Mural

Katherine drawing lines on wall.

I've been helping with a mural project at my church all summer and now it's about 95% finished, all 300 feet of it. Yep, that's right, it's 300 feet long and 8 feet high, stretching the length of the children's nursery wing. Katherine Boettcher, a muralist, designed the project which illustrates all the Bible stories taught in the nursery classes, using photos of zoo animals and many of our children. She projected the drawings onto the walls and we drew the lines on the wall in pencil and then went back and painted over the lines with dark brown latex paint. Then families were invited to come and paint. Here's a video showing us working last Saturday.

CMBC Mural September 2009 from Nathan Becker on Vimeo.

Choose + Integrity = journal pages

I took my box of compost and some Mod Podge to the beach and managed to extract 2 collages from the collection of paper ephemera. I didn't
know where I was heading with either one but just kept putting colors together to see what came of it. Choose just happened. I used part of some papers I made years ago, literally in the dark.

In a painting class we students were instructed to bring all sorts of non-painting things, arrange them in front of us within easy reach, and put a big sheet of paper was on the easel. Then the teacher turned the lights out, leaving us totally in the dark, and told us to start painting with the materials in front of us.

I don't remember all that I had to work with but I do know that the collection included turmeric, lipstick, eye shadow, and some other kitchen stuff. The painting was really ugly but I've used parts of it in many collages since then, and part of it is what I used here, in the upper left section. The picture of shoppers in an old fashioned store reminds us to choose wisely. And once I started thinking about the night I was choosing non-painting things, my constant choosing of what I eat and don't eat, and my constant choosing between right and wrong the piece came together quickly.

Integrity came together from a prints of another piece coupled with some images from a newspaper that was masked with tissue. The woman is a photo of my mother as a young woman. She and Dad came home from work one afternoon to find that their house had burned to the ground, along with all their possessions. It was during the Great Depression and their situation was dire. Her brother who owned a drug store in PA paid their way north, gave them each a good paying job, and a place to live for the next three years. This of Mother and one of the city crowds by another brother, a newspaper photographer in NYC, seems to tell the story of a frightened young wife with nothing but hope that the future would bring better times. You can faintly see "storyteller" and "catch a glimpse" as well as people reaching up as though they're asking God to step into a tough situation and lift them up. I think Mother would have liked this collage.

Seeing with an artist's eye

I'm sure you've noticed that I love using my own photos in my artwork and on journal pages. My friend LK Ludwig is offering an online class about making and using photos in visual journaling using a simple Point & Shoot camera, so if you need help seeing your world from an un-ordinary perspective head over to her blog and sign up for the class.

Hawaii Art Journal

I had grandeous ideas about journaling every day, every time I had a minute to sit down I'd add a sketch or words or paste in some decorative bit of paper, and every day I'd work with my grandkids and help them build their own journal. Right. Best laid plans for journaling never seem to work out for me. Some of these pages have appeared here in my blog as "starts". I added to a bit to them on location but most have been completed since I got home.
I stripped the airline magazine of interesting words and pictures and culled more from a variety of advertising brochures that I picked up in stores or at the airport. These add interest to my pages but they weren't used except to augment entries about something we actually did or saw.


Our grandson, Lucas, added much of the comic relief to our days but he never did get adjusted to the 3 hours difference in time zones, insisting on getting up before the sun rose.

Since this blog is supposed to be about my art-making I'll tell you a bit about how I created each page and if you have other questions just email me. The fruit page was so simple. I used a commercial scrapbooking paper cut to fit my journal and added the text by hand and the title using a stencil.

Starbucks is another scrapbook paper with photos and stencil. I'm trying to remember to take shadow self-portraits often. It's usually only possible in early morning or late afternoon when the sun is low. The people in the small photo are my daughter and four grandchildren.

This page was spray stenciled at home and I added lots of bits later. The photo is of my son.

This paper was painted and stenciled at home with a bit of fabric and a garment label stapeled to the paper.

I did this watercolor sketch from a photograph.

And this sketch is from a magazine picture. I usually don't use photo references from anyone else but this is an exception.

Prepainted paper with label torn from the ice cream cup and a photo of the trunk of a tree.

This page was created at home using fabric, paper and my sewing machine, and the writing that can't be read was done on my anniversary when my husband got sick and we had to cancel our celebration plans. I was a little upset but more for him than for me. He so wanted to give me a day to remember and he couldn't help getting sick. We'll both remember this day for several reasons. It really was a wonderful day from the beautiful sunrise to its quiet end. Our precious son-in-law cooked a gourmet breakfast for everyone, we enjoyed time with all our family, and we had some time away in a beautiful place. And when we returned to our house we had peace and quiet to rest and dream and pray. It really doesn't get any better than that. And I didn't have to cook a single meal all day.

I intended for us to recite our vows for our family and at breakfast I started talking about our wedding day. I described the pink suit i made and wore for going away, with its matching hat, white shoes and gloves, and how we stopped for dinner at a chicken restaurant, and wondered how the owner knew that we were just married. But I didn't get much farther than describing the place we stayed before I got all teary with nostalgea and couldn't go on and pull off the recitation of vows. But we do still love and cherish one another through bad times and good and we'll still be together when one of us dies.

This is the view from our lanai, a watercolor done one afternoon while we were enjoying pupus and drinks. Everyone was fascinated, watching me capture what I saw, and I drew a couple of ooohs and aaahhs when I painted the sky. Some people are so easily entertained!

This is a stencil I cut from a photo of my youngest granddaughter, Sarah. She's such a sweetie, full of energy and fun and ideas for what to do next. All the kids are waterbabies and strong swimmers so they all took to snorkeling very quickly, and even had a Snuba lesson... diving with an instructor and their father floating above ready to come to their rescue. He's a certified diver.

Rick rack makes excellent waves aboue a colorful fabric ocean, don't you think?

This was my planning page. I added a couple of plastic slide holders to the page and inserted a luggage tag and my boarding pass as well as a bougainvillea flower petal. And I made lists of things I wanted to do.







That's it. I have a few blank pages of watercolor paper and will do a few more sketches in the book but it's essentially finished and I'm ready to move on.

Happy 50th Anniversary

Gerald and I were married 50 years ago today, August 30, 1959, in Booneville, Arkansas. He was 21 and I was 20 and I never thought we'd live long enough to celebrate 50 years together, not because we weren't commited to staying together but because being 70 and 71 seemed so OLD. Two weeks after our wedding he entered medical school in Oklahoma City and I went back to finish my last semester at OSU in Stillwater. We spent the first 4 1/2 months of our marraige with me commuting on weekends while he was adjusting to med school and the accompanying marathon study sessions. The next year I landed a position teaching home economics in a junior high school and had a wonderful 3 years there before we moved to Portland.

We stayed in Portland and the only thing we regret is leaving family and friends behind, especially raising kids who grew up with their grandparents several thousand miles away.

Friends ask, "How did you do it, stay married so long?". It wasn't easy and there were times when we'd each have been glad to walk away, but we went into marraige having promised God that this was forever and neither of us were willing to turn away, even in some of the rough patches. We respect each other and we've given each other room to grow as individuals while supporting one another and looking to a gracious God for help and thanking him for life's many blessings.

This week we are in Kauai with our son, our daughter, our son-in-law and 4 grandchildren, and we're having the time of our lives. I love waking up to the sound of the ocean and taking a long early morning walk along the beach before joining the others for our morning coffee. Life is slower here and so peaceful. We might not go home.

Nature's Paintbrush

We toured the Botanical Garden here on Kauai yesterday and one of the first trees I saw, one who's name I don't remember - just that it was a mid sized palm-ish sort of tree - had some unusual fruit that looks like cotton candy, 3" long cotton candy. When it dries it resembles a handleless paintbrush. It works, too, though it adds dirt and fibers to the paint and won't last long.
I'm taking lots of photos but not doing as much art as I'd hoped, just using bits and pieces of time to work in my journal. My 4 grandkids have been delightful. I was snorkeling with Amy and we both popped up our artistic heads, saying did you see THAT fish? We're both making an effort to remember colors and patterns and then make color notes about them when we get back to the house.

Packing for Travel

I'm sorry to have been so quiet this past week. I haven't made much in the way of art although I've been in my studio every day, reading blogs, keeping up with email, making a mess and straightening it up, painting paper and spraying, but mostly preparing for vacation travel.

For some reason I simply can't toss a few things into my suitcase and be confident that I'll have all I need when I get to my destination. I have to make lists upon lists to be sure I haven't forgotten something important... and this from a woman who used to teach workshops about planning and packing a travel wardrobe. Yesterday I finally called it quits, culled my clothes down to the bare essentials, put most of the more valuable things like art supplies into my carry-on, pared down the contents of my handbag, and I think I'm ready to go except for the last few things I'll need until we hit the road.

Art essentials for my trip:

So what am I taking in the way of art supplies? an Altoid travel box with 10 colors, a waterbrush plus 4 other rather small brushes, a tiny spray bottle, a tiny bottle of Indian red ink and a dip pen for drawing, my collage/watercolor journal and a few extra bits of watercolor paper, 2 gluesticks and a small bottle of ModPodge with a spreader, small scissors, pens and pencils, eraser and pencil sharpener, a tiny sea sponge, several paper and plastic alphabet stencils, my Moleskine journal and tiny watercolor paintbox and waterbrush in my handbag, a film container with paper clips and brads with masking tape wrapped around the outside, a roll of clear packing tape that tears easily to use for magazine transfers. I'm sure there's more but I can't think what. I didn't make a list for those things. I laid out everything I thought I'd need and put only half of it into a small folding cosmetic bag I found at Fred Meyers. Oh yes, I added a small cribiner, an S hook, and a large safety pen. These are so I can hang up my bag from the airplane seatback in front of me while I work on that impossibly small table. I'd show you a picture but I forgot to take one before packing and I'm not about to undo it now. Maybe I'll remember to take pictures as I work so you can see the process later. Remind me.

Coil Binding for Journals

Gina asked about how I bind my journals. Several years ago I was teaching some workshops on travel journals and I splurged and bought myself a holepunch for coil binding, (like the plastic coil used in spiral notebooks). This isn’t your everyday holepunch; it punches a jillion holes at once, perfectly spaced, through several sheets of paper. It wasn’t an economical move but I’ve loved being equipped to create my own unique spiral/coil bound journals with my paper of choice. I like the coil binding for my sketchbooks because I can turn the pages back on themselves and have a solid platform for writing or making art. I bought my coil punch from Bonnie’s Best.

Most copy stores will be able to coil bind your books for a small fee, usually around $5. Assemble your pages, clamp them firmly with some bulldog clips on every edge except where the spiral coil goes… and on that edge put a big yellow Post-it with an arrow pointing to the edge you want punched… PUNCH HERE. They may take off the bulldog clips but hopefully the note will stay in place and they’ll do it right.

Sometimes when I have a hardback book that I’ll be using a lot in the studio I’ll take the book to the copy store and have them slice off the spine along with about ¼” of the spine edge of the book, and have holes punched in the book so it will fit into a 3 ring binder or punch it for a big fat coil if they have the large size in stock.

Hawaii Travel Art Journal 2009

I've been working on the journal that I'll take to Hawaii in a couple of weeks. I decided to go with a 6X6" format and started by cutting lots of paper to size. I used some of my stencil paper from class as well as commercial scrapbook paper with designs on both sides, and I added plenty of 90# watercolor paper. Then I sewed narrow pieces together to get a full size page, adding embellishments. I left space for journaling both on plain paper and on top of decorated paper. I'll work on the journal on the plane as well as once we arrive.

Tomorrow my daughter and her 3 oldest will come over to construct their own journals. I have lots of cut-t0-size paper as well as lots of pretty paper to add to their pages. The oldest will be in charge of the sewing machine; the oldest daughter knows how to use my paper cutter; the youngest will be comic relief and creative director; my daughter will supervise, and I'll punch the holes for binding.

Travel Journal - Hawaii 2001

Going through an old sketchbook that I took to Kauai in 2001 I found a few sketches that I want to share with you, not because they are so good but because I want to encourage you to draw, draw everywhere you go, adding practice hours upon practice, just like learning to play an instrument. The more you do the better you get.
These 5 drawings are the best of what's in the book and no, I'm not planning to show you the other 20+ ugly drawings, but I am encouraged that I do more good drawings now than I did then. Practice makes perfect. This one is my favorite since I collaged the flowers on top of a long dark wall that wasn't working.


The lettering is a rubbing of something I spotted on a building.
I wanted to preserve the beautiful seashells we had gathered so I arranged them on the table and carefully drew them to the best of my ability.





This was part of the view from our lanai, severely edited to remove most buildings and plants between me and this house.



Another view from the lanai in early morning.


Hibiscus are difficult to draw but I aim to get lots more practice. We're returning to Kauai later this month with our family to celebrate 50 years of marraige.

I got out this old sketchbook today because my daughter and her 3 oldest are coming over Saturday to make travel journals. They all like to draw and collage and I'm doing all I can to encourage them. We'll choose some colorful papers, some watercolor paper, some plain but sturdy cardstock, and then bind them into journals with plans for keeping us entertained on the 5 hour flight and during daily quiet hours. This older sketchbook of mine has brought back such pleasant memories and I'm hoping that making and using their very own travel art journals will will help them remember when they helped their grandparents celebrate a very special time.