Painting on a snowy day

What else is there to do? No electricity for most of the day, no phone, no internet. But a woodstove in my studio. Easy conclusion right? That’s what I said too. 

I played with my FW acrylic inks, and Tim Holtz distress reinkers. I was curious if I could pull a large painting with the same technique I use on smaller formats. It was a great day!

The first one is 30x20 and on top of a previous acrylic painting that I didn’t like. I had obliterated so much, there was mainly a pale gesso background left over. So off I went with lots of texture and inks. A new life!

 

The next three are smaller, small canvases that I had and was not happy with. It must have been a day to recycle. Fiery colors on a blank snowy day on Vancouver Island.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll keep working on this last one. It will end up with some trees and an asian person from the back. It has that sort of feel.

A wonderful day!

Post Aimone Workshop

Here are some abstract paintings I have been working on since I completed the recent Steve Aimone workshop on Vancouver Island.

Abstract expressionism is not a description of my paintings, which is what the workshop was about. Having a lot of fun painting them does apply though.

 

  

The next two are older canvases that I didn’t like. Before cutting them up to use them in one of my books, I gave them (and myself) a last chance. I really had nothing to lose.

Comments from the Steve Aimone workshop on Vancouver Island, October 2010

 

These two I had painted before the start of the abstract workshop, as a way to get into painting again. Little did I know….

 

This next one happened early on in the workshop. It was an automatic drawing. Mine are usually round and closed loops, so I thought I’d try something else. Hummm, as we say, it’s a good underpainting! We then did an exercise where we painted our workshop environment, under Steve’s directions: paint the floor in front of you; 30seconds later: paint what’s above your head; 30 seconds later: paint what’s to your right, change paint color, etc you get the idea.

So my next one was particularly ugly and disjointed, and I covered it with ‘pretty’ colors. Well, that made for another nice underpainting!!!! I was getting pretty desperate, so I took a drastic step. 

 

Here’s what resulted:

Thankfully, the others will not see the light of day, they’ve been exposed enough on my easel for a week. Some have found a new life as pages for my altered books. Yeah!

This one is 48x48, and is a colored representation of a dancing model. Nice starting point for something else.

 

The biggest learning for me is that a painting doesn’t stop at the first step, when it starts coming together and looks pretty. That’s just a better underpainting. The real work starts when the white paint or the black paint start obliterating the ‘underpainting’ to start another painting, but that still retains the spirit of the first layer. For some of the workshop participants, a final painting will have 10 or 15 layers. My easel partner, the lady with whom I shared the table where we lay all our paints out, would do as many as 25 layers. There were some truly gorgeous paintings, and up she would cover them with a thick layer of pale brown. I took it upon myself to interrupt her concentration and acknowledge the beauty of the layers I loved, otherwise, these layers would never have been acknowledge.

I do admit that her final paintings were stunning, some very disturbing, but it was an incredible work and I have been humbled to watch her process and learn so much: not stop at the first satisfactory step, but let the process unfold, and dig deeper and deeper.

After all, the workshop was called: The Spiritual Language of Art. One really had to dig deep to uncover the gem. Fortunately, we had wonderful organizers, thank you Mary Stewart, and beautiful friend, Donna B,, Jill, Eve, Susan, Jean, you know who you are.

This last one happened on the last day, that was my representation of a beautiful oyster shell we were given. Abstracted, definitely.

Steve Aimone workshop on Vancouver Island

I’m only going to post some photos without too much explanations, my brain is not quite functioning yet, after 5 intense days of abstract painting with amazing artist Steve Aimone.

It was pretty intense, and when a workshop is called “The Spiritual Language of Art” one have to expect that stuff comes up, yours or someone else’s. What a week that was!

Here’s a sample.  There are mostly 48x48 (inches) except for the first one, which is 22x30. That one was done under ‘directions’: put an orange triangle in the right corner, but a black bar going through it, put 3 loops on the right end sige, etc. Then we had an hour to finish it.

  

All very different, depending on the nature of the exercises. The last one is based on abstracting from an oyster shell.

Now I go rest so I can write more fully later.

And a special thanks to my ‘froup’ for seeing me through the hurdles. You know who you are and I love you all. You make my heart sing.

Halloween

I don’t celebrate Halloween, yet this digital collage happened. I was drawn by the castle gates, and one thing led to the other.

My dragon friend, this one is for  you.

 

Encaustic

I took a night class in encaustic in Portland. Now I know that it is not my medium. Messy, very caustic and noxious fumes, and I feel that if I need the thick coat over a collage or painting, I can obtain the same effect with some heavy gel medium. Hey, that’s just me.

 

Here are my collages:

Tricks I learned at the Art and Soul retreat

Some of the tricks that make life easier might be old hat for you, but they were old brand new to me, so I thought I’d share them here.

I had found out earlier that there is life beyond the silly tiny plastic palettes with the holes. Those are sooooo limiting, unless you’re making postage stamps, I guess. My friend Jill shared with me that she uses a sheet of glass. Plain and simple glass. The beauty of it is that once your acrylic paints dry on top of it, it’s easy to clean it up with a window scraper that you buy at the hardware store for a couple dollars, and you always have a brand new clean palette.

But what do you do when you travel to a workshop? You can’t really bring your glass with you. Thanks to Traci Bunkers, here’s a clever idea. She uses plastic placemats!!!! The sturdy ones are better. She cleans them up regularly with a baby wipe, but I found out they scrap off pretty easy too.

The next wonder is baby wipes. I’m sure everyone has been using them forever. Well, we didn’t have baby wipes in France when I lived there, and maybe because I don’t have kids, but the magic of baby wipes had completely escaped me. THEY ARE WONDERFUL!!!!! They take the drying paint off my hands, they can be used to clean the above mentioned placemat. They can be used to rub on paint or extend the acrylic on a canvas. Wow!!!! Great stuff.

Another trick I learned over there is the magic of freezer paper. I’d been recycling my deli paper from the grocery store, but this stuff is so cheap, why wait?

The next wonder is part of a class I took. Sandwich paper. It is not waxed like freezer paper, and it comes under various names. It’s basically freezer paper WITHOUT the tacky part. You can get it for a really low price at stores like Costco. Sorry, it’s really yummy , but pretty hard to photograph….

If you dilute your leftover acrylic paints, and apply them to your sandwich paper, you get this amazing translucent paper. If you mix them with some metallic paints, you get the most amazing, rich effects. If you want to go one step further, and cover THE BACK SIDE of the paper with gel medium, you will have the most gorgeous looking translucent paper, to put between your pages in your journals, or to use in your collages. Try it at least once to see what it looks like. It’s to die for.

And about this getting ideas from other people. I did a Wabi Sabi workshop with Serena Barton. She’s a hoot. Very fun to be around. I did 8 paintings during the 6 and 1/2 workshop, so after a while, I didn’t know what new color combination to play with. I walked around, looking at what others were doing. I found one painting that I adored, and loved the color combination. I went back to my table and started to paint. Was I copying her? Probably. Yet the end result was nothing like what my muse friend was painting, and it got me unstuck. I think it’s worth remembering as a neat way to get inspiration.

So… did I have a great time at the Art and Soul retreat? You bet! Did I learn something new? Tons of new skills. Do I recommend it? Absolutely. There is one Art and Soul retreat near you in the US at least once a year. I say it’s well worth the money.

Portland 2010

What a wonderful conference! The classes I took were really amazing, and I come home full of new techniques, some beautiful books I made, and a list of new friends.

 

My first class was with Gina Armfield, who is a great teacher. She has a few online classes that I strongly recommend: www,sweetsistergina.typepad.com

 

My evening classes confirmed that I am not interested in encaustic, and it turns out that the fumes from that stuff are very dangerous to breathe.

On the other hand, I discovered a beautiful technique for making paste paper. I thought it was going to be on how to make the paper itself, but it is not that at all. It consists of a mixture of acrylic paint and paste to dilute the paint without losing the color. The resulting papers are gloriously bright.

We stamped the papers with real leaves for our Fallen Leaves theme in Albie Smith class. We then bound our pages in an accordion book with black pages. Gorgeous!

I took a class in Wabi Sabi with Serena Barton. It was great fun and we were mostly left to our own devices. I did learn some fantastic techniques, for instance to add Titan Buff on top of the acrylic inks to mute them and give them that aged look. I made 7 paintings during the class.

I took a class with Traci Bunkers on stamping with everything that doesn’t move, and we bound our pages in a delightful book.

My last class of the week was with Albie Smith again, this time, we were making Tiny Treasures. And little jewels they did turn out to be. They fit in the palm of the hand, and they have an exposed spine with a French stitch. Watch your Christmas stockings, there will me a few of those coming up in the next few weeks.

Yes, the pages inside are also decorated. Here are some samples from the class:

 

Last, but not least, I got to spend an entire day with 3 of my internet friends whom I had never met. I have shared Round Robin journals with them and seen their art, but never their great smiling faces. They came to the conference to pick me up, then we drove through all the treasure troves in Portland, for the art addicts: Scrap, Knittnkitten, the amazing Alberta Street district, and finally a lunch at La Petite Provence. Those days are rare and so precious. Thank you ladies, I loved my day with you. It was so awesome being with you.

My much admired friend Tracy Kaufman, who’s art is outstanding.

 

 

 

Marita, who is lucky I really liked her, otherwise, I would have posted another picture, and you know what I mean. lol

And wonderful Gina, who drove us, parked, navigated, and introduced us to all manner of great places.

What a day that was! And what a fantastic week.

Now to work and create more treasures.

Breast cancer awareness digital challenge

I have posted my entry for the breast cancer awareness challenge offered by Kimmie at Digital Whispers.

Here is the original image:

And this is what I manipulated:

The crouching man is a sculpture by Kevin Petelle.
The sculpture is on top of an enlarged picture of an ovary.
The Venus with the drawers is from dalivenus.com
The hummingbird is from Dover publications.
The background fabric was gleaned last year when I was not keeping track of my sources. Humble apologies to the owner. Please contact me so I can give you credit.

I am pleased with myself

I had a few hours this afternoon, so I decided to tackle a painting that has been on my mind. It’s 48 x 30.

I must have been inspired, I really like it a lot. Sorry for tooting my own horn, but I didn’t expect what happened inside of the blue, and I’m quite thrilled with it.

 

This next little one is from yesterday. It took quite a while and went through several transformations. I think I’ll call it finished. It’s hard to photograph, because of the texture and the muted colors. I’ve included some close ups. This one is 36x30.