Winners!

A Jane Royal Journal

It's back!  My old blog format that is.  With all the troubles leaving comments with the new dynamic views format, I decided to give it up until they work out the glitches.  It does seem to be a problem with the dynamic views as I've tried leaving comments on artists who's blogs I follow and are using the new format, most the time my comment goes unrecorded, lost in blogger space somewhere.

I got very lucky a few weeks ago and won not one, but two blog give aways!  What a delight to go to the post office and pick up my new treasures.  Jane Royal hosted a give away and I am now the proud owner of one of her beautiful art journals.  I've got it propped up on my bookcase so I can admire Jane's art.  My other fun treat comes from Mary Beth Shaw's blog give away, a jar of Wood Icing.  What a unique product for creating all manner of texturing.  I've been playing with it in my journal, to get a feel for it before using it on canvas.  Love it!  It reminds me of Plaster of Paris in the look and effects you can achieve, but without the mess.  Mind you, I've not worked with plaster, but still the Wood Icing has that look.  I can see this will be one of my 'go to' products.

Blog Changes & New Piece

"The creative spirit demands persistence." Shaun McNiff

20 x 24" mixed media on gallery wrapped canvas

NOTE: Since trying the new dynamic views I've gone back to the old format until more of the kinks are knocked out of the new format.  A lot of viewers who wanted to leave comments ran into all manner of troubles with it.


Recently I've been playing with switching my blog to the new 'dynamic views' with blogger.  I've been dragging my heals until they added the option to customize the look and so I've jumped on board. I realize I need to create some pages to fill in the gaps left by not having all that information that our sidebars host in the old format. A couple of artists who's blogs I follow have made the switch and I really enjoy the very visual set up, and viewing options, but they did their homework and have lots of 'pages' made that take care of the missing sidebars.  I'm very sidebar dependant!

Well the headboard has left the studio and I am hoping to have pictures of it in it's new life as a headboard soon.  This week I have the new piece on the verge of being finished, it has taken on a much different look than when I first began, but I love it.  Has a nice aged look to it and as with the headboard I love the design.

In the wings I've been picking away at a piece I began some weeks ago, struggling with it some and need some fresh perspective on it before I can complete it.

Art is such a release, "You know Nanny, art really helps me with a lot of things.  I like to just throw paint when I'm upset, it helps me to calm down."  This was part of a conversation with my 10 year old grand-daughter, Grace over the weekend.  She would like a large canvas to work on for Christmas and then began to talk about how art has helped her in so many ways.  I can't tell you how wonderful it is to hear her talk, knowing she has found a fantastic, positive outlet for all the stuff that life can throw at us.  It's the same for me.  With all the limitations my physical world throws at me daily, I come to my art and all of my being gets poured into it, there I move beyond a body that pounds me with pain and I am free to explore!

So here's to art explorations!

"The brushes beckon to you...You know that an original gesture is about to take place, a journey begun that will lead you to unknown lands.  Creation is a response. Do you need a special inspiration to respond?  Isn't it possible to respond to anything? When you approach your white paper you might bring moods, states of feeling, problems, and physical discomforts...There is energy and creative potential in all states. As long as life is there, the potential if full..." Life, Paint & Passion by Michell Cassou

Small Gestures-Bold Actions

Remember this guy? He's 20 x 24" and showing himself after some textural elements were added and the first wash of colour.

I've got to say I love this duo of paint colours, can you believe all this colour comes from just purple and Matisse Transparent Umber!  And it does have to be the Matisse because any other version by other labels just does not cut it. Frankly I can't be without this one since discovering it.

Anyway, the first layer of colour was done in one continuous painting session  and is now drying.  Lots more will get layered in, but wanted to share the beginnings with you as process is so much fun. There's something wildly freeing about just working that paint, letting instincts take you.

Hope you're having a good weekend, I intend to.  Between a great start on a new piece, a visit with my grand-daughters and one of my younger sisters, (Kellie) home for a visit, it's all good :-)

"Creation is an aggregate of many small things as well as bold actions...I envision creative transformation in a microscopic way with simple gestures making vital contributions to the whole." Shaun McNiff

Edges and Touch Ups

"The way of creation is a practice that lives each instant as fully as possible, lets go, and moves on to the next engagement." Shaun McNiff

Time to let this one set for awhile before sending it off to it's new home and second life as a headboard.  I do have random touch ups and finessing the side edges to do, but it is looking pretty good from here :-)  I think the design holds up well in this triptych, each canvas is interesting and works as stand alone pieces, but I must say when they come together it's high impact.  Will have to make sure I get some photo's of it once it morphs into a headboard. It has also been the most limited palette I've worked with, black/white, purple for accent and touches of silver. The colour in the above photo is a little off, but my daughter will take some pictures soon I hope.

A few questions have come in about how I begin, do I plan it out, is it purely intuitive?  Ah...both.  When I work with the Gorilla glue I like to do simple line drawing of the basic design, once I get something that looks appealing as a thumbnail, I then take some charcoal and ruff in the basics on the canvas.  From there it's all an intuitive thing.  Frankly it's all a big surprise to me!  It's funny I was listening to Sue Kreitzman at the Voodoo Cafe and she talked about how suddenly this artistic, painting, creating side of herself came out at mid-life.  Well, same here. I'm 55 now and I've been creating my abstracts for about 3 years now.  Interesting what happens to us at this time of our lives.  We may be saying goodbye to a lot of things that defined us for many years, only to discover some new aspect of creative expression just waiting to take over!

Process

Process is interesting. I don't know about you but I get more questions/comments about my process, what I'm using, how I layer.  In short what's your process in completing a piece?

Some days it's one step forward and three back!  But it's still my process.  I've come to appreciate the learning curve of failed attempts and the ability to start again.  Gesso is my friend.

For example, in this piece I had deepened my teal/blues and worked on various areas but the overall, was this huge block of, well, teal.  So after conferring with my hubby, who's always good for an opinion, out came the gesso so I could create a little more colour variance with the teal.

I set that aside to begin the layered painting process on the triptych piece.  That first wash of colour is now drying before I continue. The tricky part of working with white/grey/black is you can wind up with all the same shade of grey if you over mix, over work the area :-)

Anyway, some of you asked what I used to texture these canvases.  With the teal, it's a wide range of heavy gel, texture paste, coarse lava paste, insolation foam, and my new fun toy, Spider Webbing from the halloween decorations.  With the other canvas I used Gorilla glue (thank you Suzy Andron for introducing me to this stuff!)to draw my design, then begin filling and texturing with molding paste, gels, crackle and of course the webbing.

So here's to process and practice!

"The process of creation is a force moving through us, only through practice do we learn how to cooperate with it."  Shaun McNiff

The start of something, I hope!

In The Studio

"Creative Blocks: Start working right now, from this place, with the feelings you have at the moment." Shaun McNiff

Making progress on my re-visioned canvas.  It's nearing that place where I just have to hang it and live with it for a time before I know if it's done.  It's been fun working on this piece creating something similar but different.

I also have a three canvas, commissioned piece ready for painting.  This is intended to hang above the bed and serve as a headboard, so it's quite long but narrower.  Sorry for the poor picture on this, but I was perched on a step stool dangling the camera over top of the canvases :-)

Finally I have this 20 x 20" canvas with just the design waiting for other textural elements to be added before painting.

"Each of us has our own unique creative time clock. Some like to work steadily and neatly from start to finish, while others delay until the last minute and build up energy that essentially blasts them into a tumultuous process of creating. There are also people who plunge into the work at the beginning with large aspirations, and then hit serious obstacles.  No matter what your style may be, impediments are an inevitable part of the creative process.  It's helpful to think of them as necessary parts of the process rather than as hindrances to it." Shaun NcNiff