Sudoku

I have noticed as I age that my memory is slipping. Every time I hear or read about something recommended for memory loss I check it out. In one of the Real Age newsletters that I receive, the game of Sudoku was their latest recommendation. I went to their online game site and let me tell you I was shocked at how something that appears to be so simple was such a brain drain! It is like a Rubik’s cube with numbers! Not to be defeated I have spent days trying to master this thing. I finally was able to beat the beginner’s level and I stopped, since everything has been on hold since I started. I have not picked up a brush, or pasted a piece of paper. I decided to do a digital collage of the game to justify all the left-brain stuff that has held me hostage. If you are interested in escaping for a few hours, or like me, days, you can find the game here. Enjoy!

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Busy Minis

This has turned out to be a busy time for me so I have only created a few mini paintings. The one above is on the back of an old business card. I do these in the evening while I am listening to the TV. For this one I used Caran D’ Ache, which is a watersoluble artist’s crayon. I love the intensity of these crayons and the ability to scratch into the color.

The rest of my time has been filled with going to appointments; getting my house ready for the winter, packing and shipping online art orders and my grandson visiting. The appointments have been for my eyes. A cataract that I have had for years is now at the point that it can be removed. As much as I want better vision, the thought of surgery on my eye, or any surgery, is unnerving. Getting my house ready for winter has involved adding more insulation and my son and I installing a pair of folding doors in the master suite to isolate the sleeping area. It is so warm today it is hard to imagine winter coming.


My grandson’s visit was fun. He is in his last college semester and is a new age hippy! He reminds me so much of myself when I was his age. We went to an organic farmer’s market to buy some veggies. He is writing a paper on fermenting vegetables and is pickling everything in sight! The last time he was here, the art books I am working on inspired him. He brought along several abstract paintings he painted and wanted to make booklets out of them. I showed him how to stitch them together and he took it from there. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed being with him.


My final duty today was voting. I hope you all have or will do so!

Free Art Class

                                   © Steve Aimone’s ‘Expressive Drawing Class  sponsored by AARP

No, I am not teaching a class now and that lovely woman in the above picture is not me. However, earlier on June 4th -'Marks', I blogged about a book I bought by Steve Aimone, ‘Expressive Drawing’. As much as loved reading the book and looking at the wonderful drawings, at the time I was exploring painting on Yupo and I never got around to doing any of the exercises. I just received an email that Steve is offering a free online class. Here is a link to the class overview video and the info to join the free class. Looks like fun! Maybe I will set aside all of the other things on my schedule and try it. Possibly, you will too?


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More Black Gesso

Eclipsed ©      8"x10"  primed rag paper

This is the second black gesso painting, which I titled Eclipsed. It was not my intention to do a series of black gesso paintings and this painting did not start with it. However, I was not happy with the direction it was going and decided to paint over it with the gesso, saving only the areas that interested me. I scratched back into the gesso to relieve the opaqueness of the paint, and then added a few more marks and numbers. It works for me now.


Eclipsed is a good description of my HP computer lately. I have been having trouble with some of the programs and the email accounts not working properly. I have several email accounts for various purposes and I use a web mail notifier. Unbeknown to me it started dropping the accounts so some of my emails went unread. Then one of my favorite programs, Evernote, stopped working properly. The only thing I could think of that may have caused this was downloading a freeware program, Open Office. It is a huge program, takes up a lot of space, and since I have Microsoft Office, I decided to remove it with YouUninstall. This program is very through; it clears out all the stuff. I hit the start button and went on to something else. When I returned, it noticed the uninstall program was still running like crazy! It was wiping out my computer! I have no idea what the program or I did wrong. Fortunately, I had an old image of my c drive and a recent restore point. However, it did not have all the updated programs. I spent most of the week reinstalling programs and taking new images of my drives, then verifying them. Now everything seems to be back to normal. My son says I have not been a good steward of my computer and it is a mess. He wants me to clean it out and start all over. Uggh! I will put that off as long as I can and save copies my important stuff on my portable drive.

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Black Gesso

'32nd Matrix'    8" x !0" acrylic on primed rag paper

 

Several artists have raved about the quality and many applications for Utrecht's Black Gesso. I recently bought some and decided to use it as a substitute for black acrylic paint. However, it took over my painting. I fell in love with the creamy feel of it and its opaque matte coverage. I do not know what my fascination with black has been of late. For example, my portfolio cover and the black ink of the touch drawings, (see previous posts). To my knowledge, I am not depressed. In this painting, I think it is the mystery of the color that is intrigues me. Possibly the way it ties the elements together. The negative space blends with the positive and flattens the picture plane. In any case, it is a change of pace from the watercolor paintings on Yupo and since I have retired, I am all about change of pace.

Portfolio

I finally took the time to finish my portfolio. As I look at it now I ask myself what took so long. It was the cover. For some reason everything I painted was unsatisfactory, so I would put it aside. This cycle of repainting and quitting continued for weeks until I surrendered. Now it has grown on me and I'm actually happy with it.. I once read a statement by, Liz Lapious, an Atlanta art collector about collecting art, "I think it's important to challenge yourself. I've bought work I wasn't comfortable with, but now I'm in love with it. You need to have a collection you can grow with." I think she may be right. Better to grow than outgrow, which I have many times.


The portfolio is 17" x 24" and the cover is painted with acrylics on acid free mat board. I used acetate presentation envelopes for the inserts to hold my art. I have a supply of 32" x 40" and I cut them down to size with a  Walnut Hollow Versa-Tool hot stencil-cutting tool. I used a metal ruler as my cutting guide and to seal the edges..

© Walnut Hollow

I have an antique double hole punch that belonged to my father. I love this old punch because it works so well, and I think of my father every time I use it. I chose brass brads because I could easily add or remove inserts. They were sprayed black to match the spine. I plan to make at least one more like this for some smaller work after I finish the artist book/portfolio patiently waiting on my mat-cutting table.

Touch Drawing

                     


Here is a You Tube video showing how to do touch drawing. Deborah uses her technique for mediation and art therapy. It appears that Deborah is using a light weight drawing paper instead of tracing paper. She writes about the different recomended papers and paints in her handbook ‘Drawing Out Your Soul’ that you can purchase from her web site.

Below are a three of the many drawings I created. I used acid free tissue paper for the personal awareness drawing, which I will put in a journal. I switched to old newsprint for some abstract designs since archival paper was not important. My digital files are enough for any possible future use. The other limitation of the newsprint was not being able to see what you are doing as well as you can with tissue. I found myself pressing little harder with my nails. As a result, you can see the ridges in my aging, damaged nails. It made for some interesting lines. The paint I used was water-soluble oil paint. Deborah also writes about the pros and cons of the different inks. I really enjoyed this technique and being surprised when I flipped the paper over. I want to do more non-personal insight drawings and use differant tools besides my fingers. My ‘to-do’ list is really growing! The portfolio, that I wrote about earlier, is almost finished. Just a few touch ups left to do after I clear my table of the Touch Drawing materials.

Celebration                     tissue paper

Absract Design 1               newsprint

Absract Design                                   newsprint

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Answered Prayers

This moving image created by Deborah Koff-Chapin came in my email today from The Center for Touch Drawing. The technique is a finger drawing on a piece of tissue placed on an inked surface. The ink transfers to the back of the tissue much like other monoprint making techniques. I played with this technique a few years ago and got many interesting results. It has inspired me to get my inks out and play again.

One of the reasons I was so move by Deborah’s painting is that for the last two weeks I have been dealing with a breast cancer scare. Yesterday, which was my birthday, I had the best present ever, my mammogram and sonogram showed no signs of a lump only a very tiny cyst near the questionable area. I feel very blessed, as it was an answer to many prayers. We celebrated with a lobster, and Red Velvet cake with vanilla Häagen-Dazs Ice cream!

Artist’s Eye

Peggy Stermer-Cox commented on the composition of the steel cabinet photo in my last post. Peggy has a great artist eye as I was not consciously aware of the composition. I guess years of composing art and photography it becomes automatic. Intrigued, I decided to play with the photo in Photoshop. Who knows, I may use the results I achieved as a subject for a painting. The yellow shape in the upper left hand corner is a laminated poster I have had for years. It is a slightly tongue in cheek definition of an artist written by Kenneth Grooms. I am sharing it here. Enjoy :O)

ARTIST (ar'tist) n. 1. a) One who practices an art in which conception and execution are governed by imagination, style, and taste b) a person skilled in one of the fine arts. c) A craftsman that executes his art with individual style 2. Often their work is judged according to the culture and the attitude placed on art at the time. Although they may earn recognition during their lifetime, they are usually not recognized for their accomplishments until after death. 3. Lives a life of unstable economic means. 4. Many theories have been put forth regarding their creativity, the most common one being that it is inherent, although if not developed and tested will remain dormant. They seem to create during moods, often intense, mostly lasting only a short while. 5. They have a feeling of brotherhood with each other that is timeless. 6. Thought to be haphazard, having no sense of order, plan, or direction, yet are known to be perfectionists when it comes to their own work, a) They make decisions on feeling rather than reason, b) Have problems with concentration. 7. They are stereotyped as mentally unbalanced. One artist cut off his ear in a passion of creativity combined with frustration about his art. It has not been determined whether their creativity has anything to do with this. 8. They are sensitive, aware, and alert. 9. They are tolerated by society, which allows them to live in accordance with their own natures.

~Kenneth Grooms

Steel Derailment

      

It seems more often than not something comes up to interrupt what I am doing. I read about an artist who bought a steel cabinet to store his flammable paints. The idea sounded sensible to me, but when I priced them, I decided I would have to find a used one. I started visualizing finding one. Shortly after that, a new thrift shop opened less than two miles from me. Low and behold, they had one and it was on sale for 50% off! I quickly said, “thank you” and plunked down the $15.00! The portfolio I was making for my unframed art became derailed as my son and I rearranged shelves to accommodate the cabinet. I am still sorting, throwing and giving away a lot of stuff as my project waits to be finished and my internet/computer time clipped.

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Artist’s Books & Portfolios

I just checked out this beautiful book from the library. It is not a how-to-do-it book but rather an inspiration book filled with 500 amazing and clever handmade books. A couple of my many favorite artists were Lisa Kokin and Elysa Vishell. Not all of the artists have web sites so I highly recommend that you check your library for the book or you can purchase it online at Amazon.

In my current mood of bookmaking, I thought I would like to store my un-matted paintings in some sort of portfolio. Especially the ones on Yupo as watercolor on this surface is so fragile. I bought an Itoya Original Art Portfolio, which has lightweight recycled polypropylene sleeves in it. I stopped at a store on the way home and I did not consider that the heat in my car would ruin this portfolio! I have left my matted work in my van for hours, but I have always used acetate wraps, sleeves and envelopes. I went back to the store and pleaded my case and they were kind enough to give me a store credit. I would hate to think I would have to carry this with me at all times if I was on the road, no lunch or other stops. While I was in the store I checked the other ones and they looked rather suspect. (I noticed they put up a sign since then that all portfolios were non-returnable.) The clerk admitted that the heat might have damaged them in shipment. He went on to say there are certain products they cannot order in the winter because very cold temperature affects them. This is something to think about when ordering anything. I have some acetate envelopes left over from my show days so I think I will try to make my own portfolio using them.

I Rather Paint

Casting Up Stream

I have not been in my studio for the last week due to other business and illness. I needed to lose some of the lazy pounds I have put on lately. I decided to go the fresh veggie route. My first diet meal really worked. I lost 3 lbs. in three days! I got food poisoning! I could not eat a thing those three days. The pain was not pleasant and something I would not want to go through again, but hopefully I can go from here with a proper healthy diet and keep off what I lost.

Since I have not been able to created anything new, I am posting a painting I blogged about before. The painting "Casting Up Stream" won an Honorable Mention at an Atlanta Artists Center show in 2008 and Best in Show at Kudzu Art Zone earlier that year. I mistakenly believed I painted it on Yupo, because I used some of the same techniques, but actually, it was Aquarius coated with a watered down soft gel. I used watercolors in a simple complimentarily color scheme with the warm earth tones dominate. I lifted some small areas with water using stencils. The calligraphic jesters are often part of my work because of my early schooling with a Japanese calligraphic master. I did not learn calligraphy but the experience has lingered with me since I was a young girl and has greatly influenced my art.

Old Watercolor Challenge

Old Watercolor Challenge

While looking for an unused piece of Yupo I discovered the painting above that I created for a watercolor challenge last year. The challenge was to pour watercolor randomly on a piece of watercolor paper of any type then work from there. Subject was not important. I chose Aquarius watercolor paper that I coated with matt medium so I could lift the paint. I did not enter the painting because I thought it was a little unpolished. I missed covering some areas on the paper with the matt medium, which grabbed the paint. This added to the rough appearance. However, I still liked it well enough to keep. You might try this challenge for yourself.

It has been so hot this week that I have not felt like moving. We keep our air conditioner on 78◦, but the poor old thing has had a hard time keeping up. My last electric bill doubled so I am dreading the next one! We turn off, (not standby), the computers when not in use and watch all the other appliances and lights. I feel fortunate that I do have a way to stay reasonably cool so I really should not complain and I still prefer it to cold weather.

Back to the cool basement studio to paint on the piece of Yupo I found.

Collage Journal

I may have confused some of you when I said I plan to use some of my Yupo paintings in a journal. I meant that collages inspired the last Yupo painting and I may cut up some failed paintings for collages. I am not sure I will do that now as I am working with old magazines and junk mail. I have my supplies in a plastic three-drawer organizer next to my recliner so I can collage while I am watching/listening to the TV. Yes, I watch TV in the evenings and enjoy dramas, Bravo and Food Network challenges. I love the new ‘Work of Art” series on Bravo. If I were twenty years younger, I would have been tempted to audition for it, as I can be a ham and I love a challenge. I won a TV art contest when I was twelve and it convinced me that art was my calling. The goal I have set for myself is to fill this journal. It has been waiting in my studio for at least five years. I bought it because I loved the heavy beige paper, plus it was on sale! Someone gave me a thick holiday edition ‘In Style’ magazine. It is filled with great colorful pages and it smells divine because of the scratch and sniff perfume samples. Very inspiring! The collage I’m showing was created from that magazine and the holiday dresses with a little green coliseum for contrast.

Art Journals

I have been watching my friend Deb and other artists on YouTube create art journals. Most of the journaling I have done, with very few exceptions, are written journals or sketchbooks filled with notes, composition ideas, etc. I love book arts and even took a class, a perk for the instructors at the folk school where I was teaching. The booklets I made in class remain empty as I considered them art without my embellishments. However, making an entire art journal was not something I considered. I had to make a living with my art and to put my time and creativity into a small book was not a luxury I could afford. Only in the last year have I given myself permission to create just for myself. Now I am thinking about creating one. Who knows, maybe my children and grandchildren will also enjoy them. Because of my thinking, my Yupo paintings have taken on a collage like appearance. I have even considered cutting some of the good areas out of the failures, spraying them with an acrylic coating and using them in an art journal instead of wiping them off for another painting. Beyond that, I had this crazy idea that an art journal would be a good way to use up all the art supplies I have accumulated over the years. Of course, that has turn into a joke, because I have found myself looking for and buying the materials recommended by the artists on YouTube. :O)

I Won!

Recently an online friend and artist, Deb, held an art journal cover contest on her YouTube channel. My suggestion won! Not only did she send me one of the prizes, she also added the George James ‘Mastering Yupo’ video! There is so much information on this video that it will take me awhile to learn it all. I tried a few of the techniques, in my style, on a small piece of Yupo. It got a little busy for such a small area, but I decided to post it anyway in honor of my friend’s generous gift.

My son told me about a neat program for quickly transferring my files from one computer to another without having to use my risky network connection. It is called Dropbox. You can share your photos and files privately or publicly with other Dropbox users. You get 2gig of free space and you will earn more if your friends sign up and say you recommended them. I do not keep my files in the box for long so I have not come near to using the 2 gig, but if you decide to sign up I would appreciate the referral. You never know when you might need a little more space :O) Thanks

Unleashed

I apperciate everyone's input about ways to make my standing to paint more comfortable. I bought some interlocking rubber mats for my studio and I am amazed how much they helped with my leg fatigue. I don’t know why I didn’t do this years ago. I've been painting daily since I put them down.

The Yupo painting above,’ Unleashed’, came about by a different approach than I usually use. Instead of creating a composition by painting in shapes then working from there, I poured paint and let it flow. I laid another piece of Yupo on top and created a mono print of sorts. Meaning I only used the results as a starting point. I sprayed water, bushed and lifted paint, then repainted some areas again. Unless you are a master at painting on Yupo it is rarely forgiving. You can lose what you have done in a heartbeat. For me it becomes a real game as to who will win. Hours pass before I surrender and the next day I am back at it, often ruining my hard won progress of the day before. I have to say, “STOP” and then leave the studio!

Yupo Eclipsed

I spent so much time standing lost in the fascination of watercolor on Yupo, that my legs could not take it anymore! This really eclipsed my painting time. My studio is located in my basement, which has concrete floors. I have a small padded rug in front of my art table. It has always seemed sufficient, but I guess my old age has caught up with me. Now any amount of time standing there turns into to pure torture. I have tried sitting, but I cannot get the fluid motion I want. I am going to try some of those interlocking rubber pads, but in the mean time, I have created a small platform from a door scrap. (I cut up doors for art panels.) Although it creates other problems, ie, table height and inadvertently stepping off it, I hope the platform will do the trick.

The painting above is the last painting I created before I had to surrender to my legs. I titled it Eclipsed, which seemed to fit the painting and the current situation. I used a limited palette again and my usual cruciform, axial obvious format. The energy of the ocean and other moving water has always been my favorite subject matter. Although I was not consciously aware of it at the time, I believe being horrified by the oil disaster in the Gulf, has influenced my work.

Yupo Artist, Sandrine Pelissier

Struggling with Yupo led me to look for ways other artists have dealt with this tricky painting material. I discovered Sandrine Pelissier’s website and blog. Not only has she mastered Yupo, but also she generously shares step-by-step demonstrations, tips and techniques Her nude painting that I’ve featured here is one of my favorites. Amazingly Sandrine is a self taught artist and is proficient in all media   

Sandrine grew up in France and has been living in Vancouver for the last 10 years.. Since 2010, she has been an associate member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, and exhibited in numerous juried exhibitions in Canada and in the United States. Sandrine had a feature article in the August 2009 issue of Watercolor Artist magazine. Her work has been published in several books including  Splash series Splash 11 New directions: The Best of Watercolor, Splash 12, Watermedia: Best of Worldwide, Art buzz 2009 and 2010.

I hope you will visit all of Sandrine’s websites and her blog to see her wonderful creations.

Marks

                                                                       Shaman's Staff

I am still painting on Yupo. The crazy stuff continues to fascinate and frustrate me. The slightest attempt to correct, lighten or darken an area usually ends up distorting it. I tell myself that in time  I will master it, but I may be fooling myself. The other side of the coin is if I ever did, would I continue to be captivated?

I am reading,’ Expressive Drawing’ by Steven Aimone. Drawing and mark making was my first love. As a child, I scribbled and drew on everything. I hated coloring books, because I was too impatient to stay inside the lines. I envied the neatly colored pictures my friends would make but try as I may I was unable to do it. Steven encourages automatic drawing and expressing yourself with the freedom of a child. Yupo gives me that freedom by not allowing me to have total control over it. This painting, ‘Shaman’s Staff,’ illustrates that freedom. The ‘axial obvious’ composition motif that I used for this painting is a favorite of mine, which probably annoys some who cling to outdated rules and possibly color inside the lines :D