Many Lives

I was busy sewing last week and didn't get any drawing done, but I hope to this week! I've been making Artist's Pockets to go along with my Artist's Buckets, for sale at Fuller Lodge Art Center in Los Alamos.

 

Despite it being so warm for November, spending time outside in the sunlight has been beautiful. We've hiked and played outside these last couple of weeks without extra layers of clothing, which I'm sure we'll miss doing once it turns cold (please get cold!!! Please snow!!!). Here's hoping we get into winter soon.

I've been musing on the change of seasons not only because of the unseasonable warmth, but also because today is my birthday and I'm entering yet another year of excitement. I read this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoon several months ago, and keep thinking about it; to me, the idea of many lives is so inspiring! I'm approaching the end of a life, and am already working on fashioning the next one. The freedom in crafting my life, right here and now, as well as working toward my desired next life is exhilarating!

What are you doing with your current life? What will you do with the next one?

 

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Tangled Tweeters

Bird with Feathers, Pen and Ink, Watercolor. 2014

No, these birds aren't plugged into a rockin' sound system, although I can imagine the chirps coming from them might be quite unusual. And I don't do that Twitter thing, so I'm not a Tweeter...

I did, however, have a blast making these birds! Although I find it difficult to draw on cold-press watercolor paper, these birds ended up showing their details nicely.

Bird I, Pen and Ink, Acrylic. 2014

After tangling the birds, I colored the first with watercolors. The colors were okay, but now that I've discovered the high-flow acrylic inks (previously), I don't know that I'll ever go back. The colors are so much more vibrant and easy to control, and again, they're waterproof, which is important for attaching the birds to the black masonite forms with gel medium. I added tangled feathers to the watercolor bird in order to dress it up some, which does add to its personality.

I even stretched my shop skills with this project, which is a move I've been meaning to make, but have been too chicken to follow through on. Waaaaay back in junior high, I had a small but meaningful run-in with a large belt sander, the experience of which I'm just now trying to get over– luckily, no injuries were incurred beyond my 7th-grade pride. Which, evidently, was traumatic enough that I avoided the wood shop in college, a decidedly challenging move as a painter needing to build frames for canvas paintings, needed in order to complete my degree. (Which I did, by the way; I just chose to go with pre-fab frames. Much to the chagrin of one of my professors.) Last weekend, with the help of the Shop Smith (and more importantly, my husband- he's indispensable), I cut out the bird silhouettes with the band saw and sanded them with the drum sander. Whoo-hoo! I'll have to do more projects like this because machinery is fu-un!

I've hung the birds above the sliding glass doors going out to the patio from my studio so that I can be reminded of their cheerfulness on the way outside. Birds like this certainly don't live around here, but they brighten up the studio!

As a note, spray lacquer is also fu-un! I'm thinking of more ways to include shiny, lacquered things around the house...

Meaning in Randomness

Pink Embrace, Pen and Ink, Acrylic. 4" x 4" 2014

I was lucky enough to take a couple of classes at the Artisan's Expo at Buffalo Thunder (near Santa Fe) last week. The class that really piqued my interest was Kumomi: Finding Meaning in Randomness. The title says a lot, doesn't it? Kumomi roughly means "cloud watching" and is meant to be a contemplative approach to mark making. But I also think it is exciting to be making connections out of chaos on a page!

Sunrise, Pen and Ink, Acrylic. 4" x 4". 2014

The basic technique begins with making free and colorful paintings on cards (or gesso board- we used both; all about 4" x 4"), with no particular direction in mind. It's harder than it seems to just let the paintbrush swipe across the page without a plan... I couldn't help but attempt a certain balance in color and shape, but the idea is to let go and let the paint just be on the card. Moving quickly, most of us in the class got through over a dozen cards in a short amount of time. The paint we were using was new to me- but, WOW do I like it. It's a super high-flow acrylic, so it goes on like ink or liquid water color, keeps its color intensity, and is waterproof. So much fun!

Interestingly, we all had different interpretations of the methodology, which I suppose is to be expected. One woman, working across from me at the table, seemed unable to let go of the control during the painting. She took significantly longer to complete the painting step, managing in the end to have little paintings already created, before adding the pen drawings. They had a beauty, of course, but my own interpretation of the philosophy behind this technique is to learn to let go of that level of control, and know that it will turn out beautifully in the end (without a plan) anyway. And on the same token, another women working across from me was particularly harsh in her criticism of her own work, calling her paintings, "ugly little things," and cynically "hoping for the best" when she started drawing. To shoot down her own random paint marks was rather self defeating at the outset, I think, and not at all what the intention of the workshop was about.

After allowing the freedom of random paint, including dripping and melding and flowing– or even using a straw to blow the paint into spatters and wild shapes– to open up the blankness of an empty piece of paper, we took to it with pen and ink to fill in the white space. With no preconceived notions, the pen transforms the negative space into something with presence. An artist (or practitioner of any sort) can leave a certain ambiguity filled with shape and line and beauty, or she can find some sort of meaning in the random shapes and colors. In my experience with Kumomi thus far, I can't help but have my own thoughts and images sneak through the apparent chaos. Developing a concept in visual form from what appears at first to be meaningless is quite empowering, actually!

Kumomi Monster and Tank by Rhys, age 8

Of course, part of the beauty of this technique is that anyone can do it. My son, 8, jumped right in and illustrated one of my cards, including finding a monster in the middle. He was satisfied with leaving some white space, which was something I was finding hard to do. We can all learn from each other!

Tiny Tangles

I did some tiny tangling yesterday, resulting in some new jewelry! I have wanted to do something with pretty glass tiles, and it finally occurred to me that tiny tangles would be the answer.

I did a series of tangles to fit the size of the glass (1 inch square), and scanned, printed, and hand colored a couple with color pencils. They are then adhered to the back of the glass with dimensional lacquer. With a bale and a cord for the necklace, it's a beautiful pendant!

 

I also tried the necklace style on the left (above), but I like the glass pendant a lot more. The colored tangles also add another dimension, which is nice.

In a couple of days I'm headed to the Santa Fe Artisan's Expo at the Buffalo Thunder Casino, which I'm really looking forward to! I'm taking two workshops and will be watching many demos and ogling lots of art supplies. I should probably leave the Visa at home...

This Used to Be a Landscape

I missed the lunar eclipse this morning, but I think it was cloudy, so even if I had actually woken up at 4:45am, I couldn't have seen it anyway... Instead, I slept through it. ;-)


As part of a New Year's-ish resolution a few years ago, I decided to focus on finishing projects. I have an inordinate number of half-finished sewing projects and fabric, yarn, paintings and general crafty supplies sitting around. Having to pack it all up and move it across town this summer, I not only realized just how much I have, but how easy it is to have it "out of sight, out of mind." Now that I have everything stored in my studio, I am facing some of the piles and boxes. Over the last several years I've developed my purging muscles to the point that I can be somewhat ruthless: I don't like storing unnecessary things, even if they have sentimental value (really, do I need to save a lump of clay my two-year old squeezed? Absolutely not). Art has been more difficult to toss, however.


Several weeks ago, I had a small burst of inspiration. I have a couple of stretched canvases sitting around with unfinished paintings on them– a couple are at least a decade old (what!?!!? Why has a 12 year old canvas with an unfinished painting on it taken up storage space in my life??). I know I'll never get back to finishing the paintings on these canvases, but the canvas is too stiff to make into Artist's Buckets. They need to be repainted!

It just so happened, I was making more canvas for more Artist's Buckets, so I had splashy paint and the desire to fling it around. In the case of the old painted canvas above, I actually poured and spread the paint instead of dripping and flinging, which was also quite satisfying. I wasn't sure where I was going to begin with, but decided to not entirely obliterate the base painting so that in the end it could show a certain evolution of the art on it. After the paint was dry, I hit on the idea of juxtaposing the traditions of landscape and portraiture on one canvas and thus: This Used to Be a Landscape.


But here's the thing about storing all those bits and pieces as they devolve past their prime: they are no longer pristine. Whether it's the fabric that is stained or the plastic that becomes brittle, the stored things degrade. As did this canvas situation. We haven't owned cats in years, yet this canvas had been marked at some point in our cat-ownership. As I worked on the canvas, there was the unmistakeable odor of cat urine– one that cannot be scrubbed out of anything once it's there, in my opinion.

So,  we have a new piece of yard art! It's the first fence art we've had, and now that it's there, I might add more in the years to come. It brightens up a somewhat dreary fence and adds color, especially on this cloudy morning. It's a talking piece, too– the dishwasher repair guy asked about it, though he wondered if we'd had a fight and I'd splashed paint on a portrait of my husband in retaliation...

Well, the piles aren't diminishing as I type, so I'm off to do more project finishing!

Wedding Tree

My little Bro is getting married (gasp!) on Saturday. In Italy. To a lovely Italian lady, who I like very much. I will be here in New Mexico, thinking of them, and wishing them the best. And hoping to see them soon, but knowing it will be some time before I make it to Italy.

Alice requested a Wedding Tree to have at the wedding/reception, and so I drew one to send to Italy. Unfortunately, I don't know if it will arrive in time, as I got it sent late enough that unless there is some sort of divine intervention, it's likely to get stuck in Italian customs. I'm still crossing my fingers, though!

The basic idea is a bare, branched tree that becomes leafy as guests of the lucky couple add their thumbprint to the tree; Pinterest has a plethora of trees to get inspiration from. So, my photos are of a bare tree, but if it makes it to Italy in time, it should be quite covered in foliage by the end of the wedding event. I chose to make this one a bit on the small side since I was shipping it, so I think pinky fingerprints will be the best.

Part of the reason it was sent on the late side was that I actually did two. The first one... sucked. I planned and sketched and practiced with ink and brushes, since that was what I was seeing around the internet. But, I like drawing. After letting the icky painted tree sit a few days, I finally faced that I was going to have to redo it. Probably in part due to the pre-planning and execution of an ugly tree, the drawn one came together very quickly and I'm soooo much more satisfied with it. The lesson for me is that right now, I love the doodling and ink drawing, so I should stick with it.

Hand lettering, on the other hand, I should probably spend more time practicing. I chose to only go with initials because I was pretty sure that "Chris and Alice" would have resulted in travesty.

Congratulations to my brother and his Italian amore! I send kisses and hugs– and I look forward to seeing the pictures afterward!

Alice is pronounced Ah-lee-chey, which makes her even cooler.

Camping at the Valle Vidal

We're all moved. Which means I can get back to regular life! The kids are both in school this year (gasp!) and I'm adjusting to the new schedule. I'm even being productive in my (yes, my very own!!) studio. We took a break and went camping a couple of weekends ago with friends. It was a gorgeous weekend, especially because the rain kept the riff-raff away. It's always so nice to be out for the weekend, especially when the environment is new and spectacular. Happy September!