me to this shave ice teddy Oakland Chinatown! It's eyeballs move back and forth as it shaves!

Aaaargg!

Aaaarg Teddy, a photo by Whiskers and Tea on Flickr.

I have been neglecting my blog! I am working on moving out of town, ack!

Awesome Etsy Treasuries

Here are some superb Treasuries that feature my magnets!

Thrift Store Thursday

Cats are the focus of this weeks Thrift Store finds!  Cat people rejoice!  That is, if you like freaky cats you would avoid on the street if they were actual flesh and fur rather than ceramic.  Enjoy!

Cat Nap

I'm not the only one who hates waking up.  Mad cat hates being woken, almost as much as he hates your face.

Pet me Cat

This cats body language says, "Pet me," but I have a feeling it will scratch your eyes out if you try.

Demon Cat

Maybe this ceramic piece would he cute if it had pupils, and not evil minions.

Voluptuous Cat

This curvy cat is just adorable! The least evil thing I found to post this week!  Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round.

Wilhelm Sasnal at ANTON KERN

Trying out new Photography

Trying out new Photography, a photo by Whiskers and Tea on Flickr.

What do you think? This is my new deer magnet that I have been playing around with in my light box. I think it's time to spice up my Etsy item photos. So long glaring white backgrounds!

Thrift Store Thursday

An assortment of cute, ridiculous, and frightening finds from a thrift store.  Ready, set, go!

Giiiirl...

This vintage chatterbox is just plain cute.  I'm not sure what gender it is, presumably male 'cause it's not wearing pink.  It must be fun to chat for hours about useless cr*p such as mud pies and worms, like news commentators do!

Father Time Tree?

It's a tree.  It's a man.  It's frightening!  I don't understand the purpose of this homeless man's face peeking out through a pine tree.  That best not be Santa. Nightmares.

Long Doll

It's a doll.  It's long.

Scary Teddy Jar

Who in their right mind came up with this?  I usually love teddy bears, but this? Adding a pretty blue bow around it's neck does nothing to soften the horror.

The fact that it's a cookie jar adds to its spookiness. You have to decapitate the thing to get your snickerdoodle.  A good incentive to avoid the sweets?

Scary Teddy Detail

Look away!

Parkour!

Crazy illustration of an urban monkey.


parkour motion reel by Suchablog

Dreamy Dioramas

I snapped these pics at a local fair not to long ago.  These dioramas are all incredibly well crafted, and there is a remarkable attention to detail. Just being detailed miniatures is an accomplishment in it's own right, but the styling of these sets really ups the ante and sets these mini spaces apart.

Old World Cafe
Given enough distance, this diorama looks startlingly real.  Even an air of gloom hangs over this sadly deserted cafe.

Country Kitchen
This photo is rather stalker-ish.  It's taken from a miniature Peeping Tom's perspective, from outside, pressed up against the window glass. Adorable!

My favorite detail is the chicken cookie jar and the parrot.  Birds...who can resist their kitschy and/or exotic charms?

Lux Flat
This is the most fabulous diorama, EVER! The luxury is enviable, and I'm willing to bet the person who made this resides in a hovel and lives vicariously through that madame.

Scary Carnival
This circus is B-A-N-A-N-A-S!  I dunno about you, but popcorn from a kangaroo vendor, no thank you!    And let's see, I can spot a drunken clown sitting on a turtle, and chimps on the loose...it might as well be a scene from It.

Thrift Store Thursday

This week's spotlight is on ceramics.  They can seem diametrically opposed.  Some are commercially made, others hand crafted. Some are delightfully ridiculous, others delightfully scary.  One thing unites them, they all were found at a Thrift Store.

Enjoy!

Hand Crafted Lizard Man Mask

I bet this came from the ceramics Department of a local University.  You can tell from the craftsmanship....

It appears to depict some kind of Lizard/Man Deity.  Or it could have been a classmate portrait assignment.  It would have been quite frightening without the tongue sticking out, but it's presence is like icing on the OMFG cake!

Lap Dog Tea Party

These pooches look like they come from money.  Not only do they have their own couches to lounge in, but they have pillows and blankeys to make them more comfortable.  I'm surprised they aren't wearing sports jackets and ascots. I envy their lifestyle of leisure. I wonder if the tea party is for them too.  Is that tea pot full of oolong, or chicken broth? They are so fabulous!

Poo Shoe

I think I saved the best/most atrocious for last!  It wasn't obvious to me at first what was attached to the red ceramic sneaker.  "Could it be a rumpled sock?," I thought "Or a newborn something or rather?"  No.  It most sure as sh*t is crap.  I appreciate that it was placed on the bottom shelf.  Its placement both indicates its quality, and enhances the comedic effect.  

Acrylic Transfers. I use 'em to make magnets.

Here are some pics of acrylic transfers that I have already painted with acrylics.  I made the transfers by slathering acrylic medium onto a black and white Xerox copy of my (scaled down) drawings.  After the medium dries onto the Xerox, I soak it in water and rub the paper off.  I am left with an acrylic skin that has the ink of the Xerox transferred onto it.  Are you riveted yet?

Acrylic Transfers, laid out into rows
How organized!  One tricky thing about painting the transfers is that they are painted backwards.  I paint on the back of the transfers, so the first thing I paint (the highlight) shows on the surface, and whatever I paint next appears behind that.  It can get confusing imagining what it looks like, because all you see is the back, not the front.

Acrylic Transfers in a jumble
Here's a pic of the same acrylic transfer paintings, all jumbled up.  Look, the acrylic transfers are transparent!  Some will turn into bottle cap magnets, others into glass gem magnets.

Finished Magnets
This is how the magnets turn out.  Those same acrylic transfers are either sandwiched between glass and card stock, or drowned in resin.  It's the end of the road for the transfers, the Jig is up! Sneaky charlatans...

Splendid Dachshund: Dustin Rankin

Splendid Dachshund: Dustin Rankin: " Hope you like! Most of my new work is a mix of Acrylic paint and Photoshop Collage. ..."

Thrift Store Thursday

Another round up of notable thrift store finds.  This time around, I found a plethora of adorable finds.  Here are the select few I absolutely LOVE!

Teddy Bear Picnic
A rustic pastoral setting is the backdrop for this classic automobile enthusiast teddy's picnic.  Jump back!  All he brought on his picnic was cookies, how adorable is that?! Now that the tin's contents (almost certainly cookies) are gone (have been ravenously consumed),  this cute teddy is its only selling point.  Also, it's a tin so it can hold crap.

Hang in there
I can't really make fun of this adorable box.  It appears someone replaced the cliche cat hanging from a tree branch, with an adorable tiger.  ADORABLE!  It is iridescent, but the gaudy factor is squashed by its cuteness factor to the third power.  One thing I noticed, kitty's corn hole could be showing, or maybe it's an unwittingly placed spot.

Hang in there [dynamic perspective]
It's a box!

Cleft Lip or Hitler Mustache?
Were you beginning to think I wasn't gonna include a truly horrifying pic? I have a reputation to maintain, so here you go...

It is supposed to be a nurturing, loving image, but I can't get past the freaky baby.  There seems to be a gash, square in his face/ mouth area.  It could be a cleft lip, or that famous Fuhrer's signature facial hair.  You decide.

Detail of facial gash/ hair
A close up.  He could possibly be undead, the bloodsucking variety.

A peek into my magnet making process

This was my first time using EnviroTex Lite, and I love it! It's a pourable, two part epoxy resin that dries crystal clear overnight (though they say it takes about two days to cure).  Just look how glassy it turns out!

At this stage, I just have my glitter and resin in the bottle caps.  Some of the bottle caps are painted, the ones that are bare were scrounged up after I noticed that I mixed a surplus of resin (oopsies!).  Soon, they will be graced with my little acrylic transfer paintings, and will turn into bottle cap magnets.  Patriotic, no?

Cool trick to get rid of bubbles that form in epoxy: wave a torch over the resin after it had been mixed and applied.  It totally works! Be careful not to get the flame too close. You don't want your hands to end up looking like Mickey Rourke's face.

Thrift Store Thursday

While browsing a local Thrift Store, I was dumbstruck by a select few of it's contents. Notably, the unicorns.

I could not get over how much power these mythical creatures weald, and the stories all seemed to create.  I am a sucker for a good narrative, so I decided I must share my favorite Thrift Store finds, and their stories (that I made up), with the world.  I hope to make Thrift Store Thursday a regular feature on my blog.

Enjoy!

Unicorn Embroidery with Floral Flourishes
This piece started my hunt for photographing amazing thrift store finds and Blogging them. I took one look at this superbly crafted Unicorn and fell instantly in love with it. Well, not enough to purchase it. But I stopped to snap a photo of it to share with the world. That says something.

Crazed Unicorn of <3s on Black Velvet [left panel]
This Unicorn is the companion piece to the Moody Unicorn. This one generously exudes heart power and can levitate. Close inspection of it's eyes reveal an astonishing truth. Despite all the <3 goodwill, this unicorn is unfortunately crazed.

Moody Unicorn of Darkness on black velvet [right panel]
The title pretty much explains it. I thought this Unicorn looked like it was on the verge of going on a Carrie rampage.

DIY Eugene Levy Cup
The expression of this Eugene Levy cup screams, "Say What?!"

Vintage Yoda
My best thrift store find yet. I don't understand how this Yoda came to resemble Leatherface , but it surely contributes to it's charm. His reaching arms suggest longing for the past, notably a time when he still had ears, and not just exposed cartilage.

Ominous Light Box Setup

Ominous Light Box Setup, a photo by Whiskers and Tea on Flickr.

It reminds me of a science experiment. It actually is a DIY Light Box I made out of a cardboard box, white Gift Tissue, poster board and tape. I have it set up in my home studio. The light box has been super useful for photographing my items I sell on Etsy.

Closer view [just as mysterious]

Closer view [just as mysterious] , a photo by Whiskers and Tea on Flickr.

Another view of the light box.