Linda Levin’s work was all made recently over the past couple of years. Most of her pieces have been influenced by the city she lives in, NYC. She sees a picture of a building or a park and manipulates it into boxes and lines and you can hardly tell what it was before. She uses mostly black and white and then some basic colors depending on what she’s painting.

A piece of hers called “Central Park West Before Down” incorporates all of the elements; it has colors and black lines and some gridded areas. You can tell it’s a sky with buildings but only after you know the title and her inspiration.

Continuing with the New York City theme, she creates something called “City With Footnotes VIII.” Levin uses black and white as her main colors and finds ways to add a pop of color. I want to find a way to add color into my art, but make it very subtle.

Artist Website

Timothy Cross’s work is all made over the past couple of years. He even has some photography and incorporates it into pieces with paint. He either has a picture with geometric shapes on top, or a very simple with background with something drawn in black lines with multiple layered patterns.

One of his works titled “Dots” is one of my favorites. The background is a picture he took himself, but blurred just to give you dots. He made geometric shapes using harsh, white lines. I like how the background is soft and the shapes are sharp and vary.

Another work of his called “Gondola” sticks out to me too. I like how he uses black and white and multiple shades of green, but it doesn’t look busy. He’s formed different patterns and layered them all. 

Artist Website

I wanted to continue using nails in my work, but was getting bored of the basic nail. While looking for some in my garage, I came across these oddly bent nails and decided to use them. It took me awhile to figure out what I was going to do with them and then had an idea of doing repetition in rows. My idea was to create something visually pleasing at any angle while staying simple. I struggled a bit with the rows and having nails out over the edge, some rows would be longer than the other.

Some helpful feedback I got back from my peers were about creating bigger work, keeping it simple, trying new ways to use nails and trying out color. My favorite comment by far was when Meg Bosse said my work was the “most sellable of the class.” Peers said to paint the nails and then use them and keep the background a clean white.

In the future I’m going to continue using nails and make bigger pieces. I want to make this one more 3-D and hammer the nails into the wood. I thought about painting the nails but I like the look of rustic and real on top of solid white.