Tania Metalli

Artist, writer, web developer

Creatures

Daily Creatures – The circles

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#172

The last 2/3 weeks I’ve been spending most of my time and creative energies setting up Piktoland, my new project, and I have less and less time to dedicate to my “regular” art and the Creatures.

I still manage to cut little chunks of time for the daily creatures and do a bit of painting on the weekend.

As the time is limited I had to make it simple, so last week Creatures are rather small, but very colourful and enclosed in a circle (I’ve bought a circle cutter and I went crazy cutting circles on everything!).

So here they are, Creatures from 165 to 172.

And I’m not even half way! This is going to be the longest year ever!

But I’m not complaining ^.^

#171

#170

#169

#168

#167

#166

#165

Daily Creatures – The paper bag series

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#159

The last series of Creatures is probably my favourite, I had so much fun with it!

The main inspiration was a photograph that I saw at the Irving Penn’s exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

I’ve always found Penn’s work so inspiring, and it was great to see a retrospective of his most famous portraits.

Amongst these the portrait of cartoonist and illustrator Saul Steinberg in his Nose Mask. Steinberg created a series of brown paper bag masks, apparently to disguise himself and his friends, and Penn captured him wearing one of these masks.

You might know by now that I have a passion for masks, and I find the simplicity and elegance of this photograph totally fascinating. I saw it at the gallery and I joked with Nick that I could do a series of Creatures wearing a paper bag.

When it was time to start a new series the idea came back and I just went with it, and here are the results.

To make things more interesting, I discovered that that picture was actually taken the day before I was born. Not too strange then that I feel such an affinity with it.

#160

#161

#162

#163

#164

Daily Creatures – Back to black&white

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#157

Good morning and good Tuesday!

I have been neglecting the blog lately. I promised myself that I would post at least twice weekly, but the last week has been hectic, trying to get my new project going.

More about that soon, but for now it’s the regular round up of last week Daily Creatures.

After going crazy with colours for the last few series, I felt the need to go back to simple black and white.

So here they are, strange shaped Creatures #152 to #157

#156

#155

#154

#153

#152

Daily Creatures – More Sharpies

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#151

Here we are again with the usual round up of last week Creatures.

For this series I went back using Sharpies. Pens and markers are probably my favourite medium and I have a large collection of different types and brands. I tend to use fine Sharpies, adding a few touches with large Stabilo pens.

I’m still experimenting with strange shapes and unusual (for me) colour combinations, in the hope of breaking the routine and find new inspiration to keep me going, I’m still only half way!

So here they are, number 144 to 151, quiet a long series this time.

#150

#149

#148

#147

#146

#145

#144

Daily Creatures – More squares

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#143

As time pass I find it increasingly difficult to find new ways to draw the Creatures.

Ok, I’m the first to admit that my art is very repetitive. I have been drawing, painting, sculpting, vectoring the same Creatures for over 20 years! They have evolved since 1984, but the essence is the same. Their love for big capes and headdresses, their mask-like features, their one-dimensionality, are their trademark features.

In general I have a fascination for repetition, especially in art, mine and others as well. I fill entire notebooks with the same theme, the same Creature, the same motif, done and re-done ad-nauseam.
So I thought I would find drawing a Creature a day, a very easy challenge to accomplish.

Now I am faced everyday by my own limiting rules. What else can I do? Which colours should I use? Which medium?

For last week Creatures I kept the square shape of the previous one, but moved to a more colourful palette, using pencils on paper – simple but always effective.

#142

#141

#140

#139

#138

#137

Daily Creatures – The cardboard series

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#136

The theme for last week Daily Creatures was cardboard.

It all started when I started to work on a box that is going to be part of an installation at London Miles Gallery for the ‘The Next Generation’ exhibition.

Luckily we’ve kept some of the boxes from our recent move, so I didn’t have to rummage around to look for suitable cardboard.

While I was cutting the boxes, to make one in the right shape and measure, I ended up with tons of little square pieces, so when it was time for the daily drawing it came natural to me to pick one of those square. I find squares very inspiring, the symmetry helps my creative process.

I have used mainly acrylics paints, light blue/green shades, with a black outline done with a fine posca pen and a while pencil halo.

I will use these with some other drawings for the box, that should be completed by the end of this week.

#135

#134

#133

#132

#131

#130