Through The Keyhole

NaPhoPoMo #9 Tucking In For The Night

Celebrating Celeste

My friend Celeste celebrated her birthday yesterday with an art party.  Can you imagine a better way to celebrate your birthday?  Me neither!

 

Gwen & Dawn

 

I am totally stealing this idea!  I may not even wait for my birthday.  August is so far away!  Maybe I'll have an unbirthday party.  I'll invite my art friends, serve some tasty treats, throw up some tables and get down to making, chattering, getting to know my friends better, laughing, lots of laughing, and eating.  Cannot forget the tasty part.

Gwen, Dawn, Tara, & Celeste

Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of the tasty yesterday.  The snacks were yummy.  The best of all was the almond mini-pies Dawn brought.  Did you know there was such a thing as a mini-pie maker?  I know, me neither.  And she filled those delicious mini-pies with almond filling and dusted the top with powdered sugar and toasted almond slices mmmm....  I cannot believe I only ate a half a pie.  I woke up this morning thinking about the deliciousness of it.

I had great fun finishing up a few journal covers.

And one still in progress.

Block Printing & Hand Carving With The Child

I went to a free block printing class with Tanner this afternoon at Artist and Craftsman.  We had such fun and it was so easy.  We used a water soluble block printing ink.  Perfect for learning with.  Any mess is easy to wash up.  Good thing since Tanner smeared it on his nose first thing.

Tanner made all of the "A" prints.  The one above was his first and I think my favorite.  The one above and below are made with a simple foam sheet that he etched into with a pencil.

While he worked away easily and diligently, I pondered and pondered.  Finally settled on a simple little turtle at Tanner's suggestion.

Tanner has plans for printing a series of "A's" and a Christmas card design.  I'm plannng designs to use in my journals.

Don't want to carve your own?  Check out Pam Garrison's fabulous stamp designs.  Or search "hand carved stamp" in Etsy.  I'm particularly fond of this one and this one.  Finally, be sure to check out Geninne's new book.  It's soooo good!  You'll be crazy inspired after spending a bit of time perusing it.

Sleeping in the Forest

I'll be camping in the Redwoods and on the beach in California for nearly two weeks later this month.  I'll need to bind a new journal for the trip.  Wondering what form it will take.  With a cover or without?  Big or small?  Pre-painted or not?  Delicious decisions!  The planning is one of my favorite parts.  That and you know, actually vacating.  This sweet little number was made in a Misty Mawn class at the last Artfest.

Sleeping in the Forest

by Mary Oliver

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

Road Trip (part 1)

A long weekend and an upcoming birthday for a very important someone often leads to a road trip in our family.  This weekend has been no different.  Complete with gorgeous knitting, delicious food and tea, art, beaches, and relaxing.  Lots of relaxing.

 

Bloom True Seattle

I don't know how to paint but I very much want to.  It was on my Mondo Beyondo list this last year to learn more about it.  Also on my list was taking a workshop with Flora Bowley.  I had the great good fortune to be able to take Flora's "Bloom True" workshop at Teesha & Tracy Moore's Artfest Annex last month in November.  What an amazing experience.  I love learning techniques that I can make my own, incorporating into my own style.  I'm not at all interested in learning how to make a copy of someone else's work.  Flora's teaching style turned out to be perfect for me in this regard.

What really resonated for me was the curiosity and gentle open heartedness with which she encouraged us to approach our work.  The frosting was a quiet moment of gratitude, a bit of yoga, wonderful music, and fabulous classmates. 

Work in progress 30"x30" acrylic on canvas

It turns out my camera and I weren't exactly seeing the same thing during the workshop.  I was having so so much fun.

Work in progress 30"x30" acrylic on canvas

The same painting, day 1 and day 2.  It's evolved even further and I think it may be finished, less Flora like, more me.  I'll share another time.

Work in progress 30"x30" acrylic on canvas

Work in progress 30"x30" acrylic on canvas

Second painting, day 1 and day 2.  This one is giving me fits.  Evolving but I'm struggling to bring back the parts I like.  Lots and lots of struggle.

I was finding it difficult to keep hold of what I learned so I've signed up for Flora's online class that started last week.  The challenge is carving out time for the assignments.  It's been a busy couple of weeks around here.  And I'm feeling pretty fried.  I need to get past that and break out the paints.  Soon.

Posts from class mates can be found here and here and here and Teesha's is here.

Journeying

The show and tell continues. This is a 12"x12" encaustic mixed media.

This summer I took an online acrylic painting class, Get Your Paint On with Lisa Congdon and Mati McDonough (http://getyourpainton.typepad.com/get-your-paint-on/). The first assignment was to explore patchwork. I've been returning to variations of it repeatedly since. It both represents and illustrates a number of themes that resonate for me.

We visited Salem yesterday. I should have done more research before going. It turned out to be a tourist town through and through. I was saddened to discover that there was so little of actual historical interest remaining.

There was an arcade that had some lovely vintage machines. More when I download photos.

Artist of the Month

 

I've been madly creating new pieces for a show at Annie's Art and Frame where I'll be the September artist of the month.  My work will be there for the Ballard ArtWalk on 9/10/11 and will stay up until about 10/5/11.

 
Cypress

5x7 mixed media encaustic

Stop by if you're in the area. 

Making Making Making

Aaargh! Typepad won't let me upload any photos!!!

 

In the book Art and Fear, the authors tell of a ceramics teacher who divided his class. Half the class would be graded on the quantity of pots they made. The other half would be graded on the quality of a single pot. In the end, the highest quality pots came from the group of students that had made in quantity. I'm in the middle of a project that requires I make in quantity.

 

I've been invited to hang my work at Annie's Art and Frame in Ballard for September. I couldn't pass up the opportunity but I didn't have enough work available. So, I've been painting every night. I couldn't sustain this for more than the 2 1/2 weeks that I have available but it is an amazing experience. I'm finding that the more work I do, the more ideas I have. An unexpected bonus is how much I'm learning.

Steven Pressfield writes in his book Do The Work! "The enemy is our chattering brain, which, if we give it so much as a nanosecond, will start producing excuses, alibis, transparent self-justifications, and a million reasons why we can't/shouldn't/won't do what we know we need to do. Start before you're ready." If I had time to think about what I'm trying to do, I would have several reasons why I couldn't do it. I need to spend time with my family, I'm so tired when I get home from work, I have so much going on at work, I'm getting ready to leave town for an extended vacation... All true and all a reason why I couldn't meet my goal. I could find several people who would totally support me in my belief of not be able to do it. Fortunately, I didn't really even have time to consider all of that. The opportunity came up suddenly and while I would have like to be prepared for it, I opted to try to meet the challenge it brought. I set two art related goals this year. To have a show somewhere and to create 30 paintings. With this project I'll easily meet these goals this year. It's time to set a new goal.

Hopefully photos to come later...

Get Your Paint On Week 1

 
11" x 17" acrylic on paper

I haven't been able to make any local art classes work in my schedule in a long while so I've decided to try an on-line class this summer.  I've enjoyed the classes I have tried and I've been anxious to learn more about painting with acrylics.  I signed on for Get Your Paint On with Lisa Congdon and Mati Mcdonhough. This is my first piece.  This was meant to be an underpainting for a different sort of work.  My son kept swinging by the table as I reached this point telling me it was finished and that I needed to stop working on it before I took it too far.  This after he told me it had great variety but needed some emphasis.  Uh, he's 8, soon to be 9.  Apparently he's been listening to his art teacher at school better than I thought.  It may still go on to become a different sort of painting but I'm leaving it for now.

I'm pleased to discover I could explore this theme of quilts/patchwork quite a bit more.  I just can't stop thinking about other ways I could have taken it.  Looking forward to the rest of the class a great deal.