fine art

Falling Into Art: new work and updates

art education, children's illustration, fine art

DotDayHenderson2015Fall is off to a great start here in Brookline! For one, I’ve begun year two at the Henderson Inclusion Elementary School in Dorchester, MA as an Art Teacher. I’m so excited to continue working with students old and new, and try out new projects and techniques! We just finished celebrating International Dot Day, culminating with a Dot Tree by first and second graders (shown above)

Some highlights of projects I’ll be doing with students include Tree Weavings with Third graders, Andy Goldsworthy inspired nature art with pre-schoolers, shape monsters with Kindergarteners, and Leaf People with First graders.

We are making murals on the bulletin boards around the school as a part of the after-school program, and students chose to decorate the lunch room boards with the phrase “Falling Into Art”. We still have some work to do, but it’s coming along:

FallingIntoArt15

In addition, I’m diving into my fine art and illustrative work. My illustrative work has been on a pause in lieu of Spit and Sticks launching in 9 days, and school starting. My fine art work has been developing since early summer, and I have two pieces in a faculty show at Brookline Arts Center. They are on display until October 16:

Both pieces are sold/on loan, but I have more pieces on the way that are for sale, and will have postcards and greeting cards of my Found Houses series available for holiday craft sales soon.

The Brookline Arts Center also launches their Artistic Migration Installation project today at Brookline Day! I was excited to be a part of the project marketing by creating a postcard and map depicting where the bird sculpture we are creating will travel to and from. Check out the postcard below, and click for more details on how you can be a part of the project:

Birdweb

8 Artists Show comes down tomorrow!

acrylic, fine art, Mass Art

Tomorrow, the show I’ve had up at Mass Art with my colleagues in the Arnheim Gallery, will come down. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having my work on display, seeing it everyday, and seeing it change. The humidity has caused some of the paintings to warp, but this I really don’t mind. It adds to the physicality of them,

Here are some recent shots taken of the works in the exhibit setting, and some closeups you won’t find on the portfolio page. I’m eager to hear thoughts, and to chat about future opportunities to show these works!

NicoleGsell.Exhibit

New work added to Fine Art!

collage, fine art, inspiration, painting, printmaking

 

The past few weeks have found me embracing, and loving, my fine art studio practice once again. I love that my program at Mass Art gave me such a wonderful opportunity to practice as a professional artist. It was a daunting, but prolific three weeks. Click the image below to see my new body of work: collage mono prints!

 
Nicole.Gsell.001l copy

 

 

All work subject to copyright. For purchase information, please contact me directly!

Artist Equation

collage, crafty, fine art, Mass Art

For my Concepts and Processes class at Mass Art, our homework was to create an artwork that involved a famous artist. We could “add, multiply, divide, square root”, i.e create an equation between us and another artist. The artist I chose was Pepon Osorio, a Puerto Rican artist known for large scale installations.

The piece “Tina’s House” was particularly inspiring for me, provocative and mesmerizing.

In an Art21.org article on Osorio:

“My principal commitment as an artist is to return art to the community.” A recent example is “Tina’s House,” a project created in collaboration with a family recovering from a devastating fire. The house—a tabletop-size art piece—tells the story of the night of the fire and those affected, and is traveling the country in a series of “home visits”: a home visit invites a new family to live with the art work for a period of at least one week, allowing the story of “Tina’s House” to be told in many homes and environments.

Nicole + Pepon / Nicole X Pepon = “Another Little Incident”

For reference, this is Tina’s House (referenced in the quote above):

Groupmuse: Sketches from a quartet concert

fine art, groupmuse, Uncategorized, watercolor

At the beginning of December, I enjoyed an intimate quartet concert at a friend’s apartment. I was thrilled to be able to paint the musicians while they played. The observation experience parallels the observation experience I had during last semester at Mass Art in my Art Education program.

I was transfixed by the immediacy of the performance, and the intensity of the songs and musicians. These four images are my results.

Groupmuse01

Groupmuse02

 

 

 

 

 

 

Groupmuse04

Groupmuse03

You can also find these images, plus an artist book, and more paintings, on my Fine Art portfolio page!

 

Self Portraits, long overdue

acrylic, fine art, oils

Last summer, I began embarking in my fine-art career once again. I started with self portraits, glazing oils on top of acrylic monochromatic underpaintings.

I got really into my underpainting for one of my self portraits, so that piece was left unfinished, in a sense. I moved on to a second portrait where I did glaze oils on top. What a nice change it has been to play with oil paint again! I can’t wait to do so again soon:

NG_Self_Oil_0613

NG_Self_Acrylic_0613

Before painting these portraits, I began with a simple pear still life. As well as a tomato, painted on masonite board. Pear painting to come, but here is a snapshot of the tomato (4×6″ approximately):

2013-03-03 15.50.12