New Orleans

I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras this year - what a hoot! Aside from the crowds and outrageous costumes, I took note of the charming architecture and took photos of several character homes; the tiny facades belie the surprising depth of the structures. I hope to try my hand at painting a few. I won't be the first artist inspired to try to capture the charm of these cuties; check out the artwork of James Michalopoulos, Amzie Adams, Melanie Douthit, Heather Galler, and Terrance Osborne.

Don't think, just create!

Earlier in the week I painted two coats of gesso over a number of unfinished canvases and yesterday afternoon I began a mixed work on one of the canvases. I wanted to try some different techniques than my usual, so thought I'd give a large collage piece a go. I kept telling myself not to over-think what I was doing and as a result I'm having a lot of fun with it - it's all a grand experiment, using a canvas that's already been painted over twice. I worked very quickly and am pleased with the results so far.

2012 Challenge

While I told myself 2012 would be the year I challenge myself to create a new artwork every week (fleetingly I even contemplated creating a very small work every day, as many more disciplined bloggers do) here it is, late January and I have created nothing but the beginnings of something: yesterday's distressed panel.

Every day for the past couple of weeks I've sought inspiration by looking through my collection of travel photos, reading other artists' blogs, magazines, books, sifting through on-line images of classic and contemporary artworks, YouTube demonstrations of encaustic, collage, and painting techniques, and ... zilch ... I seem to be having some kind of mental block. I explained my dilemma to my daughter and she told me it sounded like I'm inspired to be inspired but am stuck. She's right - I am stuck. I notice there is a plethora of information on getting 'unstuck', including an article in the Cloth Paper Scissors magazine I purchased yesterday: 52 Art Prompts for 2012. Must go read it now before I get stuck doing something else ...

Attempt #1 - Encaustic Painting

Over the past many weeks I've been gearing up to begin an exploration of encaustic painting: I've purchased books, equipment and materials, spent many hours researching various techniques on-line, and even signed up for an on-line video workshop with Oregon encaustic artist Linda Womack.

Yesterday, keen to get going, I began work on a 6" x 6" wooden cradle panel. I painted a couple of layers of wax medium (dammar crystals mixed with filtered beeswax - commercially produced) over the panel and attempting a photo transfer from one of the pictures I took of a hallway in Kilmainham Gaol while my youngest daughter and I toured Ireland last year.

My first problem was with the thrift store griddle I'd purchased for melting the wax medium - it overheated and the medium began smoking; second problem - I didn't have the proper ventilation required for drawing away the toxic fumes, so I threw my studio door wide open and the icy breeze cooled down the wax too quickly; third problem was attempting a photo transfer using an inkjet photocopy rather than a toner-based photocopy. My second attempt at the transfer seemed to be coming along nicely until I hit it with the heat gun and the transfer suddenly shrank severely, cracked, and lifted off the waxed substrate - eeeeek!

I was picking the brittle bits of transfer off the wax, silently cursing and wondering if I should attack it with a scraper and begin again at square one. Partway through the picking and scraping, I stopped to examine the distressed surface and decided it was beginning to look interesting; just for the heck of it I added some red wax medium and decided the experiment was taking a turn for the better. I quit then and will continue to work on it again soon, once I've purchased a new griddle and thermometer to ensure a minimum of toxins in the studio.

Must do more research before I return to the panel... stay tuned.

Negative Space With Crows, With Apologies and Thanks to Mordecai Richler

I recently attempted to read "Solomon Gursky Was Here," a novel by Mordecai Richler. I've read and enjoyed a few books by Richler, but I thought this one was nothing but nonsensical babble - I mean, really bad, dull and verbose in the extreme. This review sums it up.

I feel compelled to finish a book once I've started it, but in recent years I've decided there are far too many good books out there for me to waste time plodding through bad ones. As for this book, I didn't want to pass it along to another unsuspecting reader, and my life-long love of books wouldn't allow me to throw it into the trash, so I decided to recycle it in my own special way. Feeling like a bit of a devil, I began tearing pages out of the book - and I must admit the more I tore, the more I enjoyed it!

I've done some painting over collage elements before and felt pleased with the effect, so I used a mixture of water and acrylic medium to adhere bits from the torn pages onto a wooden cradle panel and began painting. I've created four works so far incorporating pages from the book and have several other Richler-collage substrates awaiting. Best of all, I sold one of these works just a few days after I'd finished it and two others are hanging in the Watershed Art Gallery!

Painter's Remorse

Three Women at the Spring, Picasso, 1921 (MoMA, New York)

Several years ago I was inspired by this painting and created my own version, incorporating the colour palette and symbolic elements I often employ in my works:

Three Women at the Spring, After Picasso, 2007 (now lost, Delta, BC)

Here it is on my easel, close to being finished (alas, I cannot find a photo of the finished work).

The painting hung on the wall in my dining room for many years. One impulsive morning, when I was overflowing with inspiration and had no suitable substrate at hand, I took it down, removed it from the frame, and painted over it. Never regretted it or gave it another thought until this morning when I was surfing through blogs and discovered this post by Felicia Marshall.

Her lovely painting started stirrings of regret in my wee brain. I worked on my painting for months and it turned out not too badly, in fact, members of my household were more than a little annoyed with my impulsiveness and claimed it was a favourite. Okay, okay - lesson learned. In future I shall attempt to be less impulsive and more circumspect. In fact, perhaps I shall paint over the paint-over and go for a reinterpretation ...

Winged Woman as Vessel

There's nothing like a swiftly approaching deadline to push me back into the studio. I've had this work sitting, half-finished, on my easel for months. Finished it just now and will deliver it to North Delta's Firehall Gallery tomorrow; show opens Friday.

Back in the studio again

I've been in the studio all day working on a new Woman as Vessel piece - stay tuned ...

The Emerald Isle

My youngest daughter and I returned last week from a fabulous two weeks in Ireland. What fun we had and what delightful sights we saw!

One of the finest examples of a Celtic cross, Monasterboice.

Monasterboice

Over a garden wall.

Cliffs of Moher, 214m high at the highest point and range for 8 kilometres over the Atlantic Ocean on the western seaboard of County Clare.

Dunluce Castle, North Antrim Coast.

The Giants Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, North Antrim Coast.

Inspiration

Rowan Leaves and Hole by Andy Goldsworthy

These past few days my mind has been wandering aimlessly in something of a post-Christmas daze and I was beginning to feel guilty about my lack of meaningful concepts for future artworks. I definitely needed a jump start to get my creative vehicle moving forward. Fortunately, I was flipping through channels last night and stopped at the Knowledge Network to watch Rivers and Tides, a documentary (that feels more like an art film) about the awe-inspiring and often evanescent environmental sculptures created by British artist Andy Goldsworthy.

I'm embarrassed to admit I had zero knowledge of Goldsworthy until last night. In college I learned about Spiral Jetty and other earthworks by Robert Smithson and was impressed with the originality and scale of those works. Goldworthy's works tend to be less monumental, more ephemeral and decidedly delightful than Smithson's. I think Goldworthy's success is connected not only to his love of natural materials, but also to the fragile nature of his works; in the careful placement/balance of each and every leaf, stone, delicate bit of ice, or twig, and the intimate scale of his works. The simplistic appearance of Goldsworthy's works belie the complexities behind his concepts and the physical challenges involved in the resultant sculptures. If you get the chance to watch Rivers and Tides, don't miss it. You can view some highlights from the film here and here.

Watching the film brought me back to the sculpture classes I enjoyed in college and the joy of creating intriguing works from the simplest of materials. I think I'll revisit the lessons I learned and the outside-the-box thought processes I employed way back then. Thank you Mr. Goldsworthy!

Woman as Vessel #2

As mentioned in the post before last, I was inspired to start a new painting after flipping through an old sketchbook and becoming inspired to revisit the concept of woman as vessel. Here's the canvas in the early stages of the painting process in late September:



I struggled with this one - painting over areas that became bogged down with too much detail (oh how I love to get lost in complex detail). Eventually I created a balance between areas of calm and areas of detail and now it's close to being finished. I'll work on the face when I'm back in the studio next month.



Sorry for the poor quality of the pic - it was taken at night, using the flash, and the reflected glare doesn't make for an accurate image.

A little time away from the studio

Visited family in San Francisco with my mom last weekend and enjoyed the sunshine and sights, not to mention the food and the excellent company.

It was fleet week, so the city was teeming with naval personnel.




The Blue Angels put on quite the performance for us.



We schmoozed with the locals...



Enjoyed the public artwork...



And yummy chocolates...



Checked out the UC Berkeley campus.



Played at a beach off the beaten track...

that turned out to be a missile launching site from WWII.

We even took our lives into our hands by driving up the extremely narrow one-way road to the top of Sausalito and took in what is arguably the best view of San Francisco.



Had a fabulous time and am looking forward to a return visit.

Style change leads to no-go stack

Because the peacock painting wasn't entirely different after all (as mentioned at the end of my last post), I decided to revert to a style I used many many years ago when I first started painting - dark background and loose brushstrokes. After many hours working on the peacock in this manner, I remembered why I gave up this style oh so long ago - it leads (in my case, at least) to paintings with an overall generic look. The peacock is now facing the wall in the 'no-go' stack.

At a loss as to what to paint next (I admit I was pouting a bit due to the peacock disaster), I began flipping through my old sketchbooks and discovered some 2006 sketches that lead to Woman As Vessel:


Definite possibilities for new works there, so I've hoisted a new canvas onto the easel and have covered it with a wash of red and a conte crayon drawing and am once again in happily-painting-mode.

And now for something completely different

I've been working long hours in the studio nearly every day for the past couple of weeks and am delighted by the intense creative pace and the resulting mental momentum. Usually I take my time creating a work - first the mental work of weeks of contemplating a concept and image, several tiny sketches, intensive day and night painting sessions, revisiting the work over and over again over a long period for the finishing details, followed by weeks (or months!) of distraction and studio avoidance. Only then do I begin a new work. However, at my current pace, I'm moving from one work to another, unconcerned with completing each piece before starting another - as a result I have several works nearing completion in the time it normally takes me to finish just one.

With my new-found momentum, I've been reviewing photos from my travels for inspiration, with the idea it's time to challenge myself to work on something other than my usual themes of motherhood, community, and nurturing. As I reviewed photos from last year's trip to Thailand I found images of a fantasy peacock temple that had captured my fancy in Bangkok's Ancient City, a huge park featuring small scale and life-sized replicas of ancient architecture in Thailand. I took dozens of photos of that particular temple, thinking I'd like to do a peacock painting... however, by the time I arrived home, just in time for the hectic Christmas season and subsequent months of distraction.

Yesterday, nearly a full year after my original visions of creating a peacock painting, I googled images of peacocks as well as information about their symbolism in different cultures. I was reminded of what beautiful and unusual creatures they are, and found intriguing information here and here.

My apologies for the lengthy post - the point I was getting to is I have the beginnings of different type of painting on my easel:


Actually, now that I see a portion of the 10 year old painting in the background, I realize my "new" image is far, far, from being completely different. Hmmmm...

Hope for a sow's ear ...

I've been housebound and out of blank canvases - a nightmare for a painter with a paint-every-day-for-several-weeks plan. Fortunately, as mentioned in a previous post, I have a large stack of abandoned works to forage through and as I did so late one night I discovered Portrait of an Alter Ego. This work was abandoned well over a year ago after my model decided there were better things to do than pose for me. Left to my own devices and imagination, I began taking liberties and was soon distraught to realize the face had taken on a Disney-esque quality. I had added a lot of collage elements that I was pleased with, but the face was too much, so I turned the work toward the wall, and as the months slipped by and other flops were stacked along side of it, all memory of the work was erased. Until Thursday night.

My critical examination concluded with a decision to salvage the piece. I've worked on it for several hours Friday, changing the face and adding more colour, texture, and collage elements and am pleased at how nicely it seems to be coming along.

(as yet unfinished, acrylic and mixed media on wood cradle panel, 20"x16")

Although the figure no longer resembles my model, said model/novelist entered the studio yesterday and excitedly proclaimed the face on my easel to be an EXACT likeness of Princess Alishetti Karika. What can I say ... clearly, either I'm incredibly intuitive or our story-writer is happy to finally see a clear image of her royal heroine.

I have a few more collage elements and Celtic interlace to add (must first learn how to draw those confounding knots), then I'll post a final image. Stay tuned!

Day 2 of Morning Pages

Spent the very first part of my day writing my morning pages (see yesterday's post), and I must admit it's great to just peel off a lot of negativity before the day gets going. I'm sure this will become a regular, if not addictive, habit which will result in speeding up my creative thought processes.

Since finishing my last painting (untitled), I've revisited Tree of Life #3 and worked to create a sense of lushness. Here's the work as it looks on my easel today:



I'll work on the background tones tomorrow.

The Artist's Way

OK, so I read the first 14 pages of The Artist's Way and decided to try the "morning pages" where it's suggested we sit down each morning before the day gets going and write three pages stream-of-consciousness-style in long hand - never reading it afterward. The idea to remove a lot of negativity from our brains by putting it down on paper, hence holding the inner Censor (that nasty self-critic always whispering in our ears) at bay for the rest of the day. Didn't know if I'd have enough to fill three pages, however my scribbling ran over three pages and I wanted to keep going. Hopefully this has cleared away a few cobwebs in my brain and made room for creativity to flow.

Close to completion

Untitled, 20x20", acrylic on wood cradle panel. Just a few fine details, another wash of burnt umber for the background, and a protective topcoat to attend to.

I've become unusually attached to this image and am finding it difficult to move on. Often when I'm this close to completing a painting I've already prepared another canvas and loosely painted an outline of some sort. Instead, I now find myself drifting towards my collection of half-finished paintings and slapping a little paint around (if I don't have a good momentum going within the first week of starting a painting, I rarely finish it and relegate the canvas to my no-go stack). After working into the old paintings, I then return to this work and add yet more minute detail. EGAD - I fear I'm suffering from painter's block! In an attempt to battle my condition, I've dragged out my copy of Julia Cameron's The Artists's Way. I purchased the 10th anniversary edition half a dozen or so years ago, read a few pages, then neatly filed it away on a bookshelf (there's the problem with momentum thing again). I'll try to get through a few chapters and hopefully find a jump-start to my next painting. I'll keep you posted.

A day's progress

I'm adding layer over layer of details and am pleased with how it's looking so far.

I've been asked on more than one occasion if I'm inspired by North American native work - and although I haven't always seen it, I definitely feel it with this work. I'm using the usual archetypes and colours that define my work, however, there's something about this piece ... perhaps it's the circular format, the strong outlining, the bold blocks of colour, or all three elements that lends it a native art feeling. I decided to take to the internet and do a bit of research and, after looking at hundreds of images, I recognized elements similar to those in works by Norval Morrisseau. What do you think?

Working again at last

After a very long hiatus, and many happy hours spent filling my sketchbook, I'm back in the studio working day and night. My house is unkempt, bed unmade, dishes piled high in the sink, dust bunnies getting large enough to trip over, and there isn't a clean sock in the house - all in the name of artistic progress, and I'm loving every moment! (Please don't drop by unannounced - I'm going to need a good 24 hours notice to tidy!)

Here's one in the works:



Here are the beginnings of a painting on cradle panel:





I've nearly finished another Tree of Life work and will post an image once it's completed.

Stay tuned...