The Final Cut - Sketchbook Project

It's decision making time. Before I designed the first page in my book I chose a bunch of photos that I've taken around Oregon in the last 3 years and moved them into a folder and printed them as contact sheets. The photos are 2" x 1 1/2". I cut the contact sheet apart and narrowed the selection and now I'm at the critical stage of making the final cut.  Which 7 photos will best represent Oregon?

I have a spread about the western edge, one about grayness and rain.... now what?  Eastern and Central Oregon, for sure. My city (Portland), the rivers, agriculture... by jove, I think I've got it!

My next step will be to do some work in my daily journal. For a big project like this I like to write out my thoughts, first doing some mind-mapping, and then make a plan.  Right now I'm feeling like I limited myself to too few pages, but I have only so much time that I want to give to this project and limiting the pages seemed like the best way to handle it.

Ecola State Park - The Sketchbook Project

For this next spread I chose a photo taken from Ecola State Park.

After attaching the photo to the page with a tape runner (double-stick tape) I extended the scene using Derwent Inktense pencils, Caron d'Ache watercolor crayons, and ink.

Then I used plain water and a soft brush to moisten the marks and blend the colors.

The Sketchbook Project -Gray Days

I'm participating in The Sketchbook Project (click on the icon in the sidebar to read more.) and have been mulling around ideas about how I want to proceed. The papers in this 5" x 8 1/4" Moleskine are so thin that actually drawing on them as they are is out of the question as far as I'm concerned and there's not a great deal of time left in the year to draw on every single page. So. I decided to follow Marge Malwitz's lead and glue some of the pages together to create fewer, thicker pages.

What glue to use is the big issue with lots of the people who are working on this project. At MakenArt there's a long post about which glues and pens work best but I didn't read it until I had already experimented with gel medium, YES! paste, and a UHU gluestick, resulting in some badly wrinkled pages. I'm not worrying about that because I'll be making collages on the pages.

I find it so intersting to follow Marge's Creative Process that I decided I'll document my own process for you.  The title I chose from those available is "If you lived here". I'm enlarging the title to "If You Lived Here... Oregon". I'll use my own photos of various places I've been recently in Oregon and extend the photos with drawing and journaling since that's what I do.

My first 2 pages have to do with people's idea that it always rains and is cloudy and gray here in Oregon. It doesn't rain all the time. In fact the rain this week is the first we've had in Portland in 2 dry months. But one CAN count on bits of most days at the coast being overcast.

I happened to have the perfect sheet of gray washi so I cut that to fit and used 3M's 77 spray adhesive to glue it to the page, along with bits of blue washi to indicate the promise of blue skies.

The text under the pictures reads

Some say

it's always gray

here at the western edge

of the USA.

Often - yes, with a gentle mist.

But not always...

See there...

a hint of blue.

Working with Wax

Orange Circles

Wax on cradled panel

24" x 20"

detail

In the late 1990's I took a workshop at a local art college and learned about making encaustic paintings using collage elements. We worked on scrap wood with beeswax and damar resin. Although I've done a few small pieces over the years mostly my encaustic supplies have just taken up room on a shelf. After seeing an incredible exhibition of work by nationally known encaustic artists I decided it was time to see if I still like working with wax. 

Green and Purple Circles
Wax on cradked panel
24" x 20"

detail

I set up my supplies on my pattern cabinet in front of a window in which I placed a window fan set to expel any toxic fumes to the outside and set to work.  I like the 2 pieces I made and I love the smell of the beeswax but I wasn't happy working with the medium. It's messy and splashes of hot wax aren't easy to remove from carpet and windowsill, though it's possible... just scrape off all the wax you can and then dissolve with vegetable oil, followed with 409 cleaner.

What I found was that I need a larger area to work unless I move to a smaller size panel.  What works in a studio that's devoted to working with wax doesn't do so well in a confined 4 foot wide space in my studio... and I'm not willing to give over more space to the work.

So after making these 2 paintings and finishing 3 smaller ones I decided that this is something that I can let go. I cleaned up the space (except for the wax that got on my boombox, boxed up the supplies, and carted the box down to basement storage. I'll find a good home for lots of wax and pigment one of these days.

This is a valuable lesson for me in what to keep and what to let go. I'll notice the irritants as I work with various art mediums and those that don't make my heart sing with joy as I work will be given the old heave-ho.

What do you struggle with? Is it time to give up and move on?

In praise of peaches...

      When we were packing up for our move from Oklahoma/Arkansas to Oregon, way back when, my aunt sang the praises of Oregon fruit, telling me that the peaches were so big that only 2 would fill a pint jar. I laughed. Everyone knows that peaches are knobby little things with worms in the middle.

Well, Aunt Ora was right. Oregon peaches are huge, mostly worm free and delicous, as are peaches from many other states, too, thanks to superior farm methods these days.

I thought about this as I picked peaches Wednesday afternoon, in a field of peach trees stretching as far as I could see, big peaches on short trees that were a joy to pick, so fun in fact that I filled 2 big boxes and only when I got them home did I realize that there's no way I wanted to can so many. Perhaps it isn't worth the effort. It took me 5 hours to can around 27 pounds of peaches, resulting in only 7 1/2 quarts of pickled peaches and a big cobbler.   And I have an equal amount of just-ripening peaches ready to go tomorrow, though I think I'll take the easy way out and freeze the rest for winter cobblers.

Arkansas Peach Cobbler

8 cups  ripe peaches, cut into chunks

1 1/2 c. sugar

3 T. flour

1/2 t. ground nutmeg

1/4 c. butter

Pastry for a 2-crust pie

Stir the sugar and flour together in a large saucepan. Add peaches, butter, and nutmeg and bring to a boil. Cook until peaches are tender. Keep stirring.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Plop half the pastry on the parchment paper and roll out into a thin 9 x 13" rectangle. Bake at 425 degrees until golden brown, about 12 minutes. Watch to be sure it doesn't burn.

Pour half of the hot peach mixture into a 9x12 casserole pan. Slide the baked pastry onto the peaches. Cover with the rest of the peaches, sandwiching the pastry between the peaches. Roll out the remaining pastry and put on top of the cobbler.  Return to the oven and continue baking until the peaches are bubbling and the top crust is dark golden brown.

Of course... add ice cream and serve it warm!

Now I know I'll hear from those of you who use a biscuit-like recipe for cobblers, but this is the way MY mother made it and now I follow her lead.  There's nothing worse than uncooked dough in a cobbler and this method insures that all the pastry is done and full of crispy goodness.

I suppose this could be called deep dish peach pie, couldn't it? Go ahead, argue with me.

Subtle or Colorful

In her current post Donna Watson discusses how many artists have an affinity for creating subtle work, beautiful work that has a quietness to it that appeals to me, though I don't often create subtle work. Here are two more of my daily collages, one a bit subtle and the other one in-your-face bright.  Both were made in the same session, working out of my red box of bits and pieces.

I left a much loved unattributed quotation in her comments section:

"Work and work and work until what comes

out is pure and not influenced by

anything but what is in my heart."

I believe that only through doing a lot of work does ones' true voice emerge. If you are an artist, make lots of art using whatever tools and supplies you own. If you have a voice, sing. If you play an instrument, practice, practice, practice.  That's what it means to be an artist.  One has to BE.  That implicates daily practice. When one wants to improve as an artist, one must work at it... over and over and over.

Pardon me if I seem like I'm preaching to the choir. I've taught all my life and that's my teacher voice :) 

Circles and Valentine

Three Circles

5x7

I'm still working on my daily collage project, using whatever is in my red basket of scraps. The little guy peeking from behind the blue paper is from an old Hallmark calendar and the strip of circles is waste from punching out some circles.

Be My Valentine

5x7"

This is a picture of me and my friend Cliff at a fraternity party taken on February 14, 1958. Yes, I used the actual picture; none of my offspring will want it when I have a picture of my DH and myself in the same pose. I went to the party with Gerald who is now my husband, but Cliff wanted a picture of us together. Don't we look young! We were both 19.

Make art with what you have. It need not cost much money; just make use of what you have. Mother was fond of saying "waste not; want not" and I try to remember that, especially in these difficult times.

Nothing is safe when the spray paint comes out of the closet

An oldish plastic table and 2 chairs sit on my studio balcony, giving me a window on my backyard world, but the table was double ugly with a worn white laminate top  and I want beauty around me, so I got the bright idea to paint it. I taped the edges, got out my larger stencils and set to work.

I gessoed the table top first and after that was dry I stenciled some geometric designs with black paint. Then I added green fern leaves, some blue letters here and there, and finished with red and yellow flowers, and sealed it all with several coats of spray polyurethane.

I like it! Do you? And the best thing is I don't have to live with the same design forever... I can re-do it any time with layers of gesso and spray paint.
Thanks to Mary Ann Moss and her Stencilry class last year.

Birds - Seagulls - Journal Pages

Here are more pages in my Black Journal, these combining some of my photos with other sources (the birds on a wire and the 3 vertical birds aren't my own photos).

I used 3M Spray 77 to glue the photos to the black gessoed pages. I like this glue a lot for some purposes, especially for journal pages, though I isn't as permanent as I like for stand-alone collages. 

My setup for using this spray glue includes a large flat plastic bin with a lid, a magazine and the spray can. I lay my paper face down in the bin, take off my glasses and put them under something so no drop of glue touches the plastic lens (it doesn't want to come off once stuck to the glasses), and give the back of the image a quick spray. Working quickly, I lift it out of the box, close the lid, and put it in place in my journal. 

Why all the care? It's a SPRAY and it likes to float around the room, landing on all surfaces and leaving a tacky mess behind. By quickly closing the lid I allow very little spray to escape the box; it harmlessly coats the inside of the bin. When the magazine page gets too sticky I turn the page and have a fresh, non-tacky surface to lay my work on.

Decision Portrait Series - Pat Albiston

Today I'm proud to introduce you to my friend, Pat Albiston, of Seattle who is featured as "volunteer" with her stitched self portrait in Susan Lenz's Decision Portrait series here . Susan recruited people from all walks of life to tell their stories regarding a particular decision they made.

Some months back someone told me about this project and when I read the list of decision-makers who were still needed my eyes lit on "volunteer" and I just knew that Pat would be the perfect representative of "volunteer". She contacted Susan and the result is this lovely work. Pat volunteered 4 to 5 hours a week (and probably a lot more) for 31 years at the Henry Gallery's textile collection, identifying, recording, and eventually computerizing all the embroidery stitches (hundreds) in their immense collection of textiles from around the world.

Another friend, the late Virginia Harvey, designed the storage system for the collection, a marvel of drawers and tables which stores and displays the textiles in such a way that they are protected from excessive handling and exposure to light, yet be available for textile research.

Congratulations, Pat, for a job well done.