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“Action and adventure, that’s me!”

In a nutshell, that sums up what puts Janel on cloud nine!

Although Janel is a low residency artist at Make Studio (working in the studio just about once a month), she produces a wide range of artwork. Hand-crafted dolls, drawings, and paintings inspired by anime as well as Jane’s favorite films and shows comprise most of her creative output. Anime such as Inuyasha and Glitter Force feature prominently.

Janel’s favorite dolls she’s made include Harley Quinn, Batman, and Jack and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas.

“I have been an artist making dolls for as long as I can remember”.

 

 

With each doll, Janel starts by drawing out the features and form of the character onto fabric, creating a patent. She then cuts out the pattern, begins to sow the doll together, adds stuffing, and then sews on and/or paints on all the doll’s clothes. Finally, she adds finishing touches such as hair and accessories.

Janel is currently working on a painting that includes the castle from Jim Henson’s Dark Crystal. 

 

Make Studio artists are counting down each day until our ninth anniversary celebration by sharing something that puts them on cloud nine. To help us celebrate, join them here on the blog all month through February 22nd, and in-person on February 23rd at Cloud 9!

Gemma had an experience this past fall that made her feel like she was on cloud nine:

 

Last year in September, me and my brother Graeme went to Love Your Brain (LYB) in Jefferson, Maine. The LYB retreats started after a famous snowboarder, Kevin Pierce, had a traumatic brain injury.

(Learn more about Kevin Pierce’s experience and brain injury here.)

Kevin Pierce is also a big idol of mine. I got to meet him at the retreat. When I was at the LYB retreat it felt really good for me to be meeting other people that I could relate to about my own traumatic brain injury.

 

It felt great that every night for a week that after eating dinner, me, my brother, and the other people we met would meet to do meditation before going to bed.

 

Make Studio artists are counting down each day until our ninth anniversary celebration by sharing something that puts them on cloud nine. To help us celebrate, join them here on the blog all month through February 22nd, and in-person on February 23rd at Cloud 9!

Laura’s subject matter for her art covers a wide range, but it includes some of her cloud nine worthy faves.

Favorite parts of making art: painting, coloring, and “drawing on the window”.  

Favorite places to visit: the aquarium, art museums, and the doctor’s office.

Favorite foods: cookies, pizza, and “waffles!”

She also likes animals, especially dogs. Dog characters of her own invention are featured in her comic-style works, and she’s also created more expressive animal portraits. She favors her painting of puppies because “of their wet noses”.

Favorite music: contemporary jazz (which she fills the studio with while working).

Favorite season: winter “[when] I play in the snow” (and she also likes to create art about polar bears).

 

Make Studio artists are counting down each day until our ninth anniversary celebration by sharing something that puts them on cloud nine. To help us celebrate, join them here on the blog all month through February 22nd, and in-person on February 23rd at Cloud 9!

A newer Make Studio artist, Will excels at collage-based compositions but also dabbles in other forms of art making. He likes to create anything that “presents a good final product”, often making something and then going back to it and making corrections.

 

But, lest you think he’s too much of a perfectionist, when choosing subject matter, Will “goes with the flow” without a specific plan in mind.

Things that put him on cloud nine include watching Netflix in his spare time (especially “How to Get Away With Murder”), browsing the internet (“I’m an iPad person”), spending time with dogs, and enjoying almost any food “as long as there’s lots of it and it doesn’t look or tastes weird . . . “[I don’t] do sweets.”  

With hopes of earning a degree in the not too distant future, he’s currently working on completing general college studies.

 

Make Studio artists are counting down each day until our ninth anniversary celebration by sharing something that puts them on cloud nine. To help us celebrate, join them here on the blog all month through February 22nd, and in-person on February 23rd at Cloud 9!

Cloud 9 will be Iragi’s first anniversary celebration with Make Studio, as he began working as an artist here in summer of 2018.

“It will be fun to celebrate. . . to celebrate about making masterpieces.”

When not at the studio, Iragi works four days a week at Shoppers as a courtesy clerk, and he is currently learning and practicing cake decoration there, too. He recently met local TV legend Marty Bass while on the job!

Iragi also plays the piano, and said he has specific music he plays for different times of the year, which keeps him on cloud nine. From January to November, he plays his “favorite songs”, but throughout late fall through Christmas Day, he plays “all holiday music”.

“Christmas music [and music in general] is in my heart, and helps me to do art and tell it.”

Much of Iragi’s art features his favorite shows and games, such as Power Rangers, Scooby-Doo, and Disney characters, but recently he’s working on more expressive pieces featuring landscapes, portraits, and abstractions. 

 

Make Studio artists are counting down each day until our ninth anniversary celebration by sharing something that puts them on cloud nine. To help us celebrate, join them here on the blog all month through February 22nd, and in-person on February 23rd at Cloud 9!

Cartoons, fashion, and cats put Julian “Jules” Hinmon on cloud nine.  

“Cats are great emotional support animals.”

Recent favorite animated features of Jules include Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse and the upcoming How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.  

Jules features both cartoon characters and cats frequently in his artwork, including the cardboard “cut-outs” that he’s known for.

 

Cartoons and cats also come together in Jules’ “pet projects” — pun intended! His art series “Who We Are” and “Kitten Around” feature anthropomorphic animals that “combine personality features of both their animal and human selves”.

You can also find Jules’ characters in comic form online (“Kitten Around” and “Who We Are”).

 

Jules says he wears his influences (for example, Rocko’s Modern Life) on his sleeve, but wants to make a show that is its “own beast” – an accidental, and very welcome, pun!

 

Make Studio artists are counting down each day until our ninth anniversary celebration by sharing something that puts them on cloud nine. To help us celebrate, join them here on the blog all month through February 22nd, and in-person on February 23rd at Cloud 9!

Attending studio events, and other festivities, tends to put Kareem on cloud nine.

As a sneak peek of his contributions to Make Studio’s upcoming 9th anniversary exhibition, here Kareem shares the recently completed tribute piece to A Star is Born, his newest favorite movie. He shared some thoughts about his cinematic experience:

• He liked it so much that he saw it twice upon its release in October, both times at Hampden’s CineBistro.
• The previews before the film lasts  over thirty minutes long! So, he enjoyed some food while waiting for the feature to begin.
• Seeing a preview for Mary Poppins Returns (reviewed here by Gary) inspired Kareem to later see that movie, too.

 

 

• Kareem really enjoyed the plot, in which Jack, a country singer played by Bradley Cooper, meets a waitress named Ally, played by Lady Gaga. “Ally becomes a great singer and they fall in love by the end.”
• He felt that the leads’ on-screen chemistry was “great!”
• Kareem’s favorite songs in the movie were “Shallow” and “I’ll Never Love You Again.” Kareem thinks Lady Gaga, overall, is the better singer and Bradley Cooper is the better actor.
• Kareem also likes to read movie reviews, and agrees with the critics who gave this movie 4 or 5 stars out of 5. He’s excited for the movie to be released on Blu-Ray so he can continue enjoying it.

 

 

Make Studio artists are counting down each day until our ninth anniversary celebration by sharing something that puts them on cloud nine. To help us celebrate, join them here on the blog all month through February 22nd, and in-person on February 23rd at Cloud 9!

Margie has a lot of favorites that keep her up on cloud nine. Like for Jimmy, it made sense for her to share them in list form. But, she opted to break down her favorite things to “the third degree” except in the case of favorite art subject matter (perhaps Margie’s favorite amongst her favorites)!

Favorite Holidays
1. Thanksgiving
2. Halloween
3. Christmas

Favorite Foods
1. Pizza
2. Tomatoe Pie
3. Pasta
4. Candy

Favorite Cookies
1. Chocolate Chip
2. Peppermint Kiss
3. Hershey Kiss

Favorite Things to Draw
1. Party’s For Hosting
2. Snowman
3. Snow Angel
4. Flowers
5. Drinks, Hot off the Press

Favorite Movies to Watch
1. Hallmark
2. Disney
3. A Winter Castle

Favorite Weekend Activities
1. Church
2. Coloring Books
3. Snowshoeing

Favorite Part of Costco
1. Food Samples
2. Shopping
3. Frozen Yogurt

 

Make Studio artists are counting down each day until our ninth anniversary celebration by sharing something that puts them on cloud nine. To help us celebrate, join them here on the blog all month through February 22nd, and in-person on February 23rd at Cloud 9!

Long-time Tuesday studio artist Zach explained what he’s working on for the Cloud 9 anniversary:

“This piece is two panels of a character I invented named Diana Enola. She is a reporter for Channel 6 News, has a deep love for her fellow man, and goes out of her way to make her stories as accurate as possible in order to serve the public’s trust. She holds telling the truth over everything else, including her own self-image.

Diana is based off an old drawing I did back in high school of  businesswoman from a visual in a realistic style. My mother dusted it off last year and convinced me to do something like that again.

I did something similar, except in my own style, and came up with a story to go along with it. I like telling stories and making character pieces, and occasionally that can contain an uplifting message to boost people’s spirits in dark times.

Things that put me on cloud nine are animation, video games, and being able to share time with friends.”

 

Make Studio artists are counting down each day until our ninth anniversary celebration by sharing something that puts them on cloud nine. To help us celebrate, join them here on the blog all month through February 22nd, and in-person on February 23rd at Cloud 9!

Malcolm likes “bad” driving games – the cheesier the better:

“Like when the graphics are obviously not realistic, or they glitch, but it’s a good glitch.”

He’s considered including a vehicle from a favorite “bad” game in his artwork: a dragster pizza car with police lights on top. 

Often dressed all in tie dye, which matches his multicolored artwork, Malcolm says about these things that put him on cloud nine, “I won’t go into detail, it would take 15 minutes!”

 

In his most recent piece, Malcolm is reversing his usual art practice, starting with marker outlines with crayon color on the inside of forms, instead of crayon outlining marker-filled forms. Noting the line work and “blendability” of his materials, he is excited for this combination in his latest piece.

“For this piece, I started with the last 5 letters of the alphabet, made them like block letters. Then I connected them together and simply filled in the empty space. That was completely abstract. I usually don’t like green outside of landscape, but I thought that blue-ish green or turquoise was a good color for this. It’s definitely not what I thought would end up in the anniversary show because it wasn’t one of my styles before, and I hadn’t done a lot of fully abstract work.”

 

Make Studio artists are counting down each day until our ninth anniversary celebration by sharing something that puts them on cloud nine. To help us celebrate, join them here on the blog all month through February 22nd, and in-person on February 23rd at Cloud 9!