Making something new to play on

Surprise! I know it's weird to see another post so soon after the last one but I just wanted to share a quick look at what I was playing with this week. When I was shopping at Sam Flax a few weeks ago I was admiring the accordion sketchbooks, or what some call concertina sketchbooks, and I was also admiring the price! I didn't want to spend that much on a sketchbook so I decided to make my own. I certainly have enough paper lying around the studio so I didn't have to purchase anything.

I used a full sheet (22x30) of 140lb Winsor & Newton watercolor paper. I cut two 8" x 30" strips from the sheet. I measured and marked every 6" on the two strips and then folded each one accordion style. Then I attached the two strips together to make one long one and glued the two ends to pieces of mat board that I had cut to 9x7 so the covers would be slightly larger than the pages. After the pieces were assembled I gessoed both sides of the paper and both covers.

I made the sketchbook Monday and yesterday I started playing with it. Here's a bit of video of me working on it. Yep, I know the camera should've been on the other side of the drawing board but the way my studio is currently set up I don't have a lot of options for placement. If I put it on the left side, it would have to be attached to the drawing board and the motion of me working at it would have the camera wiggling all over the place. I don't post a lot to my YouTube channel for that reason and I'm not a video producer. I'm just sharing little clips for folks who want to see a bit of the process. Hopefully I'll get better with time but right now, honestly, all my focus is on the painting process itself. I'd rather be painting than dealing with a tech learning curve. Sometimes, us old schoolers have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the current century. At least I've quit putting two spaces between sentences when I type and I'm even going to learn about NFTs! That's big and it might take a while for my brain to wrap around that concept. LOL 

Anyway, have a happy hump day everyone. I hope you're doing something creative. 

Birds, berries, a squirrel and some art.

Before I get to the art, I have to tell you about a squirrel. Yesterday, around 2:30pm, I was sitting outside in the yard watching the bird feeder. Behind the feeder and under the camellia trees was one of the squirrels that skitter around my yard all the time. I watched as he picked up a fallen, white camellia flower. He looked at it and then buried his face in the petals. He rubbed his face with the flower like he was refreshing himself. He played with it a bit and then he turned it so he had fresh petals to feel. He kept rotating the flower until he felt all of it while petals fell. When he was finished with his petal bath he settled down to nibble on the dark yellow center of the flower.

It's hard to get good pictures on the phone when zooming in from across the yard.

He's still holding one of the petals and you can see what's left of the flower.

Right after watching this squirrel's little ritual, a flock of cedar waxwings swooped down to eat the small berries on the tree to my left. As they're feasting on the berries, their leftovers are hitting me like little berry pellets. 

To my right is the bird feeder where 6 sparrows are fighting for space on the bar, a pair of cardinals are sitting in the camellia waiting their turn, and from the crepe myrtle, come flitting back and forth, a chickadee and a tufted tit mouse. Every time a space would open up on the bar, one of those two would swoop in, grab a bite and swoop back out.

The other birds I saw in that one hour outside were a pair of doves who like to walk around under the feeder and eat what spills, and a yellow throated warbler managed to find a spot to eat. The most fun was when a large group of waxwings decided to come down all at once to the bird bath for a drink. The squirrel, who had been watching, waited until they were all in the water, then he ran at them and made them all fly. This was happening all around, above me, right next to me, in front of me. And the sound - it was amazing to hear the blend of so many different types of birds, the notes floating around each other. It was truly a magical hour. 

Now, back to art. Remember the little painting from last time? I wasn't sure what I was going to do to finish it.

I started making my own collage materials. I'm using deli paper and anything that will make a mark with acrylic paint - brushes, stamps, twigs, anything with texture, even fingers. I've used collage materials in lots of paintings over the years and have a collection of handmade papers and various other ephemera floating around the studio but I thought it would be fun to make some sheets of my own mark making to make the layering even more personal. 

I cut out one of the purple circles and glued it in place. The paper goes translucent when glued so the background color shows through the stamp effect. The final touch was a stroke or two with the palette knife and white paint, and done.

All Good Things

8x8x1

wood panel

8x8

canvas

On this last one, I used more of my collage papers along with a bit of handmade paper with leaves embedded in it. I wanted a more earthy feel and color for this piece. I'm still working on a title so if you have any ideas.... shoot them my way.

And if you have a day that's pretty and an hour to spare, be sure to spend a little time in nature. Just listen and watch. There's probably a squirrel expert somewhere who can tell me exactly what that squirrel was doing but right now, I like the idea that he was bathing in the flower's perfume. 

Is there life outside the studio?

Keep scrolling and you'll see why I haven't posted in a few weeks. I couldn't tear myself away from my studio! It's a lovely problem to have. I'm still working with the sketchbook from the last post. I got some new colors in from Nova so of course I had to do some swatches, mixes, and playing. Bits and pieces of these pages have been working themselves into finished paintings. It may be recognizable or it may not, but the book definitely sparks ideas and helps keep the momentum going.

Loving these colors! I was playing with black, white, magenta, and cad yellow. Black, cad yellow and white can make the most wonderful sage greens. 

You can see the influence of this one on Quiet Time below.

I don't know where this one will lead but I'm sure bits of it will show up on a canvas at some point.

Testing out new paints. At the top I was playing with more black and yellow mixes using Hansa yellow and Indian yellow. 

This is a mess - but I like the colors. It's just a sketchbook.

Quiet Time

36x48

This one is on a convexo canvas. Instead of flat sides it has a beveled edge. I textured the entire canvas with tissue paper before painting.

Riverside

24x36

Riverside is painted on top of a painting I did years ago. I kept the basic composition but pushed the colors and values. I added drips, dots, and a band of interference color that shifts depending on the way the light hits it. 

Coastline

10x30

I don't usually work on this extreme shape but I was gifted the canvas by a neighbor and loved it!

8x8

This one was a bit of fun. I do love circles, they show up in almost everything but this time I thought I'd add leaf shapes too. Is it done? Who knows.

8x8

The mess of a page? I told you I loved the colors - creamy yellow, light bright greens and blues with a kick of purple. This is where it's going so far. I'm still deciding what else to do with it. I'm also playing on a different surface for me. I picked up some cradled wood boards and wanted to see how I felt about painting on a rigid panel. Do you have a preference? Wood or canvas?

12x12

I went for a muted palette this time. I still wanted the bright yellow but I wanted to tone down the bright pink and make it more of a dusty pink. For the black accent I used ultra matte BLK3.0. To set off the flatness of the black I finished the rest of the painting by using a satin varnish. I'm still deciding on a title for this one. Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments below!

After a month of studio time, February started out with a full art immersion. Friday night was First Friday Art Walk downtown and then Saturday, hubby and I went to the Mt. Dora art festival, then on to Orlando to Sam Flax for supplies like that wood panel I'm playing on, and we got back to town just in time for a lovely reception at 8th Ave Gallery. New supplies, looking at fabulous art, and talking to other artists is a reason to celebrate and the inspiration continues....

Now I hope it won't be a full month before posting again. I'm trying to be better about it. I'm not exactly sure what's up right now but I feel like something is shifting. Maybe my work is moving in a new direction. Maybe something is brewing. Do you ever have that feeling that something is changing but you can't quite put your finger on what it is? Hey, maybe I'm about to have a creative breakthrough!! It would be cool to think so. Or maybe I'm just reacting to stress and hiding in my studio feels like the best place to be right now. I really don't know. I'll take it either way because I'm painting and most importantly, I'm learning. If you feel compelled to make stuff - just go do it. 

A studio soul sister and 6 reasons to enjoy your sketchbook

In the last post I showed you a few little snippets of a painting I was working on. I finished it and it's still got a lot of color! It doesn't have a title yet so if you have any thoughts, feel free to share in the comments. It's 20x16x1.5 and the image continues on the sides of the canvas. To me, this feels like a field of flowers in spring. 

This one was done, so what next? I wanted to do something different for the first week of the year.

Remember this post? I talked about getting the creative juices flowing again by playing with some small, loose abstract compositions. Some of those little experiments were finished and displayed. Some of them I didn't care for enough to show but I didn't hate them enough to throw them away either. 

After the holidays I sometimes hit a bit of a slump in the studio so when that happens I like to read about and watch other artists for inspiration. You can always find a cool tip or tool to play with that excites the mind. I browsed through my art book shelf and also started watching YouTube videos. There's so much out there. One artist that caught my attention was Louise Fletcher. Oh my goodness, she's like a studio soul sister! She even uses pattern tissue in her layers like I do. 

In this video she talks about how she uses her sketchbook to develop ideas. She does the same kind of exercise that I do with mini abstract compositions but then she takes the leftovers and saves them in her book, makes notes, and uses them for reference. Brilliant! I gave it a go. 

In this next one, I'm testing out some new paint I just ordered. I've never tried Nova paints. They're an acrylic made in CA. I ordered a few colors to try them and I will be ordering more. The colors are wonderfully saturated. They come in jars because they're not heavy body acrylic. They seem to have a viscosity somewhere between fluid and soft body acrylics and have great covering power. I'm happy with them so far and will add them for certain techniques. For some texture effects, the heavier body paints still work better. 

In the one below I grabbed some twigs from the back yard and used them like brushes to scribble on the page. I like the loose, organic feel of the marks.

I've always kept a sketchbook but I haven't used it as much in recent years and I usually just use it for graphite sketches. Now I'm enjoying this sketchbook practice for a few reasons.

1.   It helps me to work out design ideas for future paintings.
2.   I can work out color combinations and mixtures.
3.   I can try different techniques before taking them to the canvas.
4.   I can save all this to look at later when I need some inspiration.
5.   I make notes about what works and what doesn't so I don't have to reinvent the wheel when I'm working.
6.   No one ever has to see my studio work book unless I feel like sharing. I'm free to experiment  and play and if it doesn't work, I learned something. If it works, I learned something.

The new year is starting off with lots of inspiration, learning and fun. I hope you're having a great start to your year. Check out some more of Louise's videos and let me know if you find any other cool artists to watch. Let's go 22!

Setting My Intention

How I'd like the new year to be -  Glorious. In Harmony. That's how I'm setting my intention. By being in my studio this week; painting, feeling connected to nature, to creativity, to feeling, to joy. 

Glorious

20x16

In Harmony

30x20

Letting myself paint this week without the feeling of urgency, the need to sell, the pressure of work. I just wanted to feel the joy of painting intuitively and not care about anything else. Below are a few close ups of the next one on the easel. Bold color everywhere! I love the compositions of these little snippets. They might be the inspiration for some smaller canvases in the future. I'll share the finished painting in the next post. 

So with joyful color, I wish you a very Happy New Year!! I wish for all of us to have love, creativity, and prosperity in 2022.

Don't stir the wasp nest!

What happened to this month?! Was it really Dec 1st last time I posted? So, what I did this month..... rememeber the wasps I was battling? They won another battle but I won the war. 

I managed to snap a pic of these nasties before things got really ugly.

After pouring the powder and moving the birdbath over the hole, I thought they would be trapped but it didn't work. I wanted to do something that wouldn't harm the camellias that are right next to the nest so I was looking online and saw that a glass bowl placed over the opening would trap them. You have to do things like that early in the morning while the temp is cool and they're down inside the nest.

I put my heavy robe on and headed out. With the glass bowl in my left hand, I grabbed the bird bath with my right and pulled it out of the way. Well, they were waiting for me. Before I could put the bowl over the opening, a huge clump of them came zooming out. I dropped the bowl, it broke against the bird bath, I ran while they chased and stung me. Luckily only 3 of them got me - one on the earlobe and 2 on the leg. I saw them crawling all over the robe so I threw it off, left it in the yard and ran inside where I smacked several more off my pj's, stomped on them and had to get the bug spray to kill the one buzzing in the kitchen. 

Before all this happened, I wanted to do things organically, no poison. My husband suggested gasoline. Of course I said no. I can tell you that after the pain of being stung multiple times in that very traumatic incident, I told him he could throw a molotov cocktail down there for all I cared. If I lose a few trees, so be it. It didn't get that dramatic but I did call the pest control guys. It took them 4 trips to the house but the nasties are finally gone. Lesson learned. Do not bother the yellow jackets. Call a professional.

And yes, art happened too....

Remember the painting of my granddaughter from the previous post? Here's her sister with her mask. Fun! 

My husband Mark is also an artist and he did a special outdoor sculpture project in collaboration with IHMC - Institute for Human and Machine Cognition and OEU - Ocala Electric Utility.  Look above everyone's heads and you can see a bit of it - the human hand and the robot hand. It's a steam punky kinetic sculpture so the robot hand moves up to meet the human hand. Here's hubby cutting the ribbon at the unveiling. The last weekend of working on this project in our yard was also the same weekend of the wasps. After I stirred them up I was terrified they would go after him and the others working on the sculpture. Thankfully they didn't bother the guys but they stayed mad all day, swirling in a huge cloud over the opening of their nest. Nerve wracking!!

Second Spring

20x16

I painted a couple of new pieces too. This one is part of the group from this post, lots of hot color.

And then I had to play with texture and drips. I was still feeling the warm colors but went with more red and pink. Doing these non-representational, textured pieces are a break for me. They help me loosen up and keep things fun and exciting. I can't seem to paint the same thing over and over again. I need change.

The highlight of the month was going to the Appleton Museum to see the Mucha exhibition. I went with my friend Kelli who studied printmaking in college. She was able to explain in detail about the process that Mucha used for his posters. I had no idea they were so large and the process so tedious! The exhibit will be at the museum until January 9th. If you can make it, it's a must see. 

The bonus at the Appleton was the Christmas display. My youngest daughter was a ballerina in her dance school days so I had to get a photo of this display because of the legs and feet on the table. The display is so whimsical and fun, a perfect way to say Merry Christmas!

I hope you all have a wonderful week, a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Holiday however you celebrate. Spend time with your loved ones, eat good food, play and be happy. 

What's inspiring to you?

So yesterday I was out in my yard battling an underground wasp nest. It's really a matter of pouring some powder into the hole and running the other direction. Then I realized that I forgot the second step which was placing something heavy over the hole in the ground. This morning I repeated the process and remembered the second step. While standing there enjoying my yard without dodging flying stingers, I spotted the first camellias of the season. I have to take pictures. I may not paint them for years but I can't let this year go by without at least taking a few shots. They're just so ruffly!! 

These are the early bloomers. Some other varieties will bloom later in the winter like the one I painted below. I don't remember the names of the different varieties but I enjoy the different shapes, petal structures and colors. For this painting I used gold leaf in the background and glazed a bit of green over the gold. This flower isn't quite as ruffly as the earlier ones but I love the way the stamen surround the center petals.

January

20x10

Available here.

And then there's another kind of inspiration.... 

These girls inspire me all the time. My granddaughters were out in the yard (no, not anywhere near the wasp nest) doing a little role playing so they decided to come in and make masks for their characters. I loved the image so much I had to do something...

This was a lot of fun to paint! It's small, only 8x8, so it was fairly quick to do. I know I'll be painting at least one more of these and who knows, there may be more. We'll see. 👀