Saturday, July 25, 2009

she talks


to flowers

ahhh, it's still hot...

these are from my 5" x 7" journal... muslin that's been gel medium-ed to 140# watercolor paper and then painted with (mostly : ) watercolors.




and the last pages


in my little (3" x 5") travel journal. i should probably call it my 'wandering journal' since it's what i take with me when i go out walking. i started it almost exactly 3 years ago, which was also when i started keeping art journals. as i've said before, i wanted to finish this so i could start a new, bigger journal, but now i'm not sure if i'll go to bigger pages or not. lately i've painted a page every morning as i sit outside, and i've enjoyed the small page size...
















since i mostly drew with my left hand in this book, it wasn't easy to draw on the last pages!


for now this is my new 'wandering journal'... i sewed together 7 pieces of muslin...


some of the pages are narrow so i sewed tabs on these pages that would meet the left side of the wider pages. it weighs practically nothing, so it's great for wandering in that regard. i'll let you know what i think after i've done a few pages!


what the flowers are starting to do here, in our non-yard yard and everywhere...


and this, this is so lovely that i wanted to share it with you... it's a big chunk of lavender rose quartz from the mt. shasta area. it was given to me by some generous rock hounds years ago. i sit beside it in the morning, and it's luminous as the sun shines on it... to give your eyes (and heart) a real treat, click on the photo...

Paris Through My Window, 1913, Marc Chagall

we went to redding this week where i got two new taschen art books in the bargain section at barnes and noble. one is about chagall, and the other is about miro. the image quality in both is excellent, and i've already read the chagall book from cover to cover. it was just a matter of choosing what to quote...

'Chimie' was a word Chagall especially liked using from the early 50s onwards and which, to preserve the special coloration of his language, is better left untranslated. With this word he meant everythig that happens to the material with the forming hand ofthe artist - almost a process of alchemical transmutation. "The 'great chimie' leads one to community with nature, the 'lesser chimie' to community with man."

Chagall maintained: "I consciously seek [...] to construct a world where a tree can be different, where I myself can suddenly discover that I have seven fingers on my right hand, but only five on the my left - basically a world where everything is possible."

from 'Chagall', by Jacob Ball-Teshuva

XO

Monday, July 20, 2009

mercy me


mercy me it's hot! and mercy me i have no energy for taking pictures or blogging!! so i'll put Mercy Me here as a sort of 'place holder' until the energy returns...

yes, this is Mercy Me. i painted her last night, which is when she revealed her name to me.


this is where she lives now, and where was living before she was painted (and named), along with lakshmi, ganesh, and two other unpainted and unnamed barely there beings...


the following words by charles reid refer to this painting...

The whole idea here is to decide what areas I want to emphasize. Too often, students become recorders of facts and details. Look at the hand next to the face; the fingers were interesting and called for attention. Why did I practically ignore them? Always compare the relative importance of one area with another. Since I was most interested in the face and knew the hand would be a monster to paint, I concentrated on getting definition in the face.

This painting isn't literally finished. I wish the area under the hand that rests on the knee was done better, but there was an ugly pattern in that part of the setup. I'd rather leave an area like this with a few spots of color if I don't know how to handle it.

Charles Reid in The Natural Way to Paint - Rendering the Figure in Watercolor Simply and Beautifully


XO

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

the perfection of


every second


ooohhh, i've been having so much fun playing with muslin... and being in the sun...


these pages are from my journal, all painted on muslin... i love *pencil* on muslin!




this page has a coat of watered down gesso on it because i didn't like the colors i originally painted the bird. sob, sob! the background was so cool before i covered it up! i like the bird now, though... he's mostly quinacridone burnt orange and ultramarine blue (watercolor).




the page on the left has been gel medium-ed down and is ready for the next step. you get a lot of nice texture when you use the muslin to wipe extra paint off of pages (or your paint dish). it gets crinkly... i added the fleur de lis and letter stencils last. now i'll paint these pages with ivory acrylic (at least), and rub it off in places. what shows through informs what comes next...


on the way to the grocery store last week i read an article about how to make little books from canvas by folding and cutting. it's in the sept./oct. 2008 'cloth paper scissors' if you're interested... i immediately thought *muslin*, and came home and painted both sides of a 9" x 12" piece to make this.


the front cover so far... i think these have potential as small travel journals -- you could bind them together after you have a stack of them!


they're very simple to make...

just about every day i've done a painting in my little travel journal. i've loved working on these small pages, so maybe i won't make my next one bigger after all.

all of these were painted with watercolors, outside...














it's been good walking weather, so i've been out visiting trees... this beautiful being has been hollowed out by fire and is big enough for two people to sit inside.


every time i visit i prop up the pine cones, tin cans, and broken glass... i call it the green shrine...

and


i hang flags... this time i pinned this muslin onto a copper flag from a couple of months ago -- i keep checking for patina, but nope!

since i've been reading books by different artists lately, i'm going to end my posts for a while with words from them that have impressed me... charles reid continually impresses me...

"The biggest problem with finishing a painting is the wish to make it just a bit better, to add just a bit more. Here, I left a lot of white paper because I didn't know what to put in. If you don't know what to add, don't add anything. Leave some mystery."

(okay, i'm reminding myself of that next time, hee! )

XO

Thursday, July 9, 2009

thank you, manon


thank you for giving me this award, manon, i'm honored... and honored to pass it on to a few women who've shared so much with me and others in the art blogging world.

jacky at art4moi -- if a human can be more caring and sharing, i don't know how... not only does she share with us online, but she sends beautiful packages to fellow artists all over the world -- apparently on a regular basis! my last package from her had in it (among other things) a new issue of stamps with aboriginal designs on them...

karin at beyond words -- honestly, what karin shares with me is beyond words... art supplies, friendship, ideas... thank you my friend... not only for what you share with me, but with everyone...

kim at queen of arts -- kim, you leave the most beautiful and insightful comments, time after time... you're a wonder to me. thank you...

kathy dorfer -- my friend, i'm so glad you're blogging now so i can give you this award! kathy has been unfailingly supportive of my art, and has many times given me the coolest art supplies imaginable. she's the one who turned me on to twinkling H2Os and st. armand paper... thank you, kathy, for *everything*!

renee at circling my head -- i would give you this award, but you've already gotten it... thank you for the love you give to ALL of us... i love you...

michelle at 3rd eye muse -- michelle creates wondrous pieces of art to donate to worthy causes... many wondrous pieces! and always leaves thoughtful comments here!

to all of you i say a heartfelt thank you... and to everyone else -- do i even know any bloggers who aren't sharing and caring?!! i don't think so!!! thank you

ALL

XO


Sunday, July 5, 2009

rainmaker


one of the first things that i did last week was make a graffiti wall flag for the creek...

first i cut the winged skeleton stencil... boy do i love it!!


a 'before' pic...


i put a little paint on the copper this time...


sigh...


in my journal i've been painting and gluing. i got stuck on this page but finally just finished her and moved on... my favorite thing is her eyebrows!


this is the back of the page with the christmas cactus on it. the backs of the brads were here, so i stuck a piece of muslin on them, and then glued on a bunch of stuff and painted with acrylics.


muslin on part of the page here, and a piece of string that was laying on the table. the house and walkway are twinkling H2Os.


i've been reading 'confident color', by nita leland, which has me thinking about color and mixing new colors A LOT. here i was mixing twinkling H2Os... nita's got me thinking about color in a new way.


more muslin, misc. glued down stuff, and paint... i was still working on the right page when i took this pic. most pages in this journal are 5" x 7", but some (like the one on the right) are 3" x 7".


if you click on this you can see how tasty the surface is...


muslin plus other fabric scraps... heh, and my new stencil.


another narrow page.


a tag...


i also worked a lot in my travel journal even though i'm not traveling. it's almost three years old and i'm itchin' to start a new one. a bigger one. this one's about 3" x 5". it's on the book of lenore tawney's postcards, which i highly recommend.

i did some 10 minute collages (thanks, robyn) in it. here are a couple of them...






and some contour drawings (a bone here)... i found this owl feather and it improves my painting immensely.


and more pages on muslin... the hand stamp is a teesha moore stamp.


i love every step of working with the muslin.


amelia takes at least three dirt baths a day...


and finally, the orange lily along the creek bloomed last week. every year one lily with three blooms.


this is miraculous to me...

XO