Kaleidoscope Art

A Passion for Passion Flowers

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What fun to work with a flower that already looks like it’s been spun around in a kaleidoscope. I have loved the passion flower since childhood. My grandparents had a large slab with a roof that they called the Summer House. The pillars that supported the roof were covered with passion flower vines. My younger me didn’t really remember the flowers. I was fascinated by the strange fruit that the flower produced. I recall them first looking like an egg, then aging into something akin in texture to a stale marshmallow. I called them Easter Egg Flowers.

Base image for Passiflora Indulgence
Base image for Passiflora Indulgence

I was reminded of the beauty and sensuality of the flower when I decided to grow the vine in my home garden. We had a large fence that would benefit from a clinging vine. The blooms as well as the spiraling tendrils have become subject to several of my artworks. Others include Passion On Grass, New Passion and Passion Tendril Vessel.

Passiflora Indulgence
Passiflora Indulgence

Check out this image on my online store!

Beach Walks

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I grew up in Santa Barbara. There are many popular beaches with vast stretches of white sand. But I prefer to stay away from the crowd and find the stretches that are a more moody and desolate. The scene here is a small walk north from the lifeguard station at Arroyo Burro State Beach.  I figure the surrounding cliffs have collapse and left these sheets of layered rock down at sea level. Time has worn the edges. Oil seepage from deposits in the Santa Barbara channel give the scene a luminescence, even on an overcast day.

RockNSurf-levels_base
Base image for Rock-N-Surf

 

The resulting artwork is the first piece I created that wasn’t based on flowers. I had been working on this project for two years and had produced about 30 layered kaleidoscopes. It was my birthday and I was feeling like working on something different. The base image seemed to fit my mood for the day and I ended up with this dark yet glowing altered seascape.

Rock-N-Surf
Rock-N-Surf

Check out this image on my online store!

Matilija Inspiration

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MatilijaPrairieInstallation_baseThe matilija poppy is a sun-loving native of Southern California. It’s large crepe paper blossom with a showy yellow puffball of stamens in its center give it the nickname of “fried egg plant.” The photograph that inspired “Matilija Prairie Installation” presents the delicate flower and furry seed pod against a brilliant blue sky.

MatilahaPoppywithSky800webI never go into my work with specific intentions. Each component is created on the fly, based on what I feel is needed for the current artwork. I find a photograph I love and then work within my process to find the pieces to assemble. This means taking the photograph into a software environment (U&I Software’s ArtMatic Designer) that I use to make the various reflections. I don’t know what the results will be when I begin to explore the parameters of the reflections. I find faces and insects; there might be seductive openings. I keep changing setting, looking more images that please me.

In this piece, I found an intriguing structure created by reflecting the seed pod. I thought it looked like the turn-key in an old windup toy or maybe nautical cleats. The white square structure felt like a stretched canvas, slightly bowed in at the edges, now held down by these cleats. Also holding down the canvas is the bottom layer that breaches the bounds of the white layer on top. The petal layers have a celebratory air, particularly when festooned with dots. They almost seem to jump of the surface. In the heart of the piece, the blue sky is used to balance with color and dimension.

Check out this image on my online store!

The difference is in the background

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Passion-Tendril-Vessel
Passion Tendril Vessel
Early version of Passion Tendril Vessel.

I am always amazed at how what seems like a small change to a working image can transport it out of my “working” file and into my accepting it as a finished artwork. The piece Passion Tendril Vessel came together nice and easy. I had used a new technique to create the contoured edges of the main disk and loved the results. I had to battle a bit with the intensity of the tangle of vines that I used as my base image, but I was happy with the balance of the smooth spaces against the busyness of the vine.

Then I had to place my platter on a background and that’s where the fighting began. I always felt this was a dish of some sort and wanted to show it off like one might do for a fine porcelain plate. I fashioned clips from the vines and tied them into a simple background. It didn’t work the way I had wanted it to. I think I even lost the dish aspect; sometimes I’m too clever for my own good.

Back to the drawing board. After more false starts, I finally created the square themed background and was satisfied. The dark interior of the square helped set off the central motif. The vessel feels nested and safe in its new treasure box.

Check out this image on my online store!

Third time’s a charm at the Arboretum

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Peace Lily Montage by Karen Hochman Brown
Peace Lily Montage by Karen Hochman Brown
A montage of images use to create Peace Lily Nouveau

The peace lily exudes calm and serenity.  Its starkly beautiful form and chaste simplicity easily flow into languid patterns.

At my third session creating artwork on site at the LA County Arboretum, the weather was gloomy. The diffused lighting allowed me to capture the delicate differences in the shades of white that cannot be captured when the lighting is bright.

I will return to the Arboretum on Saturday, June 4, 2016 (11:00 AM to 4:30 PM) for my fourth and final time making art there in conjunction with my exhibition,”Reflections in the Garden.” I will once again take up residence in the Gallery at the Arboretum Library, creating another artwork on site!

 

 

Stacking up an artwork – Goji Draco Fabrication

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Goji-Draco-Fabrication

Enjoy this short animation that shows how the layers of Goji Draco Fabrication have been stacked to create the finished artwork. The first transition shows the image that was used as the base for all of the reflections.

Artist-In-Residence, take two, at the LA Arboretum

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"Goji Draco Fabrication" shown with its base image and the reflected foundlings that were used to make the artwork
“Goji Draco Fabrication” shown with its base image and the reflected foundlings that were used to make the artwork. Click the image for an enlargement.

This last weekend at the Los Angeles County Arboretum, they celebrated the official opening to their demonstration garden, Crescent Farm, highlighting steps to create beautiful, bountiful gardens with less water.  To tie into this milestone, I took my inspiration for this artwork from photographs I captured at “the crescent.” The area is abundant with native wildflowers. Additionally, there are interesting garden accents honed from natural materials. I found a mulch of bark laid out in a curved fan pattern. There were pathways lined with lengths of dried bamboo and logs around a tree in a talking circle.

But what really caught my eye was a woven support for an otherwise unkempt plant. What was once a bunch of garden castoffs is now a functional and esthetically pleasing structure. A Dragon Tree provided the material for the weave that now supports a variety of Goji Berry.

The piece I created as Artist-In-Residence at is “Goji Draco Fabrication.” Maybe it would have looked more dragon-like if I had known the source of the brown/orange material. I didn’t learn the identity of the plants until the artwork was complete. Many thanks to the Arboretum staff for helping me identify the subjects of my work.

@LAArboretum  #KarenHochmanBrown #ArtistInResidence #liveart #digitalart #kaleidoscope

 

Recap of 1st Arboretum event

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RITG-AIR live 1
Karen Hochman Brown (r), Artist-In-Residence @LA Arboretum

Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of sharing my art-making process at The Gallery at the Arboretum Library, (Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanical Garden). I started at 11:00 in the morning by setting up my computer station. I am using a MacBook Pro with an external monitor. This enables me to mirror my screen and be able to talk face-to-face with people; they can see what I am doing without standing behind me.

Peacock Art with foundlings
Pumped-up Peacock with components. Click the image to see enlargement.

The next step was to take photographs to use for base images. I found some lovely bird of paradise and some gorgeous cacti. But I honed in on a peacock strutting his stuff. Many peacocks live at the Arboretum in Arcadia, CA, and in fact, peacocks are the official “city bird.”

Once I decided on the image, I began creating layers of kaleidoscopic reflections. The program I use for this is ArtMatic Designer. It gives me some very powerful tools to change the shape of the mirrors. In a normal session, I will render out at least a dozen layers to select from. Click on the image of Pumped-Up Peacock for an enlarged version to see the layers and base images that were used to make the artwork.

For the remainder of the work I use Photoshop. The layers are cut apart, stacked and shaded until I decide the piece is done. This is the first time that I have created an entire artwork outside of my studio at home. I wasn’t sure I could do it considering the time constraints. I did it! I was able to finish the piece in five hours.

Next Artitist-In-Residence event:
April 16, from 11:00 am – 4:30 pm.

The gallery show continues through June 30, 2016.
Check the Arboretum website for hours.

 

Arboretum Artist-in-Residence

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The Forecast Is Fern

My kaleidoscopic artworks are still on display at the Gallery at The Los Angeles County Arboretum. The show, Reflections In The Garden runs through the end of June, and is housed in the Arboretum’s newly renovated Library.

I’m happy to announce that I will be demonstrating my creation process on four separate occasions, onsite at the gallery. I’m taking my camera and computer and will create a new piece, from start to finish over a five hour period. In each session, I will begin by taking photographs around the Arboretum grounds. I will select an image to work with and then make several layers of the image, reflected in many ways. I will continue with my process until I (hopefully) finish an artwork. Come watch me work.

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Join me at the Arboretum!

To get to the Gallery at The Los Angeles County Arboretum, go to the main entrance and the Library is immediately to the left, through the double doors. Admission or membership are required to tour the grounds, however it is not required to visit the Library.

301 North Baldwin Avenue • Arcadia, CA  91007

11:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Saturday, June 4, 2016

A Valentine gift

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Base "doodle"
Base “doodle”

I have been trying to turn my artworks into coloring book pages. I think the kaleidoscopic mandalas that I create lend themselves to this. However, with so much texture in my artworks, I have been unable to translate them into stark black and white. So I have been working with line doodles that I created in Adobe Illustrator and spinning them into fanciful creations that are suitable for coloring. My plan is to make enough of them to create a book, or at least an ebook.

Valentine Coloring Page
Click on image to download full size

For Valentines Day, I am presenting a page that you can download for free! Print at home and color with your favorite crayons, colored pencils or markers. Feel free to distribute this page to your friends. Have fun.

Happy Valentines Day!