Beginning the Portrait

It is two weeks before the art show at the Rothick, and Im creating things like mad! I have a lot of things I want to do for this show and of course they are all big, detailed, and take a lot of time. So the first one I am starting with is a portrait of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He is a Russian author and Nobel prize winner. He had a pretty crazy life living in Soviet Russia, and writing all of his books in secret. Read his biography on the Nobel prize website.

I started researching Aleksandr a few weeks ago. I stumbled upon his biography while reading up on Russian history. I ordered a few of his books including "Cancer Ward" (which I am currently reading) and "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich". I also ordered an extra copy of "Cancer Ward" to use as the background of this piece. Below you can see what Ive done so far, and I will keep posting up my progress daily.

So far I have cooked up some wheatpaste... its super easy, cheap, works really good, and you can eat it (it doesnt taste very good but its just flour and water).
To make your own follow this simple recipe:
for every 3 tablespoons of flour, use 1 cup of water.
heat up water on stove without bringing to boil.
in separate container mix flour with a little water to make it pastey.
then pour into hot pot of water. mix for a few minutes.
I like to strain mine afterwards as I pour into a container, just to make it extra smooth.



Then I cut out pages of the book "Cancer Ward" and began pasting them to this a board. I use an old gift card to press them on there and flatten out any wrinkles.



There you have it.... more coming Monday!

First Gallery Showing!!

The IncredibleArtist.Com Gallery Proudly Presents:

“Torn Apart” by Danny Schutt

Danny Schutt is a talented young artist and cancer survivor. His first major work is “Torn Apart”, a powerful nine-panel sequence on Life. Come see it this weekend (Sat. April 25 7-10pm)! We are very pleased to display this incredible work in the Gallery, and to welcome a new emerging artist to the IncredibleArtist.Com family.
Learn more about Danny on our website: http://incredibleartist.com/artists/danny-schutt/
The original is available for sale, and will shortly be available as fine art giclées.

This is a series I created that follows a character's life from the moment he was born to his untimely end (reads like a book). I wanted to create it in a way that would make people think. I didnt want this series to be spelled out, instead I tried to really stretch the visual representation as far from the original meaning as possible without losing it completely...

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