Giant sidewalk trees--- a different kind of street art

Tim Leaf has been drawing trees on the ground for 17 years--  some people notice and take in the urban forest that's sprouted up-- and other people call the cops.   But the pigeons always show up to eat the flour residue away and these emphermal art works last about a month.   I met Tim at the last Art Murmur in Oakland at the Pullup Gallery  and he's a devoted working artist that's in it for the long haul.
 Where can you find these trees?  In deserted urban places that need them.   Gifts to Oakland and San Francisco.  This is tree-planting like you've never seen it before-- Here is a link to www.curbworker.com where you can see the rig Tim designed to fit his unique process. 

This is more art from January.   You might notice the re-occurence of trees in these paintings.  civilization, by nature, suppresses nature.   But nature always returns.  Speaking of some wild nature--if you like intense storms than you'll like Take Shelter.   

I actually thought it was an inspiring movie.   Michael Shannon plays a working man plagued by dark, apocalyptic visions.   He's written off as crazy-- but it turns out he had some really powerful visions of the future.  Here's to the world not ending in 2012 though.

getting caught up on posting the 40 drawings from this year--

       Top picture is inspired by Andy Warhol- the inventor of easy painting.    Will definitely be doing some screen printing this year.   The second picture is Andy's Cat.    Her music is at www.soundcloud.com/antinote

I made these two images at Sketch Tuesdays at 111 Minna.    The first one is their red door outside which is also their logo.   The second picture is based on the second room/ bar where they held the sketch night.   Michael Mason was there DJing too!   He is a new artist mover and will be playing out of the Pull Up gallery at some point in the future.

Abstract Art with belt sander

Already a drawing a day is pushing me to expand my techniques and style.   The simple process of putting pastel on black and white photos is working well-- but I had to start painting abstractly or I was going to go crazy.   So here we have layers of metallic paint--  I each layer down before adding another one to provide the textured background.    I actually made the background for this blog using that technique. 

 

                                                                              I'm still thinking about adding layers to the second picture shown here.   Let me know what you think.  

Page St. San Francisco

Pastel on black and white photo.  

Work from January 2012