Crow on a wire at twilight

Although this piece is on canvas board I consider it an art journal piece. The canvas had an image on it that did not work out and I began to play around from scratch over top of it. The crow kind of materialized out of the darker paint I was using to cover the previous work. I believe there is metallic paint in several colors on the crow and the rest of the color is regular acrylic. A white pen was used to journal a shrine-like shape around the bird. I love crows although I find them hard to render unless I am stamping them in black ink in a really graphic way. All that dark can make definition hard to achieve to separate areas of the body and face. I “solved” the problem somewhat in this piece by doing some sweeping lines with the white pen, which gave the bird some personality and unified the body of the bird with the rest of the piece. Certainly not my favorite piece, nor best created, but I did resolve  the problem of a canvas that was not working at all and turned this into a decent journal page. I will copy it and paste it into my altered map journal one of these days.

“To listen is to lean in, softly…

with a willingness to be changed by what we hear”-Mark Nepo. This is a page from my altered map book journal. The page started with a black and white copy of a map I made of my hand, then collage elements and a rough border were laid in on top of the illustration. Watercolor provides a unifying burnt yellow and the quote, shrine and bird pictures are all from magazines or junk mail. This is the first page in this book and I covered it for protection with an old piece of brown wax paper which was pulled back for the photo. I like using evocative quotes culled from reading material and already printed, ready to glue into the page. I also rubber stamp and hand write quotes that seem appropriate for the day that aren’t pre-printed. I believe this is the second page I’ve shared from this altered map journal, I continue to work into it frequently but it takes time to move through it because everything has to dry properly before moving on.

Mail art treasures

I have a dear friend I have never met who specializes in spreading mail art treasures around the world. Being a lucky recipient of everything from mini zines on bees and elephants, full sized zines, including one featuring the Hand as a symbol, slips of poetry from some of the worlds best contemporary poets, printed on vellum and illustrated with rubber stamps, computer art and many 3-D stitched items, kiragama, origama and found objects. Even the envelopes are beautiful, adding an anticipation to the opening of the mail. Lunar Daughter has been sending me mail since 2000 and I have been saving it because it is too precious to dispose of. Period. In this day of hasty emails and faxes, who has a message worth saving like these are? I’m going thru all kinds of stuff in this house and I’ve run across this collection. At first I thought I might put the art into my own journals, with the poems and the stitching and the 3-D jewel encrusted branches and thereby mingle the contents with my own art and collection of ephemera. But handling the treasures, I realized I no more want to dissect these than to get a stick in the eye. The care in creation, concern for me expressed, concern for the environment discussed, the sheer loveliness of the objects Lunar Daughter has wrought require not disassembly for expediency’s sake but a place of honor. So I am devising a means to store these, better organize them and a mission to take them off the shelf periodically to review their individual and collective loveliness. Sometimes we need to slow down and examine what has heart and meaning for us, even if it means another small, decorated box on the shelf to hold that which has been created with joy, time and talent.

Lotus flower mandala

Another expressive painting, this time in the form of a mandala with a lotus flower as the central image. Charcoal was used to define outlines and make marks and pointilism was used to add some interest. I dipped the end of my paint brush into white paint to make the dots. I like this strong image and the colors that emerged as the work was layered. All these expressive paintings look good with a simple black frame, which I am working on finding at the thrifts. My absence in the past week from my blog was due to a nasty cold and fever I had which has thankfully gotten better in the last couple of days.

red boa pink umbrella

To get you into the mood for Valentine’s Day tomorrow we have a very red shop window photo from the window display by the talented Marina Williams of ARTpool Gallery. Bob and I had a quiet weekend because he is sick with the Creeping Crud and now I have it, so I guess it’ll be a quiet week as well. He mustered enough strength to attend the MUSE party at ARTpool on Saturday night and that was amazing. About 20 models had their bodies fully painted in all types of characters, including the good angel, the fallen angel and a parrot, a couple of skeletons and an awesome Maori inspired (to my eye) warrior. Quite a few of the models remained in character and it was great fun. We even got to see a burlesque act! ARTpool rules.

Shadowlet swirlies

Perhaps these should be called Shadow Lites rather than shadowlets. Caused by sun randomly striking my kitchen countertop in the afternoon while some mehndi stencils were out for use. After the first one I set some up, some stencils worked better than others. I like how there is actually a shadow of the shadow working in this one in some spots. I’ve spoken about shadow play before and I urge you again to watch for opportunities to capture random patterns that occur anytime the sun is in the correct position and angle. Just the other day I captured Count Dracula on the paper supply in my printer. The sun came through and shadowed the paper holder in such a way as it looked like a vampire with a cape. I’ll show you that one if it came out, at a later date.

Pink Whimsy

I made a total of four portraits of women with mustaches, I’m not sure why, they just appeared last week and had a meeting, to which I was NOT invited. Whimsy chose pink, although she was inspired by a woman at an art party last month wearing a candy pink wig styled in a bob with bangs . These gala openings sure do generate a lot of ideas. I love her dainty mustache but I bet the upkeep is tedious.

the future’s so bright…

This mannaquin is set up in front of ARTpool Gallery in honor of approaching St. Valentine’s Day and the MUSE show on Saturday. I call this manny “little girl lost” because she is quite waifish and vulnerable looking. I love the mix of the black and white polka dot hoodie and the pink sunglasses. Normally I turn my manny photos to black and white but sometimes the colors drive the image. I  placed four mustachio’d lady portraits in the MUSE show that will run for the next three weeks, plus my wall space and cubby hole are chuck full of cool work, some of which sold last week.

Nonesuch moon, expressive painting

Nonesuch Moon is an expressive painting using a paper plate for a template, worked on a stretched canvas. Like some of my expressive paintings, it exists no more as the desire to paint portraits of women with moustaches took over and this canvas got repurposed. In order to preserve the lineage of work I do like to take pictures of finished work, even if (or especially if) I think it may only have a short life span. I like this painting and will very likely use this image in my journal at some point if I ever again get a color printer that works. In this way, paintings that no longer exist, whether the canvas was repurposed or the image was sold, can live on for the artist in current work. Be sure to document all your work with either photos or scans, if the work is small enough. Shoot the work at least 300 dpi so that you could have a greeting card or print made, and do a separate image at 72 dpi for the web display. I always keep the original photo in case either “saved” copy (your altered copies) get destroyed. Another idea for photo use of artwork is having a book made. Not as expensive as you might think and great fun to have. Comes in handy when visiting a new gallery or going out on an art date with friends to keep them updated on your progress. Happy painting and happy shooting!

Pretty birds

The design for this pretty picture was not mine but Dina Wakley’s, whose class I took on Saturday. In three hours I made this painting and another on stretched canvas. Dina is a good teacher and we used very good supplies which made the project even more enjoyable. This image is on watercolor paper, gesso’d, birds were traced, then overdrawn with Stabilo ALL water soluble pencil (which I LOVE–new go-to tool), painted, stenciled and journaled on. I don’t take very many classes, this was my first art class in many years. Definitely worth the time and funds. Check to see if Dina might be coming to a venue near you.