Three Calla Lilies - oil painting

Three Calla Lilies
Oil on canvas
15" x 30"

By working on primed, unstretched canvas I can experiment with composition and materials without filling all my storage space with canvas on stretcher frames, though the walls will fill up pretty fast if I keep up my present pace.

Splashing oil onto canvas

Field of Canola
8x8
oil on canvas

I've decided to concentrate on working with oils for the next couple of months. I've put away the acrylics, most of the journals, the watercolors, the sewing, the Little Jo collages, the daily collages. I'm in the process of decluttering my studio so there's room to breathe and to think in a new way.

I have a bunch of gessoedstretched and unstretched canvas and a drawer full of oil paint and mediums. The plan is to paint large and with abandon, putting my heart, my emotions into the work and see what comes out. I'll try not to critique my own work, not yet. I'll just paint one thing after another, working on several things at a time, but working in series, on landscape and maybe some abstracted flowers.

As you see, above, my work is more than a bit constricted. I remember how I felt about seeing that huge field of canola flowers, brilliant yellow stretching to the sky. But when I put brush to canvas my feelings won't come out, not yet... but I'll get there as I put miles on my brush. Big brushes. Big canvas. Splashing on the color. I can't lose.

Even that field of canola with the same composition would be pretty impressive if it was 6 times as large.

Right now I'm experimenting with the materials. I've worked in oil before, under direction in a workshop situation, but now I want to spend the time to see what develops.

Travel Oregon... a handmade sewn journal

Inside front cover with pocket.

 My college roommate/sorority sister paid us a long-overdue visit in June and we did the usual tourist things: streetcar and light rail in downtown Portland, the Mt. Hood Loop drive back through the Columbia River Gorge, lunch on the water, shopping for fleece, plus we spent a week at the beach where we enjoyed long walks along the waters edge.

One of the beach days was the Cannon Beach Plein Air Paintout so of course we spent the bulk of the day watching artists at work, even though conditions weren't optimal. It's hard to paint when a cold wind is blowing sand in your face and interested people want to engage the artist in converstation... but they managed to make some very nice art which was on display the next day. No, I didn't participate; I just watched.

My friend Debby is a basketmaker and since she gave me one of her incredible baskets last fall I wanted to do something for her, to remind her of this precious time in Oregon. So I made her a journal using the structure I learned from Patty Van Dorin, called Wall Calendar Journal.  Here are some pictures of the pages before she started work in the book.  Unfortunately, I neglected to scan the front and back cover of the journal.

Debby is the girl on the right; my photo is below.
This is from the Okla. State Univ. 1959 yearbook.

The rest of the pages from Debby's journal, Travel Oregon, can be viewed in my Flickr album here.

I've missed you

Brandy, in my back yard

Friends have been calling to check on me, stopping me at the market, sending emails because they are concerned since I haven't posted in 4 weeks. Four Weeks! I'm sorry that I've neglected posting... I have excuses.

Reflection

I'm quite well, just very busy with summertime stuff.  I'll be back to blogging soon, probably next week. Thank you so much for asking.

Timed Studio Practices Increase Art Productivity

If you don't have a studio timer Go. Buy. One. Just do it. And then use it as a gentle taskmaster.

Whenever I have a job to do that I don't really want to do I grab my timer and set it for 10 to 30 minutes and get to work. When the timer goes off I quit. Sometimes I choose to set it for another short period of time in order to finish the job, but usually that's enough unless it's a big job. At the end of the time I do something I want to do... like enjoy a cup of tea, or look out the window, or walk through my garden. Then I go back to work.

What I haven't tried is to apply this technique to making art. Then I read an article by Robert Bruce about how he sets his timer for 33.33 minutes and proceeds to tackle a copywriting job within his own set of rules. AHA! Why not apply the principles to common studio tasks that are hard to get started such as:

• making warm-up daily collages, 
• applying layers of complexity to painted  papers or journal pages,
• filing, sorting, tossing,
• writing in my journal, 
• managing inventory, 
• matting and framing,
• dancing with joy.

You get the picture.
I've joked about my short attention span when applied to doing just about any type of art; well, it goes deeper than that. I have trouble with routine of any kind, with establishing and maintaining good habits, but since I already know that I like working with a timer on the less tasteful tasks maybe I'll get more accomplished more efficiently if I use a timer.

I Was There - Self Portrait Shadows

Amy and Grandma Jo in Hawaii

It used to be that after a trip I'd take our photos to be developed and be so disappointed that once again there were no pictures of me, as if I didn't exist except behind the camera. Then I started insisting that someone take a picture of me, but those, being less than candid, were never very interesting. 

Small town in Idaho

Fast forward to a few years ago when I was walking down a street early one morning when the shadows were long; there at my feet was my shadow self... so I took my picture. Now I look for opportunities to take shadow self portraits  wherever I go. 

Phoenix, AZ

There are no rules about taking shadow self portraits except that you need some sun and you need to make the picture quite early in the morning or late in the day when the sun is low to the horizon so that shadows are cast. The only time when I can't get a shadow picture is when the sun is directly overhead. The higher the sun the shorter the shadow.

At the beach

Most of the time I don't use the viewfinder on the camera but rather I use the LCD monitor in order to camouflage the camera itself in the resulting photo. The newest point and shoot cameras don't even have a viewfinder.

Cannon Beach

Move around until your shadow is where you want it. It's interesting if you can arrange to have something in the background that gives a hint about where you were.  And be prepared for a distorted body. You'll look like you've put on several unwanted pounds because of the angle and the clothing you're wearing. This is not the time for vanity to rear its ugly head.

I'm sure you can figure out time of day by the length of the shadow.

La Conner, WA Tulip Fields

Fiesta San Antonio Travel Journal

I created my travel journal about our April trip to visit friends in San Antonio quite some time ago but only today had the time to scan and photograph the book and its pages. 

This journal is an accordion book in a box, a re-purposed cigar box that's slightly larger than the 7 1/2 inch square book..

 Pieces of ephemera, postcards, maps, and brochures, that didn't make it into the journal are stored in the box along with the book itself.

I used a full sheet of watercolor paper which was painted randomly with bright colors to represent the excitement of Fiesta, and I brushed some thinned down gesso over areas of the paint to bring light into the colors. The reverse side is also painted but not in the same colorway, and will probably be treated as another trip journal someday.
The paper was folded into 7.5" sections to form the book and I strengthened the folds with bookbinders tape on the back.

While we were traveling I kept a journal of observations and sketches in my little Moleskine notebook that I carry with me all the time and didn't work on this until I returned home. I took care to collect ephemera of all kinds that could be used later in this travel journal.

What I look for includes postcards, maps, brochures, coasters, pins, name tags, and tickets.

Repurposing Children's Board Books

Children's board books, the kind with super heavy pages, make great substrates for small paintings.

PREPARE THE BOARDS:

1. Tear the book apart, page by page. Leave the tatters on the edges.
2. Tear strips of cotton fabric, any weight from gauze to heavy duck, whatever you have. The strips should be approximately the size and shape of the boards. It's okay that the edges won't line up. This fabric helps cover the original images and colors and is used to add texture. Skip this step if you want smooth pages.
3. Use any white glue (Elmer's, Sobo, PVA, etc.) to glue a strip of fabric to each side of each of the pages. Allow to dry.
4. Optional: Coat all surfaces with acrylic gel medium to seal in any acids.
5. Apply gesso liberally to all surfaces of the fabric and board. Dry.

USE THE BOARDS

1. For the above book I painted, stamped and stenciled my designs onto 5 prepared book pages, allowing paint to dry between coats.  I set 2 grommets in each page on the inner edges where one page would attach to another, and then used short chains to bind the pages together.
2. I have used some of the single pages for the substrate for small paintings. Sorry, no pictures available.
3. Some board books have large holes which can be useful to create a niche by gluing a page with a hole on top of a solid page and then put something into this niche.
4. Of course one could tell a new story on the painted pages.

Calla Lily - finished

Calla Lily
22 x 30"
acrylic on paper

Here's the completed painting. I like it more every time I come back to have a look.  If you click on the image you'll be able to see some of the detail. I'll put it away and put up another sheet of paper and see what happens.

Portrait of a Calla Lily

Painting again
I've been painting again and it sure feels good. It's been way too long since I felt the need to pick up my brush and move the paint around. What set me off was a bouquet of white calla lilies with their long stems and graceful shape. I very nearly waited too long to start... the blooms had started to turn brown on the tips before I set up at the easel. But since I don't want to worry about realism in my approach to the canvas I didn't let a few dead bits stop me.

The painting isn't finished but here's an early view to show you that I'm actually working.

And you can also see a bit of the area where I've set up my easel. It's a tight fit between a bookcase-turned-paint-storage unit and my flat files-turned-taboret. This isn't a perfect setup, mostly because the light is bad, but I'll play around here for awhile and see if it grows on me. I do like having the easel against the wall instead of in the middle of valuable floor space, and it's positioned so I can easily get a long view from across the room or even out in the hall.

Catalog as Journal
The Anthropologie catalog arrived in my mailbox a couple of days ago. Now mind you, the clothes in that store don't suit my style but whoever designs the catalog appeals to my sensibilities in a big way. The pages are spare with lots of negative space that just cries out for journaling and the beautiful scenes are perfect backdrops for more collage. Maybe Little Jo will go visit India along with Anthropologie.

My plan is to take the catalog apart by removing the staples.  Then I'll sew strips of fabric to the spine of each double page to stablize it, and add more bits of fabric and lace and collage bits here and there with machining. When I've redesigned the pages to suit myself I'll sew the pages back together and into a more sturdy cover, and I'll end up with a new daily journal for the rest of the spring.

My blog buddy Susie LaFond had a similar idea and posted about it on her blog today. Click here to read what she has to say.  I loved her encouraging words, "Go out and find a puddle to play in". Amen!