A Spring Break Project--The Pouch

I have been eyeing a project from Mary Todd Beam's book, Celebrate Your Creative Self, for some time. Having a seven year old who is packed with creativity and stick-to-it spirit seemed like a perfect time to try it out.

One of the things I liked about this was gathering materials, especially natural things. We had to substitute certain materials called for in the book that we didn't have on hand, but that made it even more fun.

 Marin started with an old painting of mine and tore it up. To this she applied matte medium and acrylic paint. This made the paper very flexible, somewhat like leather. We let this dry overnight.

Next steps involved a hole punch and shoe strings to fold the pouch and tie it together. We gathered feathers, sticks and great lichens blown out of trees with the spring storms.

Today, we found a nice piece of home-grown bamboo to hang it from. Marin strung some beads and buttons to hang from the pouch. She glued feathers to the stick to decorate it. The final step was to fill the pouch with Mother Nature's treasures.

 

Marin with her project almost complete.

The Pouch

 

The final step, filling the pouch with found natural objects.

Lots of Fun, but LittleTime for Art

Because this is Spring Break for Oregon schools, Mike and I have 2 grandchildren with us for the week. That means lots of fun, but little time for art, unless it's with two kiddlywinks (4 and 7) who want to do everything one can do in an art studio. That's great entertainment, but an impossible situation for creating a masterpiece.

 At the end of last week I decided to join the National Collage Society and enter their national juried show. I sent in the allotted two entries. Since I've not entered anything into a national level collage organization before, I have no idea how my work might fair. I sent in a non-objective piece and an abstract combined with subject matter.

 

River Dandy, mixed media, 22 x 30

 

Fascinatin' Rhythm, mixed media, 22 x 30

I'll report back once I get the results.

Now on to this week. After 4 inches of snow last week, we had a beautiful, warm day yesterday. We had plenty of outside activity. and spotted a pair of bald eagles soaring over our pasture, several turkey vultures and the return of swallows looking for houses. We hung two houses, which immediately had new residents. That led to making 2 new houses. The grand-kids were full participants, learning to drill holes, use a hammer and nails, and paint the exterior of their houses.

 

Marin putting on primer.

 

Noah working on his house.

Today has not been nearly so nice, but with the wonderful added attraction of a neighbor's granddaughter, Gracie, the kids have been having a blast catching critters from our pond.

 

Marin, Gracie and Noah studying their salamander catch.

With several days left of the week, who knows what mischief we'll get into before the week is over!

A Quick and Easy Project for a Group

One of my daughters asked me to teach a mini art lesson at a woman's retreat she is helping organize. I needed to come up with an idea that would be pretty simple and inexpensive. It is a Christian women's group, so I wanted to have the project tie in with some expression of spirituality. 

I decided a cruciform format would work perfectly for this group. I started with placing masking tape in small strips to form the cruciform shape. By burnishing the tape with my little bone folder, no liquid would seep underneath, forming clean edges when the tape was removed.

I got the paper thoroughly wet with water, then dropped two colors on with splashing and let it bleed together and dry.

 

After pulling the tape off, I had many areas to fill with symbols. I used numbers, letters, names that had significance in my life. By doing a number right side up, then upside down, repeating that pattern, you can get an interesting look. Do the same with letters. If I were to do this again, I would put a word in the middle, but I did this in a short amount of time. I'm sure you can think of other "twists" for this project.

 

If you look carefully, you can see a strip of NEWYORKCITY--the place I went to college, and where I met Mike. 

If you do this project, I'd love to hear how you have expanded the idea and made it your own.

 

15 Art Blogs to Watch in 2012

Thanks to a nomination by my friend Ruth Armitage, my blog was listed in Donna Zagata's list of 15 Art Blogs to Watch in 2012. You can view the entire list at http://donnazagotta.com/blog/

The painting below was started earlier this month in the workshop I held at the Emerald Art Center. I used it as a demonstration of how to include subject matter in an abstract design. If you look closely, you will see the shape of a heron in the left white of the paper.

 

With a couple of days in the studio, I was able to continue work on this piece to completion. Another painting in my River Series

 

The Gift of Wings, mixed media, 22 x 30 inches

River Dandy

If you have been following my blog, you are probably aware of the river series I'm working on. The series has sent me off on an experimental painting adventure, as I continue to look for ways to express my relationship with the outdoors and, more specifically, Northwest rivers. In looking for ideas for a new painting, once again I went back to my rafting photos.

Another influence for this next painting came from the fact that my painting "Rogue Heron," had recently won an award. I decided to use to my method of creating a painting by placing subject matter in an abstract design with collage--a companion piece to "Rogue Heron." 

Besides Great Blue Herons, we see a lot of cormorants on the river. Although many people associate cormorants (also known as shags) with coastal areas, there are many living in fresh water areas. These birds are far from glamorous in color or stature, and in doing a little research I found they are more closely related to pelicans and penguins than any other bird life. However, as in this photo, they enjoy soaking in the sun to dry out after diving for their supper. So this photo became my inspiration for the painting, along with some lovely collage material I had created. As you will see, the techniques I used for "Rogue Heron" and this new painting are similar, but the cormorant painting went in a very different (whimsical and playful) direction.

I began with the cormorant photo on a light table, tracing the bird and other abstract shapes. Using this method, I get ideas for shapes to incorporate into the abstract areas.

Using a full sheet (22 x 30 inches) of watercolor paper, I mapped out a white shape to connect the sides of the rectangle, and put on a pale wash of watercolor.

Next came some darks. After which I started building the corners. All of this work so far is with transparent watercolors.

Next, I masked off the white area and used the mouth atomizer to spray on a layer of color to help unify the corners and the abstract shapes. Once I peeled off the masking tape, I added the cormorant.

This is the unfinished state that I took to my workshop. It was with some trepidation that I took a piece of work that was at a pretty awkward stage. Developing this painting into a finished piece might seem daunting, but my experience has taught me that forging ahead usually pays off. For the next four days I used this picture to demonstrate to my class how using collage and line, can take a mid-point painting to completion. I let go of my ego at this point with the knowledge that I could work with the painting to a finish that would be pleasing. There is never a guarantee of a masterpiece!

Every bit of collage material added to the painting. I began to embrace the whimsy and fun the patterns created. Oddly, the more pattern I used, the less busy and more unified the painting became to my eye. I created more pattern by painting into the white, speaking to the white collage material I'd used. I then added some black acrylic paint to add "pop" and link parts of the painting together. The final step was to use line with ink applied by a homemade bamboo tool. My very last step was to create some new material for his feet--this "Dandy" definitely needed custom-made footwear!

River Dandy, mixed media, 22 x 30 inches

Workshop: Combining Subject Matter with Abstract Design

Demonstrating stamping on gessoed paper

This past Saturday, I wrapped up the four-day workshop "Combining Subject Matter with Abstract Design" at Emerald Art Center. It was certainly an exciting 4 days for me. Teaching always helps me become more aware of my own art endeavors, as I have to articulate my inspiration, my composition and design ideas, my use of materials, my decision making and problem solving process as my own paintings progress. 

In this workshop, we focused on two composition formats: cruciform and strata. Both formats are easily understandable, and, in my experience work well with inserting subject matter. Another large part of the workshop was creating collage materials by tinting natural rice papers, making stamps and stamping gessoed papers. For the participants who are mainly transparent watercolor painters painting fairly realistically, this workshop really stretched their thinking and expanded their experience. For those who are already experimenting, this just added new tools for their tool-belt.

Participants' work

Class after I demonstrated beginning surfaces for a painting

Throughout the workshop, I did short demonstrations on how to begin an abstract painting with various surfaces. And perhaps the most daring thing I did was take in a piece of my work at it's most awkward stage, and bit by bit build it into a finished piece. (I use the word daring, because I had to have the courage to work through the process in front of an audience, and the belief in myself to be able to bring the piece to a satisfying conclusion.) By doing this, I was able to show not only how to make interesting materials, but also how to apply them to a painting.

Participants with work (some pieces are in progress)

And here is the piece I brought in at mid-stage and worked through to its completion. Stay tuned for my next post which will take you through this work from inspiration to completion.

River Dandy, mixed media, 22 x 30