Tag: artinsights gallery

2021 Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival in Reston Town Center

This weekend Reston Town Center is hosting the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival from Friday through Sunday, with over 200 artists displaying and selling their original and limited edition art and craftwork. Straying from the usual date in May because of COVID, this weekend promises to be great weather, and since the entire event happens outside, will be sure to limit the chance of sickness for those who attend.

As part of supporting these artists and the sale of their work, ArtInsights is offering 20% off of all framing while the festival is happening.

Come by, find some new art at the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival, (which you’ll be buying directly from the artists and thereby supporting their artistic endeavors), and bring it in for framing at our gallery. Of course you can always just stop by and say hi! on the way in or out of attending the fest!

Hope to see you this weekend. Those concerned about safety or coming in for a visit, remember to bring your mask.

When:

Friday / Saturday / Sunday 10am-5pm

From sponsor Tephra Institute (formerly Greater Reston Arts Center):

Now in its 30th year, the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival will take place on September 10–12, 2021 and will highlight more than 200 artists who are creating unique, handmade works in the fields of fine art and craft. Drawing upon a robust exhibitor and collector base coupled with Tephra ICA’s contemporary art foundation, the Festival has become one of the region’s most anticipated events, attracting approximately 30,000 people to the unique, outdoor environment of Reston Town Center. The Festival is comprised of one-on-one experiences, performances, and special events leaving an exciting, thoughtful mark in the region. Scroll down to learn more about this marquee event.

Safety precautions will be implemented this year including but not limited to, hand sanitation stations; vaccination requirements for Festival volunteers; and encouragement of social distancing and face mask-wearing in artist booths.

See all the artists coming to the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival HERE.

See all the events and children’s activities happening at the fest HERE.

ArtInsights, offering custom framing to Reston, Northern Virginia, and Maryland, as well as animation, film and contemporary art, gets a facelift!

ArtInsights Gallery: New Look, Same Great Art, Custom Framing

Michael Barry is a master framer, and has been framing since 1979. Now it’s very clear we do custom framing, because says it on our new sign! Until recently lots of people new to the gallery didn’t realize we do framing. We get it. Our vintage Disney art, Star Wars art, Marvel and DC art, Harry Potter… It’s magically distracting! Now we’ve got a new sign, and more new frames, and moved them so it’s clearer to folks walking by…

You may not know this, but Reston Town Center had been built with the pavilion taking the place of a spot in which, in the 70s, hippies, it is said, had bonfires. There was always great energy here. So we moved into a spot in the lobby of Two Fountain Square, where before us there was only a dirt floor.

It all started about 26 years ago, back when Mobil owned Reston Town Center. They had concerts and lots of other free events. Mobil, it seemed, had money to burn. They promoted all the stores here. There was a marketing budget, and they loved talking about the small businesses here.

The sign for our gallery was approved, after much ado, by both the folks at Mobil, and the Reston Architectural Review Board. But small and succinct, it just said, “ArtInsights”. We put a real hard wood floor in (that was four floors ago..), and got to work selling animation art, which at the time was only just becoming popular as a collectible. There are only a few galleries that specialized in it. But we ALWAYS did framing, and..in point of fact, for no more and often far less than Michael’s down the street from us…Michael had been framing since the 70s, and people followed him from Alexandria, driving from there, DC, Arlington, and parts of Maryland to avail themselves of his talent. Anyone who has framed art knows how important framing can be to interior design.

Over the years, we’ve had renovations, new floors, new walls, and the like, but every time we tried to get a larger, more interesting sign, we came up against whoever owned the center. We never even GOT to the architectural review board. We could just never get anything approved.

This year, to our great pleasure, Boston Properties gave us approval to put a far more interesting, more dramatic sign in front of our gallery! (and it says ART AND FRAMING!)

It’s GLOWING!

We also finally got a front door, which is something we’ve wanted a long time. Fresh air is important!

We also got new windows into the lobby, which gives us lots more light and a better view for people walking by.

Everyone who comes in thinks we made the gallery bigger, but it’s just little things like our moving the frames to the front and getting much bigger windows that have made the store feel bigger!

So many new frames! Much better light! Why didn’t we think of this earlier? Oh yeah. We didn’t have a door! This set up is so much better. The same amount of frames in less space!

We added a bunch of new frames, and we’re pretty excited about them! Do you have some treasure, or funky thing, or a piece of art you’ve had sitting around that should be on your wall? Now’s a great time to come by and let us partner on some custom framing to beautify it for your home!

We have been grateful that all the major studios and many of our collector friends have given us rare art, special exclusives, and new releases to present in our new space to our clients.

Pongo, Perdita, and Sorcerer’s Apprentice…originals of three of our favorites!

Curious about some of the cool images (Batman, the Avengers, Star Wars, the Beatles, vintage Disney art from Jungle Book, 101 Dalmatians, Lady and the Tramp, Fantasia, and Mary Poppins, just to name a few..) stop by soon!

Pugilistic Bears, Penguins, and Puppies, OH MY!

In the near future, we’ll be adding some music and special events to our roster, so check back often to see what’s new.

Lesson? There’s always something that renews enthusiasm in small business, no matter what the retail environment. My advice to other small businesses who have been around a long time is find something that will bring both you and your clients joy.

Spotlight on Studio Art: Buying Original and Limited Edition Animation Model Sheets

I thought today I’d talk about my very favorite kind of animation art, model sheets.  The explanation of animation model sheets, according to wikipedia:

“In animation, a model sheet, also known as a character boardcharacter sheetcharacter study or simply a study, is a document used to help standardize the appearance, poses, and gestures of an animated character. Model sheets are required when large numbers of artists are involved in the production of an animated film to help maintain continuity in characters from scene to scene, as one animator may only do one shot out of the several hundred that are required to complete an animated feature film. A character not drawn according to the production’s standardized model is referred to as off-model.

Model sheets are drawings of posed cartoon or comic strip characters that are created to provide a reference template for several artists who collaborate in the production of a lengthy or multiple-edition work of art such as a comic book, animated film or television series. Model sheets usually depict the character’s head and body as they appear at various angles (a process known as “model rotation”), includes sketches of the character’s hands and feet, and shows several basic facial expressions.

Model sheets ensure that, despite the efforts of several or many artists, their work exhibits unity, as if one artist created the drawings (that is, they are “on model”). They show the character’s structure, proportions, attire, and body language. Often, several sheets are required to depict a character’s subtler emotional and physical attitudes.”

Finding original model sheets of characters that millions of people know and love always brings me great joy.  Actually, even finding obscure model sheets from movies or characters only loved by diehard fans or super-geeky animation fans is great fun.

In my 30+ years selling animation art, I’ve sold some amazing original model sheets.

There are two I remember the most and I’m the most proud of….One was from Alice in Wonderland, of Alice.  It was the one the animators actually used, that had been photocopied and you could find the photostat versions often online.  I think it looked something like this:

I also found a great Pongo model sheet, and since he’s one of my favorite characters, I was very excited to sell that one (so don’t fall in love ;).

Over the years, I had Snow White and the dwarfs, Dumbo, Sleeping Beauty, The Ugly Duckling, and a bunch of various Mickey and the rest of the fab five like Donald Duck and Goofy.  In 30 years, I’ve maybe found one a year.  Partly that’s because I have always done a ton of research to know where they’ve been before they get to me, and the more popular and collectible animation art has become, the riskier buying anything you can’t trace gets.

Interestingly, not that many people are as big a fan as I am of them.  I’ve always attracted more collectors who love production cels.  But..the characters that have been seen by millions and continue to be seen are created and kept consistent through these images.  It’s a big deal!  It’s the artistry of the character design sitting there on the wall!

I’m not trying to pitch you guys to want to buy them, because I do so rarely find them.   I just want people to understand the beauty and genius behind them. We do have one right now, and it’s one of those that are cobbled together by animators who want to keep a character consistent by seeing it from every angle…but it also has more than one character on it.  Another love of mine as an animation art dealer is the art of Fantasia.  The film is a classic, of course, but it also has an artistic quality that is unique in all of of Disney history.

Here is the model sheet we’ve got right now, and actually I’m looking at it in person, because it makes me happy, especially this time of year.

Unicorn model sheet from Fantasia available at ArtInsights
Unicorn model sheet from Fantasia available at ArtInsights

There are plenty of photostat versions of model sheets for collectors who either can’t find the original, can’t afford one, or just want to collect a variety of pieces from the time that capture the art behind the films they love. For example, there are lots of photostat model sheets from Alice in Wonderland, as many different ones as the number of characters represented in the film.

Here are just a few, so you can see how wonderful they are and how perfectly they capture less “popular” characters…

great examples of photostat model sheets from Alice in Wonderland
Two great examples of photostat model sheets from Alice in Wonderland

I’m toying with the idea of finding more photostat images to sell to my clients.  I didn’t use to have them or carry them, because they are some hundreds of dollars, and have been for some time, because they come from the time.

Contact the gallery if it’s something you might be interested in, because I know a bunch of old-time collectors who have them.  How wonderful would these look in someone’s office?!  Yes, they are esoteric aesthetically, but that’s what makes them work in a professional environment.  The same is true for a house that has a lot of tradition art in it.  Either original or photostat model sheets will work there when other animation might not!

For those who love Warner Brothers and Hanna Barbera, there are some great images available from those studios as well.  We have an original from 1959 that’s more of a layout and a model sheet that is clearly from back when they are designing characters.  How awesome is it to know these characters hadn’t even been placed in a cartoon yet?  Fans of Quickdraw McGraw will get a kick out of that, and it’s definitely a piece of animation history.

A layout/model drawing of Hanna Barbera characters from 1959 available at ArtInsights
A layout/model drawing of Hanna Barbera characters from 1959 available at ArtInsights

Here are some limited editions with Tom and Jerry,Wile. E. Coyote and Roadrunner, and the gang from Scooby Doo.  The designs for Tom and Jerry are particularly interesting, given they were created while Hanna and Barbera were at MGM and the duo won seven Oscars and were nominated for another 7!  To put things in proper perspective, Bugs won only one Oscar!!

A limited edition of an early model of Tom and Jerry available from ArtInsights
A limited edition of an early model of Tom and Jerry available from ArtInsights

The Mystery Machine Gang and Scooby Doo Model Sheet available at ArtInsights
The Mystery Machine Gang and Scooby Doo Model Sheet available at ArtInsights

A limited edition based on a Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner model sheet available at ArtInsights
A limited edition based on a Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner model sheet available at ArtInsights

These do a great job of mixing the artistry behind the characters and the color and pop of production cels.  Again, they show the brain behind the movement and characterization of these classic cartoons, but in the above images you also get the color, hand-painted cel so many collectors want.

What it comes down to for me, is model sheets really represent the history behind animation.  They show our favorite characters in positions and doing things that sometimes they haven’t even done yet in a cartoon. They also capture just how talented not only the character animators are, but also those working with them who have to stay on model regardless of what is happening in their scenes.  There is so much skill, discipline and artistry in animation.  There’s no greater example of that than in animation model sheets.

If any of you collectors or animators have any great images, put them in the comments or email them to me, I always love seeing them!

Spotlight on Studio Art: The Art of Alex Ross at ArtInsights and on Video

Alex Ross has become the #1 collected artist in comics.  His style changed the world of comic book art, and he brought an illustrative, more Norman Rockwell style, with realistic, hyper-realistic depictions of superheroes as real-life humans, albeit with way more muscles.  As a gallery that specializes in pop culture, we have carried the work of Alex Ross for over 20 years…Now, his agents have finally started making videos where Alex himself talks about his work and inspiration.  I thought i’d talk about some of my experience selling his work, and post some of the videos here:

He talks about his realism in art here:

As great as Alex Ross’s work is, he wouldn’t be nearly as famous in terms of art collecting had it not been for the Warner Bros stores.  They got behind his work and promoted it as real art as well as a collectible.  His images were some of the crowning glories in the stores, always put in a place of prominence. His new limited editions were released to increasingly committed fans who were quickly becoming completist collectors.

I had my own taste of Alex’s enthusiastic fandom when ArtInsights was the first and only gallery to represent Alex Ross Art at a comic convention.  We had a booth at New York Comic Con showing only The Art of Alex Ross.  Alex’s representatives were kind enough to give us some great exclusive limited editions, and we also had full color and graphite originals.  No other art gallery before or since has had that exclusive.

Crisis on Infinite Earths Giclee on Canvas by Alex Ross AP1
Crisis on Infinite Earths Giclee on Canvas by Alex Ross AP1. We released this image in our Alex Ross booth at NYCC.

I had been working with what is now the head of the collections of Alex Ross limited editions for over 20 years at that point, and she knew me well, so she knew I would represent the art with integrity and honesty.  The same agent had been in charge of the Warner Bros. stores before they went out of business, so she knew everything necessary to design and implement a fine art portfolio for Alex Ross.  She’d been doing it for decades.

From the first day of the convention, we were swamped with convention attendees.  Some of them were just fans in love with his work, but not interested in buying art.  Others were avid collectors looking to buy the latest exclusive.  We had a Doctor Strange, Captain America, and Batman exclusive signed lithograph that we sold out of the first day. Had there been any DC Comics original art of the Justice League, a concern in the far east would have bought every one of them.  Alas, he has not been working on DC projects for some time, so there was no art for sale.  Apparently this one group will buy absolutely anything, with almost unlimited funds.  This is one reason why mere mortal collectors should look to graphites if they want something original of his art.

Many people wonder why Alex never comes to conventions.  There’s an easy explanation for that, but I think fans and art collectors often don’t consider it.  Alex still paints in the traditional way.  For the most part, he is not creating inside a computer.  He still uses brushes, models, and paint.  That means that when other working artists can make adjustments by clicking on the mouse of their computer, Alex Ross would have to completely repaint the art.

He talks about physical painting and why he does it:

He is a traditional illustrator in a digital world, but he likes it that way.  His idols are Norman Rockwell, Leyendecker, and the rest of the geniuses of twentieth century illustrative art.  He was particularly influenced by Andrew Loomis, who was not only a great illustrator, but the author of instructional art books essential to the craft.

If you know the work of Norman Rockwell AND Alex Ross, you may recognize the strong influence and reference Alex Ross used from some of Rockwell’s works in Ross covers for Kingdom Come and Justice.  Here is a video of Alex Ross talking about his inspiration for The Justice League paintings:

To my mind, when Alex Ross creates images like the Marvel Shadows and the DC Shadows series, he does his best work.  I usually prefer his images of single characters.  To my mind, we get to see shadows and light playing on the subject more distinctly, seeing more specific choices he’s making.

My favorite images to date, by far, are his images inspired by Universal Monsters.  Created entirely in shades of grey, black and white, these pieces show the nuance with composition, shadow, and light only a great illustrator can express.  There are times when Alex’s color art is so frenetic and intense, I have a hard time focusing.  That’s not to say it isn’t compelling, I just think in Alex Ross’s Dracula, for example, or his Bride of Frankenstein, you almost feel like you could step into the painting and become part of the story.  They are at once evocative of the films represented and seductive as unique illustrations, separate from the subject matter.  Whether you know the stories or not, you are drawn to the tableaus he has laid out before you.

ALEX ROSS UNIVERSAL MONSTERS:

Not only are all the Universal Monsters officially licensed images, the folks at Alex Ross Art got permission and became officially connected with Bela Lugosi and even has the logo of his estate on the certificate of authenticity.  Much to absolutely no surprise, his Universal Monsters giclees on canvas were the hit of San Diego Comic-Con.  They outsold all the Marvel and DC images! 

The whole set of Universal Monsters giclees on canvas by Alex Ross
The whole set of Universal Monsters giclees on canvas by Alex Ross

There were only 15 put aside as matching sets, and they are far less than if you buy them individually and we have #13 if anyone is interested in the whole set.

ALEX ROSS SPIDER-MAN:

We love Alex Ross Spider-Man art.  Whenever we get the opportunity, we get whatever Alex Ross Art releases for our clients.  Alex has loved Spider-Man his whole life, and actually his first memory of him is the live-action character on The Electric Company! 

Spider-Man: Rockomic by Alex Ross Signed Limited Edition Lithograph
Spider-Man: Rockomic by Alex Ross Signed Limited Edition Lithograph

We have a piece called Rockomic and another very sold out one called Spider-Man Visions, plus the more recent Spider-Man: Marvels. My own memory of Spidey is from the Saturday Morning Cartoon, which was the best!  It came on at 6:30 am and I got up especially to see it.

 

Am I the only one who really loves Aquaman?  I mean, he’s not just some stupid character to be made fodder for jokes in Entourage!  Whether he’s the blonde character I know from the Superfriends or Jason Mamoa, who nearly singlehandedly saved the new Justice League movie, I enjoy having him around to manipulate water, make jokes, and talk to fish… Apparently, Alex loves him, too.  

He talks about it:

(If you like the image below, you can find a limited edition of Aquaman HERE.)

If you’re a fan of Captain America (which I am!) and Iron Man, here’s Alex talking about what he enjoys about creating images of these superheroes.  And you can find some great Captain America art HERE.

One of the latest releases from Alex Ross is of Wonder Woman, and it’s called “Wonder Woman: Goddess of Truth”.   After the image was posted on the Alex Ross twitter feed, Patty Jenkins saw it and fell in love with it and sent Alex a note saying how beautiful it was.  The best aspect of Alex Ross’s Wonder Women: Goddess of Truth is how perfectly it translates into giclee. 

Wonder Woman: Goddess of Truth Giclee on Paper by Alex Ross
Wonder Woman: Goddess of Truth Giclee on Paper by Alex Ross

Giclees are basically a very high-quality ink-jet printer.  Instead of only 4 different inks, there are many different ones that spray microscopic drops of paint that read the original within a millionth of a difference in color.  This original watercolor gets translated so perfectly, it really looks like the original.  Actually, I call it “Colors of the Wind” Wonder Woman, and we only have APs. For obvious reasons it was very popular when it was released and sold out immediately.  This image is my very favorite superhero portrait he’s ever done.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll leave you all with videos of Alex talking about his career and sharing advice to artists:

Click here If you want to see all the art by Alex Ross on our site…

and for those artists out there, find inspiration here and wherever you go.  If Alex can do it, so can you.  Make a plan, and stick to it.  Work hard, and stay positive.  For the rest of us, we can be the vital ones who support these visual artists by hanging their art on our walls!

Spotlight on Studio Art: The Harry Potter Concept Art by Production Designer Stuart Craig

Production Designer Stuart Craig has quite a CV. Beyond being the BAFTA award-winning designer for the entire Harry Potter film series, he has also won three Oscars, for The English Patient, Dangerous Liaisons, and Gandhi.  He has worked on over three dozen films, including as art director on classics A Bridge Too Far (1977) and Superman (1978).  Do you love Notting Hill, The Mission, or The Elephant Man? He worked on those, too. He has continued his part in translating J.K.Rowling’s vision for the cinematic world with last year’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and is currently working on The Crimes of Grindelwald, which is being released in 2018.

He is essentially the architect of the world we see onscreen for all the Harry Potter movies.  Indeed, as directors came and went, his involvement stayed consistent.  An argument could be made that continuity, and the loyalty of fans to commit to every film, are largely to his credit.

Journey to Hogwarts by Jim Salvati

When the Harry Potter studio tour at Leavesden was opening, Ruth Clampett, who has always been the conduit between Warner Bros. and the art world for all things Harry Potter, worked to get the art used to create the environments, that so compelled fans of the franchise, into the tour.  She wanted Stuart Craig Harry Potter prints to be available for purchase by his fans.  Ruth has always been a great judge of what Harry Potter fans want, since she herself is a superfan.

I remember when I spoke to Stuart Craig, he said he couldn’t imagine anyone wanting his concept images.  The pieces Ruth wanted to release were of finished and “in process” concepts, which were created by both Stuart Craig, who drew out the graphites, and architectural and concept artist Andrew Williamson, who finished them in colorful, fully rendered concept images. Williamson is now the Global Head of the Art Department at Double Negative.  Double Negative has worked on Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Justice League, Blade Runner 2049, and many more of the biggest films of the last nearly 20 years.

Ruth went about selecting images evocative of the film series, that would resonate with fans in both the UK and the US.  It required quite a bit of convincing to get the art into Leavesdon, but when she did, they were a huge success, much to Stuart Craig’s surprise.  Production designers see their work as a means to an end.  It was hard for him to picture fans wanting to put Stuart Craig Harry Potter prints as art on their walls.  My experience is quite the opposite.

Because I was involved in selling official Harry Potter art to collectors from the very beginning, I knew many of the collectors who loved and bought the art of book cover artist Mary GrandPre who had embraced the films would also collect art by the man partially responsible for bringing the world of the books to the screen.

I love seeing how a movie comes together.  I love seeing design, alteration, and creativity as it develops ideas into physical form.  Not enough people realize how much the production designer and their team influence the finished film and how it’s received.

Take a look at the many wonderful images of Harry Potter concept art by Stuart Craig on our ArtInsights page for the production designer.  Because we were in it at the beginning, we get to have limited editions by him that say “Warner Bros. Studio Tour London” on them.

Meanwhile, I spoke to Stuart in 2011 before the release of the first of the two last films.  I just posted it on YouTube as a video (it is mostly just my phone interview, but there are pictures of his art accompanying it)–if you want to hear a bit about his career in his own voice, check it out HERE.

 

Artist Insights: Andrea Alvin talks about her new work “Samuel’s Candy Canes”

I have enormous respect for contemporary artist and former partner in Alvin and Associates with famed cinema artist John Alvin, Andrea Alvin, and so I spoke to her about her great new piece, Samuel’s Candy Canes.

She has been actively working as both a commercial and contemporary artist since the 70s. With her partner John, she was part of creating iconic movie posters like the ones for Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein and more recently, the advance for Tim Burton’s Batman.  All the while, she was honing her style and aesthetic as a contemporary artist focusing on nostalgic imagery.  After losing John suddenly to a heart attack in 2008, she wrote a successful book about his career, The Art of John Alvin, and is now slowly getting back to her own work. Andrea Alvin is creating intensely evocative paintings of objects that bring us back to our childhood memories, through visually considering and sharing memories of her own.

Her new image called “Samuel’s Candy Canes”, inspired by candy in Samuel’s Sweet Shop, in Rhinebeck, New York,  is both a celebration of the season, and a choice to lean into joy, regardless of the time of year or the darkness of our current circumstances.  I spoke to Andrea about this new piece, her career, working with her famous husband John Alvin, and her perspective still creating, 40 years later, while continuing to change as a person and an artist:

LC: You went to school with John, right?

Andrea Alvin: Yes, I went to Art Center College of Design, and actually I was a few years ahead of him.

LC: How did your aesthetic develop for nostalgic realism? Or is that how you’d describe your art?

AA: When I first started coming back to painting, I was stuck.  I didn’t know what to paint.  A friend of mine said, “Oh my god, your house is so full of stuff! Collectibles, and all kinds of things everywhere…why don’t you just paint your stuff?” That’s how I started just going around with my camera and editing through the camera and taking pictures and painting those scenes.  In a lot of them it just was a view of homey-ness and somebody’s things. We had a lot of collectibles and toys around the house, so it started that way. As I started to refine it, I started thinking about what made me happy to look at, and what I wanted to say, I realized having my major in school in advertising design, I’ve always been focused on popular culture as it relates to advertising, and growing up as a kid in the 50s it made a real mark on me.  One of the things I realized is there are a lot of iconic things in  our everyday lives that were iconic then and are iconic even now. That’s where I started trying to focus on Americana and what was very American.  What makes us who we are. What was interesting to me and special to me as a kid and what is also special to my daughter, or a younger generation.  Or my grandson.

LC: When you say you were returning to painting, what do you mean?

AA: I graduated from school, and worked in animation up until John’s career started taking off, and then I had my daughter Farah.  When she was able to go to school for a couple of hours a day, is when I started painting again.  So that was in the late 70s.

LC: What did you see as nostalgic then?

AA: I don’t know about nostalgia then, because the things that were nostalgic to me where going back to the 50s. What happened inadvertently was some of the paintings I painted then are still or maybe even more evocative now. Like “Wow! I remember Peanut Butter Boppers!” Those are gone now.  Or “That wallpaper sure is ugly but boy, do I remember it being popular in the 70s”…those things are very nostalgic now.

LC: How did or does being a women in art influence your style or perspective, would you say, or does it?

AA: I never thought about it that there was a limitation for me. The only limitation that I thought of was I didn’t want to be a teacher. That’s what I was told repeatedly as a woman in art. I had to be a teacher. When I was a teenager, and came to New York on a visit, pretty much one of the only artists I remember seeing was Marisol, who you barely hear about any more.  There just were very few woman artists around. I still never thought I couldn’t do it because I was a woman.

LC: What about working with or at the same time as John. He was such a well-known artist in his industry.  That had to be interesting, or a challenge. There are a lot of elements in the finished posters of his or of Alvin and Associates that are your work.

AA: Right.  I’m the “Associates”…It was very difficult.  John was the kind of artist as an illustrator, that if you asked him to paint a train in perspective coming over a hill with a haunted house, he’d just sit down and sketch it, and it looked pretty good! I can’t do that, or maybe I could if I concentrated really, really hard, but that’s not how I worked.

I’m have to be more deliberate and know how I’ll proceed. It made me nervous about painting because if I was going to paint, what was it going to be, and if I paint realism with John around, how is that going to work? Am I going to be compared to him? I just had to put blinders on and paint.  We had different approaches. He would say to me, “Why don’t you do several sketches and then do them in color and go from there?” and I’d just think I would never get anywhere that way! I’d never get the painting done.  So I’d say “Good idea” to him and “No.” to myself and keep my blinders on and go on to how I wanted to do it.  Where being around him was super helpful and what I miss horribly every day is having that other set of eyes when I could say “I’m stuck. I know I need something. Something’s wrong and I can’t figure out what it is.” or the other thing was asking “Is this painting finished?” It’s always a tough call for artists and it’s so important to have someone you respect you can ask about that.

LC: I do remember John speaking of your talent often with respect and appreciation.  He was, as many artists are, a bundle of neuroses, but always very clear about his belief in you.

AA:  I think the big difference in our approaches is that John always wanted to be an illustrator.  He wanted to tell stories.  That’s why he was so well-suited for the movies. I don’t have a problem coming up with and painting things I wanted to paint, whereas when he was left completely open like that, I think he struggled.

LC: You’ve had some success creating official images for Disney and Warner Brothers, but you have found so much more freedom in creating your own work with imagery that sings to you and speaks to your own memories.  Can you talk a bit about the new painting “Samuel’s Candy Canes” and how that came together?

AA: What’s so interesting is that is was just last night that there was a festival in Rhinebeck called Sinterklaas where there are thousands of people coming into our little town and there are activities for children and carolers and it turns the town into a Norman Rockwell Christmas and it’s really beautiful and then there’s a parade.  It’s like a Mardi Gras parade, with giant puppets done by Sinterklaas creator Jeanne Fleming, the same woman that does them for the Greenwich Village Halloween parade. One of the first years I went to Sinterklaas was shortly after John had died.  I brought my 35mm camera and I was taking a lot of pictures. It was just kind of a magical night.  One friend I went with earlier in the evening and then she had to go, and I found other friends who walked with me for a while, and just when I was about to go home, another friend asked me to go to dinner.  It was one of those incredible nights where I was worried about being alone and people just showed up for me.  I took some great pictures that night. I dug them back up.  I was trying to figure out where to go next in terms of subject, because I was tired of coming in really close like the cupcake or the cookie, so I went back to those old photos. There was this great quality of light in them.  The candy canes were inside a store called Samuel’s, which was owned by a guy names Ira.  We were just visiting with Ira and went in and took pictures in the candy store and Ira then passed away a few years ago in a very similar way that John had. He was close to the same age, had a heart attack, he was getting his life together…so it was a perfect thing to create art from being with him that night and those beautiful candies.

The store was bought by Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Paul Rudd.  They own the candy store now.  They wanted to keep the store as Samuels, keep it the same and they figured if they didn’t buy it, someone else would buy it and turn it into something else and it would be gone forever.  So I think that, by them, was motivated by nostalgia and just loving what the store stood for and what it meant to the town. That’s kind of the story.  I went in there last night, and the bucket that they were in was still there. It’s different, but it’s still there.

LC: One of the great aspects of the art is it doesn’t just speak of the holidays.  There’s an element of speaking to holding on to joy and of optimism.  I also see an interesting connection to the time you were still in the midst of grief and found kindness.

AA: I realize inadvertently looking back at my work that lighting, especially since I moved to New York, lighting is very important in the paintings.  Most of the photo-realism, and it’s difficult to call my work photo-realism, but most of the realists I know aren’t concerned with that, they’re concerned with the surface quality. I always have some background light that’s enveloping the subject.  Yes, it’s happy, because you see that it’s candy canes and holiday, but the lighting is warm.  It’s like fireside lighting.  There’s a warmth to the lighting that’s different than if I were saying, “Look!  This is a happy, happy candy cane painting.”  It’s warm.  Most things I see around the holidays with that subject matter would be in bright light, very Christmas-y kind of colors.  This is darker than that.  It’s almost like we’re sitting by the fireside, not at Christmas, but rather, reminiscing about holidays gone by, and holding on to those memories.

LC: Was that a conscious thing, to create an image that is about moving forward in the face of loss?

AA: Honestly, I don’t know.

LC: I think as artists, you guys sometimes get to a place with a piece, not knowing when you start, where you meant to go, but having gotten there, you realize that was the intention all along.  Like the idea of knowing when it’s done, somewhat comes from having gotten the message into the art, and seeing it fully formed.   I know you have a deluxe giclee that is hand-embellished, and you’re doing it, when often artists farm out embellishments.  Why is it important to you to do it yourself? I know John was the same way about doing his own.

AA: It’s my work and I really wouldn’t want someone else going in and doing some kind of odd interpretation on it.  John and I were both very hands-on. It’s why we wanted to be the people who created the art instead of the art director who guided someone else doing the art. We’ve both been art directors. I think that I look at it from the beginning from that point of view.  On compositions, I have a tendency to push the boundaries of the canvas. There’s almost a tangency to the sides. I think my compositions can be unusual.  It comes from my design background.

LC: In “Samuel’s Candy Canes”, you get two different feelings visually, one up close and one a bit further away.  That’s cool, and that’s part of your style.

AA: Right. Great! I want people to see the brushstrokes.  I don’t want to have it look like a photograph when you see the art in person.  It looks like a photograph online. It looks very photographic, and they resolve photographically when you stand back from my work.  When you go up close, you see all the brushwork, I’m not trying to hide it, I want it to be part of the image.

ArtInsights Has Gifts for all your Disney, Marvel, Warner Bros., Star Wars, and DC fans!

It’s the holidays. Gifts are needed, stat! Not only does ArtInsights have a brand-new, easy to navigate, purchase-friendly site, we also have a lot of great images in stock, ready to ship, or ready to be wrapped and carried out.  Why is this an awesome thing?  There comes a time when we all need new, exciting, surprising gifts for our loved one.  What’s a person to do?  Come to ArtInsights!  Almost everyone loves movies, or cartoons, or superheroes, or all of the above! If you come home with the art actually created by the folks who make these essentials of pop culture, who work at the studios, make the posters, make the cartoons, you will be most valuable player of the holiday!! NO, buying a great gift isn’t the way to someone’s heart, but as Marilyn Monroe would say, “Gee! Doesn’t it help?” It shows you care enough to go out and find something super special that no one else would even think of.

Of course, if you buy at ArtInsights and it isn’t well received (a rare occurrence), you can always bring it back and trade it for something else!

We have art in all price ranges, from $50 to $98,000. (Want to buy an original by John Alvin, created in the process of making the Beauty and the Beast movie poster?)

Do come by and see what we have in our gallery in Reston Town Center, or check out the gift guide online.  It’s easy to buy and we’ll ship it right out to you!

Some of the art we have available:

Toy Story art by Andrea Alvin, The Avengers art, Guardians of the Galaxy art, Wonder Woman art, and Doctor Strange art by Alex Ross, sold out C3PO and R2D2 art by Steve Thomas, Frozen concept art as well as Frozen art by Amy Mebberson, production art from Fantasia, Batman and Wonder Woman art by Jim Lee, vintage Hanna Barbera art from The Flintstones, art from Harry Potter by production designer Stuart Craig, Lilo and Stitch, Beauty and the Beast, and Cinderella art by Michelle St. Laurent, Tim Rogerson, and Rob Kaz, and so so much more!  Click here to see a bunch of options, or contact us directly to request a specific film or character.  Don’t forget we also have new contemporary art from the Ten x Ten x Ten and Art Outsiders projects by genius pop artist extraordinaire Tennessee Loveless!

We will be at the gallery all weekend this weekend, Friday from 10am to 6pm, Saturday from 10am to 6pm, and Sunday from 12pm to 5pm…if you come into the gallery remember to register to win a sold out Marvel Captain America image by Alex Ross!

and if you are far-flung, on the web we are ALWAYS open, so great gifts are just a click away!

Contact us with any questions. artinsights@gmail.com or 703-478-0778.

Happy Holidays from ArtInsights!