On The Table

Finished my art journal, tried a new way of stitching it, some call it the Coptic stitch, some the Chain stitch, either way it was a learning curve.  Need to be a little more careful about how tight I make my loops, it got a little tricky as I added new stacks of signatures.  Ah well, it holds together and that's the important thing for me.

I'm excited about the design of this new canvas I started.  It's 16 x 40" Gallery Wrapped, deep sided canvas.  I've had to switch to the deeper sided, sturdier gallery wrapped because of all the textured mediums I use.  Anything flimsier warps and my husband has had to become quite inventive in added an inside frame to some pieces, with a twist, that I won't even begin to try to explain.  In the end it made the finished piece look like it floats on the wall somewhat and adds to the drama of the piece.  So maybe I should stick to the thinner framed canvases and keep my husband busy making cool frames :-)

In this picture I've just applied the gorilla glue and am waiting for it to set up.  Need to think on my colour choices for awhile,  as I want to use some of the decorative papers I recently got from Daniel Smith on-line.

Well we are bracing ourselves for a visit from Irene, having done what we can to prepare.  Praying for everyone's safety who's in Irene's path. 

In The Studio

On the table this week a few minor projects.

My youngest Grand-daughter Lyvia is enamoured of my Art Journals.  Although she very much wanted one of my completed ones, she settled for helping to make one of her own to fill with her own creations. Which makes me very happy because I don't want her to ever think that the only art worth putting in a book form is mine.  At eight, she has a tendency to think her imagination and creative efforts are not 'as good as' someone else and tends to try and duplicate.  That is heartbreaking to me, for I see in her this wonderfully colourful, unabandoned exuberance when she has a brush in her hand.

I assured her she would be able to have some of my art journals as a keepsake when Nanny is gone from this world (her request) but that right now, what is most important is her own free expressions of herself.  How easy and continual is the battle to appreciate our own creative self.

I am also working on putting together a new art journal for myself as you can see here.  Some great watercolour paper with some of my abstract rejects on watercolour paper for the covers.

What can you say about the man who while out on an adventure with daughter and grand-daugher thought to buy you some Poopoopaper!  Yup, poopaper made from elephant's generous leavings, which the insert assures me is mostly grasses and barely digested, cleaned up, processed and oder  free :-)

Now this poor little journal will be torn apart so I can use it's wonderful textured paper as collage elements in future works.

Knife Practice

Been practicing with the knife, painting in my journal.  Most my journal pages have their beginnings by being smeared with left over paint from various canvas work I do.  I hate to waste paint or product.  So the pages reflect a wild array of imprints, colours, mediums and effects.  I don't worry about pretty, I think of it as warm up exercises and a safe place to let loose, where outcomes just don't figure into the plan. I'm working on becoming familiar with the various palette knives, their effects, loading the paint and seeing how paint blends and delivers.

It's how I educate myself, by just getting in there, trying things out, where once again the process is the important part not the outcome. Mostly, I have to make a mess before I figure out how not to :-)

Faith In The Process

Test of Time

Trust the process, seems to be my watchword for doing life and releasing creativity.  I just came from reading David DuChemin's latest blog post Rehabilitating Art.  He is recovering from a bone crushing fall, I'll not try to sum up his post for he is an amazing writer as well as photographer, but do check it out.

Although nothing quite so dramatic as what David has endured, I do understand the battle to push through the pain and how living in that kind of chronic state changes how you see things, realigns what has value as you learn to move with the flow of the process.  Which brings me to the book I have just begun to read and am enthralled with the insights, my head bobbing in agreement with so much that the author has to say:

Test of Time

"Even the best teachers of creativity encounter a common resistance to self-expression in their classes...We all know intuitively that our spontaneous creative expressions elude the habitual monitoring of our inner censors, revealing things to others that are outside our conscious control." Trust The Process by Shaun McNiff

He goes on to talk about our hidden beliefs that our art might not be worth exploring because 'it's' reserved for only the talented few in our thinking.  He then talks about how we can get stuck on training the literal mind with step by step technique and avoid the deeper process of creating.

"Most of the educational system is established on the assumption that learning follows a logical and predictable pattern of acquiring knowledge...There is very little emphasis within our educational systems on the education of the imagination, which requires sustained encounters with uncertainty." Trust The Process 

I can't tell you what it did for me to read that last statement, it summed up my learning struggles throughout my life and at the same time tapped into the wonderful world of 'uncertainty' that art has brought forth in me.  This in turn ties into David's post on 'Rehabilitating Art,' because I get that life with chronic pain and frequent flare up's of fibro trigger points and migraines has brought my life sharping in tune with the inner flow of living with uncertainty.  I never know what I'm going to be able to do from one day, sometimes one hour to the next.

What does this have to do with art, simply this, creating takes an act of faith in the process, it has little to do with the fine execution of technique, it is an intuitive giving in to a deeper force from with in.

"I have learned that I must let "the process" follow its course...frustration builds...the process arouses emotion and draws everything into itself.  If we are able to stay with a situation it will carry us to a new place.  The 'process' knows where it needs to go... " Trust The Process 

Oddly enough chronic pain became my teacher of uncertainty that has allowed me to press into the process when it comes to creating. It doesn't mean I have extraordinary talent, but it does me that I come naked and unashamed to "the process."

"The most threatening element is the lack of confidence that people have when the process becomes difficult and tense.  They don't realize that the conflict and uneasiness that they are experiencing are necessary and "part of the process." Transformation occurs when we lose our way and find a new way to return." Trust The Process


I'm hoping the rest of the book is as insightful as the fist few chapters.  So enjoy the process, you can trust it to bring you through to the other side.


A new blogging friend Leovi from Spain left a comment on my piece I've been tentatively calling Rise Up and a title really resonated with my spirit from their comment, "Test of Time"

Palette Knife Painting

Tried something new, palette knife painting.  Although I use a palette knife a lot I've never done a piece using only the palette knife. It's a very different process and I felt as awkward as a cow in the wrong stall!  And yes cows do know which stall is their's and it's bedlam in the barn when someone moves into the wrong space, use to get quite a chuckle out of it as a kid the odd time it happened.

This is a 12 x 12" deep sided canvas and a great size for me to get my fingers wet using the palette knife.  Some accent work left to do yet, but  I have a whole new appreciate for the artists who create such amazing pieces using their palette knives, I don't expect to be one of them :-)

I used a number of paints from the Matisse line on this piece and the more I use them the more I love how they work.  In fact there are some of their colour line I'd never want to be without.  Like their Transparent Umber, I've not found another line of paint that can match this wonderfully rich and versatile colour, it's unique to the Matisse line in my opinion. I also used Matisse Bronze to highlight the big doodle I created as a focal point, boy do I love their metallics.  You'll noticed I used some of my decorative paper as an accent, fun.

Hope you're having a fun week too!

Happiness Found!

Happiness can come wrapped around a big ole cardboard tube!  I just picked up at the post office, my first array of decorative papers to use in my art.  Up until now, I've made do with tissue paper.  There simply is nothing around here that sells the transparent papers that would work well in my art.

So who needs new cloths or shoes when theirs art supplies to be had!

You may have noticed the different background on my blog.  My daughter, Olivia did her camera magic where she takes my one large abstract and turns into a dozen different digital abstracts.  She has a knack for finding the sections that in macro become stand alone abstracts. How cool is that! I'll share some of those in my next post.

'Rise Up!' Completed

'Rise Up!' 24 X 36" Mixed Media

Took a moment in-between thunder storms last night to work on this post.  It's been a summer full of thunder storms and fierce lightening, talk about natures 'light show' it's eerily magnificent.  This from a woman who's bed was set on fire and ring melted on her finger when she was a kid!  The lightening burst from the wall outlet to the springs in the bed and jumped to the ring on my finger on it's way.  Talk about a wake up call!

Anyway I believe I've finished my teal canvas that I've called 'Rise Up!'  I'm quite pleased with the lighting show I've created with this piece and love how the golden metallic ink, a tip from artist, Maxine Masterfield highlights Mary Beth Shaw gears stencil.  As Zom would say, "now this look like something I would do!" It's a Brenda and I'm pretty happy with it's final evolution.  I will see what daylight brings when it comes to pictures, but in the meantime these evening shots will have to do.

Nanny Moments

Lyvia's Treasure Box

Spent a wonderful weekend with my Grand-daughters, Grace-10yr and Lyvia 8yr.  They worked on numerous art projects and created some fun movies with ibooth and our video camera.  Not only do they enjoy art but they love acting!  Not ever having been comfortable in front of a camera little lone a video camera I'm always in awe of the ease they enjoy as they create all manner of story lines.  Of course they come by this honestly as their Mom, Lori did a lot of acting in school plays and is very comfortable singing in front of audiences. An amazing feat in my eyes!

Grace's T Box, notice the camcorder in her hand!

So the girls painted 'Treasure Boxes' for when they go fossil hunting with Gramps this month then got to work making some special beaded treasures to give to their parents who were enjoying a weekend away.

The fibromyalgia did give me a hard time on the second day, but the girls were great and let me rest when I needed to while they kept busy in the loft.  Being a grandparent is one of life's greatest gifts.  Thank you girls for this special weekend!

Lyvia painted pictures for each her parents