May 2017 – Tony's Art School

Congratulations!

Here is a happy letter I just received from a recent high school grad’s dad (and honors to you for supporting your daughter, sir). If you have a great GPA, good references, and do a good job on your portfolio very good things can happen. This student got multiple offers right away. BUT – if you don’t have all your academic ducks in a row – it’s even more important to work on that portfolio!!! If you really want in – never rule yourself out – apply, demand feedback, apply again! In my own case, my academics were uneven because I didn’t know what I wanted to do – but later on I made sure I had a formidable portfolio.

‘Hi Tony – Hope everything goes well with you. (My daughter) learned drawing in your studio last summer. She is going to accept an offer from Architecture Univ. of Waterloo. She got offers from McGill, UBC, and Waterloo. She did a good job in her secondary studies. – Thank you for your help (Student’s Dad).’

Reflections Sailboat Mirror Studies

People have asked if reflections should be longer, shorter, or the same as the actual object. The annoying answer is “It depends.” I made a little sailboat (about 3 inches high) by carving a white vinyl eraser and making a sail by cutting a credit card, painting it white and drawing a curve with a sharpie. I placed the model on a hand mirror and took some shots. I have done the same thing with toys of animals, people, etc. I like to make little quick model set-ups to study such problems, including light, shadow, etc. As you can see, the height of the reflection depends on the angle of the object vs. the mirror surface. The same thing applies to mountains or trees along a lake edge.

Looking back in time – Northwest Company – Richard Stepp

Live from Las Vegas – Rockin’ Richard Stepp

My friend is an amazing musician and entertainer. He played for hours at my brother’s funeral-wake. Check him out – “Richard Stepp Live from Las Vegas Youtube”.

Don’t forget to come back after your visit to Youtube 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX_JpFUwhPA

I put this poster together for him –

Cut Flowers in the House of the Deity

A myth is a truth about our nature, often terrible, which is easier to bear because it appears to be merely an imaginative tale told about others, far away in time, space or dimension. I think of this as Mythic Space . I worked on a series of paintings called ‘Back to the Garden’ which took the Adam and Eve myth and played with it to include many ‘adams’ and many ‘eves’, who became flamenco dancers and bodybuilders (the epitomies of display, fierce and pathetic) blossoms that bloom and fall. I put them in a vase among other cut flowers, iris and narcissus. I drew the ‘vases’, Doric, ionic and Corinthian, in line form and the whole image then seemed to exist in a kind of ‘mythic space’, real and unreal at the same time. After all, we are but ‘cut flowers’ in the House of the Deity. And a painting is a window in that House.