Open Studio

Sauvies Island Pond

Oil on board

5x7" available

I'm preparing for a party, an Open Studio, a show and sale of my own work here at my home. For years I've visited other artists studios on the Portland Open Studio Tour and have considered joining them as a participating artist, but haven't, not wanting a lot of strangers treking through my home. But friends continue to show interest in my work and where I do it so I decided to throw the front door open for a weekend. Come if you can... Nov. 21 from 5-8pm or Nov. 22, between 10 and 5pm.


I wasn't prepared for the work this has been. I'm been merrily working away, having fun painting and making books and collages without doing all the archival work that a working artist keeps up with such as photographing and cataloging each piece as it's completed. I just add the work to a stack over against the wall and start on the next piece. Now it's all catching up with me and I've spent day after day photographing and scanning work, determining a fair price for each piece, cataloging it in Working Artist software, making labels with Avery. Just when I think I'm nearly finished I complete another painting and have to add that to the mix.


I've taken down my collection of other people's work from my walls and am hanging my own work, and I must confess, I think it looks really good. Even my husband is surprised at how much I've done over the past couple of years. There are a lot of different directions that are revealed when all the work is hung together, abstract, landscape, collage, work done from photographs that I've taken, and work done from my head. It's interesting, to say the least, and I guess that's good enough, to produce interesting work. After the party is over and done with I might just settle down and concentrate on just one way of working for the next few months and see what happens.

Being

Being

Collage on Paper

8x8"

It's been over a month since I've posted and this morning I decided that it's high time I wrote a bit to assure you that I have been working and that I intend to continue with this blog. I've just been being myself: housewife, gardener, friend, wife, mother & grandmother, artist, reader, traveler, worshiper... and that all takes up my precious time. And all those roles are important enough that they share pretty much equally with my role as artist and are the reason that I don't pursue a full time art career. I am content and pretty much joyful all the time.

A friend visited my studio last week and noting the piles of paintings adorning every surface in preparation for an Open Studio, commented: "you paint happy". I guess I do. I use intense color, lots of warm colors, and lots of color. I keep trying to paint with quiet neutrals but somehow the stronger colors win out every time. Even back when I was doing contemporary embroidery I turned to hot colors when I chose fabric and thread.

My husband and I spent the better part of a week on Washington's Long Beach peninsula last week while I attended a 3 day workshop with Eric Weigardt in Ocean Park. It was called "Painting Loosely". We worked with watercolor and I learned a lot. I tend to tighten up and go right for the detail whenever I work so I'm on a quest to reverse that tendency with whatever media I'm using. I'm not a watercolorist although I do use watercolors, especially in my journals, and I want to understand it better.

What I got from this workshop was an understanding of the importance of using a planned range of values in my work. Oh, I knew, intellectually, about value studies, about making little sketches of my subject using at least three distinct values, light-medium-dark. But I rarely do the value study and I didn't accept that in order to make good art I must incorporate this notion in every piece, especially if I'm drawing the landscape. Here's an example of a photo I took in France and the value study I did from the photo. I'm really slow but I know that practice will speed up and improve my skills.

Two Girls and a Ball

The two little girl images are from the first pattern I ever used to make something... a purple cotton dress for my favorite doll which I still have. I also made a purple sundress for myself... when I was 9 years old.

Two Girls and a Ball

5" x 5"

Collage on gallery wrap canvas

Romans 1

Another in the Sermon Notes series, Romans 1 features a photo I shot in Israel. It represents Paul as he composed his letter to the band of believers living in Rome in AD 57.

Since I had such an appropriate photo this Note is different from the others. The text was printed on thin paper and then glued to the painted paper. The acrylic medium I used gives the paper a translucent quality.

My plan is to do a Note for each of the chapters in Romans, 16 in all. Our pastor is teaching Romans on Sunday morning and he goes verse by verse so this project will stretch over many months; don't expect to see one a week, though I have to play catch up since we're already up to Chapter 4.

Grasshopper

Here's another collage from my traveling compost box. I like the looks of torn edges but there's just something about the way my hands and mind works that insists on straight cuts and 90 degree angles. Perhaps it's all those years of garment construction when even being a half inch off-grain can make a skirt hang crooked and certainly is the difference between a smooth collar and one you'll never wear.

I started sewing when I was 4, when I'd sit in my grandmother's lap and learn embroidery stitches. That led to my making most of my clothes in high school and college, and then for most of my adult life. I no longer make my clothes except for the times when I can't stand another shopping trip. No longer is it a lot cheaper to sew one's own clothes, although I have such a big stash of good fabrics that if I used what I have then my clothing budget would hardly be dented. Hmmm.

More Collage

Yellow Headed Amazon

7.5 x 7.5

This is another collage made from my compost box of painted and commercial papers. The parrot image is from an ancient encyclopedia... remember when we opened a book to do research, way back before wikipedia?

LITTLE JO

7.5 x 7.5

I took a box of collage compost with me to use while on vacation at the beach, not realizing how appealing making a simple collage would be to my grandchildren. I took only enough supports for my own work but of course I soon realized that it was more important that I share with these budding artists.

The first girl to have a go was my 8 year old granddaughter who created a masterpiece right off the bat. Granted I kept control of the glue spreader (I had YES! paste with me and a broad plastic palette knife) so the work was neater than she normally produces but it was amazing. See for yourself...

Sarah's House

6.5 x 5

Soon my other granddaughter joined the fun and made this

And by week's end we had a gallery lining two windowsills...

Charlie's Chasing the Green Flash.

Jill's Tree

And the rest are mine.

At the Edge of the Forest

At the Edge of the Forest

Acrylic on Paper

16"x20"

Available

Mondays are busy for me but I managed to find time for some painting this afternoon, done from a photo by my friend, Nina Bagley. I'm noticing what happens at the edges of natural things... the contrast of light and dark at the edge where meadow meets forest, the glow at the edge of a rose petal in the morning sun, the prism of colors on the shell of a soap bubble, the light edge on the tree trunks that I see out my studio window, the shadow edge on the house siding created by the sun shining on an overlapping board, the dark edge of my friend's cheek as light glows behind her. And I realize that I don't stop to look, not often enough, at this beautiful world that God created for us to enjoy. I hope you stop for awhile today just to look and wonder at the beauty around you.

Photography

I've been just thinking about all those questionaires where you're asked to list your hobbies and I realized that I never list photography which is crazy since that's one of my major activities. I'm hardly ever without a camera. My uncle and my father loved to take photos and Dad let me use his fold-up bellow camera when I was a youngster. It was way better than a Brownie although he bought me one to shut up my whining because "everyone" had a Brownie. I got my first SLR in 1966 and have progressed through lots of others. Hmmmm... I still have most of the cameras somewhere and they'd make a nice display on my fireplace mantle. My current favorite is a little Camon PowerShot SD700IS because I can stick it in my pocket or purse and have it with me wherever I go.

Yesterday we went to a friend's cabin on the Wind River just above the Columbia in Washington. We climbed down to the river through the puckerbrush and out onto these massive rocks that line the river. It's so beautiful there with the quiet interupted only by the water as it pounds the rocks and the occasional bird, including a rather lusty-sounding raven.

As I was eating lunch on my back deck I noticed some interesting leaf shadows on the umbrella.

Have I painted today? No, but I have made a bit of art with my camera, and that counts.

Plaster and Board

Several weeks ago I took a 5-day workshop from Pat Wheeler... called The Architecture of Memory. I completed 4 paintings in class and finished 2 more in my studio. I'm most pleased with these two.

Here are a couple of details:

These paintings are on 2" deep cradled 12" X 36"panels which were first painted with a dark color. Then limestone clay was troweled on and allowed to dry completely, and sanded. At that point I laid in the landscape with watered down acrylic paint, and after it was dry I went back in with a big nail and carved the trees. Then I sanded the pieces smooth and added the details with more paint. The colors extend around the sides and the surface is finished with a layer of cold wax medium and buffed.

Will I do more of these paintings? Maybe, but the process is quite labor intensive and my hands were killing me after the carving and sanding, so I may be wise and find something that isn't so hard on my body, even though I do like the process and the results.