My weekend with Nick Bantock

What can I say?
Supercalifragilistisexpialidocious!!!!!

Or something like that. Yep, to me, it was truly amazing.

I did get to stay in their cottage, feet from their house, so my time on Salt Spring island was total Nick Bantock immersion.

I never bargained that I would be invited to a gallery opening with them, and onward to dinner, with just Nick and his wonderful wife Joyce! My hero. For hours!!!!

What can I say?

Of course, he's a 'normal' man, not god-like. LOL, although those dark bushy eyebrows give him a Puck-ish look and you suspect he could be a practical joker. He is certainly very funny, which for some reason, I didn't expect.

Truly, the whole weekend was amazing. Not the least seeing the famous painting of the cover of "The Artful Dodger", with THAT rabbit. What a shock it was that the painting is actually 3D and the flipping rabbit is pretty much jumping out of the picture, it's a full head! Geeeez...

What can I say? Wonderful conversations, wonderful time, wonderful workshop! I know, what a pathetic writer I am!!! Is that all I can say? But one runs out of adjectives to describe Bliss.

I did have an awesome time. The workshop itself was brilliant. It was not so much a 'techniques' workshop, as a process to free the inner artist. Still, Nick promised to explain any technique he uses that we'd want to know, and I did learn some fantastic new ways.This one below I produced during the class, under directions from Nick, who called out what steps to do.... It was great fun. Until we had to give it to someone else to work on!!! Talk about an exercise in letting go.... Then you get a totally foreign piece to work on. Geeeez. That sure stretches the boundaries of intimacy!!!!

I posted more photos of the workshop on Flicker:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21854397@N02/

And here is one that I did since the workshop. The one above is only 9x12.  This one is 24x30.

Altered books on three different themes

I am catchign up on my round robin commitments.

I completed one Marie Antoinette theme, "the queen's designer". I was looking for a fashion parade, then one thing led to another, here's the results. The left page is the invitation to the defile de mode.

The little purses are actually erasers, which I have decorated.

The next RR book I completed is another Marie Antoinette, this one for my Sketchbook project RR. Carol;s theme was 'Sensual Pleasures". Since I am the last one to work in the book, many 'pleasures' had already be included. I wanted to remain in the realm of decency, so I got the idea that being in Queen and adored by her public (for a while) would have been quite a (physical) sensation:

Marie and Louis in all their finery.

Finally, the last RR is finished for now is on Friday Kahlo, the mexican painter. The theme is broad: just include Frida. Her pages were already covered in gesso, so I just painted the background. On the left page, I used a rubber stamp with a mexican theme, and an ear-ring that seemed to echo the outrageous jewelry Frida fancied.

On the right page, I found a photogragh of her which I mounted on a letter that she wrote to a lover, some mexican colored fabrics and a bit of coffee-stained cheesecloth.

I added some hanging beads, because I love that look. The stencil is my sign in card.

Abstract paintings

Here are some recent paintings I`ve just completed.

This first one is an exercise on paper 48x48.

This one is smaller. Just for me and just for fun!

Post Nick Bantock workshop

This is a painting I`ve made over the week since the Nick Bantock workshop. It`s 24x30. The picture of the little boy sitting in the window with his bright smile called out to me, and the rest evolved around him. I`m not sure if the colors really came out on Blogger. They are pretty rich in person.

Art House Project Mini Canvas

The three words I had to illustrate for the Visual Encyclopedia Project were:

Spinner. After almost 20 years in Australia, the name of the famous novel is what comes to mind....

Jollification (whatever that means),something like making happy, or making beautiful...

and finally.....Unreal.  First thing that came to mind was the Valley Girl.

Marie Fat Pages

I have just made 6 pages for a Marie Fat Book exchange. The pages are 4x4, and they have to be really Fat and Chunky so that the final book will be full and hard to close.

And here are the back, decorated with a watercolor background, and a white spray paint stencil.

I got rhythm

Well, actually, I'm not sure I do. One of the exercises in the Steve Aimone workshop was to paint rhythm. I had a terrible time with that exercise.

So I keep trying it. I can recognize rhythm in another's painting, but short of copying it, I just can't seem to come up with my own interpretation.

I think this one has more to do with a grid, and balance, than with rhythm.

Playing with watercolors

I took a class a while back with Carla Sonheim, on recycling junk mail. She taught this beautiful technique with watercolors.

Here are my results from the weekend:

Love, love, love them. Now I have to try these on a bigger canvas. I make a 24x30 that's drying. It does change when it's dry, so stay tuned.

Gothic arches

It's true, I'm an addict. I'm addicted to swapping art and small pieces of artwork with my internet friends.
Hi, my name is Sox, and I'm a swap addict.

I just signed up with the TreasureArtTrend group to  make some gothic arches. We are 14 in the group, so we make 14, send them off and will receive 14 back! The format is 4x4, to make a chunky Fat Book.

Here is mine. We were to incorporate a woman and a bird. And an arch!

Here is the back. It's always nice to make the back pretty as well, since it will be visible in the Fat Book. I used a stencil and spray paint. Love it! Thanks, Mary Ann Moss, for turning me on to spray paint.