Starman

Starman all fitted out

Recently I was given an exciting opportunity to collaborate with Marlow Art Guitars & West London Art Factory on a guitar. Not just any guitar but what would be a beautiful custom hand built rocking instrument made by Steve Marlow who is passionate in what he does.

I decided to go with a David Bowie inspired theme from his 70's alien invader persona Ziggy Stardust. There are a few references to his movie debut as 'The Man Who Fell To Earth' and his iconic album 'Alladin Sane' originally titled 'A Lad Insane' or 'A lad In Vein'.

"There's a Starman waiting in the sky, he'd like to come and meet us but he thinks he'd blow our minds"

 I used tea for base tone and texture and a bit of acrylic paint to add spots of additional colour that I hoped would be accentuated when varnished. The end result pimped out with gold hardware really brought everything together on this.

Here's how it all went...

The sketches...

Mapping out basic compositional lines

Tea applied to build up tone & textures

100% black & fruit tea: front

100% black & fruit tea: back

Adding colour details & highlights, acrylics

Tea staining on the Headstock

Finished artwork unvarnished: back

Finished artwork unvarnished: front

Complete after Steve Marlow did his magic

A Year of Art

Well 2013 has just gone as fast as it arrived!

A new year has now begun and with it new projects and goals. It's been a very busy year for me hence the blog posts have suffered a bit, but we're back and new stuff on the way!

So we say hello to 2014 and I leave you with a short recap of the creative year gone :-)



Flashback - A year of Art from Carlos M Burgos on Vimeo.
A little 30 second video I made with the Flipagram app for iphone. Using my own photos from my Instagram account over the past year of my art, 2013. Drawings and paintings using tea as a medium instead of paint.
music by Kyuss - One Inch Man.

Blue Feathers Series

Blue Feather

As some of you know already, I recently completed a small series of work with a bird/winged narrative running throughout, exploring parallels of nurture, growth and development between ourselves and the natural world. A certain surreal parody runs along these works also. 

This series is called Blue Feathers. A story that starts with a single blue feather. These tea pieces are larger in scale than my previous tea pieces; 76cm x 56cm on 535gm watercolour paper.

The Becoming - Our journey begins with the initial formative stages of a life, its potential seen by the growths on its back as to what it is to be or could become. It takes shape within an oval encasing, referencing a womb or maybe even an egg. A blue feather gives us a clue and takes our story forward...

The Becoming

The Two Surrogates - Here I make reference to the nurture a life needs to grow and develop, in this case two blue feathered birds (blue tits) are taking care of this child as their own. Attentive and Caring for it by nourishing it with allsorts. Feeding it with worms (protein), sweets (sugar), a pill (medication) and even iron (vitamins/minerals) in the shape of a paperclip.

The Two Surrogates

Fallen Fledgeling - As this creature grows and develops in the proverbial nest, it still must learn to fly. Here we see inexperience, attempts at making decisions and taking that jump to leave. But not all her siblings as well as herself are ready, and some don't make it. We see her wings have not fully formed yet.

Fallen Fledgeling

Wings of Promise - Our protagonist has now fully matured and has her wings fully prepped and ready to make it on her own. Her wings now represent all the possibilities and potential that she may reach. Taking her cue from another bird that has spread its wings and has now taken flight, it is now her turn...

Wings of Promise

The blue feathers are the key to this series, the only spot of additional colour to these tea pieces. Linking each piece to each other.

Memorabilia

Hi everyone, a quick post about what i've been up to lately creating a new piece for a great nostalgic art exhibition called 'Memorabilia' which opens this weekend. An exhibition of artwork and objects from childhood memory and memorabilia by over 100 artists with 30% to 100% of all sales going to charity in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital to be held as part of the Leytonstone Arts Trail. Check out the online shop: LINK - 

Sat 6th & Sun 7th of July at Norlington Road Studios, Leyton E10 6LA. 12pm - 5pm.

This theme has been a joy to work on drawing some of my childhood TV heroes once again, something I would do many years ago like most kids, drawing Spiderman and saturday morning cartoons. I wanted to create a piece that would be very nostalgic showing TV influences and referencing film, a time for many of us growing up in the 1980's of wonder and excitement when we used to come back from school or wake up early morning weekends and tune in to watch Knight rider or Thundercats or even Sesame Street.

Drawing, Drawing, Drawing...

My new tea piece is called 'The Wonder Years' and will be shown for the first time at this fabulous show. Plus to make things a bit more fun I've also included the seven dragon balls from the 'Dragon ball' cartoon along with Goku and even Scrooge McDuck's nephews are hiding throughout the piece from 'Duck Tales'... if you can find them within this vintage party. Below is a little preview of 'The Wonder Years'.
Video: http://instagram.com/p/bWk6zlvywk/

'The Wonder Years' (detail)

So if you want to go back in time and re-live some nostalgic moments then please join us this weekend :-)

Facebook event page: LINK

Fallen Fledgeling

Fallen Fledgeling - Tea on paper

"To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest."
- Pema Chodron -

"Fallen Fledgeling" is the title of this new tea stained piece. A birds nest falls and with it its occupants made up of eggs and baby birds and a rather large blue winged fledgeling. None of them ready to fly and completely inexperienced.

A bit of a challenge as it is a lot larger than any of my previous tea artworks, 76cm x 56cm on 535gm watercolour paper. With this piece I added some additional colour other than just tea, with blue watercolour only on the wings and feathers. I loved the contrast between the warm tones of the tea and thought it a beautiful way of guiding the eyes attention across the composition.

This is the first in a small series but large in scale, playing with certain themes of nature.

Tea at the Affordable Art Fair

A few of my tea stained art pieces will be showing at the Affordable Art Fair, Battersea in London this week with Stark Gallery.

This major event runs from 7-10 March where over 100 galleries can be found under one roof and everything for sale between £40 and £4,000.

Stark Gallery can be found at stand K8 where they have a fabulous selection of work including work by Sam Shendi and Kate Knight.

"Paintings, original artist-made prints, sculpture and photography are all on show, and whether you are looking for artwork that is traditional or contemporary, humorous or edgy, by a famous name or an undiscovered talent, there really is something for everyone!"

Tickets now on sale!
Get ahead of the game and beat the queues by purchasing your advance tickets now. As well as buying tickets, you can also check opening times, admission prices and find directions to the fair all listed in the same place.

Check times and prices »
Buy tickets »

 

Catapult Art Mag Vol.19

 My tea stained art work has been featured in Catapult Art Magazine vol.19 this month.

It's great to be featured alongside so many talented individuals whose work I also admire.

You can find my work on pages 52-55 and will be available for purchase in print soon. For a limited time only you can view it for free online HERE.

"Catapult is showcasing this untapped talent along side others that share the same passion, the artist we know, admire and love, that are willing to stand for the purpose and mission of Catapult…LOVE OF ART ABOVE ALL"

 

 

International Postcard Show 2013

'Branded' - tea, pencil, bic biro & white ink on card

I'm thrilled to announce two of my new postcard sized art works will be showing at The International Postcard show at Surface Gallery in Nottingham over the next two weeks.

"This long-running annual exhibition is an integral and highly popular feature of the exhibitions calendar at Surface Gallery, and will feature hundreds of original artworks by established artists, students and newcomers from all over the world. The works will celebrate the sheer diversity of practice to be found in international contemporary art." - Surface Gallery

The exhibition is on  from January 16th - 2nd February.
Tuesday to Friday 12am - 6pm
Saturday 11am - 5pm during exhibition periods.

Surface Gallery
16 Southwell Road,
Nottingham
NG1 1DL

'La Jinete' - tea, pencil, bic biro & white ink on card