New Typography Art!

A new piece up at my Etsy shop! This quote is from a poem by Derrick Brown called "A Finger, Two Dots Then Me." I thought it was so beautiful and simple, and for months I have been wanting to create a piece inspired by it! This is what I finally came up with. 

The poem was made into a short film that has won a ton of awards. You can see it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcoMiGiDRjg

Misha Blaise Design

NEW Limited Edition Print

This is the second print I have created In honor of the premiere of the outstanding book/video/movement "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide." The first print I created was part of another limited edition of 25 that has sold out. You can see more about the first print here!

This print, "Two Wings" is based on a beautiful quote by 'Abdu'l-Baha:
"The world of humanity has two wings -- one is women and the other men. Not until both wings are equally developed can the bird fly."

Once it sells out, it will be gone for all eternity, so pull up your socks and race on over to my etsy store to get it before the gettin' is DONE!

New Paintings

After months of making mostly digitally manipulated images, I finally immersed myself back into the world of painting. (see more here)

Art by Misha Blaise

Art by Misha Blaise

Because I have become so accustomed to the precision of working digitally, it has been really exciting for me to work with paint and explore color and form in a way that is more unpredictable.  These paintings draw upon my obsession with folk art and bold colors.

Art by Misha Blaise

Art by Misha Blaise

Art by Misha Blaise

There are a few more that you can see here!

*NEW*

Garden in Delnice

Delnice is a small town in western Croatia where my father's side of the family is from.  The birds in this piece and also the very geometrical pattern below the birds are from old Croatian embroidery patterns.  These patterns are usually executed with red, black and white thread.  They take on a dramatically different feel when made digital using bright neon colors!

**NEW!**

Tea in Amman

I had these deer on my mind ever since I saw them painted on various folk-styled dishware in Jordan.  I went there a few years ago with a close friend and we spent 5 days driving around the country, visiting her family and checking out some tourist sites.  It was a trip I won't forget and I'm glad I finally found a place for these guys in my art!  The flowers in the center are modeled after Polish Wycinanki paper art.  The rest of the patterns in this piece combine some Croatian embroidery, a West Elm inspired pattern, and some simple shapes I put together myself!

Design Inspired by a Rug

A few months ago, I bought this very cool "Kite Kilim" rug from West Elm.

At first I had it on my living room floor, but my husband was a big crybaby and said it was too scratchy, so I had to move it under our console.  I really really love the pattern on this rug, and I was inspired to duplicate it into a piece of art I was working on.  The 1 piece turned into 3, and suddenly I had a series inspired by a rug!

Starting out: I painted a few elements to merge together digitally.

The three images I came up with

Art inspired by a rug!

Visit my ETSY shop to buy these pieces!

Art and Words

I have long admired the photography of Layli Samimi-Aazami.  It turns out, this multifaceted little lady is also a poet, and she started a weekly segment on her blog where she added quotes and poems to her art.  I asked if she would be interested in adding words to a piece I made recently that reminded me of the Black Hills/Badlands area of South Dakota, where my family used to vacation.  Have you ever asked yourself how many people you know who have lived in South Dakota?  Well I have.  It turns out Layli and her husband are the ONLY people I have ever known who have actually lived there! 

Here is my art with her words over it:

In truth, we are all missing out by not living in South Dakota because the landscape is freaking beautiful, plus there are these majestic (and also large, scraggly and frightening) creatures known as BUFFALO just freely roaming about.  And here is a litle fun fact: a buffalo can outrun a horse!

When I read these words that Layli suggested for this piece, I immediately clicked with them.  The Badlands are a place where you feel the power of nature.  Beneath the gigantic sky that can darken into a storm in a matter of minutes, you are given the space to get back in touch with who you are, and to grapple with life's big questions.  Or you can just check out the prairie dogs and buy some fool's gold at the Mount Rushmore gift shop. The choice is yours!

This piece can be purchased, sans words, at my ETSY store.

Making a Piece of Art

Have you ever looked at a piece of art and wondered how the artist went about creating it? Where does she even start? Were there any elements originally placed in the piece that were later removed or covered up? Most of all, how does she know when it’s done?

This video gives a glimpse into the process I took to create one of my pieces. I made a conscious effort to take screen shots of the piece as it developed (a formidable task for an artist in “the zone!”). Hopefully it gives you an idea of how a final piece comes together after a lot of maneuvering. As for how I knew when it was done, you can decide for yourself what you think about the final version compared to every other step along the way!

Little Chirpy Guy

I’m crazy for very tiny, chubby birds.  There are lots of them in my neighborhood and they hop around the yard in a festive way every morning.  Because I am usually up far earlier than I would like to be, plus I’m forced by my tyrannical toddler to go outside into freezing temperatures, these little birds really bring me solace and joy.

I put one of these little guys into a recent piece of art, he is available as a print in my etsy store.

Repurposing Old Art

I have two collage pieces that hang in my office to the right of my desk; they were made by a friend of my father in the early 1970′s. I have no further information about the pieces. This was long before Photoshop, and it looks like she used some kind of transfer process, probably using some horribly toxic chemical, to merge her images together.

I have been wanting to use the images as source material for a while; not only are there tons of cool images hidden within each piece, but I have seen this art my entire life and I am sure it has influenced my own style in some way (maybe the collage-like style, the flatness, the busy detail?).

Anyway, I scanned her work and transplanted a few of the images into a mixed media triptych I made recently.  The pieces are called Dawn Breaking, Mid Day, and Night:

I love the mysterious characters floating around in the original pieces. They are obscured by the print transfer process, but you can still tell they are robed, like some kind of royalty or mythic holy figures.  I took a few of them and made them more central in the second piece of the triptych:

source material

Image of figures transferred into my art (detail)

Because I have been working on these pieces around Christmas time, I have been thinking about those robed figures as the three kings.  The three kings were actually Zoroastrian priests and astronomers, who heralded Jesus as a return of Zoroaster as prophesized in their own holy texts.

I often work themes of spiritual search, prophesy, and return into my work, albeit in very coded ways.  In the modern age, I really believe that clergy are obsolete, and it’s the responsibility of every individual to seek truth.  So maybe the three kings I’m imagining in this piece could be any one of us, not just religious scholars.  Anyway, here are the three pieces individually, they can be purchased at my ETSY store here.