back to painting........

This will be my last post from home for awhile - the next time I'm here, I'll be posting from Southampton Ontario - This is a short progression - I'm loving just painting right now - it is so freeing - the first pic is basically laying down the bones of the work - I tried something that I won't do again - I painted an acrylic background to cover the paper before I started the painting - I hated how it made the paper ripple because of the water base - it works better if I just clean my oil \brushes from each session on the paper and then I have a good background to start.....this photo shows acrylic, oil pastel, ink and graphite .......





this next pic is about half way into the process after I've started painting with oil......



This last photo is the finished piece.....


Hope you are all having a wonderful week - I'll see a couple of you next week in Ontario.

new favorite thing......

I was taking a break yesterday afternoon, munching my apple slices and peanut butter (yum!) and cruising some of my favorite blogs - I landed on Annie Kerr's blog, Inkhaven and noticed she had a link to her myspace page - I clicked and BAM! - there was another side to this amazingly talented woman - I knew she was an excellent writer, a passionate gardner and took gorgeous photos, but what I didn't know? she is also a violinist! I cruised to her music player and started listening to her music - love at first listen - I couldn't get an email off to her fast enough to please! ship me a CD - there was a little note on her myspace page that said she had a few left - oh please god, let there still be ONE! - I heard from her this morning - my CD will be winging its way here tomorrow - I'm so Happy! check out her music here! Thank you Annie!


Other, not as exciting news, from here - have been painting again - have put the Winter Series away until I get back from Southampton - just the painting allows me to let my mind go, but the collaging takes more focused energy that I can't give right now - below is a painting I did a couple of days ago - I'm so back into my palette, I can't believe it!


this is mixed media on paper titled "The Way There" - the weekend is on it's way, have the best one ever everyone!

the reality......

I thought I would give you an idea of my workspace and the reality of it - only seeing finished work leaves out an important element - where the energy is generated to do the work - I have a very minimal small space - it's a little wooden shed with no water or electricity - I bring the water in in used milk cartons and the electricity is brought in with outdoor electrical cords coming from our house - very rustic .......
the first pic is my waxing table, which actually was my grandmother's art table - she was a water colorist - it feels good to have a piece of her in my workspace....


this is a picture of one of my storage chests - it's full of my tools, framing odds and ends and some of my colored pencils, crayons, etc. - plus the top is a catch all for everything I don't want to stumble on when I'm working.....


this is one small piece of wall space that is a holding area for wet paintings, and odds and ends of material I only use once in awhile.....




this is the floor behind my easel - work piled up that I'm using right now for my winter series...



this is a close up of my easel.......


my worktable and the remnants of a piece I worked on yesterday.....




another worktable that holds my brushes and stuff........

this is my workspace on any given day - it is never pristine, never really cleaned up - it is totally my way of working and I am so thankful for this humble little studio space - it's my sanctuary , my filling station, my art lab and so much more - hope you are all having a wonderful Monday and are looking forward to the new week!

new homes.....

Remember these? Well bits of it have found new homes - The two pieces below started as one piece. I worked on it/them this afternoon. I pulled the muslin and some of the elements I liked best off of the cardboard I had ripped off the last collage I did.




The collage incorporates three winter paintings and then the elements I salvaged from the ripped off pieces. I kept looking at the work and it just wasn't gelling - I liked some of it and then some of it just fell flat! Hmmmmmm - (then realization) "oh, this is two pieces" - so I split the work in half and now they both work.







I've also used my copal wax on these to hold the muslin pieces. Happy Wednesday everyone!

when it goes badly!

This is a collage I finished today - the work went badly - it is the third piece in my collage series - I black gessoed a piece of cardboard, selected the elements I wanted to incorporate, glued them down, heated my bees wax and applied to selected areas and then I began painting - well, UGH! - I worked, I worked, I worked - UGH! I turned the piece endlessly, scraped, painted, turned, etc. - UGH! - it wasn't coming together at ALL! - then I ripped all the elements off except one - a winter painting - BAM! - then it worked - who knew?




here are the remnants of the pieces I tore off - they will find a home somewhere else.....sigh...
It's been a very busy week - not so much making art, but the other side - showing - two openings this week - the picture below (blurry) is from tonight - opening night at the Marine Maritime Center - a wonderful group show - so thrilled to be part of this celebration in my own community - Thursday night was the Ghost Gallery opening in Seattle (see sidebar) another wonderful show - very young and savvy - I was the oldest person there until a street woman came in to have a cupcake, sigh - the weekend is almost over and the time is getting closer for me to leave for Southampton to teach - I'm so looking forward to that -

I'll be working like crazy for the next couple of weeks plus getting the yard cleaned up from the winter - will do my first mowing tomorrow - hope you are all finding life good!

first piece......

I wanted to post the first collage using all my winter elements - I'm working with the December Challenge pieces, 'inside myself' faces and the 'remnants' series, plus some of the yupo work I did - It's a real challenge to make all these different works into one whole! This painting has three pieces combined into one and I've got several more in process - ran out of bees wax today, so had to stop, but am excited to get a few more finished. I will post a link to my flickr page when I have more to show. Happy Monday everyone!




Thought I'd post the images I used to make this collage.......









You can see each of these pieces was reworked a bit to make a whole.......