How Jacques Cousteau influenced my art

Aloha!

I recently posted to my social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook a piece of art that I created in Art school at The University of Hawai'i at Manoa.

When I decided to finally go to art school after creating art since I was a kid and had always felt that some traditional schooling in the arts would be a great thing to expand my art and help me to focus on different mediums that I had been working in and different mediums that I hadn't worked with.

When I first started school my focus was on printmaking. I loved everything about the process. Prior to school I was doing mainly silkscreen prints and Linocut prints as they were the easiest to do from my small Ohana unit I was living in on the North Shore of Oahu. A lot of the other methods were too difficult to make at home, between super heavy presses and extremely hard to find materials, at the time, it was just a pipe dream. 

I was so happy to be able to learn about the different techniques, both ancient and modern) and to be able to use the studio's at school as much as I wanted after school hours. I would spend hours and hours in the studio in any free time I had. We had a little group of us that would just geek out on making prints and learning together, I will forever cherish those times.

I had a class with a professor Charlie Cohan at UH who was one of my teachers throughout life that I will never forget and always think about when I reflect on where my art journey has taken me. (although he may be a bit sour with me that I am mostly painting now! ha ha)

One of our projects was to creat a wood block print with all of the carving in only one direction, something that most print makers don't even think of doing as it is way more time consuming but the art comes out so stunning. 

For my project I picked Jaques Cousteau for my subject. I will have to write a new post soon to really go into my reasoning to pick Jaques Cousteau for my subject.

Here is a picture of the finished woodblock print of Jaques Cousteau

I can't remember how long it took to carve, make test prints, refine carving, more test prints, and finally refining the carving, the pressure I put to transfer the woodblock carving to the paper without distorting the image and the right amount of ink to get all the details bold and clear not too much, not too little. I do know that when I was working on it, it felt like I put in thousand of hours! HaHa!

I was very proud of my accomplishment with this project back then and when I was looking through old art images of mine, I came across this one and I felt like I needed to share it, since many people do not know that I make other mediums of art outside of painting.

Here are a few more prints that I made through the years, I have some prints still available on my website, HeatherBrownArt.com Please note that these are all limited edition prints and they sell out very quickly.

The following prints are from my Bachelors of Fine Art show titled

At that time while in school I was working a few jobs and the one I loved the most was diving into the old Aquarium tank that used to be on Kalakaua in Waikiki in a store that fronted the sidewalk. It's gone now for another luxury store. My job was to go in the tank 7 days a week to feed the fish, cleaning, working to keep the water chemistry right and a lot of scrubbing the glass! I didn't care about any of the cleaning and scrubbing as I was able to spend hours underwater with the fish. When it came time for my final project/show at UH, I knew that I wanted to focus on printmaking and the fish were so inspiring to me. I did a few prints of more traditional style fish pieces, but they just didn't resonate with me for this project. I decided one night to just stop thinking of all the details to get correct to make it more realistic and sterile and to just free my mind to carve what my mind thought they would look like from the personalities I felt each fish had. I went very abstract, kind of cute and definitely funny! I then handmade all the frames for the pieces in my little Ohana home that really turned more into my studio then anything (my bed got pushed to the corner wall and my futon out on the covered lanai (no need for a TV when you are living on the beach in front of Pipeline and Off the Wall) I made the frames with hand saws and regular nails and hammer. My late father was such a fine woodworker, that I wanted to do this as part of my project as I always considered him a fine artist in his trade and I am forever thankful for him and I think of him daily, especially when I am making art. Admittedly, the frames aren't the best , but they show where I was in my career back then, and the lack of money I had to buy nice frames. They really mean a lot to me and as sad as I am to let them go, I am so happy to share this happiness and love of art with all of you! I was extra happy when I met my husband Chris who was a furniture designer and builder, boat builder and a wooden surfboard shaper. YAY!! Now I had someone to make better frames!! We still make some of his old frame designs, although Chris is not focusing on them these days since we have a great team member, Alex on the north shore of Oahu, who now runs that process. This has freed up Chris to focus on making surfboards, creating art and creating and building pretty much anything we want. You can check him out on Instagram as Mondays Surfboards

Here are a few of my prints from the past 10 years or so, most are now sold out, but I wanted to share them with you. I would love to hear in the comments what you think of the prints and should I do more??

Thanks for taking the time to read about my art and inspiration!

Surf Art has been in my blood for the past 25 years so I will always be creating surfing and ocean related art, but sometimes, you may see some different subject and different mediums. I love to create art so much and am so thankful each day that I wake up and get to create art. I hope my art brings a smile to your face and a. little extra Aloha to your heart!

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I hope my artwork reaches everyone seeking happiness - all the way from youth to the elderly. My imagery focuses on the tropical beauty of the Hawaiian Islands. 

Even if you’ve never been to Hawaii, I hope that my artwork will make you feel a familiar feeling that accompanies your favorite destination spot. When I'm not in the studio creating artwork, you can find Me surfing at my favorite spots on Kaua'i and Oahu.

If you stop in at my studio in Kapa'a while I'm working, you’ll be accompanied by her cats and dogs, light music playing in the background, and a gentle breeze and natural light sweeping through the studio. 

I hope my artwork inspires those who enjoy the natural beauty of our oceans to take a proactive approach in keeping them clean for all to enjoy. Limiting pollution, preserving nature, and being one with her surroundings can be reflected in every piece I put on display.