Kastle Kaos Drawbridge

Whoot! New Business Card

2012-01-27T13:44:00.002-05:00

I usually stay away from the business end of things here; it’s a journal after all, but having spent ALL MORNING at it, jeepers, just have to crow a little. I’ve made up a few versions of a business card (always good to have in your possession) but left them at ‘the good enough’ stage. I did these early on, when I was just learning how to manipulate things with GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program), so they were fairly primitive in the area of graphic design.
In the meantime, I’ve been moving on with my art, and my methods and it was high time to make the change, so here it is. I’ve lost count of the layers (layers seem to be a commonality with me), but I really had fun selecting (by colour) the black in detail from my image “Man of Flowers” and floating it on top of the card, making it transparent so that it would fall into the background, erasing and moving pieces about so that they would aid flow, etc.. I still used my favourite ‘go to’ font, ARIAL for readability and its clean crisp unassuming line, added in the aka kaslkaos, because while it may be silly, it is a name I use everywhere, and removed all the info on what kind of art that I do (ie. printmaking, watercolour, blah, blah, blah) for the crime of being ‘too much information’. Business cards are not advertisements, they are teasers and contact info, and it doesn’t hurt to make them pretty enough to keep. Well, hoping that these will get picked up and kept.
Also began, at a local gallery, leaving behind little treats, I call “Excerpts from the 365 Art Card Project”. I have no idea what the count is, but they never see the light of day, and I hoard them and wouldn’t trade them for the world, but decided there is nothing wrong with a little reproduction. So, I am weekly printing off one design as an actual size reproduction, and signing them and leaving them in a tiny pile at the gallery community table, free for the taking. Just to keep things moving, I remove any left behind from last week when I drop off new ones.
This one’s going out this week.

And this one was done with sharpie markers and pen. Also available on Etsy if you miss the freebies.

Life Drawing Tuesday

2012-01-24T09:29:00.002-05:00

Getting back into life drawing after the holiday hiatus was difficult for all of us. Feeling rusty, we unanimously called for short poses, but that really didn't help. As one fellow artist declared, while staring at the thing that appeared on his easel, "Tonight I feel like I'm back in kindergarten!" and I felt the same. I usually enjoy short poses, for their energy and brevity, but this time everything was such a chore, and I yawned, a lot (never a good sign). By the last pose (30 minutes) I grabbed a mechanical pencil out of sheer frustration, and here's what happened (just for fun, I digitally reversed the values). Mechanical pencils are an unwritten taboo for the artist, considered too precise for expressive art and best reserved for drafting and geometry, but it certainly worked out for me and in fact, lent a certain sense of freedom to the line (although I don’t quite know why).

And here’s the sketch as is, without any digital fun. This time I’m not sure which I like better, but mostly I’m relieved that I didn’t leave the session with nothing to show. (the remainder of the evening are getting recycled)

What to do with a Rainbow of Sharpies

2012-01-17T10:35:00.003-05:00

Close-up of atc, using impressed line technique over sharpie markers, final layers in sienna and black coloured pencils.
Just before Christmas, someone dangled a giant 24 pack of multi-coloured sharpie markers right before my greedy eyes and exclaimed, “What the f#@x***!” am supposed to do with these?!?”. I kindly suggested that as I would figure something out, maybe he should give them to me. And he did, washing his hands of the entire dilemma.
And so here, I show you just one of the possibilities: abstract explorations using ‘impressed line technique’. In this case, I first use primary (mostly) sharpie markers to create an abstract composition in sharpie marker (they have an excellent magenta, cyan and yellow). After I’ve completely coloured the surface (they dry instantly and smell great too), I used the point of a compass as a stylus and gently inscribed lines into the artwork, being careful to indent, but not scratch, the surface of the paper. This took awhile in spite of their small size (2.5” x 3.5”). This was followed by a layer of sienna coloured pencil, then more impressed lines, and finally followed with ink black coloured pencil. Where the lines are impressed, the original pure sharpie colours remain. This is a common technique in coloured pencil, although most often it is used to reserve whites for fine lines (cat’s whiskers, eye highlights, etc.). You can also use it to reserve successive layers of coloured pencil although pencil colours will be more textured than those laid down with marker.

I posted all four images to Fineartamerica in high resolution (600dpi) so you could see some extreme close-up details, which is fun with this technique. If you click on the image at Fineartamerica, it will bring up a zoomed square. (a click on the image here, will bring you there—have fun)
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For a more conventional use of this technique, you can check out a graphite landscape I posted previously: http://kaslkaos.blogspot.com/2008/12/gift-that-lasts.html

Life Drawing Tuesday on a Thursday Morning

2012-01-12T10:51:00.002-05:00

Greg, being contemplative. I like his poses when he not being avaunt-garde.
PS. This and others are too big to scan, so I did a snapshot. Please excuse (or not) the bad lighting effect.
PPS. Still catching up from last years posts, and next week, I'm back at it again, in the flesh, so to speak, although my flesh will be mostly covered.

A Clutch of Dragons

2012-01-05T15:04:00.002-05:00

Back from the holidays and my blog break. I’m not much of a social networker; I don’t even own a cell-phone, and I don’t understand people who live tethered to their blackberries or other devices. I have an android tablet (which doesn’t prove that I’m not a luddite, because I am) but I use it ‘offline’ for private matters, like reading and listening to radio documentaries (not to mention games—oops, shhhh). I like being off-line, spending time with myself, or select friends of various species (referring to my cats, my dog, my husband and a few close friends), and wandering through woodlands worshipping (in a purely scientific manner) trees. All of which activities I consider an excellent use of holidays. So now I’m back, sorry for being less than sociable (sort of, because, let’s face it, I am) and I will be visiting with you electronically soon.
Here’s my latest project. Every year Proof Studio Gallery hosts an international print exchange using the Chinese New Year as a theme. This year it’s Year of the Dragon. I need to send in 5 to 3 dragons, and I can’t decide. The above image was more than a year in the making, as the background is a gelatin print of many layers that I worked over sporadically between months of storage. It’s one of the few I’ve ever done on watercolour paper, which adds a heavy texture and some technical challenges. Sometimes I get gelatin prints that I LOVE and I’m so afraid of wrecking them that I put them aside, sometimes for a very long time, waiting for the right idea, image, or technique to come along to finish them off. My dragon foam plate is one such. It just all came together.

Here is my white dragon; the background is gelatin and foam plate printing (swirly design); the dragon is white ink with some red painted in for a one press monoprint. I added detail in red ink pen and silver metallic pen. This is my personal favourite, and I don’t think I will be willing to part with it.

This is another year long print. It’s probably impossible to see, but in the background I used horsetail (the plant) on gelatin to create a bamboo-like texture. It was in my ‘stack’, and I fished it out for this project.

This one didn’t scan well; the background is very pale but quite colourful in the real world (primary colours). The dragon is reversed as I inked the foam plate, then pressed it onto the gelatin, and printed off of the gelatin. I did a few of these.

And I can’t for the life of me remember how I did this one, but I think I used the dragon while the white ink was still on the foam plate and the previous layer of blue ink bled through (I sometimes like leaving previous layers of ink just to see what comes up). That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

This is the ‘back stage’ shot, scans of my foam plate. This is my ‘foam plate’ made up of several polystyrene disposable plates. Since my design didn’t fit the materials at hand, I had to improvise with tape and careful knife work. The ‘scale’ pattern was somewhat dictated by the need to hide seams.
Now I need to decide which of my babies will get shipped off to Toronto, and which remain in the hoard. And how am I to do that?

Ritual Matters

2011-12-24T17:07:00.001-05:00

Ritual matters, so I won’t be calling this a ‘holiday tree’. It is a Christmas Tree, and we northern folks have been worshipping evergreens for a VERY long time, and will continue. Winter Solstice tree would likely be more accurate, because such things predate Christianity (although the rituals were a little less peaceful back then,the less said the better), but as Christmas celebrate the very important natural cycles of rebirth, I will just say Merry Christmas, and here is my tree for all to see, which looks much like last years tree, and the year before that. This one, oddly enough, will not die. At the tree farm, we left behind a tall stump and strong branches, from which a new tree will grow. There’s some strong symbolism in that.

And gosh, I wanted to write more, and show you more pictures (already on facebook), but it’s Christmas Eve, and it’s time to celebrate.

Merry Christmas All (or whatever you want to call it), because there is no denying that the longest night of winter is now over, and the days will get longer hereafter (at least until next year).

Cellular Life

2011-12-22T12:19:00.000-05:00

It's a busy time, and I'm still scrambling to get more art done, Year of the Dragon print exchange included (8 on the go of those), so this is a quickie post, let the image speak for itself as I intend to explore many iterations on this theme, and have numerous little foam 'bacteria' stamps ready to go (inventing bacteria is DARNED addictive); lucky you that I'm an artist not a scientist, because I'm having WAY too much fun to stop doing it. Well, 99% are good or neutral (and I just made that number up, remember, I'm an artist, not a scientist) but let's celebrate the small things that keep us going. Yogurt anyone? Or cheese? Beer? I can't think of any other bacterial delights right now--maybe because it's usually the bacteria doing the consuming...hmmm

PS. If you don't already know, this monoprint was done using an incredibly aged and pitted gelatin plate, and meat tray polystyrene foam.

Two of the Three R’s—Gelatin Leaf Prints

2011-12-14T11:52:00.000-05:00

Recycle and Reuse
Two ATC Gelatin Leaf Prints overlaid with black and silver technical pen drawings. Some gelatin prints need finishing, and these where from my September batch of leaf prints on card stock. I have a stack that I really love, but they just don’t seem complete, so I am selecting a few for further renditions into ATC format. I have a clear plastic template that I slide over the A4 print until I find a composition I like, pencil in the outline and repeat the hunt until there are no more good pieces left. (seems like 5 ATC’s per page is the average), then I put the results into my pile of blank ATC’s, where they can be finished with inks and pencils. With exceptions, they turned out better than I expected, and I think I will make ‘rendering’ select unfinished gelatine prints a habit. Sometimes ‘recycling’ uncovers new avenues.

Ravens

2011-12-13T15:01:00.003-05:00

Above: Raven and Sun, 2.5”x3.5” gelatin print with stencils and polystyrene.

WIP: wanted to do a raven motif for a t-shirt for a LONG time, but every time I tried to draw one, it looked like anything but (eagle, vulture, crow, dove, but definitely NOT raven). Problem is, that I have very little experience with them. Here in southern Ontario, they are just beginning to make a come back, as they move into the forest preserves of the Oak-Ridges Morraine, but they are shy and elusive in this area. I count myself VERY lucky if I manage to hear one “GRONK”, or “Gwoink” or ‘pic’ while flying unseen above the trees.
So I spent alot of time watching you-tube video’s on-line. Lots of time, lots of video’s, much of it not related to the image. Raven’s playing ball with a dog, raven saying “hello” and ‘come here buddy’, raven interrupting eagle courtship, ravens rolling down a snow slope, ravens waddling across kitchen counters, and raven’s playing with border collies, racing cars, stealing sandwiches and on and on. The charm of all these video’s is that they were captures of real ravens being ravens, and the sometimes unnatural circumstances only highlight their intelligence and adaptability. You would have to blind not to admit after viewing them that we share this planet with other sentient creatures, and ravens are a notable member of the club. And after all this screen time, I finally feel like I can draw Raven.

This one is also a gelatin print using stencils and polystyrene. It’s about 7” wide, and may or may not be finished.

PS. Oops, didn't mean to do two posts in one day. Life Drawing Tuesday should have been scheduled for next Tuesday, but actually dated it the 4th, darned. I was trying to get ahead of the game in this busy season. Now, back to carving ravens...

Fun With Foam for Everyone

2011-12-09T12:08:00.002-05:00

WARNING: Major Spoiler for certain young family members (who probably don’t read my blog anyway, but just in case, NO PEEKING!)
This is an early Christmas gift in case you want to use the idea. I’ve been using my foam plates for some pretty elaborate fine art projects, but I realized that they make GREAT do-it-yourself stamps, especially for kids. Unlike wood and linoleum, there is no need for carving tools. A ball point pen is all you need, as long as a parent is around to cut the initial shape, or cut out the shape after the pen work is done.

Pictured here is everything you need (click on the image for an enlargement).
Here are the steps.
Cut the foam tray into smaller bits (you can refine the cut later).
Draw with the ball point pen onto the foam, see my flower stamps. It’s that easy. I draw the entire stamp first, and then cut into the ball point pen outline. This gives you a smooth rounded edge on the impression (foam cuts have some ragged edges, that won’t show up if they are squished down with the pen).

Flip your foam over, and stick a pinched piece of masking tape on the back. This gives you a handle for stamping. I also label with pen at this stage, and add a ‘this way up’ arrow if that’s important (see the ‘K’ foam stamp in the middle).
Now you can stamp away. Soft spongy craft store stamp kits work best. Hard ‘office type’ fabric pads don’t work well at all as your stamp is too soft press hard.
For Letters and text, there is an extra step unless you can write backwards in a pleasing way. I design my letters on tracing paper with a soft pencil, then I flip the tracing paper over the foam plate, then gently with the soft part of my finger, rub the back of the tracing paper. This should transfer the graphite pencil onto the back of the foam without inscribing the foam.

Then I inscribe with ball-point pen all around the transferred letter, but NOT on the transferred pencil letter itself. This gives you a positive letter image. You could instead flip the tracing paper onto the foam, and then inscribe the lettered part with your pen. In that case, the foam plate will show a negative image, which is also just fine. The lettering will appear white (or whatever colour your paper is) and the shape of your stamp will be the colour of your ink.

Now stamp away!

Life-Drawing Tuesday

2011-12-06T19:29:00.000-05:00

It’s all over for the season, but I got behind in posting, so these will be popping up now and again. Maintaining the illusion that a blog-post is a real-time thing is just a little silly too. However, the other notable thing with life-drawing, is sometimes they are best assessed after some time passes (actually, this holds true with a lot of art, and procrastination can be a very good thing anytime you feel ‘stuck’).
Notable here is ‘the hand’. It may not be a great hand, but it’s one of my better ‘hands’ and astounding evidence that I really really did need glasses. I always had trouble drawing hands, and never seemed to get better at it. Try as I might, I couldn’t even begin to guess where the knuckles and nails where. Now that I have glasses, I find while I don’t need them for general figure drawing, they are essential for ‘fingers, and toes, eyes, ears and nose’.

Life-Drawing Tuesday

2011-12-04T18:48:00.000-05:00

Here’s Greg, a good night for me, having fun with colours, and Greg putting on a good pose. We have great models.
PS. Decided that I will not worry about sensitive eyes when posting mild nudity. It’s really really silly to worry about such things when, thankfully, it is perfectly acceptable in public art. Whew, no fig leaves on these either:
Beautiful Nude Public Statue at Union Station Toronto

Celebrations from the Inside

2011-12-04T11:27:00.001-05:00

“Yes, we are having fun”

On December 1st, the nursing home put on a Christmas party for the residents and family. Of course, Randy and I attended. I was looking forward to it (free food is always a big draw for me), but had WAY more fun than expected.

1st surprise, is evidenced in the introductory photo. Here are some folks who are obviously having fun, that I’ve never really gotten to know.

I don’t really know the lady on the right, but in the middle is my Mom-In-Law’s roommate. She only has one available eye to do it (eye patch is permanent now), but she keeps an eye out on my MIL, and, while, my MIL can’t, she gives us an account of her day. Much appreciated as my MIL is mostly non-verbal now. Maureen has her head turned, but she’s a real fan of Dynamo, and owned her own shepherd before she was admitted. It’s a bad photo, but here I was sitting amoungst friends, people I know and like. I forgot to take a photo of Dolores, the lady who asked me two weeks ago if I would sit with her at this party, because her family wouldn’t be there. That sounds lonely, but Dolores is so much fun, and so sociable, that she has plenty of friends. Just behind me, was Tim, whom I can’t understand very well, but we speak in smiles. I’ve gone into the home exceedingly grumpy (for very good reasons) and Tim will put a smile on my face.

Here’s the resident ‘musician’ (one of them, because he’s not the piano man I was talking about). He played many instruments in his life, but athritis has turned his hands into things that look like broken wings. He now has a ‘digital guitar’ that he plays, he writes songs, and he sings. Beside him is the music therapist.

More of the d guitar, bad pic again, but you get the idea.

So why did I devote a blog post to this, you may wonder. Visiting the nursing home has been a discovery for me, the feelings I have of friendship for certain individuals has surprised me. I began the adventure horrified at a all the ‘broken, helpless’ people. I think many never get beyond that, and choose the avoid the scene altogether. and simply stop visiting or visit seldom. But with familiarity. the prejudice falls away. Here are real people, leading rich lives full of meaning, largely without absent family members. Those who are capable, mix, mingle, make friends, gossip, break rules, create art, express themselves and help one another. It is only those on the outside who see this as a ‘warehouse for old people’ (I term I’ve heard used).

What makes a home a home are the people within. In this case, residents and staff. When I walked in on Thursday night, and saw all the familiar faces, I felt welcome. When I found an empty chair beside Dolores and fulfilled my promise, I felt I had gained an extended family. I looked ahead and behind me and realized I was surrounded by friends, and it felt really really good. And I sang (badly) Christmas carols with the rest of them.

PS. I took photographs, because it was a public performance, and that’s okay. I’m still being careful not to identify anybody in a real way. (Which is why I don’t name the home)

Garden of Delight—gelatin and polystyrene plate monoprint

2011-11-29T10:22:00.003-05:00

Something fun, that actually took quite a long time.
I will try to tease out the steps, but it’s not a ‘how to’ explanation by a long shot.
1. Make a gelatin plate (google gelatin printmaking if you need help with this step, lots of info there)

2. Go wild with ink, heaps of paper, and apply colours and random textures onto gelatin, repeat process endlessly until something promising appears. Set these aside for a day, a month, or a year.
3. Make impressions on foam plates. For the words, I used ball-point pen to flatten the negative spaces. The blue circle is the usual method, where you use the ball-point pen to inscribe the image. It took me numberous tries, and foam plates to get the words to fit, as I wanted it to look very hand-written, and so didn’t try any typography tricks to measure things out.

4. Cut a circle template. Cut a circle that matches your foam plate out of an a4 piece of paper, tape the paper over your half-way completed gelatin print. This protects your background print.
5. Paint the circle in acrylic paint (violet in this case).
6. Keep the template in place, as now you can use it to register your foam plate for multiple overprints. I use four marks and compass directions because I like compasses. (if you click on the image, you might see my pen marks on the plate)
7. Ink the foam plate and press your background colour (dark green), Let dry. Then paint in details onto the foam and press. Let dry, and repeat until you’re satisfied. I use thick ink for this stage, and it takes more than a day to dry. So I work on other things and try to cultivate patience. I’ve been working on this one for weeks.
8. Once the centre is done, you’ll probably find you need to add something to integrate the background. In this case, I decide to add text to support the theme. While it is a fun image, I was really thinking about how everything eats something, and the implications of that. We are all edible, another metaphor for mortality. Okay, or it’s just fun to play with words, whatever.
That’s it.

I place at high res image on FineArtAmerica, in case you want to have fun looking at details, or see the image sans watermarks.
Also available at Etsy.

Sketches from the Inside

2011-11-27T12:34:00.002-05:00

I don’t like sketchbooks; it’s too difficult to burn/recycle/destroy/bury/hide your mistakes. My normal drawing kit includes a wad of A4 office paper in a clip board, and a small box of pre-cut recycled paper ATC’s. Duds end up in the weekly recycling pick-up and this gives my muse freedom to secretly roam innumerable creative avenues.
But once a week I visit my Mom In Law at the nursing home. Due to late stage dementia, she is mostly uncommunicative, and the utterances that she does make are either incomplete or non-sensible, and she cannot understand even a simple conversation. She is still emotionally responsive to my husband, and sometimes responds to the dog.
To put things bluntly, an hour visit (my husbands standard—he is a very decent man) is a very long time for me to sit in one place ‘doing nothing’. I get bored.
Since a bored grumpy wife, is hardly an asset as a visitor, I decided to bring my sketchbook (mostly blank) for winter visits. It fits in a purse, and requires nothing more than a pencil. Because it is small, I don’t need a table or board, any chair will do. Also while I felt okay about taking photos outdoors at the home, I do not do so indoors. The courtyard ‘felt’ like a public space, and any resident in the courtyard was either there of their own volition or was there with a family member. Indoors is more of a private space, and many residents (due to their level of infirmity) have no choices at all…so I hesitate to take pictures—which makes it hard to illustrate a story.
Well, here are the sketches. Mostly we sit in the large activity room. It is furnished with dining room tables, a kitchenette, a comfy couch, a piano, and upholstered chairs. It has a cathedral ceiling finished in pine, a street-facing window wall another large window that looks onto a smaller courtyard.
That’s Diva the resident cat on the upper left, in her favourite spot, on the couch that butts up against the wall window. She likes to sit there and watch whatever it is that cats like to watch. On the upper left, there is Maureen, reading the paper. I like Maureen a lot, as she is very dignified and polite, and seems to have an aura of serene contentment. She has some trouble with memory, but is still very much a complete and mature person. She loves Dynamo (many there do) and always tells me about the german shepherd dog she had before she came to the nursing home. There is sadness there, because she can’t remember what happened to that dog. Did family members take it in (we adopted my MIL’s cat) or was the dog discarded—it happens. I’ve met her son, but I would never ask that question.
Lower left, is a couple that always seem to be in the ‘activity’ room when we are there. I really haven’t figured out which one of them is the resident, and which the visitor. They always seem to be deeply engaged in pleasant conversation with one another; the lady always wears a straw hat and dresses nice. We sometimes chat about ex-pets or Dynamo.
On the lower right is ‘the Piano Man’, although he claims to have never played piano before he came to the home. He says he always played the accordian, but now that he has a piano at his fingertips, he plays that, by ear. He is very good to listen to, and even his small mistakes as feels out the next song (he plays from memory, no sheet music) sound melodic. When he is playing, it feels like some delightful magical spell is spinning through the home. The first time I heard him play, I clapped and complimented him on his performance. I wanted him to know that he really was an asset, and a joy to listen to. Unfortunately, I only got around to sketching him after he was resting in his wheelchair. I’m doing all this sketching as unobtrusively as possible, and from a distance, so it’s pretty ‘sketchy’.

My MIL loves birds, and at her home, always maintained bird feeders that dispensed HUGE quantities of bird feed to all and sundry. She always called gold finches ‘yellow birds’, which was yet another quirk that disguised her dementia from us when she lived at home (ie. I have no idea when, or what year, she forgot that her ‘yellow birds’ where gold finches, because she liked calling things by silly made up names). In the nursing home activity room, there is a large 6’ x 4’ bird cage that houses exotic finches and we always take her there to see the birds. Most times she seems to enjoy them, at least for awhile. They have breeding pairs and nest cups hung up and in spring they have babies. They never stay still for long, so I usually only have several seconds to observe a pose. This is life drawing on speed. Probably good practice.
When I’m not sketching, I’m visiting with residents, and bring Dynamo to see people who indicate they would like to pet her. Sometimes the staff will bring one of their charges to me, if they know the person likes dogs. I’ve become a bit of social butterfly at the home, due to Dynamo’s ambassadorial duties. Good Dog!
Sorry this is long, but last spring so much happened that I didn’t want to talk about. Probably I’m blathering to make up for all that silence, but, well, that’s enough for now.

Fun With Meat Trays, Part II

2011-11-18T11:39:00.004-05:00

Big Chicken, foam and gelatin print on mulberry paper.

The most difficult aspect of printing with foam plates turns out to be supply. It sounds easy; just save up your foam meat trays from your grocery store purchases, or beg neighbours for the same. It turns out, however, that most packaging is damaged in less than intriguing ways, such as raised rectangles in the centre, glue spots, or deckels that are so strongly stamped they raise the inside surface.
I took to scrounging from an office garbage can, were the workers preference for take-out food led to a steady supply of polystyrene clam-shells. Usually the top clam-shell was useable, but of very small dimensions (4x6). Then there is my supply of dollar store polystyrene plates, that give me a 6” diameter circle. I love the circles, and the thinness of the plates—they are lovely to draw on, but highly limiting. And so I continuously searched for foam plates, and finally, here they are.

See how I lovingly view my newly acquired ginormous stash of 500! Yikes. Smaller quantities were not available, as I had to purchase from a whole-sale supply. The usable surface is 7”x9”, still limiting, but a good size for me to work with. Of course I had to play, and scribble with a plate. It was a sample (the supplier let me have 1 tray as a sample), so after printing up it’s flat surface, I had some fun. Even these plates have a flaw. Small dots appear on the surface, but it turns out that they can be flattened into submission with a roller.
In other news, I decided to abandon making decent ‘sales’/professional pages on my blog, and decided to use Etsy as my showcase. The only exceptions will be permanently framed art (as I don’t want to be in the business of shipping glass), and very large works of art (shipping, once again being the Etsy achilles heel, as one must come up with fixed shipping prices that are highly variable when it comes to non-standard sizes).
My revamped Etsy is not just about sales, but also a great presentation interface for sharing my art (without all the blog blather). so I’ll be mentioning it now and again, and leaving this blogs focus on a personal artist’s journal.

Available at Etsy, and an example of foam plate printmaking (this is one of my literal foam plate works).

Life Drawing Tuesday

2011-11-08T15:06:00.002-05:00

Finally finished a piece I want to show. I’ve been having a horrible time with the reclining poses. Actually discussed this in class and one possibility (I LOVE excuses) given is the lack of background props as reference. The model lies on a platform in the centre of the room. In the past, we used to use a tall chair rack covered in a blanket as an artificial wall. I do wonder if it helped place the model on the page. In this case, I have to just make it up. I supposed a realist with a lot of spare time could have fun with filling in the entire swath of parquet floor. Me, I’m more partial to abstractions.
And also have started using life drawing in linocuts.

This one’s 11x14, individual linocuts are 2.5x3.5 each, background abstraction is a gelatin print.
Both of these are snapshots, not scan and shadowy corners are not part of the artwork.
Now back to the drawing board.

Trout Run Redux

2011-10-27T08:27:00.000-04:00

It’s that time of year again; the brook trout, as always after Thanksgiving, are shimmying their way up the rivers and creeks. Last evening, I stood, with binoculars in hand, by Vivian Creek in the Hollidge Tract and let myself be completely mesmerized by the fish and their tantalizing colours. Irresistible they are, and are meant to be. All those flashing salmon bellies and fins surely meant to captivate the female eye, and while my aceo’s here are from memory only (that’s the point, to capture the moment) they absolutely do have stark black and white edges on their fins. So, if you are anywhere near similar habitat, spend a few moments by a clear brook and look down. Binoculars really help.

As far as I know, these are brook trout, but again, these are drawn from the memory of the moment and are in no way meant to be textbook illustrations. Looking in on their glittering shaded world always seems to be a magical moment and I wouldn’t want to clutter it up with facts (easy enough to google brook trout for that). But rest assured, if you have yet to see them for yourself, you will not be disappointed with the reality.
These are the newest entries from my 365 Art Card Project. Ink on paper, watersoluble pencils, and white gouache, 2.5”x3.5”

Consigned to Ashes—365 Art Card Project

2011-10-25T08:55:00.004-04:00

New Linocut, WIP, about 6”x 9”, design is an enlargement of one of my atc’s.
My 365 Art Card Project is back into production after a not so brief hiatus. Creating incentive to journey forward once more required taking a good long look at where I’d been. The pile was quite a nonsensical jumble so it took quite a large chunk of time to sort, categorize and contemplate what was contained there-in.

Here are some of them, now, after several hours of sorting and thinking, and putting into categories.

A close-up of a sorted portion. This is the box that most compels me. Sorting the images was an interesting journey in artistic self discovery. While I have a whole box filled half with landscapes, and half with abstracts, many of which I am quite fond of, they don’t hold the level of fascination with the emergent themes in this assortment of faces, myths, transformations, etc.. So I need to listen and follow their lead and find out where they take me…

Of course while I was at it, I did some winnowing. No point in keeping everything. While I will keep anything that holds even a germ of an idea, successful or not (this is, after all, my ‘idea factory’), some just don’t have much to say for themselves. While they don’t take up much space, it’s impossible to crystallize anything from slush.

I figured they needed a better send-off than recycling.

Somehow I get the feeling that this dude is accusing me of making a mistake? The weird thing is, by the time I noticed that singular eye staring back at me, it was pretty much too late.

All gone.
De-cluttering is good, it leaves room in our lives for more. In the process of burning art, perhaps it leaves room in the mind to embark on new adventures and teaches us to let go of that which is less than compelling; still, I’m feeling a little haunted by that one accusing eye…

Technorati Tags: atc,artist trading cards,linocut
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Artwork Unearthed from the Deeps

2011-10-21T13:33:00.005-04:00

Now that I’m working once again on my printmaking, my pile of unfinished starts from last March was beginning to weigh me down. It was time to go digging and see what could be rescued, developed and finished.

Above: Man of Flowers and Bird Woman. Gelatin, foam plate and linocut relief print. It was almost there, and I had set it aside as it was too pale and I was afraid (thank goodness) to add any more layers to it. After many months out of sight, the answer was obvious. I inked by hand a few sparse details in black (with a indelible rollerball, a favourite tool) and declared it complete. The title just ‘is’. I have no idea what this means, the two just popped in and made their appearance. I don’t yet know their story.

Below: Forest Dreaming, Gelatin and foam plate print. Another almost there print. Again, I chose not to add another layer, and instead did some very tiny touch-ups with white gouache and a fine brush. Finished.

It feels good to rescue abandoned projects. It lets me move forward with some semblance of continuity after long interruptions.

60 Seconds With Jim—Life Drawing

2011-10-20T11:55:00.002-04:00

And 10 minutes with Ursula, figure drawing in blue Prismacolor stick on A4 paper, digitally manipulated (GIMP): basically, I enhanced the contrast and inverted the colours, just to make a quick sketch more fun.

These are one minute poses on A4 paper (I LOVE A4 paper). Jim was held up in traffic and he made up for lost time giving us some great quick poses. My pencils were rocking. After that, the session went down the hill for me, but it was a lively start.

It’s Only Paper and Ink—Work In Progress

2011-10-16T14:32:00.007-04:00

Above: detail of Work in Progress.
Below: Two of many sheets of Stonehenge paper, started gelatin prints, using leaves and saran wrap for textures and shapes.

…erm, probably about time I thought of doing tutorials, and I even have a folder of photos stored somewhere on my computer but I forgot the name. You know how it goes…so, sorry, don’t hold your breath…someday, but not today.
But for starters, my best advice is have LOTS of paper on hand. TONS of paper. You can’t possibly have too much paper, and ink too. And you should have plenty of cheap pre-cut paper. I really like using bright white acid free card stock as it’s cheap enough to experiment with, and nice enough to frame when things do work out. Expect the unexpected, and in the first stages, don’t think, just do. Ink the gelatin, slap on some textures (leaves, lace, stencils, saran wrap, etc.), slap on some paper, do it all over again. I usually start five to ten sheets at a time, often starting them out somewhat similar (ie. begin with yellow as a 1st layer) and as they progress assess and follow their lead. While I may have a vague idea of where I am going and what I want as an end result, I never really know where I’ll end up. I leave it all up to chance and experimentation. Since I use a multitude of techniques and layers, it’s pretty much impossible to do anything twice, which is why even for warm-ups, I use serviceable paper (acid free card stock or mulberry paper), just in case something wonderful appears.
This time I have some foam plate designs started in February and I really want to turn them into finished prints of the elaborate sort so I took the time to slice and dice some Stonehenge paper, which is a wonderful printmaking paper. Because of that, I’m feeling a bit precious about what I’m doing, and slowing down and getting a bit of a headache, but forging on.
With 10 sheets of paper on the go, I have to
begin developing them further, using whatever I have on hand. The Benthic Fish Fantasy (previous post) is one such foray that came from the set of ten. Below is a further development of the leaf print above left that came from the same batch.

About 5 layers more of work actually, first using glassware for added texture, then a fine layer of yellow, then a purple layer & blue layer using newsprint cutouts (the soft curving shapes) followed by a dark circle relief print of a foam plate. Will this one work out? I have no idea, I just keep going until, a) it’s mud, gack! , b) it turns out .
Actually, a) mud is exactly what happened when I added the dragon foam plate on top (not shown), and then another layer (not shown) until I decided I was going in a terrible direction, but it was still save-able. I painted the entire circle out in sepia acrylic paint (lots of blow drying in between), and then added yet another dragon foam plate layer in a mix of white, blue and green ink. Phew… now I’m getting somewhere. This is a thick layer of ink and needs to dry for a day or more if I want some truly crisp layers of colour on top.

Since I’ll be adding more layers with this circular plate, it’s really important to register with as much accuracy as possible. On the back I have for marks, N.S.E.and W. like a compass (I like maps). I need register marks on the surface of my print to match up to, but they must not be permanent, so I’ve snipped tiny pieces of low tack tape (the little green rectangle in the image below) at each register mark (while the plate is face down, of course) and marked with pen. This should ensure a reasonable (but never perfect) degree of registration for successive layers. As the sepia layer is acrylic paint and waterproof, I will also be able to retrieve lost details using water and a fine tipped brush (ie. wet and brush away any filled in lines).
So that’s it for now. I’m crossing my fingers, because if I mess up again, this one goes into the recycle bin.

Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer)

2011-10-14T09:36:00.002-04:00

Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer) Here’s a link to the wikipedia entry, Spring Peeper.

Now notice his colour—it’s a pretty darned good match to the leaf he’s sitting on. We found him, and several others while we lunched on a log in Magnetawan Provincial Park (where my friends live—lucky them), and all of them where the exact same shade of autumn. My friend and I had a real photo fest, duelling camera’s, butts in the air as we bent over and crawled along the forest floor trying to get that perfect shot. We were a pair of sylvan paparazzi . Most of the time, the camoflage was so good, that we where shooting blind. After I got the photo’s onto my computer, I had to play ‘find the frog’ to enlarge and crop the photo’s. I’m telling you this, because I never see mentions of spring peepers have the ability to change colour, but these photo’s certainly point to that being a strong possibility. I’ve noticed the same thing with American Toads; wherever I find them, they seem to be a pretty good match, sandy yellow in the sand, deep burnt umber on the forest floor, grey and dull on concrete, and beautiful shades of autumn on autumn leaves. Since I’ve yet to do an experiment, I’m only making the assumption by association, but really really wonder…
And now, of course, some art. Unrelated, although I might mention, the spring peeper is highly likely to be turned into a new linocut.

Benthic Fish Fantasy, 9”x6” on Stonehenge paper, gelatin and relief print with linoleum and found objects.
This print is the first of my new series of benthic fish (fantasy). While there are very real, and very weird benthic fish (deep sea dwellers) with glow in the dark lures dangling from their heads, and wicked teeth, and fragile bodies, my linocuts are not scientific diagrams: they are fully imaginary. I still have more pencil designs waiting to be carved, but as the first three took a total four hours of carving time, I gave the first three a test run. There will of course, be more.
And if you want to know what real benthic fish look like, Wikipedia on Benthic Fish , and more weird but very real sea creatures: the anglerfish (<—you’ll see why mine are not quite so imaginary after all)

A New Line

2011-10-07T12:32:00.002-04:00

More Gelatin Printmaking: this one is a close-up that I did on mulberry paper. It requires two gelatin plates; one large and one small. I ink up the small one in a colour, then press my linocut into the the small inked-plate. Then I press the inked linocut onto the large plate, repeat as desired, then lay the mulberry paper on as a result, and then continue with more linocuts and other colours. I started a bunch of sheets as I really felt that I was in need of warm ups and practice before I moved on to the ‘next big thing’. There are projects that I abandoned way back in February when the big pickles started getting really bad, and I’m almost ready to start tackling them again as I ease my way back in. This one will likely be turned into an origami lily for my mother-in-law. She is now in Long-term Care aka nursing home, and I thought that some bright origami flowers might be a nice touch at her bedside.

Here’s my mom-in-law in the rather lovely courtyard of her nursing home. Yay! Public Health Care, social services and our tax dollars at work. Of course, that’s me on guitar, Dynamo in the middle, and the guy is my husband.

And the latest linocut finishes off some floral gelatin prints from the summer. I never cut such fine lines before, and it marks a departure into a new style with an emphasis on line, leaving plenty of room for the elaborate gelatin layers to shine through.

Mismatched Cats: ACEO Linocut available at Etsy
I’m giving Etsy another shot this season, so I hope you will pardon the odd sales blurb, etc.. This is Rambo (the fat one) and Archer (the tall skinny one). Rambo is my mom-in-law’s cat; well, I guess he’s ours now, but he is still FAT, FAT, FAT. I would never do this to a cat, but I can’t help but think his bulk makes great subject matter.
Enough for now. I need LUNCH, and I need to get downstairs and back to some printmaking.

Life Drawing Tuesdays

2011-09-29T13:52:00.003-04:00

Here’s a new linocut. Actually, it’s a digitally coloured scan of a proof. GIMP is fun, digital effects can let you try on different things. In the real world, it is a ACEO sized softoleum carve, ink-pad stamped on scrap paper. I have yet to do a proper printer’s ink roll and print. This digital version is growing on me. Hmmm… I thought it would go well with the life drawing theme, and so previewed it here. I would love to scale this version up to t-shirt size but it seems that nowadays people get into complete conniptions about any kind of nudity out of sexual context. IE. to me, this looks sensual, but perfectly decent for all eyes, but times have changed, and heck, maybe the fig leaves have been tacked back on to all the Michelangelo's too.

It’s that time of the year again. Once again, Life Drawing with the Latcham Gallery keeps me up way past my bedtime on Tuesday nights. The season begins with the infamous Greg, who ‘mostly’ behaved himself, and as usual did a superb job of modelling. He does really takes the job seriously, and is always concerned about originality and creativity.
We were all a bit rusty from the summer slump, and so opted for a lot of short poses. This one was twenty minutes. Once I got this one down, I felt a huge sense of relief. If I can get one good drawing from the night, I’m quite happy, and my warm up sketches were pretty stiff. This pose didn’t really catch my eye, but as soon as I started, the pencils seemed to find all the curves, and it was pure joy after, phew! The remainder of the night was less than stellar, but that’s okay—I got my one good pic.
For those of you who like extreme close ups of pencil grain, I uploaded it onto FineArtAmerica too. Am I the only one who gets mesmerized by that sort of thing?

Nature’s Creations, Art Show in the Forest

2011-09-24T10:57:00.001-04:00

Saturday September 24th, from 10am to 2pm, Hollidge Tract, York Regional Forest, HWY 48 and Cherry Street.

There will be artists and artisans, from beekeepers (with live bees!) to painters to printmakers (that would be me). I will be doing a printmaking demo this year, from design to printing, I’ll have my linoleum, carving tools, pencils, brayer, ink and paper along so that I can show you how it’s done. Sometimes I feel printmaking is a lost art, as most people confuse printmaking with pushing a button and making a copy of something. It doesn’t help that giclee reproductions are marketed as ‘fine art prints’, leaving no way to distinguish with words alone the difference between an ink-jet printed reproduction and a hand-pressed original work of art. So I thought it best put my apron on, get my hands dirty, and show you what it’s all about. I will carve, squeeze, roll, press and do my print-making thing right up in front of everybody. For the in between times, I will have Edwin the guitalele in hand, and pluck some tunes to pass the time.

For letterboxers, there are a few of mine to be found very nearby---shhhhh…it’s a secret.
For horse lovers, there will be free horse-drawn wagon rides through the woods all day long.

For shoppers, you can peruse anything from fine art to hand-printed t-shirts, pickles to honey, garden sculpture to horticulture. If you are in the mood to buy, there will be art and wares starting in the under $20 gift category and up for yourself and those you love.

For everybody, what a wonderful opportunity to view art in a natural setting while enjoying a fine September afternoon in a gorgeous woodland setting, including guided nature hikes during the day.
PS. My watercolour landscapes and mixed-media forest art will also be available for show and sale.

Gelatin Leaf Prints

2011-09-23T10:10:00.000-04:00

It’s a short art week, given that I was away up North for the long-weekend recharging mental batteries, but I’ve been busy with the gelatin plates. I’m really trying to get some under $50 items ready for September’s show, and these should fit the bill.
I’m loving working with the combination of pure abstraction in form and colour with imprints from natural objects. Not sure if I should confess the curving thin double line is an impression made from dental floss. Oh well, I just did. The black ‘leaf’ as the top note is straight up linocut relief, everything else is pulled from the gelatin plate.

Show: Sept 24th, 2011, 10am to 2pm, Hollidge Tract, York Regional Forest

And below, a WIP. A 2"x3" carve, printed with stamping ink. These will be for the under $10 pile. I made them smaller than previous atc's (by 1/2 inch on both size) so the will be easily framed in a standard mini photo frame.

Home Again

2011-09-22T11:44:00.000-04:00

Pancake Bay Provincial Park, Lake Superior,2010

Musselman’s Lake, Ninth Line, Whitchurch-Stouffville, 2010
This one just to show you that beautiful sunsets can be viewed everywhere.
Hope I didn’t bore you with so many pics. There are many many more, but I just don’t have the time. I should be home again by now (remember, these were post-dated by me), but it may take a few more days to get online again.

Wish You Were Here: the final instalment

2011-09-18T11:45:00.000-04:00

Lake Superior Provincial Park: Gargantua Harbour, 2010
Shortly after our hotdog dinner plans were ruined by the rain, I managed to snap this last parting shot. It’s still raining. Lake Superior is like that, changing by the minute.

Lake Superior Provincial Park, Gargantua Harbour, 2010

Nature’s Bonsai, coastal trail.

Wish You Were Here, continued

2011-09-14T11:13:00.000-04:00

Best Friends: Lake Superior Provincial Park, 2010
Here are the mysterious ‘friends’ who live in the woods that I talk about, Rike on the left, and Gus in the middle. We initially met them in Lake Superior Provincial Park, while walking on the coastal trail, heading to Rhyolite Cove. It seemed like fate, because from the moment we met them, we couldn’t stop talking, and running into one another both accidentally and on purpose in a VERY LARGE park. When we camp, we share the dates and locations, and they usually come for a visit, both in Lake Superior, and Killarney Provincial Park. This year they won’t be making it to Superior (a scheduling problem) but we still have a date for Killarney. Superior, by the way, is about 900 kilometres away from my home.

Coastal Trail, Lake Superior Provincial Park, heading south to Rhyolite Cove, 2010.

This is the view from our 2010 campsite, from under the tarp. While the weather gifted us with a fantastic sunset, it also threw some heavy rain at us, drowning out our ‘hotdog’ fire, and ruining our dinner plans. I took this photo while it was raining. The sunset photo from the previous post was shortly after.

Wish You Were Here

2011-09-09T10:58:00.000-04:00

Lighthouse Island: Gargantua Harbour, Lake Superior Provincial Park, 2010
It’s that time of year again! Yearly I migrate to the coast. Unlike the geese, I head North in the autumn, for pleasant days, and crisp cool nights. Sometimes it even snows! The water is always more or less cold, but if you grit your teeth and jump in, it’s usual great for swimming. Cold, clear, clean, we drink it too. Not that we have a choice. This harbour is about 40 kilometres away from the nearest tap.

This is my husband being very chivalrous, fetching water first thing in the morning when the sun hasn’t had a chance to warm up the shoreline. When the waves kick up the sand, it takes a good long jaunt out to get the good stuff—not that sand is a big deal, but I’d rather not have grit in my coffee.
I’ll be off-line for a bit, enjoying sea, surf and sand (hopefully), so please don’t get worried if I don’t comment or visit your blogs for a bit (and if you haven’t already guessed, I’m using the post-date feature).

Gargantua Harbour: Lake Superior Provincial Park, 2010. Also, a typical photographers self-portrait. Looks like I’m wearing a toque…probably am, but I don’t remember being that cold.

And the Worms too shall have Their Say

2011-09-02T09:00:00.001-04:00

In this case, the worms are tiny green caterpillars (unknown species). These leaves are from my worm-ridden hops vine, usually an unstoppable perrenial, but this year it is decimated into an early state of lace. And so, the artful work of the worms have been preserved for posterity on a gelatin print.

It is hard not to think of death and decay when working with gelatin. It is a product made from the bones of swine (hope I didn’t ruin your day with that), and it is prone to decay. Every gelatin plate has a limited life span with an unknown due date, just like us. As long as I have one cooling in the fridge, it adds a background buzz of anxiety—not much, but it is there. I wonder, will I get the most of the plate? Will the art honour the use of a food product made from animals? Will I pull enough enough prints from it before time renders it unusable? And what wonders, or disasters will appear when it arrives at it’s final stages, mould-ridden, pocked, gelatinous with edges so soft that they slough off with every use?

Mouldy gelatin: about 3 weeks old. This is it’s last day.

Initial test prints from the mouldy gelatin, just to see what innate textures it will have.
There is an artificial and permanent substitute for gelatin. These gel printing plates would be essential to vegetarians, but I too am thinking of getting some. I would love it for the in-between times, when I don’t want to deal with time-limited realities, and for demo’s, when the real thing is just too fragile.
However, I must admit that dealing with gelatin’s fragility and decay is essential to the point of the matter. Nothing is permanent, nothing lasts forever. As artists and collectors, we try to by-pass this thought, using archival this, and archival that, hoping that through art we will achieve some measure of permanence, but once in awhile, it is good to stare into the face of mortality and know we need to grasp every moment as it comes; life is dynamic and short (however long it may be, it will always be short); don’t waste a minute.

Letting Nature do the Talking

2011-08-25T11:16:00.002-04:00

detail of 5'”x7” gelatin print using found natural objects (flowers from my garden)

detail of 5'”x7” gelatin print using found natural objects (weeds from my garden)

5'”x7” gelatin print using found natural objects (flowers from my garden)

detail of 5'”x7” gelatin print using found natural objects (oak and mulberry leaf from industrial parking lot in Markham Ontario)
I’m busy matting and framing for the show, and thought I’d better scan a few before I lock them behind paper and glass. Since I started doing gelatin printing, I’ve been fascinated by the results of using found natural objects, but always felt they needed something more—my stamp, literally. But as I assessed the latest batch with white matt in hand, I began setting some aside as ‘finished’ seeing that I had nothing to add to the picture. Sometimes you need to step back a bit and I don’t have much more to say about it; this time I’ll let nature do the talking.

The Fine Art of Sitting

2011-08-18T09:09:00.000-04:00

Loon: I’ll Watch Your Back. ATC-sized original hand-pressed linocut.
It’s a busy busy world, and everything we we do has a crazed sense of urgency. We speak with denigration of people ‘just sitting around’, but much can be accomplished in this position, a thing that every other creature on this planet knows.

Green Frogs hard a work.
Recently I had the opportunity to visit some very good friends that live in an un-serviced cabin in the woods along the Magnetawan River. There is no road access, and in summer we wait by the shore of Sunset Bay, Harris Lake for our friends to pick us up in their motor boat. As we arrived early at our rendezvous, our weekend began with an introduction to the fine art of sitting. For ourselves, as we had no better option than to make ourselves comfortable on a mossy tussock and enjoy, and for the opportunity to observe an active loon nest (sadly barren, as we later were told), but the loon was a fine example of alert watchfulness (and an inspiration for a new linocut).
And that set the tone for the weekend. It was horribly hot, and flies (all of them huge and toothsome) were swarming in battle-ready battalions on the trails, and in this weather there are only two acceptable activities—swimming and sitting. Of the former, we did enough to turn feet and fingers into pale shrunken things as we made forays along the forested shoreline to a small secluded bay, where, of course, we climbed up onto the rocky shore to sit once again in the shade of tall pines. Back at the cabin, we turned sitting into an occupation, sitting on the couch, at the dining room table, outdoors at the picnic table, on lawn chairs at the east end of the deck, inside the gazebo, outside the gazebo, on the rocks on the shore, and I, all by my lonesome with camera in hand, on the sand of a little weedy bay to watch the frogs who are the Rock Stars of the fine art of sitting. You can learn something from these guys, as they accomplish a great deal just sitting around.
My husband, camera NOT in hand, followed my example, and observed the culmination of their labour, as one snatched an consumed a fly, and another snared a large dragon fly, which took quite some effort to massage down. We’ll have to take his word for it; I wasn’t there.

Green Frog: Yum
PS. Canon 10 mgpx camera used, these frogs let me get REALLY close.

One for the Money

2011-08-12T16:35:00.002-04:00

Chipmunk Dreams, ATC linocut relief hand-printed on Canson Mi-Tientes paper.
One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go.
Now that I'm in 'get ready for September's show mode", this silly ditty seems really apt. Last Saturday I read a news article about a New York artist that sells boxed New York trash (genuine trash hand-picked fresh off of New York streets) at $50 a piece. The lesson an artist can learn from this is: the absolute importance of packaging and marketing. After all, if someone out there can successfully sell trash as fine art, well...
So I'm getting busy, putting my thinking cap on, and doing all sorts of not-particularly creative things. Who likes framing? Anyone? How about cutting paper into ever smaller, but accurately measured pieces? Any takers? Licking and sticking corners….

Squirrel, ATC linocut relief hand-printed on Canson Mi-Tientes paper, with gold-metallic effect.
As I attended Nature's Creations last year, I realized that most of the passers-by were hikers and dog walkers just out for a jaunt in the forest, the art show was a surprise. And with that in mind, I was determined to have more 'take-away' items, under $50 (the latest gelatin prints I’ve been showing off), and under $10 (cards & atc’s). I'm very happy with the atc linocuts on a card. I struggled with the aspect of devaluing original art by turning it into a greeting card. Happily solved it (with additional labour) by mounting each atc with photo-corners that frame and highlight the art, while in no way damaging the piece with any adhesive. These can be popped out and framed. I also reduced the size of the block to 2x3 so that a standard frame won't shave off a half inch of image (which turns out to be a crucial amount for miniature art). The nuthatch was quite a carving challenge in the fine details; I really MUST use reading glasses to carve these little guys. The chipmunk appeared mysteriously and complete on my page as I was drawing the designs for the squirrel. Very strange when that happens, basically, I started with squirrel in mind, as chipmunk appeared on the page. I didn’t fight it, and just let the pencil do it’s thing, and there he is, preserved for all time.

3 for the Show! with a lovely natural mosaic of my pesticide free lawn. It’s not a weed if I like it.
This critters, and others will be accompany in September at the Nature’s Creations Show in York Regional Forest, Hollidge Tract, HWY 48 & Cherry Street, Aurora, Ontario, September 24th, 2011.
PS. I will get back to those ‘thoughtful’ blogposts sometime soon, likely after September. Right now, I have A LOT of catching up to do, and am actually quite happy not to share my ‘inner thoughts’ quite yet.

Works in Progress & Google+

2011-07-28T14:25:00.002-04:00

I finally cooked up new gelatin plates last night. In a hurry, I turned the stove on High, and in the blink of an eye, the whole mess boiled over. It’s an ancient stove, the electric kind with heavy iron burner, open top and plenty of room for disaster. I had to dismantle all the parts, just like my Mom used to do, and scrub and wash the elements, and the iron bowl things (have no clue what you call the parts) and reach underneath and attempt to remove all the gelatin that had oozed under the elements. Yuck.
All’s well that ends well. I’ve pulled a whole bunch of leaf prints. I’m meaning to turn them into 4x6 artworks, but now I’m not sure if I’ll have the heart to do the slice and dice on some of them. We’ll see.

And below the new linocuts I intend to use on the gelatin prints, and some frottage WIP’s on mulberry paper.

And now to google+ , it’s lonely out there! I’ve always been annoyed with twitter and facebook in that every post is all or nothing. With google+ you can (secretly) put people into different categories, such as friends, family, people I know but rather didn’t, people I party with, grandmothers and other nannies, etc.. It solves a lot of socially awkward moments I’m sure. So I’m hoping folks will move on over soonish. So far, I only have one friend in the friend category (thanks Jennifer!), and a small heap of people I don’t know but would like to in the “artists” category. I’m posting my WIP’s there, and you can view them here: 2011 Works In Progress
That’s a Picassa album, so you can just wander over and view them anytime (nothing to do with google+). I’ll try to add more as time goes by. If you click on the little RSS button in the album, you will see WIP as it goes up.
If you do want to try out google+ and need an invite, just send me an email. I would love some company.

Synergies, or why you just never know where things may lead

2011-07-22T09:26:00.002-04:00

So, I once titled an artwork, Remember Where You Came From, But Always Know Where You’re Going (or something to that effect). It’s the knowing where you’re going that can get difficult, especially when life throws in a wrench or two. So when things got hairy for me at the beginning the year, I started casting around, looking for anchors. I didn’t find any, so way back in February, I purchased a big beautiful analogue watch with working compass built in. I figured that, no matter how mixed up I might feel, at the very least I could always get an exact reading on my physical direction. It wasn’t exactly what I was after, but maybe the symbolism would work—or not…

But now, here I am, back at it again (finally!). Before I left off creating art altogether, I was going places with printing on gelatin, but it’s still WAY to hot to cook up a new one (I hate waste), so I’ve been trying other ways to create the same intriguing layers, and, WhOO! coloured pencil frottage over linocuts, cork, and and an old cutting board seem to fit the bill. These are works done in a day, very small, on mulberry paper which is very delicate. I used Prismacolor Sticks for the most part as they have a nice large flat surface, but the colours are limited, so I also used some regular Prisma’s and scribbled gently.

If some of these designs look vaguely familiar—they are. I’m reusing some of my linocuts. One of the reasons I don’t edition plates is that I never know when I’ll be done. With editions, you set a limit at the outset, print off your batch, and (if you’re being honest) destroy your plate. I can’t imagine knowing at the outset how many I would want. But when it comes to monoprints (which these are) it all of that becomes moot, as a monoprint is one-of-a-kind. And, while I carved these plates last year, I don’t feel anywhere close to ‘finished’ with them, especially now that I’ve discovered that a new technique, idea, treatment, etc. may fly in from any direction whatsoever. I actually love playing with variation through repetitions.

In this case, I was just searching through the materials I had at hand, and for something I could accomplish in a day, but when I look at these, I can see all the abstract atc’s I worked on in pencils (I actually have quite a stack), and all the knowledge of layering from my coloured pencil works, and the reworking and overprinting of relief elements on gelatin, all coming together. A synergy, of everything I’ve done thus far.
And I still don’t know where I’m going next, and that’s a good thing.
Technical Stuff: Frottage (at least in the art world (wipe that smirk off your face)) means to rub something across a textured surface to make an impression. In this case the coloured pencil. Most of these had a first layer done over a well used cutting board which created a nice random fill. A large cork coaster adding interesting rough grain, and then it I used my linocuts for top layers and accents. Mulberry paper is very soft, so it was relatively slow (but mesmerizing) process, as I needed to avoid ripping it. Unlike gelatin printmaking, pencil frottage gives the artist a huge amount of control, as layers are created slowly over a long period of time.
For the green one, at each layer, I would fill a small area, and then shift the orientation of the paper.The accent features/lines are a combination of relief/frottage and drawing, one echoing the other.
This was fun, and I’ll do it again, and again, and then try to resist making another frottage joke, really.

Friends and Neighbours

2011-07-17T10:34:00.003-04:00

It’s been awhile. My muse, sociability, and a bunch of other things went into hiding for awhile. Just to get my feet wet again, I thought I’d start with a straight up monochrome linocut, ACEO sized. Life still isn’t predictable enough for me to want cook up a gelatin plate. I’ve seen a few too many in the past six months go rancid before I could make sufficient use of them, and in the current heat wave, a new one wouldn’t last the week, regardless of refrigeration, so I confined myself to more traditional means.
Still, I miss the soft transparencies that one can effect with the gelatin, and I was all out of cream Stonehenge paper, so I had to really scratch my brain out to find something suitable for my cute cats. I found any kind of relief printing to be too harsh a background, and finally tried, and succeed with frottage (fancy French term for rubbing, not always in reference to artistic pursuits). This is a technique most of us tried in Kindergarten the first time around, and I revisited it once in my 1st year of art college. In this case, I only wanted to highlight the linocut image, so using an ochre coloured Prismacolor stick (like the pencil crayon, without the wood) I rubbed up a wood grained background onto mulberry paper.
Simple and direct, and just right for the purpose. I wanted an image I could use to gift my neighbours. Upon hearing the news (see last post) my neighbours to the south handed up (literally, my husband and were on our balcony) a very large bowl of hand picked, warm from the field strawberries, which we gorged on in lieu of a decent dinner. Our neighbours to the north delivered a still warm from the oven home baked rhubarb pie. These were comforting gifts on a number of different levels. I still haven’t gotten around to thanking them, but hopefully, once I get the kitties framed up, I will do so.
So it’s a start. Next week, I’ll probably do some more kitties in lino, getting back to the art in easy steps. I have also been invited back to the York Regional Forest, Nature’s Creations show in September, which gives a goal for moving forward which is distant enough not to intimidate.
Well, enough for now,
and P.S. my 7” internet tablet has been named Purcey, as in Purse –Sized Computer. As soon as I get myself a mini-keyboard, I will be able to compose my words anywhere and everywhere, as opposed to being tethered to my regular computer.

An Update

2011-07-14T14:52:00.000-04:00

My New Thing

2011-06-17T13:16:00.001-04:00

Because you’ve been asking (thank you for thinking of me!) a quick up date. “In the Interim” is still valid. My in-laws are now in Long-Term Care, but life is still messy for them and for me. In the last five months there have been so many ups and downs and changes, concerns, worries, hopes, fears that it feels like my entire sense of self has been plopped into a blender and turned into a milk-shake. I hardly know what to think or how I feel on any given day, and hence have no clue what to say where or when.

In the meantime, I gave myself a VERY large treat. I bought myself an Android 7” tablet computer. Whoo Hoo, and VERY welcome MUCH NEEDED distraction. And I still have no clue what to call it. Referring to it as Tablet is way to medicinal, and I’ve truly had it with any all medical terminology. So I’ve taken to calling it Thing; which can sound really wrong in many contexts, as “I’m fiddling with my Thing”, “I’m getting to know my Thing”, “I’m using my Thing”. So if you have any ideas for a more appropriate, or fun, two-syllable name to reference this device in general conversation, please say so.

So once again, once the sediments have settled in the glass, maybe I’ll have a real update. Right now, um, I dunno. But if you see a hit on your blog from Rogers Markham, or Stouffville it’s probably me just lurking.

This is Rambo, the in-laws cat, now in our care. He is 20lbs, and a whole lotta cat to love. Surprisingly, he’s being a real sweetheart, as he truly lived up to his name at the in-laws house. And yes, he is now on a vet approved diet. A pound a month would be ideal.

Top pic is an iris in the garden. At least some things take care of themselves, although you can see by the peeling paint, the house doesn’t.

Now, if you can give my Thing a name….

And, once I get my head together again, I will be back.

In the Interim

2011-05-19T10:03:00.003-04:00

polystyrene foam plate
My life has become hugely unpredictable and rather busy lately. The former is more disturbing than the latter. I like having ‘my ducks all in a row’ so to speak. Mess up the little rituals and routines of the day, and I get rather lost. I’ve tried to keep up with my art, but it’s not just a matter of lost hours, but so many uncomfortable things to think about of late. At any rate, my in-laws are now playing the waiting game, the least desired ‘coming of age’ ritual that only the luckiest (if you consider maximum number of years spent on this planet desirable) will get to. They are both on lists for what in Ontario is called long-term care (aka nursing home) as of last Friday. Until they get their placements, everyone involved, especially them, and my husband and I are in what I will henceforth refer to as the Pickle.
It is said Pickle that caused me to have to discard a perfectly wonderfully aged and pitted gelatin plate. I’d barely had the opportunity to work with it, and neglected in the fridge, it was weeping (literally) away. Gelatin, apparently, needs care and attention too. It also smells when it doesn’t get washed on a regular basis. So after sending it to the Great Municipal Compost Heap I declared it the Last Gelatine Plate until said Pickle is resolved or I can otherwise schedule a series of uninterrupted days with it.
In the interim, I will continue to do what I call ‘dry work’, when I have the time, and more importantly, the inclination. The inclination is what is fading fastest, as there is not much good on my mind. So drawing the plates and carving linoleum are still on the table. Multilayered, mixed method, gelatin plate monoprints are off. So I thought, what the heck, for a while (we are talking months here) I’ll have to make do with WIP’s, ATC’s, and photo’s.
Hopefully, next time I cook up a gelatin plate, I will have heaps of relief plates and carves stacked in neat categories, ready to press, and layer and orchestrate into something wonderful.

softoleum carvings
PS. I may delete Pickle details in a few days, as this contains a few more personal details than my online blogging comfort zone, but I thought it was time for an update. The short of it is, the Pickle is the same situation I was thrown into in January, the only change is that finally, it is kind of, sort of, limited in time with a possible kind of, sort of happy ending possible.

Small World

2011-05-12T09:26:00.000-04:00

Squirrel corn, dicentra canadensis

asurum canadense/wild ginger

Blue Cohosh,Caulophyllum thaictroides

Scarlet cup/sacosypha coclinea
These are all from my walks in Hollidge Tract, York Regional Forest. There is a lot to see if you look down. The last photo is a montage, with a close up of the the little tiny scarlet cup that you can see in the background (look to the top right of the close-up).
The blue cohosh fascinates me in spring. In just a few days it will look like any other plant, but it comes up matt black/blue and alien looking. I love it at this stage.
The wild ginger is another tiny treasure. The blossom is as big as my thumb.
And the squirrel corn is a delicate springtime favourite with an unfortunately bland name. Dicentra canadensis sounds much more suitable in this case.
Digital cameras with auto-focus and optical zooms are also a wonderful thing. All it takes to get these shots are a good eye and dirty knees.
And maybe, to make the tie with the last post, Enjoy your moments, I should add that all these photo's are taken, rather hastily, during my exercise walk. I use walking (and sometimes cycling) as it is good for both mind and body. I can't imagine why anyone would churn away on a treadmill like a hamster on a wheel.

Enjoy Your Moments

2011-05-03T12:36:00.002-04:00

On the weekend we took my mom-in-law to the hospital to visit her husband. He is 90 and she is 86; they’ve been married for 51 years. In the rehab lounge, we all sat together, my husband, myself, mom and dad-in-law and my dog (yes, they do allow family dogs as visitors (rehab area only) to the hospital). There were other patients in there too, to pet the dog, to watch tv, to chat with us, and to help my dad-in-law with his lunch. It was, in spite of circumstances, a bit of a party. Then, when the others filed out, my dad-in-law began to sing to his wife. I’ve never in my life heard him sing, or say anything remotely romantic, but he sang old romantic sentimental songs eyeball to eyeball with his aging wife and she listened and tapped her feet. I had chills up my spine, being witness to that moment, one of the most romantic moments I’ve ever seen (including books and movies).
When my dad-in-law stopped he got sad, and said, ‘but it’s all only memories’. How sad, and how wrong, that moment in the hospital, the here and the now was such a thing of immense power.
It’s no wonder geese have been on my mind since then; known for life long monogamous partnerships, I think in a round about way I’ve been attempting to capture that moment.
Image Above: monoprint on mulberry paper. Geese are painted onto plate and pressed. I’m working on a foam plate version of the same drawing.
Image Below: Wolf and Raven monoprint. Gelatin plate and foam and linocut relief. For close up details, you can hobble on over to my fineartamerica site.
Wolf & Raven details at fineartamerica

Moving On

2011-04-19T11:22:00.002-04:00

Featuring cute cats on an unmade bed is probably not the most impressive of blog posts, but hey, some small good news for a change. Archer lost his best buddy, and Riker (the fluffy guy on the right) is his arch enemy. Honest, when the two make eye contact, there is major histrionics: hissing, spitting, a nightmare howling. They really don’t get along, trust level zero.
So this morning, Archer my lad crawls out of bed, notices Riker taking up space, and the howling begins. I gently pet Archer down, literally, beside Riker, and leave them together. Archer eventually leaves the scene (without spitting noises) and settles down with me. Later in the day, I find him back in bed (still unmade—never disturb a cat in bed) as photographed here. It’s nice that some critter in this world is willing give my suggestions a try.
And just to keep things on track. Let me find some art to post.

Greg from life drawing at Latcham. I’ve been doing a lot in black and white lately, including my art cards. Sometimes I add red and silver.

And one of my ‘faces’ art cards. While faces keep spontaneously appearing on paper, the stories are less than forthcoming.

Emergence

2011-04-08T08:29:00.002-04:00

Bare branches, warming skies.

But hidden among last years fallen leaves, this years spring flowers. (dutchmans breeches, I think)

Of course, pretty flowers are not the only things revealed from their slumber beneath the snow.

It is, after all, mud season. Hopefully spring blossoms will take over soon, colouring up a world of grey and brown.
PS. I’ve been doing more lurking than commenting. I haven’t felt the most sociable, but I’m still reading. And for those of you who know what’s going on here, it’s still going on, just the same as it was, no more and no less.

Lennier will be sadly missed

2011-03-24T11:03:00.002-04:00

Last night he leapt onto the bed and crawled into my lap as usual. He often preceded me into bed where I, for an hour or two, read and work on my 365 art card project. So I suppose there is no coincidence that last night I drew his portrait yet again. I don’t know when or why, but he passed away in the night. This is the last life drawing of him I will ever do. He was always getting in the way, climbing onto my book, especially the page I was reading, and looking back at me to make sure he’d sufficiently interrupted me and claimed my attention. Most of my art cards have been made using him as a back rest because insisted on sitting on me. This was always accompanied with a soundscape of continuous purring. He could purr for hours; I’m sure he enjoyed hearing himself as much as I did. Last night I thought everything was fine as I drew his image, but in hindsight, the image is, well, something different from the others.

Lennier was Archer’s best buddy; they spent most of their day piled up together, and sometimes piled up on me.

And this is an aerial view of the family circle during winter breakfasts.
Enough words.

Suburban Encroachment

2011-03-18T19:57:00.000-04:00

This is an image done for a postcard print exchange, the theme was Apocalypse (any interpretation).
Look close. This one has three layers. The first is an image of a township planning map that I digitally altered and printed (inkjet) onto cardstock. The second layer (pale brown) is a gelatine print using polystyrene foam. I inscribed the little animals onto the foam with a mechanical pencil; the fine point lead gave me a very delicate line. Then I inked the gelatin plate with a very thin dry layer and pressed the foam onto that. To get this level of detail took plenty of practice. In this case the foam pressed onto the plate lifts away ink, and the inscription is left behind. The last/top layer is a conventional linocut, hand pressed. I used brown, black and red ink, randomly mixed as I wanted each print to turn out just a little bit different.

This is the back of the postcard, so that I only need to lick and stick a stamp to send them off.

Here’s is all of them, except for 2 discards (the inevitable ‘errors’ referred to--always make extra when printing by hand).
The exchange is run by the IOWA State University Print Society, and the deal is to send them 13 postcards. One is kept for the University, and the other 12 are sent out to other participants. In other words, I will find in the mail 12 different postcards from other exchangers. This years theme is Apocalypse, any interpretation. You see mine, (predictable for anyone who knows me). I can’t wait to see 12 other random interpretations.

PS. Letterboxers, a bit of a spoiler, but I'll be splitting the linocut into two letterbox stamps. I hate waste, will be glad to give these a new life soon.

PPS. The stamps for US mail were foxes! What serendipity. A fox on the front and a fox on the back, this was not planned.

Life Drawing Tuesday

2011-03-15T10:36:00.002-04:00

On a whim, I picked up my silver pencil crayon. The silver gives some unusual qualities to the line as the tone changes with the light and angle of view. Somehow, it felt appropriate for what I was thinking about at the time, as I was full of thoughts about my mom-in-law and how her own abilities to think and perceive seem to change from moment to moment. Like her, this image looks different depending on how you look at it. (of course, none of this is apparent with a static scanned reproduction).

And with silver pencil again, got completely off topic and just had blast with colour (oil pastels on black paper). And again, on line it’s impossible to share the liveliness of using metallics for line work. If you have a silver pencil, just try it for yourself and you’ll see.

Skating on the Lake (Musselman’s Lake)

2011-03-10T08:52:00.003-05:00

It doesn’t happen often that we get to skate on natural ice, usually there’s too much snow, too many lumps, etc. It’s March now, and the weather has become manic. Drenching downpours one day, followed by heaps of snow and vicious winter winds, changing to sunshine and mild. Somehow, through all of this, some large patches of shiny ice appeared on Musselman’s Lake.
Whoo hoo! Time to pull the skates out of the closet and give it a whirl, and no time to lose either, with the weather blowing every which way.

It’s such a rare treat, I consider it a BIG EVENT in my life, the sort of stolen hours that you remember forever and over and over and over again. But as all such things, it must come to an inevitable end--these photo’s were taken Tuesday evening., and yes, by the time I’m writing this, it has since snowed, and now it is rains with much more rain in the forecast. I won’t be skating on lakes again anytime soon.

In fact, on a meteorological note, this last weather shows you the new (current) warm wet front sliding in.
More art later, but I take so many photographs that remain unseen that I really wanted to trot some out.
Here's some skating art that I did last year Skating Party-Magnetawan River 2009

More from the 365 Art Card Project

2011-03-03T13:23:00.002-05:00

It’s probably time to rename it, I’m probably well past 365 or the one year mark, especially if I count those that I burn, erase, or flip and use the other side (yes, I do all of those things). In fact, I had a lovely burning ceremony this very morning (it was clean-up morning) and the flames were a lovely thing.
My art cards keep coming, sometimes in mounds, often in series, although some series are spaced out over months/ years? Due to certain changes in family circumstances, both guitars and black cats crop up again and again, while the forest art fades in the background. While I still spend as much time as ever in the woods (it’s my version of gym or fitness centre), my head doesn’t get there very often. I’m overwhelmed by people matters, and people things and I’m not a people person. So I still feel like I’m floating in unknown waters without a horizon in sight. And while it’s not a terrible place to be, it’s not yet become part of my comfort zone. So, as usual, I don’t have too much to say.
Here’s the rest of the cats and guitars. I’ve been sorting the art cards. They are all 3.5x2.5 inches, often on recycled art. They all scale up, and if I could only bring myself to make the decision, I decide on a few.
The one above, btw, would be my guitalele (1/4 size guitar). I’ve never actually played it for my mom-in-law, but I love the little thing (named Edwin) as it has remarkable twang and is ideal for playing renaissance tunes. I purchased it for travelling, and it’s been to Lake Superior, Killarney Provincial Park, and Magnetawan River. It’s slept in gear hamper of the tent, and on the dashboard of our van.

And now I’m off to pack up my guitar (the full-sized one, named Edward) and visit with the mom-in-law, the black cat and play some more tunes.

I Love My Guitar

2011-02-25T09:22:00.002-05:00

click for details (fineartamerica)
When I first drew the initial sketch, I had other things to say about the guitar, but since then, things have changed. The guitar has become my voice when words fail me. It’s a rusty, chippy, uninformed, severely limited beginners voice, but it serves me well. The guitar smooth's over awkward moments, fills in the silence where there is nothing to say, hides tears when they fall, regulates breath, all those things. Often I don’t know what to say, sometimes there really is nothing to say, and maybe that is what music is for.
I picked up my guitar for the first time in many years late last August. It was a vague notion that it in contrast to my art, which is such a solitary activity (with rare exception), music might actually be a sociable form of expression. I had no idea how soon and how badly I would need this skill. Now I visit my mother-in-law 4 days a week. I do my best to keep her company, but it is often awkward. I would not describe myself as ‘good with people’ and nerd would be a kinder word for my social skills. So I bring the guitar, she likes it (and the dog, of course). And it helps, so while I am endlessly and maddeningly short on time for my art, I’ve certainly had plenty of time with the guitar.
click for details (fineartamerica)
On the art note: these are more foam plate prints, from a sketch I drew onto foam with a pen. It really is that simple, at least to begin with. The first image is a traditional monoprint. That is, I painted colours onto the plate, then pressed onto paper. I did this multiple times over paper prepared with black acrylic paint. The acrylic support allows for a few touch ups at the end, as the ink is water-soluble.
Next is a gelatin print, where I printed off of the gelatin plate, including pressing the inked foam onto the gelatin. It has a very subtle effect, beautiful up close but invisible at a distance, so I decided to pick out major details with coloured pencils while being careful to leave the fine gelatin details visible.

Here’s another, gelatin textures for the background, direct relief printing for the foreground. I used masking, and rough mixing for colours and textures. I don’t like ‘clean’ prints as they look machine made, and I don’t want to emulate push-button printing.

Another gelatin, with the foam pressed first onto the gelatin then the paper. The possibilities are with monoprints are endless.
PS. I added links to Fineartamerica so that you could see the details. So far it’s the fastest way to do that. And now I’ve used up 15 more minutes of my allotted (self discipline here) social networking time. Gosh, time flies, bye.

Life Drawing Tuesday

2011-02-23T08:41:00.000-05:00

This one from my sketchbook reserved for quick gestures. What I thought was a two minute pose stretched into 10, so I added in the portrait. Have to admit, the model was treat for the eyes, and a welcome distraction. He was also a great model, giving dynamic professional poses with a lot of thought put into the point of view of the artist. This one done with 'expresso' prismacolor pencil (a very nice shade of umber)

Life Drawing Tuesdays

2011-02-15T11:07:00.002-05:00

Indulging in my love of heavy dark lines, and the colour red. Red prismacolours pencil crayon and Inktense watersoluble pencils on Strathmore watercolour paper.
And, still keeping my hand in printmaking. This one gelatin and polystyrene foam, monoprint. Detail shots at fineartamerica, (just click on this image). And remember, ‘prints’ for sale there are reproductions, for originals, contact the artist (that would be me).

PS. not much change in my life. The time crunch is still severe, the issues in a holding pattern, everything pending. I’m having dreams about being lost on almost familiar streets, and no matter where I go, I can’t quite figure out where I am…

Man in the Moon

2011-02-11T13:23:00.002-05:00

Monoprint using gelatin plate and polystyrene foam relief. Edges are the natural result of printing from a gelatin plate. This one began with a disgustingly old and mould gelatin, from which I printed layers gaining texture and interest from both the brayer and gelatin. This was followed by layers of relief printing from my foam plate doodles. Nothing was planned; I let it form organically, although each successive layer was nerve wracking as I watched it develop into something I liked. I used newsprint (actually once read newspaper) for masking out sections, and the very last layer is the slim white semi-circle which has had a silvery metallic effect added (obviously not visible here).
With work like this I usually provide details. It’s extra time spent with imaging software, so I’ve decided to try out FineArtAmerica. I upload the entire file, and with a mouse hover, people can check out the details. Fun. Makes me want to do some digital art with details. So if you want to see things up close and personal, here’s the link: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/man-in-the-moon-ingrid-schmelter.html
And although the site confuses things; grrrr…. the ‘prints’ available for sale are reproductions/copies of prints, but I can’t change the migration of the English language and common use.
And as usual lately, I’m running out of time, gotta upload, flaming errors and all and run….bye.

Life Drawing Tuesdays

2011-02-08T09:13:00.002-05:00

Wordless, mostly, post.
Figure drawing on white bond paper in coloured pencil.

Big Fat Black Cat

2011-02-04T08:53:00.002-05:00

So things have changed here, and, as my secret Santa printmaker friend says, I must ‘make art fast’. Here’s a brief of what is going on. I have very elderly in-laws, and my dad-in-law is in hospital for an indefinite time, and mom-in-law is home alone. So what used to be ‘art days’ are now broken up with a friendly visit and checking in on her. Some minor chores, some shopping, some worry, some conversation, and then I play guitar (rather badly; I haven’t been at it 6 months yet) but she’s fairly deaf and it’s more to pass the time and fill the pauses in conversation than a concert of any kind.
While all art is a reflection of the artist, art is also a reflection of their life. I couldn’t paint the forests of my region if I didn’t spend a huge amount of time there. And now, I’m spending time with my mother-in-law. She has a very big fat black cat (named Rambo). In her ‘younger’ days, we used to complain bitterly of the cruelty of overfeeding an animal into obesity, but Rambo is a ‘working’ cat, keeping an elderly couple company 24/7 and I suppose the obesity goes with job. She loves animals, and so I have to bring Dynamo, my German Shepherd dog. While she gets along with my own three cats, she does get overly excited in the presence of Rambo and needs curbing. With the frequent visits she is beginning to settle down. I can’t help but see the graphic possibilities of these two creatures interacting, black and black, small and large, obese and lithe and so the images have crept into my 365 art card project.

And, as it was Dad-in-law’s 90th birthday yesterday I made this poster from one of them.

That’s it, I have some print making to day, then visiting. For those of you who emailed me with your support. Thank you so much! It means so much to me to read your words and feel your support. Sorry, simultaneously in advance and belatedly for my late response (which hasn’t happened yet). I’m a juggler of time right now and the previous sentence is looking oddly quantum.

Sorry About the Silence

2011-01-25T09:53:00.002-05:00

Full Moon, Hollidge Tract. 8x10 on 9x12 paper, watercolour.
One of the best parts of winter is getting to see the forest at night without the bother of staying up late. It’s dark by 6pm for the months of December and January, and without snow, it is a sad sight to see, but couple moonlight and bright snow and we get scenes of pearlescent beauty.
PS. The big PS. Sorry about the silence. We are having some family health issues, and I’m having to revisit my priorities, and things are still not settled. It’s nothing I want to blatt about on the blog, but if you have been a regular reader, if you send me an email I will share the facts in that more private manner. It’s nothing secret, it’s just not blog fodder. For everyone else, my blogging may be sporadic, and I will not promise to be peaking at everyone’s blogs on a very regular basis. I’m hoping to do so, and will when I can as much as possible, and hope to get back to sociability soon.

No Spoilers Here…

2011-01-11T14:21:00.002-05:00

Not wanting to post spoilers, here’s a detail from my Year of the Rabbit Print Exchange. If you want the whole bunny, you’ll have to visit the Proof Studio Gallery and other exhibition locations (just follow the rabbit link).
What you see here is relief linocuts pressed into gelatin, followed by hand drawn ‘transfer’. The transfer method is also printmaking, as it involved an inked plate pressed onto paper.

This is a detail from another bunny. The leaves are cut outs of polystyrene foam, the blue-gray flowers are transfers, the orange lattice is glassware (found objects) pressed into the gelatin. I confess for these pics I really had to bump up the contrast. They need to be viewed in good light, from a short distance and in reality are all a soft dreamy pastel.
I thought I’d post these to give you an idea about the multi-layered process. The I work it, is relatively unpredictable, and I never know where I’m going, which makes printmaking pure adventure. Like any, sometimes I run into dead ends, and some just keep on continuing. I started out with 6 inked ‘rabbit’ papers using mouldy gelatin (as disgusting as it sounds) and rabbit cut outs as a mask. I worked up 2 to 3 layers and put the project away for Christmas. I brought 4 to the finish line on Friday, just in time to ship them off to the gallery on time. I still have 2 rabbits I’m working on, and I have no idea what will happen. Maybe magic, maybe mud…
sorry for being a hermit lately, I’ve been busy…

For those that are curious, I've added more of printmaking in my Printmaking Gallery and there are additional 365 Art Card Project images too (should have been my next blog post, maybe later). If you visit, the new ones are down at the bottom until I find time to reorder things.

Okay, gotta run…ink is drying on the plate…

Fun with Meat Trays

2011-01-03T14:55:00.002-05:00

I finally finished watching a video titled “Foam is Where the Art Is”. I watched it in little segments after supper over the course of several days, and irreverently kept referring to it as “Fun With Foam”. Given that the foam referred to is the soft disposable styrofoam (polystyrene) most commonly encountered as a meat tray (also take-out containers), I started calling it Fun With Meat Trays, especially after washing out the first bloody one (ewwww…). The foam in use here is actually the top of a curry (I think) take-out container that I fished out of the garbage. The circle was dictated by my limited supply and the fact that I just happened to borrow a book on Celtic Art from the library.
The above print is a gelatin print with linocuts as texture, two layers of colour, topped by my double spiral foam plate with sections masked out. The masked sections (the centre upper and lower) where added in afterwards as monotypes. Confused? This why sometimes free (as info) is not as good as the stuff you pay for. The video is explains things in ways I never could and honestly well worth cash, but here’s the easy peasy version…
Save up your foam containers (although you can buy in bulk too), slice off any part that is not flat. Doodle on it with a ball point pen. Roll out some ink, ink the foam, press onto paper.

White paper, plated inked with pink and yellow with the upper centre & lower design masked out (cut paper), plate pressed by hand, followed by a layer of turquoise ink (no masking).

This one gets complicated. It begins with a circle of black acrylic paint, then pressing several coloured layers of the foam plate, including masking. The outside of the circle was done by rolling the inked brayer (rubber roller) over the foam plate and then over the paper. The final layer was the hand drawn swirls in turquoise, which were done by inking a thin flexible plastic sheet (sheet protector), laying it on top of the paper and drawing on top of that with a stylus, creating a transfer effect.
Showing all three monoprints together displays some of the range of expression you can get with using foam, although it’s pretty much unlimited and this is just a tiny sample.

Here is the well used plate; I believe it was chicken curry, as it’s marked with a c c in sharpie on the other side. Garbage can be beautiful. Have fun, after all, foam is free so you can’t go wrong.
More circles will be forthcoming. It turns out that used supplies are more difficult to procure than I thought (our in home meat trays yield a maximum 4” x 6” printing plate, twice a week, maybe), and while I would prefer (for moral and environmental reasons) to reuse used trays, it looks like I’ll have to buy wholesale. In the meantime, I bought a pack of 22 disposable polystyrene plates for a whole precious dollar + tax, and will thus will make 22 circular designs, and just see where that takes me. I think 22 circles will not be too many; there are so many possibilities to explore.
Sources:
Celtic Art, the Methods of Construction by George Bain (still in print). Unlike other books, it shows you preliminary layouts with guide lines and dots so you can learn to draw these complex patterns from scratch rather than trace or copy. I find the process of construction helps me understand the principles of the design in a deeper way than copying could ever do. You will likely be seeing more along these lines from me.
Video “Foam is Where the Art Is” by Annette Mitchell. I received mine is part of the Santa printmaking gift package I received in early December, but it’s still available on-line. If you want a very comprehensive look at printing with foam, I recommend it. Quilters, take note: Annette also displays gorgeous art quilts on the website, so wander over and take a gander.
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Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T13:03:00.001-05:00

Enjoy your celebrations all.

PS. That’s not fiction, those are my old ski boots, duct-taped together for the season, and finally, finally, finally I got myself a brand spanking new pair.

Scaling Up, from very tiny to…

2010-12-14T11:33:00.001-05:00

Something bigger.

I’ve been doing my 365 Art Card Project for many months now. Each card, is a little artwork in it’s own right (or a practice, experiment, therapy or any and all of the above). Some of them become the body of my Itty Bitty Little Books. When I want to work out a new painting now, I use the art cards also. Unlike rough sketches and thumbnails, the fact that I consider these little guys a finished product makes me work at the details in a serious way. But often, I just do them. Just like that, no agenda, just to see what will happen. Like the one below, done with mechanical pencil on Yupo. Which I keep going back to, looking at, thinking, hmmmm… what about a larger mixed media. I decided the fine lines would scale up nicely to 18”x24” which, for me, is REALLY REALLY BIG. But it will give me plenty of room for line and texture and colour in and amongst the negative space. I decided, since I really felt the atc was successful, to use technology to scale up, and printed it onto 4 pages, reconstructed with cello tape, and trace onto a graphite transfer sheet (8x10 paper, thoroughly coated in pencil, by hand). I had all the tools laid out for this photograph, but by the time I fetched my camera, Dynamo had inserted herself into the picture. So instead of moving her, I snapped away, then worked around her to do the tracing. This project should take awhile, and I will pick away at it between printmaking and watercolour and Itty Books and 365 Art Cards, and now I’m getting a head ache. No wonder I feel stressed for time.

But I thought it about time I took of the brakes and just go….I mean the atc size has really done that for me already on a tiny scale, but sometimes you just need more room.

Walking at Night

2010-12-09T15:02:00.000-05:00

November, December, January. These are dark times for Canadians, darker still for those who live further north than I do, and dark enough for me here in the bottom end of the sock of southern Ontario. Daylight hours are numbered, and seem darker still when in November we set our clocks back an hour resulting in even less available sunlight for anyone on a regular work day schedule. Sundown happens sometime around five o’clock, so there’s not much of it left for a pre-supper walk, and given that the season is also notorious for heavy overcast skies (not to mention rain in November hopefully snow by December) darkness falls fast.

It has it’s perks. Darkness, like snow transforms the familiar into something else entirely. How you interpret this depends on you and the weather. It’s hard to get a good cozy feeling out in the woods on a moonless overcast night. Try it sometime, by yourself; if you think a dog helps, go for it. Just see how you feel when that dog starts looking nervously over her hairy should every half minute or so.
On the other hand, there really is nothing better than walking at night under the light of the moon, add in some snow and it’s easy to believe in elves and fairies, or whatever else strikes your fancy.

Or, you can just open your eyes and be in the world as it is and see that even in darkness the forest lives and breaths and glows with life, more than you will ever know.
Images: All 2.5”x3.5” cards, recycled (that means chopped up bits of aborted watercolours) paper, ink and watercolour pencils. Top image inspired by the golden November tamaracks that fooled me into thinking the sun was still shining after sundown. The second inspired by a very dark session on an overcast moonless nights (not so much fun at all). Last, a beautiful full moon night with a gauzy overcast halo effect, and yes, there actually is a big rock in the Hollidge Tract. These are from my 365 Art Card Project.

Yes, there really is a Santa Claus

2010-12-05T14:53:00.001-05:00

‘Tis the Season for giving; and I haven’t even begun. Instead, I’m the recipient. I think my jaw fell to the pavement when the mail lady delivered this to my door, and I’m still experiencing the joyful sensation of shock and awe of being spoiled from afar. Just look at all this stuff! Stacks of Art Calendar, a business magazine for artists, 3 reference books on figure drawing. A big glossy book on monotype printmaking, a video on printmaking (and yes I do still own a vcr to view it on), coloured pencils, watercolour pencils, magazines with articles on framing art, cat poetry and art, and a beautiful cloth bound blank sketchbook. Sorry if I sound like a kid at Christmas who was just visited by Santa Claus, but really, my Santa came through early. And who but Santa could possibly know me so well as to send me such perfect and timely selection?

I was not expecting this, really not expecting this. All this bounty was sent through the mail from a fellow printmaker in the states, one of those I refer to as ‘anonymous donor’ (there are a few). Last year it was a big box of coloured printers ink, a gift that changed the course of my art in a large and permanent way (re: my VERY colourful gelatin prints). And this year, well, just look. Wow! I have a lot of reading to do. I already know it’s time to work on a portfolio, as per instructions in Art Calendar, and, well more…

Sorry for blathering on, but all I can say is that this packet arrived on a day when I was feeling particularly out of sorts and it really, really, changed the course of my day.

Well, now…I think I had better start working on this years Christmas card design. The snow is falling fast and thick, and time is rushing by.

Not Just a Walk in the Park

2010-12-02T12:06:00.001-05:00

Hoover Park Drive, Stouffville: watercolour and graphite, 10”x 8”.

There is so much that remains untold in a landscape. Those pretty pictures of pristine forest, not a human in sight, and I’m guilty as charged. There is so much untold in my personal story, much that I will not say. It’s lovely to present all the beauty of the forest, of stretches of woodland that thrive in the area, and I probably (and quite wilfully) present myself as surrounded continually by woodlands, a modern day Grey Owl. But like him, it’s a bit of a lie. I don’t, for instance, discuss my part-time job that takes place in the industrial bowels of Markham. The less said about that, the better, I say, but the experiences I have there are always lurking in the background. I do my best to hide them from public viewing.

And art is often like that, especially what I call living room art, the type of art that is easy on the eye, and fits in with the decor. We edit out the unsightly details, for aesthetics, we say. Because the parked car, the discarded cup, the power lines, etc. interrupt the composition, or flow, or colour scheme. The excuses are legion, but sometimes truth must be told.

There is so much of life that seems so devoid of meaning that it feels unmentionable. The mundanity of shopping, for instance. Every Saturday, or Sunday, I go shopping; how cliché. I drive down to downtown Stouffville (yes, there is such a thing), and head along Hoover Park Drive to the local Walmart (and one should never admit to shopping at Walmart, And it’s a pretty sad drive as one cruises along extra wide suburban streets, brand new yet oblivious to the looming crisis of our car culture, and the cookie cutter houses clustered around the big box stores with parking lots so vast I often park twice in one shopping session. And along the way, a tiny beleaguered mini-forest, a last straggling stand of trees left untouched by voracious development, with a token plantation or ‘ornament’ trees, the tamaracks. Behind the trees, there is turned earth, stripped bare awaiting more the back hoes and pile drivers for some industrial ‘park’. To the fore, a river of concrete and combustion engines and of course I’m there, driving one too. We are all complicit.

What I wonder is, what does all this do our collective souls as we cut ourselves off from nature, which could better be described as ‘the way things work’, as a forest is alive with life AND death, while concrete is a sterile space that denies everything. And even while I’m walking in the woods my view of the forest is always at a distance, comfortable or otherwise, as I am only a tourist there, not a denizen.

Sunshine after Dusk

2010-11-26T13:08:00.000-05:00

Darkness falls early in November, and I find myself in the woods after sunset, when the colours are leeched from the land, and all is shades of grey, followed by formless darkness.
Looking up, just after sundown, I see gold in the tree tops. I'm mystified and mesmerized. How does the sun, which has dipped below the horizon reach the tops of the trees?
Looking up, I invent theories of reflection and refraction, sundogs and high altitude ice particles, anything to explain the strange phenomena of sunlight shining high in the trees after sundown. The moon is up, cold and white. Could it be moonlight?
I finish my walk, in darkness. Both the ordinary kind and the knowledge kind, my question remains unanswered.
On the weekend, I recall the tamaracks that grow in the forest. They flourish in a plantation in the North Tract, York Regional Forest. I don't often walk the North Tract; it is a relatively 'new' forest, and too much of it covered by obvious row-planted trees. It has life, but lacks aesthetics, but this is the place to go if you wish to see the autumn glory of the tamarack. I thought of it a little late, spending all October visiting Uxbridge's Glen Major Tract and enjoying the colours of the mixed maple woodlands. It's late in the season and it may be too late, but suddenly it all seems very urgent.
I drag my husband along. He his willing to the adventure, but time is limited, as he has tickets for the evening. I promise him a direct route through the woods, as I know exactly where that stand of tamarack lies. And while this is true, I quickly realize that I don't know the path. I make choices that begin in the right direction and veer repeatedly away from the destination. This happens with each path I take, and while there are plenty of side trails leading away from my destination, none seem willing to take me there. I realize the origin of the enchanted forest archetype, and the living trees that move and reshape the trails to entangle visitors and leave them lost and wandering forever.
Well, it's not quite that bad, afterall, I am here, returned to write this post. Eventually, I found a trail the cut in the right direction, and quickly veered away again, and another trail, the cut in the right direction and then meandered dog style in a convoluted serpentine that eventually led us directly beneath a stately tamarack, still brilliant shining gold.
Looking up, my husband (not known for poetic flights of fancy) said, "It's just like sunshine". Looking up I thought so too.

The next time I walked in the woods after dusk, I looked up and saw the golden tops of trees shining amidst the gloom and finally made the connection. The 'sunlight' I perceived in the tree tops was nothing more nor less then the autumn gold of the tamaracks still gleaming in the dusk.

I haven't been able to get the tamaracks out of my mind since, and so far am working on my third painting of tamaracks.

And as a brief synopsys of our adventure, we didn't get out of the woods quite on time, had hustle, really hustle back to the car, but my husband was so thrilled the phenomenon of the tamaracks that he didn't mind at all.

Watercolours are 9"x12"; I have a new batch of masking frisket, and have put it to good use. I don't think I want to be without it again.

More on Gelatin Printmaking

2010-11-21T15:07:00.002-05:00

It’s been awhile, as I found that during the summer, my gelatin plates were disintegrating in the most disgusting way far to quickly (they go mouldy). For those of you who don’t already know, gelatin printing involves cooking up a batch of gelatin, pouring into a mould, letting it set (usually overnight) and the next day rolling ink onto it with a brayer. The method itself ensures that each impression is unique, discarding the need for ‘editions’.
I use two plates for my printing, one a large slab of 9”x12”, and a second small square of 5”x5”. For the print above, I began by rolling out yellow onto the large plate, then presssed my relief linocuts onto the surface for texture, and then lay my paper on top and gently rub by hand. The process gets repeated many times (overprinting) as I change colours. I also used the small plate as a ‘stamp pad’. I ink the small plate, then lay the linocut onto the slab to ink it up, and then ‘stamp’ onto the large plate. It has a distinctive ‘bubbly’ and translucent quality. The finally layer in two shades of blue is inked the traditional way by apply ink directly to the linoleum with a brayer which adds an opaque top layer.
I never know where I’m going with these, I only know when I’m done (if I’m lucky). If I’m unlucky, I’ll add one layer too many and kill the whole thing. I usual work several sheets at a time and watch them as they each develop into unique works of art. Usually, I spend a certain amount of time ‘listening’ the work as it progresses as I decide on what the next layer should be. Out of all my artwork, I’d have to call the gelatin prints the most serendipitous but also enjoyable. Like walking into an unknown maze, I never know where I’ll end up, but eventually I get to somewhere interesting.

Here’s an example of one I need to ‘listen’ too. It may be finished, but a little low contrast. The red top lay is achieved using the second small plate to ink up. Below, two details so that you can see the ‘bubbly and translucent’ texture this extra step give. After scanning and blogging this one, I’m thinking the image is finished but it took me a few days to come to this conclusion.

Mess coalescing into some semblance of order.

2010-11-19T09:57:00.002-05:00

An Update from my 365 Artcard Project.

I’ve been at this since (some undefined time), but suffice to say, at one point in time, there were none, then some, now many and it’s only just begun. Since ‘whenever’ I’ve kept close at hand tiny 2.5” x 3.5” pieces of paper, often recycled from failed artworks (sweet revenge). At night before bed (while in bed, btw), while visiting (before guitar) and while in the car waiting for doors to open, I work on these small works of art.

I named it the 365 Artcard Project, a name nondescript enough to leave the field wide open to experiment and explore all sorts of avenues. A project to plenty of room for discovery. Because I didn’t want to set myself up for failure or impose limits, I never pledged to do one per day. Instead, I do as many as often as I can; days go by without progress followed by spurts of multiples. While I do keep most, as even the worst of them can reveal germs of ideas and threads to riff off of, I do allow myself to discard, reuse or destroy those I wish to disappear.

After many months I have a huge amount, and nope, I’m not counting them. I’d rather just watch the pile grow. Threads and themes emerge as I sift through the pile and I sort them, more or less, accordingly. Dropped months previous are pulled forward into my mind, and abandoned ideas seen with fresh eyes.

Above is their home; looks like an expanded wing should be on order. The piles are loosely sorted by their apparent themes.

By the Sea

Faces, etc…
Actually, I’ve put a bunch up in Picasso photo album. You’re welcome to rummage through. The singles featured in the album are all from the first month when I ambitiously intended to scan and post each one individually (quickly abandoned because it would leave no time for art!). At the time, I was trying anything and everything, but styles and methods developed from those scattered beginnings and now coalesce into some semblance of order.
This is my idea factory, you can peak at more here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kaslkaos/365ArtCardsProject#

Finding the Line

2010-11-12T09:54:00.001-05:00

If you follow this blog, you already know that I paint in water colour, off and on, but I have to admit, that often enough they don’t feel like ‘my’ paintings (the more realistic the less I like them). Lately, I’ve had another ‘bout’ of continuous watercolours, as I was feeling rusty, I just kept at it, over and over again (some get recycled into my artcard project so you won’t see them here). I have always been fascinated by wet in wet wash technique but it’s very difficult to control and I’m very frugal meaning I don’t experiment enough.

So in the past, I’ve felt a real disconnect between styles of my watercolours (most of them, not all) and my other works of art. But this one is really mine.

I love lines, lines of all kinds, and this is the major reason I love coloured pencils as one can compose full colour paintings made up entirely of lines. What, then, am I doing in watercolours? I suppose it was somewhat of matter of faith that things would come around if I keep hammering away at it. And yes, sometimes art (or a lot of times) art feels just like that, kind of like jogging while wearing a 50lb backpack in order to learn how to fly.

Top Image: Exotics: from Uxbridges Glen Major Tract, top of the hill, reclaimed gravel pit area.

Above: Staghorn Sumac (this one is the 3rd try, the two previous are have been sliced up into future 2.5’x3.5’ art cards for my 365 Art Card Project, yep, I’m THAT frugal. (and I’ll be blogging about that later, but you can see the pics on Picassa now)

Below: Maple Line, more from Uxbridge Glen Major Tract. Fall colours were astounding in the soft damp weather of October.

These are not on Etsy yet, but others that have not been blogged are.

Spontaneous

2010-11-07T19:42:00.001-05:00

I’ve been working through a number of watercolours since my return from holidays. Some of them you have seen, some of them you will see, and others will never be seen except by me. I’ve worked in watercolour on and off, most often when I want to work with photo reference, and I’ve always been very careful as mistakes are, for the most part, indelible. I consider it a good medium for discipline in this regard, but much of what I’ve done in the past was more or less ‘realism’ which is not my style. I suppose I felt a need to ‘go there’, perhaps to prove a point, and it was also a ‘safe’ direction to go while learning. Well, I’m still learning (and hope that process never stops) and this week I needed to abandon my masking frisket as it became all but unusable. With that crutch out of reach (but on my shopping list, I like the stuff) I felt free to just load up the page with colour and see what happens. It helps that there was a scene in my head that never had been translated into a photograph, and here it is. Fall Fantasy, inspired by South Glen Major Tract, Uxbridge, during peak colours in October.

I’m still scratching my brain out trying to come up with my next mixed media/coloured pencil project. I have not a clue what I want to settle down with for a few weeks of time. In the meantime, there’ll be plenty of water colour.
Fall Fantasy is available on Etsy.

Slime

2010-11-05T11:31:00.002-04:00

Some of my favourite fungi are slime. Introducing the red raspberry slime, aka tubifera ferruginosa. This little creeper was found in the Hollidge Tract, York Regional forest, and yes, the slime moulds are capable of movement, defying the definition of animal vs vegetable. They are also shape shifters, here appearing as its name sake, but over time will change to a darker colour, and from this tasty looking cluster will turn tubular and cigarlike.

Below is an unidentified white slime. From a distance, it looks like frost formation on wood. Since it was well above zero when I found it, I knew it had to yet another slime mould. If anyone can identify it, I would be happy to hear it. It might be tapioca slime, brefeldia maxima. Shapeshifters that they are, I can’t be sure.

When you’re walking in the woods, never forget to look down, and not just for reasons of safety. There’s a wonderful world down there, if you take the time to observe closely.
More on mushrooms here: The Mushroom Pages
PS. New watercolours are up at Kaslkaos Etsy store. I’ll blog about some of them later.

More Life Drawing

2010-11-02T21:44:00.002-04:00

Maybe I should call it adventures in colour. Most folks sketch in black charcoal, grey pencil, or conte, although I’ve seen my habits spreading to my neighbours. Somehow, applying colour to the blank page just does something beyond the black. The colours speak to me and on I go. Sometimes I select colours to go with a pose, other times on a whim. I did find using the bright red quite exciting, and it may end up becoming my default colour for quick monochrome sketches. Here, I had somewhat more time, and indulged in two, and three colours respectively. The lower is on grey Stonehenge paper, the upper on white. As these did not fit my scanner, I did my best with photographs. Scans always work out better, but the 9x12 bed is a little limiting.

Now I’m asking, any fellow artists that engage in life drawing. What is on your mind while you draw? Sublime thoughts, deep philosophy, food? Taking note of my thoughts; here’s a snippet of mine.
Nice pose/and or challenging/or boring, etc.
Wow, this one inspires.
Did I finish my coffee already? Maybe there’s a drop left over, lets check (tips mug all the way back and sighs in disappointment)
I’m hungry.
Which snack shall I eat when I get home, cheese? Baloney? A sandwich, no, it’s too late for a sandwich. Maybe a pickle, straight from the jar…
What time is it? I’m tired. Oh jeepers, an hour to go (yawn), I hope I can stay awake for this (yawn). I hope the model doesn’t take all this yawning personally (yawn).
OMG, I’m drawing a sausage (when the sketching goes south)/or WOW! This one rocks! (sometimes on the same night, but usually I have off nights followed by on nights). Also noticed that the more ‘off’ the night, the more yawning and food thoughts go on. Not sure of the relationship though; tired and hungry and therefore off or having trouble with a pose and seeking distraction?
So how about you? When creating art, is your brain sublime or banal or wandering about like rabbit?

Hors D'oeuvres will be served…

2010-10-31T16:12:00.001-04:00

Gargantua River, Lake Superior Provincial Park. Mixed media: coloured pencil, watercolour, acrylic and fine sand. 15”x15”, 23”x23” matted and framed.

Hors d'oeuvres will be served, and what better excuse can you find to get yourself out to a gallery to view some art. (Gosh, I had to look up the spelling for that one. Even the invite didn’t get it right and don’t ask me to pronounce it as I’m not normally part of the wine and cheese set.)

I am pleased to announce that Gargantua River, Lake Superior Provincial Park is selected to appear in the juried art show, Where They Are Now, OCADU Alumni Association, “Opening reception will be Friday November 12th from 6:00pm - 9:00pm with complementary wine and o'horderves. All are welcome.” Art Square Gallery Cafe, 334 Dundas Street West, Toronto.

I’ll be there, probably showing up hungry as the proverbial starving artist; you can too.

And here’s the original blog post when I had just completed the artwork.

Nature’s Calling

2010-10-23T14:37:00.002-04:00

Morning on the Magnetawan, 8x10 watercolour (available at Etsy).
I have friends that live in the woods, literally. They inhabit a small cottage on the Magnetawan River, a property which is now nestled well within the boundaries of Magnetawan Provincial Park. They live a lifestyle that is a strange contrast in luxury and austerity. For instance, they watch opera nightly on their flat screen tv, they read classic literature to one another within the comfort of their lakeside gazebo, but, lacking plumbing, they must venture into the great outdoors for each and every call of nature be it during the warmth of the day, or depths of a cold winter night. When I visit them, as I did this Thanksgiving, I share the lifestyle for a few brief days.
During the day, the visits to the, um, gravity operated facilities, are not a bad thing. If you leave the door open, live entertainment is provided in the form of tame chickadees that converge on nearby saplings. And while it takes no small degree of multitasking, one can reach into a handy can of birdfeed, and share a moment with these little friends. The phrase, “must feed the birds” of course has a whole new meaning at their house.
At other times, of course, this ‘call to nature’ may be less than pleasant, but there are compensations, being called forth to venture out beneath starry skies for instance, or on my last visit, forced out of bed far too early, I was so privileged to bear witness to a beautiful sunrise. Upon seeing that their was a thick morning mist that suffused the sky with a pink glow, I grabbed my camera detoured down to the dock, knowing that such moments are brief, ephemeral and not to be missed. So there I stood, sleepy, yawning, chilled and crossing my legs rather tightly so that I could make proper homage to the rising sun, delaying the most necessary tasks for as long as possible.
All well worth it, and worth noting that even the most banal of moments can lead to the sublime.

Peat Mountain—Lake Superior Provincial Park

2010-10-21T09:12:00.000-04:00

Peat Mountain—Lake Superior Provincial Park, 8x10 watercolour, looking easterly from the peak.

I tried to figure out the elevation gain, but I’m absolutely hopeless at it. If you like maps and want to figure it out for yourself, map below.

But let’s put it this way. You begin at Rabbit Blanket Lake Campground, just off of HWY 17, and you start walking up, and then up some more, and then more up. Then, just as you think you are peaking the edge of a vast ridge, you begin walking down again, and then up, and up and more up, and once again, just as you think you are about to be led to a breathtaking view, you have to walk up some more. Well, eventually, you do get to the top. This is a day hiking trail, perfectly doable for ordinary folks in reasonable shape—maybe you’ll need to take a breather or two on the way up and make sure you have 3 or 4 hours (which will include enjoying the views, and stopping for lunch). Maybe you’ll need to eat an energy bar or a handful of peanuts when you get to the summit, but that’s really about the worst of it. The scenery on the way up, is, of course, gloriously deep and shadowed deciduous woodlands, heavy on maple, and by mid-September, usually colouring up nicely. It smells like nirvana—something about the odour of freshly fallen autumn leaves. And when you do reach the top, the views are magnificent. One vista lets you glimpse the North Shore of Lake Superior as a deep blue line on the horizon, but mostly you see the endless undulation of high granite hills. If it’s overcast, you may find yourself right inside the clouds, which is a little disappointing if you came for the view, but this year we hiked under glorious blue skies and enjoyed the fall colours at their best. The painted view is looking eastwards across the wetlands leading to Peat Lake.

This one’s available for sale (unframed) at etsy. Peat Mountain. Sealey’s Lake is also now listed.

Quickies in Red—Life Drawing

2010-10-19T09:56:00.003-04:00

1 & 2 are 1 minute poses, the last one is a 10 minute pose. I finished it rather quick and as I have trouble drawing this models face I thought it was time to practice a portrait. I love colour. I swear, had I chosen the black my drawings would just not have been the same. I choose a bright red prismacolor pencil sticks for the warm-us (quickies). The stick is shaped just like a conte crayon but much less messy. I hate smudging and blending (even on purpose) in my work, and really like the wax pencils as the line stays exactly where I put it, even if my hand slips. Given the speed of the process, and the fact that I don’t erase lines, you can get a pretty good idea of how I build up a drawing from initial sweeping lines for the general form, more added for the substance of the body, and then shading and or dark line definitions once I feel I ‘know’ where things are. (ps. cropping due to scanner size, they all have feet and heads).

So in other news…I finally knuckled down and committed to forking over continuous $$$ to the local cable company in the interest of connectivity. I am no longer on dial-up. Hopefully I will be more sociable with you. I can check out your blogs, follow links and make comments in reasonable time frames. I’m hoping this will free up time for more blog posts. I qualify the latter, as scanning and writing takes up an enormous amount of time all on it’s own. Already, I enjoyed a glorious internet free Saturday morning (I used to spend up to 2 hours using their wifi connections) and instead, finished off the shopping chores so that Sunday could be devoted to hiking in the woods, playing guitar and a bit of gardening.

As for the cable hook-up, yikes, it was an absolute ordeal. Poor Victor (technician) spent hours, literally, fishing lines through our rickety house and replacing old inadequate cable lines outdoors. He has a place in my heart as he also was very impressed with my art (aw, gee shucks, blush). The modem was flaky and he had to return to replace it on Sunday, wherein he was greeted by me practicing guitar. More compliments, (aw, gee shucks, blush).

In other news (and I’ll be crowing about it more later). My submission to the Where They Are Now art show with (OCAD alumni) has been accepted. It’s the image on my art for sale page (the river and fish) if you want a preview.

Enough said for now. I need to paint.

Trespass

2010-10-12T19:45:00.001-04:00

If you were looking at this scene, you would be trespassing. The land itself has been up for sale for more years that I can remember (it predates my moving into the Musselman’s Lake community). Left fallow, it becomes more beautiful with the passing years as the forest grows and encroaches on the field areas, and the fields, especially now in the autumn glows with blossoms of goldenrod and asters.

This is where my husband walks the dog; I mostly avoid it due to the dirt bike and atv traffic (this year, thank fully curtailed by frequent police presence (Yay!)) I always view this place with a level of sadness, a fragile landscape that with the stroke of a pen could be bulldozed into oblivion at any moment. Oh well, I suppose I should just appreciate what is, as all things end sooner or later and trespass…

8”x10” Watercolour, Arches Cold-Pressed paper. Colours used, gamboges yellow, brown madder, prussian blue, paynes grey and dioxanine purple. In this case the purple was a late addition as it’s impossible to mix purple with the chosen palette and the asters were an important element. To integrate the colour, I added just a touch of madder, and then added the purple to shade shadows, sky and distance.

I’ve been busy with watercolours in part to practice speed and commitment. Wet in wet wash technique does not tolerate any of the dithering, picking and poking and other procrastinations that I’m in the habit of when working with dry media.

Natural Beauty—figure drawing

2010-10-07T13:12:00.002-04:00

Life Drawing Tuesday is back.and I’m in for another ten weeks. Ursula was the model for class #2, and she was fabulous. All of her poses where dynamic and inspiring and the fact that she was beautiful was undeniable. She was a natural beauty, and I don’t say that lightly. It is a term we quickly give to things like landscapes and endangered species, but women’s bodies, especially the beautiful ones are so commoditized and objectified in the media that it seems crass to mention it. But the truth is, Ursula was gorgeous, and a talented model, and very easy to draw. While personality and creativity were part of the package the sheer physical beauty was at least a third of the package (and dare I mention that for the men in the group, I’m guessing more than a third?) Is it wrong to say so? Is it somehow insulting to mention sheer physical beauty? If I was a guy, and saying the same thing, would this post be even less acceptable? So much of who we are, and what we are capable of is influenced by things beyond our control, genetics and environment, how is complementing, say, artistic talent, any different from complimenting someone’s beautiful body. Questions, questions, questions, not to mention, is their anyway to discuss a woman’s body without being politically loaded?

Back to drawing: also had a discussion on the traditional ‘art school’ method of life drawing, which seems to be block in the shadows and the rest will follow. I can attest, from four sad years of this, that without a good grounding in proportion and anatomy, I was lost, all lost. Zipping forward into now, I suppose my style is an anathema to that time honoured tradition because I draw lines, lines, and more lines. Some of my lines are shadows. Sometimes the weight of the line stands in for shading. If I get a seat that gives me some really good contrasty lighting, I may revisit the traditional approach, but I’d really miss playing with the line.

I’m not trying to knock the method, btw, but since it frustrates a lot of people, just say, first, you need a grasp of proportion and anatomy or the innate ability to ‘see’ the finished drawing on the blank page (if not, it comes with experience) and second, and super important, you need great lighting, which is rare in a group setting where all angles must be accommodated. So don’t beat yourself up, just draw.

I was going to post these for sale on Etsy, but my line is WAY too slow. $25 if they get there. Which is a lead in to; I’m planning on getting internet cable. Given that procrastination is very tempting when it comes to shelling out money, I may go offline for a bit after October 15th when my dial-up expires. So if I disappear for bit, don’t worry. It’s just me being cheap and lazy.

Sealey’s Lake-Killarney Provincial Park

2010-10-03T19:10:00.000-04:00

Sealey’s Lake—Killarney Provincial Park, 8x10 watercolour.

A more traditional take to illustrate the holidays. This is Sealey’s Lake on the La Cloche Silhouette Trail, from the east side. While the entire trail is a serious 78 km backpacking trail, my husband take on the near portion for day hikes. Sealey’s Lake is a bit of a slog, being 2 hours one way, but the scenery changes from deep hemlock woodlands, to rocky heights & towering pines, through lush deciduous woodlands and into the heart of the fens. Sealey’s Lake is more of fen than a lake, being shallow and surrounded by peat bog, but it is beautiful nonetheless and a favourite destination. This little rocky outcropping is the point where we stop for lunch to enjoy the view—usually.

This time around, it was raining, and we hid under a sheltering pine to stop only briefly and take a reference snap. The fact that the weather was terrible and getting worse was the main reason we decided to push on to Sealey’s Lake, as there is nothing worse than trying to kill time at a campsite on a rainy day.

We had had plenty of warning, as the morning sky offered up a most accurate weather report. We woke to a low formless ceiling of grey sky, and utterly still stifling air. I joked, sort of, that the weather for today would begin with a fine mist and increase by unnoticeable increments into an all day rain by noon. For once, I was fervently wishing I would be proven wrong, but alas it turned into a prophecy by the time we reached Sealey’s Lake there was a steady light rain from leaden skies. I won’t bother showing you the reference photo, as all was blank and grey; thank goodness for artistic licence. By the time we returned to camp, we were pretty well soaked in spite of raingear, and things got worse from there. This all happened on our second last day of our holidays, and I confess we packed up early and cleared out (still pouring rain) the next day. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to end a camping trip and curl up in a nice warm bed under a real roof.

It’s good to be home.

PS. for those of you interested in such things, the painting was done in a limited palette of brown madder, gamboges yellow, prussian blue and paynes grey.

Really Big Show

2010-09-30T09:04:00.002-04:00

Well, maybe not REALLY BIG but I really wanted to use that title. The day before I left for holidays in Lake Superior and Killarney Provincial Parks, I had a show date at Hollidge Tract, York Regional Forest. As I enjoy tech free holidays (not counting an ancient b/w Palm Pilot upon which I read books—this time Dostoeyevsky’s ‘The Gambler’), the show synopsis just had to wait until I got back, physically and mentally.

Here’s the spread. The table was provided, and the facilities had a beautiful natural pine wall. The gridwall (white grid) is a recent investment and it made for a really great display that was quick to put up, and take down. If you ever need to buy any, just do local search on ‘gridwall’ for your area. It’s a specialty item, Toronto has about 2 stores that sell it. I could not find anyone selling used gridwall at the time.

In the afternoon we took a break and enjoyed a horsedrawn wagon ride through the woods. This was courtesy of the York Regional Forest staff, who manned the booth for us so that my husband and I could enjoy the break together. The staff were wonderfully welcoming; coffee was provided, and as I’d showed up the day before (on my regular walk, actually) I was given a choice of locations. They also spelled out other vendors (some of whom showed up alone) for more necessary breaks.

It was an exciting day for both myself and husband, but I must admit that by the end of it we were both exhausted as we contemplated a 9 hour drive to Lake Superior the very next day.

This was my debut show in a way, as friends and blog readers showed up throughout the day, and their support was priceless! One of my husband’s friends travelled quite far just to say ‘hi’ at the last hour. I was so tired by then that I was a less than gracious host, and mostly provided ‘the long stare’ of exhaustion. I owe them a ‘thank you’ note for sure. Someday, I hope to stress out just a little less for these events.

PS. Thank you blog readers, who put up with my ‘Wish You Were Here’ postdated holiday posts. Given the nature of google, I wanted to make sure there was fresh content during my absence. I’m just getting back into the swing of things this week, and hopefully by Saturday noon, I’ll have been sociable with all of you.

Abstract Explorations

2010-09-28T10:44:00.001-04:00

This year, I’ll be participating in the OCAD University's Whodunit! Mystery Art Sale. All art is 5.5 “x 7.5” in size, any medium, $75.00; the mystery part is that the buyer has no idea who did it and must choose not by name and reputation but by visual preference. Imagine that.

My two submissions are ready, but of course I won’t spoil the mystery. They did lead me to wish to explore more in the way of texture, painted background and successive layers of coloured pencil, not just light to dark, but light over dark using sand and acrylic gel to hold the pigment.

& the obligatory close-up. The ochre is the ground colour, painted in gouache.

Here is the phone doodle seed of the works I’ll be submitting. I’ll be exploring the theme more, and after the sale, will post them.

Holidays are over, but it may take me until next Saturday for me to get the library’s wifi connection—see you then.

Wish You Were Here Part 4

2010-09-25T11:23:00.000-04:00

Rhyolite Cove, Lake Superior Provincial Part—It’s a very long dayhike!

Early autumn colours at Killarney Provincial Park, Cranberry Bog Trail

Photo’s from 2009

Wish You Were Here, Part 3

2010-09-22T11:12:00.000-04:00

Same view, different show, better than anything on television.

More from Gargantua Harbour, Lake Superior Provincial Park, 2009

Wish You Were Here, part 2

2010-09-19T11:03:00.001-04:00

The living dynamic sculpture of Lake Superior.

Wish You Were Here

2010-09-13T10:55:00.000-04:00

Sharing my photo’s from last year. This is Baldhead River mouth, Orphan Lake Trail, Lake Superior Provincial Park. Hope you’re all having fun.

I’ll get back to your blogs when I can.

Now that’s camouflage!

Into the Green Woods

2010-09-03T11:04:00.001-04:00

Usually, it is just me, my camera and my eyes in the woods. But, September 11th, my art will be travelling into the woods right along with me. It will, to say the least, seem a bit surreal, to have my art hanging in the woods in the very woods that inspired it. And, of course I’m more than a wee bit nervous, and I’ve been busy getting ready, and of course, I’ll never feel ready. I’m still a neophyte at this game. as this will be the first time I’ll have my coloured pencil work on display—and in the woods! Sorry to repeat that, but I just can’t get my around it.

I will be showing at Nature's Creations, York Regional Forest, from 10am to 2pm, Hollidge Tract, located on Hwy 48, North of Aurora Sideroad, the entrance being on the west side opposite Cherry Street. Google Map/Hollidge Tract

I’ll be bringing me, my husband, my ‘forest’ coloured pencil art, my hand-printed linocut t’s (lots), my gelatin and relief prints, and art reproduction & digital photography cards. I’ll probably have my travelling kit in hand so that I can add to my 365 Art Project to pass the time. Hopefully I won’t look too scary and folks will enjoy browsing. I’ll try to put my “I’m friendly and MOSTLY harmless” face on. Maybe I should make up a sign stating same, just in case.

There are other artists and craftspeople to see and enjoy, horse drawn wagon rides and guided walks. You’ll need to check the schedule, as I believe some events start early.

Maybe I’ll see you there…

Image: 8x10 watercolour paper, coloured pencil. June in Walker Woods, Uxbridge.

more from the 365 Art Card Project

2010-08-21T14:38:00.001-04:00

A selection of 6 from my 365 Art Card Project:

So here is a selection that has been percolating for time. The lower left makes me hanker to do a larger work, but it’ll have to wait for winter. I prefer to work on seasonal projects and it is high summer here, although there are signs that it is soon to pass. The baltimore orioles and hummingbirds gather at my feeders, a sure sign that their migration has begun, and the crickets have gone from none, to one, to nightly symphonies. Myself, I feel rushed, harried and hurried, as if there are a million and one things left to do and I’ve yet to begin any of them.

Which, of course, is why this post is very brief.

E Minor

2010-08-19T14:27:00.001-04:00

I’ve been out of blogging for awhile. It’s summer, I’m busy, and I sliced my left index finger. I believe a large portion of my brain resides in my left index finger, as I haven’t been able to concentrate since. It still feels fuzzy, one week later, and while the doctor said I’d be able to play guitar within seven days, I’m not about to try it. I suspect, like many a straight edged cut, it’s healing very slowly. Without giving too many details, I was busy slicing up paper/art to size getting ready for the show. I suppose I became over confident about my technique with an exacto knife and steel ruler, as I was 1/3 of the way through my finger before I realized my mistake. I’d only taken up playing guitar again after a 30 year hiatus, so I basically panicked about the whole thing.

In guitar, that left index finger is one hugely important digit. And that’s where Murphy’s Law comes into play. My guitar has been languishing in the closet for many years. Occasionally I’d miss it, but realized that there was a long road back to being able to actually play it again. And then my husband received an electric grand piano (workplace incentive program). Well, while I enjoyed hearing him practice, a little green monster reared it’s ugly head at the same time. I wanted to make music too. And so, I realized I had a perfectly good, and grossly neglected musical instrument of my own, so I polished it off and set to practicing. It was like starting all over again, but even after four days there was real progress—and then !snick! the all important digit was rendered temporarily useless. And, at least for guitar (today is the first day back to 10 fingered typing) it still is. I’ll be practicing right hand exercises, and visually memorizing musical notes and finger positions. And, after perusing my books, it turns out there are two chords (and only two) that I can play with my remaining fingers—E minor and G major, except G is technically beyond my reach. At least I have something to practice.

So, that’s it. If you were wondering, this is why I’ve been neglecting my blog and your blog. Hopefully, the brain will slide back into its proper housing. Mostly I’ve been procrastinating on things I need to be doing for the show; framing, & cutting paper, all of which involves knife work (I’m sure you understand my reluctance); but I’m investing in some better, safer knives/mat cutters, because using a straight edge and a naked blade is an accident waiting to happen. I wish no repeats!

PS. Thumb position is REALLY BAD form, but I was taking the picture with my right hand at the time.

In the Company of Adventurers

2010-08-07T20:21:00.002-04:00

Borrowing a title from Canadian historical literature here. In the Company of Adventurers is a part of a history of Canada, by Peter Newman, quite engaging and exciting. When I visit my friends on the Magnetawan River, I feel like the adventure continues. Here’s Rike, clambering across the rocks, scaring the pants off her husband, “what can I do, she just goes ahead and does these things.” he says, flapping his hands and looking resigned. She’s about 20 years my senior but I confess, my rock scrabbling days are over. There are places I will not follow. Of course, perhaps I’m just more cautious.

And, while enjoying the trails, we girls got quite excited about the giant green caterpillar. While the men stroll off ahead, we engaged in a joint ‘photoshoot’, Vogue for invertebrates. Later, we pored through their HUGE collection of field guides and discovered this is the caterpillar of the Polyphemus Moth.

Bees, flowers, spiders, frogs, etc… also merit equal treatment, and we kept our eyeballs and cameras busy.

Alas, I couldn’t identify this one. Cute as a button, and singular, I didn’t do what it takes to get a decent i.d.. Basically, picking and slicing crosswise would have given me some important information, like scales or pores, colours of same, and colour of flesh, texture, etc.. But I had no heart to destroy such a photogenic subject. Perhaps Rike will find and identify it at a later stage in its life.

And while Rike stopped often for scattered brambles, I passed them by. The berry picking up at Magnetawan (north of Parry Sound) is slim compared to the Brugelesque feast I’ve been treated to at home. The red raspberries we small and few, the black berries anaemic and sour. Unspoiled by plenty, Rike found these stingy morsels all delightful. The picture above is a mixed handful from my home stomping grounds, York Regional forest. Juicy tart thimbleberries, succulent red raspberries, and delicious blackberries. This mixed handful was a connoisseurs treat.

Spring in Glen Major Tract

2010-08-05T12:14:00.001-04:00

Image: 9”x12” mixed media/coloured pencil on 90lb watercolour paper, using coloured pencil, watersoluble pencil, watercolour, acrylic gel medium and fine sand.

As I’ve said, I had a great deal of trouble this spring making the transition from concentrating on printmaking back to my coloured pencil work—art is NOT like riding a bicycle. But the green disaster is behind me, and here is another piece belatedly finished (I prefer to work within the seasons). Once again, no green used in this picture, honest. A variety of yellows and blues make for a more nuanced green; mostly lemon yellow, peacock blue, and electric blue in Prismacolor. Gosh, I hope they never discontinue electric blue.

Detail, for texture.

This one goes with themes I explored in Real Alchemy, being that chlorophyll has, over a scale of millennia accomplished the most significant atmospheric change for this planet. Of course, our lust for fossil fuels is putting homo sapiens into a good position for ‘runner up’.

Maybe all of it surfaced this spring, walking through rain dampened woods beneath silvered skies. The greens of spring had such a glow and depth to them. Blog watchers will probably even be familiar with this scene, as I’ve tackled it in various smaller formats on a number of occasions. In particular, this is from Glen Major Tract, along it’s southern edge. Recommended hiking territory, by the way. I think I’m done with it now.

And on to summer.

PS. Summer being full on, I’ve been doing summer things, like visiting, swimming, and enjoying the woods, so I’m a bit behind on blogging, both visiting yours and posting to mine. Enjoy the summer, all.

Hemlock Glade – coloured pencil

2010-07-29T09:09:00.001-04:00

Hemlock Glade, York Regional Forest, Hollidge Tract, 9”x12” watercolour paper, watersoluble coloured pencils, Prismacolor pencils.

This one has been percolating for many weeks, on the back of the couch, the mantelpiece, my workspace, stashed in the dark out of sight, etc..my instinct said ‘finished’ but it was not what I set out to do. I had planned a piece that would be dense with colour, texture, technique but instead, early on it seemed to be saying all the things I wanted to say, in a ‘less is more’ sort of way. So, I put it aside, in sight, and out of sight, to make time to decide. Well, I have, and it’s done. I’ll leave the white spaces to tell the tale, and let your minds eye do the job of filling in the details, make the leaps of colour, etc.. I may later indulge in the time honoured tradition of multiple ‘studies’, and this will be #1, and do another much darker version. But this one, I declare finished.

And, RE: NEW LOOK ON THE BLOG: Comments welcome. Here’s the scoop. My blog is, and always will be a personal journal with room for roughs, snapshots and banter, but as I do not plan on creating a seperate Artist Website, this will have to do as a ‘go to’ url on my cards. That said, I’m trying for a more professional 1st impression. Is this it? Is the old deep blue version better? My husband thinks I need to add more colour, but I can’t think how without things looking cluttered, and or clashing with the art/photo of an individual post. Just asking….

Let’s Talk about the Weather

2010-07-23T09:56:00.001-04:00

Image: 4”x6” coloured pencil on watercolour paper. This is an example of heavy burnishing, with the colour literally mashed into the textured paper. This was from a moment at 7:15 AM driving east on Denison Road, Markham. Flash…memorize, pay attention to the traffic, memorize, memorize, pay attention to the traffic light…hold that thought…park, take out art kit, pull off a quick aceo, get on with day…the coloured pencil here is based on the memory with the aceo as a reference.

Image: photography, bumped up the contrast to match what the eye so easily perceives. These streamers with their lacy fractal swirls preceded a large storm front flowing in from the west, taken from the vantage of my lawn chair while I lay prone and fascinated beneath these harbingers of chaos. While others may enjoy their lawn chairs under the blazing sun, or perhaps on a hot day, recline beneath a tree, nothing could match the experience of lying flat, face up staring into this complex roiling sky. These streamers swept across the entire sky in continuous motion, broadly from west to east and minutely, with every trailing wisp curling and tumbling within the greater forms. I stayed out for an hour and never got bored—more hits per minute than the latest reality tv. I only went indoors when it was too dark to see. Thunderstorms followed shortly after.

And the moral of this story: Keep your eyes open to the world around you—look up. Some of the best entertainments require no electronic gadgets, although this one provided its own electricity.

Bountiful--photo

2010-07-20T16:03:00.003-04:00

Another thing keeping me busy, as anyone following me through twitter knows, is the bumper crop of raspberries this year. I’m finding the everywhere. Well, actually, I changed my cycling route and found some lovely untouched roadside bushes, mostly of the black variety which are both more delicious and vicious. They sport hooks for thorns, and regularly draw blood (a worthy sacrifice), as opposed to the wimpy hairy raspy things the red ones brandish (which scratch and tickle). Kind of like tigers vs kittens of the fruit world.

Now above, you see a most delicious mixed handful, and trust me, the berries in this photograph were not long for this world, and disappeared in, well, one gulp. Yum. The inky stains on my fingers are from the black raspberries, and yes, they are black raspberries, as blackberries are a different, but related fruit, flashing neon green ‘coming soon’ colours all over the woods at this moment.

Speaking of inky fingers, I don’t blog much about letterboxing (shhhh…it’s a secret) but then I thought it might be good to add a few good folks to our ranks so I agreed to do an interview about it. Here you can read a beautifully written and well-researched article by Toronto Star reporter, Francine Kopun. I never realized how much hard work and creative sweat goes into a newspaper article until I found myself a part of the process. She did an amazing job of it; tramped through woods with me, shared space with my german shepherd dog, and sat on the rug so as not to dislodge three imperial cats (yes, of course I offered to toss them off the couch). If you don’t already know what letterboxing is, this will give you a comprehensive and delightful overview.

Letterboxing-A Different Kind of Treasure Hunt

And you’ll get to see me again too, ha ha.

Work in Progress-coloured pencil

2010-07-16T09:43:00.002-04:00

So here is the 2.5x3.5 (atc/aceo) that I’m using as a reference, and the my chosen ‘palette’ of pencils. I always begin with a limited palette, preferring mixed colours over the 256 pencils thing. I expand my palette later as necessary, but in this case, no green pencils will be used.

After a brief sketch to get things down, I rough in with water colour on 9x12 Arches Watercolour Paper (thanks Anonymous, for your gift). My rough is using 3 colours only, gamboges yellow, burnt sienna and prussian blue.

Now I’ve started scribbling in with pencil. Sounds easy, but I work in brief bursts with a lot of head scratching in between. Painting is much quicker, but there is something about the glow and the line of coloured pencil that I can’t resist. Above, though, we are far from glow, as I’m still being quite ‘tentative’.

The colour is saturated now in most sections: the lower right has what I call ‘glow’. I’m using a pencil called electric blue—it is a bright blue but extremely transparent and I hope it never gets discontinued. Now I get to decide if I want to add a layer of acrylic gel and sand, or continue on as is. I also plan to scrape back some colour and paper to lay in some pure colour, there is one experimental yellow dot in the middle tree trunk. Currently this work is ‘percolating’ on my table. Meaning that I have it propped up to glance at now and again while I contemplate how I should proceed.

So now I’m off to work on the next Issue V of my Itty Bitty Books. Scanning, writing, fiddling with the Gimp, and, I’m sure, a lot more head scratching. Does anything ever get easier???

I Have a Peanut

2010-07-14T19:31:00.001-04:00

This is the image I tried but failed to find for “Funeral for a Grackle”. It showed up this weekend, go figure. I did it last year and never got around to posting it. It’s 4x6 sketch pad paper and coloured pencil, inspired by my observations of the common grackle (Quiscalus quiscula)..

Grackles, I confess, are far from my favourite bird. They are numerous, ravenous, and crowd out other birds at the feeder. While in sunlight, there is something of beauty in their oil-slick colours (blue-black heads, and bronze black bodies) compared to orioles, gold finches and blue jays they are downright dull. And while they are a native species, their appearance at the feeder is a sure sign that you live in a degraded neighbourhood that lacks the cover of the original pre-settlement Carolingian forest.

But, all of that out of the way, there is much to admire about this bird, not the least of which is intelligence and adaptability (and those two often do go together). And while their sheer numbers annoy me, when they do take over the bird feeders, they are fascinating to watch.

They are highly social birds, and spend much of their time in communication. Far beyond their squawking (which I confess not to understand) the strut, prance, preen and fluff. The latter is what I call the ‘exploding bird’, where they squawk , crouch, and !POW! expand to twice their size by fluffing their feathers. It’s quite impressive, and obviously it’s meant to be as they direct this behaviour to one another. The other form of ‘one-up-man-ship’ is the “I have a peanut” where they find a large choice morsel (in this case a peanut half) and parade about ensure that everyone about can see what a fine catch he has.

When large flocks come calling all the other birds stay away, giving me plenty of time to observe these grackle conferences, and once in a while I can’t help but draw these sleek flying machines.

Just because a species is numerous and common, don’t dismiss them as uninteresting, think of homo-sapiens, for instance…

Funeral for a Grackle

2010-07-08T15:26:00.002-04:00

For the longest time, I thought we were alone in the universe, as sentient creatures go. I watched Star Trek, and other sci-fi searching the hypothetic skies for intelligent life.

It turns out that, under keen observation, especially in natural settings, the list of ‘self aware’ animals just keeps on growing. They are among us.

Some of them flock to our bird feeders.

Today I heard a thump on my window, followed by a raucous clamour of birds. I had the curtains shut to keep the heat out, and had to go outside to investigate. When a bird hits the window (and it does, thankfully rarely, happen) I look in see if there is anything I can or should do about it. In winter, I’ve brought in injured birds, to see them revive hours later. With the temperature at 34C, warming is not necessary, but still, I did check.

Indeed, there was a grackle, face down on the lawn, but surrounded by its shrieking flock. They were gathered about, on my deck and the trees. Of course my presence disturbed them, and fled the veranda, but only as far as the nearest tree, where settled and continued their shrieking lament, eyes on the injured bird.

As warmth was there in plenty, and the flock was their to keep guard, I went inside, still listening, hearing, all that avian distress. When it finally subsided, I went out again, to discover what I already knew. This bird had died, watched over by its own kind.

Image: 5x7 planographic & relief gelatin print, using found natural objects and linocuts; this one features ravens, but it seemed oddly apt for this post.

Hollidge Tract and Ravens

2010-07-04T14:58:00.002-04:00

Hollidge Tract-planographic & relief print, using linocut (brand new), and gelatin plate planographic printing.

I thought it about time I posted some new art. I have been working; just not showing. Some things just haven’t come together, other things are percolating (my new favourite word to describe the in-between stage of art, from just thinking about it to a work in progress) and some are looking fabulous but unfinished and I’ve put them aside (to keep the bad metaphor running, could we call it ‘steeping’?).

Luckily, an image that has been percolating in my mind since last year finally appeared in the form of a linocut. I walk past a little glade several times per week and have always been mesmerized by the young trees growing up in front of a backdrop of mature forest. And while I’ve taken reference photos in the past, nothing made it to the page until, this week, all at once, there it was in a rough sketch just about ready for carving. Here it is, done up as a single, gelatin plate & hand pressed relief.

Haven’t yet thought of a spectacular name, so Hollidge Tract it is. The raven overhead is apt. I failed to mention a two significant sightings this. The first in May, when I saw five ravens in Eldred King Woodlands. We, that is husband, dog and I, were on a side trail winding through a plantation of red pine, and I spotted two ravens fly overhead. They chattered back and forth in their distinctive raven voices, and I easily tracked down a nest high in the pines, a short distance off the the trail. I had binoculars, and had a very good look at raven construction, being a messy mass of large sticks, occupied by three more ravens.

Then, just last month in June, while walking in Hollidge Tract, once again, I heard the raven. This time, it was doing that common raven screech and not much else. Once again, binoculars out, I got a great look at a raven perched high on a dead tree, GRawk! Grawk!

Not thrilled to be stared out (and how do they always know), he made a quick and noisy exit.

For those who don’t know, my 1980’s Field Guide shows raven territory ends at the border of the Canadian Shield, and does not extend into the southern realms of Ontario where I reside. They have since moved south, and seeing them here at all is a very big deal. Seeing a nest and five ravens is SUPER excitement. Also, heard but not seen, ravens in Uxbridge, Walker Woods. Great comeback: hoping they are here for the long run.

Am I Beautiful?

2010-07-02T13:03:00.002-04:00

Six-Spotted Fishing Spider, dolomedes triton

Thank you to my friend Rike, who identified this spider for me from one of her numerous BIG BOOKS, and sent me the following:

“Our big book tells us it is a Six-spotted Fishing Spider (Dolomedes triton). 9-20 mm, it is a common and distinctively marked fishing spider. Fishing spiders use the whole water surface as a web, picking up on the vibrations made by insects on the surface just as many other spiders detect insects struggling in their webs.

Fishing spiders carry their huge egg sacs up front, under the head and cephalothorax, unlike similar wolf spiders (Lycosidae), which carry their egg sacs behind the body.

Fishing spider females can have a leg span of over 80 mm.”

Found and photographed at Kakakise Lake, Killarney Provincial Park.

PS. had MUCH more to say on the nature of beauty, etc.. but somehow managed to accidentally delete the post; all attempts to reconstruct such musings ended on a cul de sac of frustration, so perhaps in the comments section, you can lead the discussion on beauty, and answer the spiders question of Am I Beautiful?

White Admiral and the fist of God

2010-06-22T10:48:00.003-04:00

Mixed skies, and a passing storm produced this arresting image last Sunday from my verandah. Can’t help but see some religious overtones in this one, and not one of baby faced angels, more like Revelations and the wrath of God. Do you see the four horsemen riding in?

And on a completely different note, this butterfly kindly took a few moments out of its busy schedule to pose for a picture. It is a White Admiral and it was busy flitting through the Hollidge Tract, York Regional Forest.

And photo’s is all you get this week. Busy, busy, and my WIP of something green is, well, not allowed out right now…as in, I am NOT happy with its progress, and I am NOT willing to share. It’s been to long since I’ve done coloured pencils and it feels like starting over. I may try solvents on it.

PS. Blogger added Pages. I've created two. Art for sale, and About this blog. Are the buttons noticeable enough? I am not much of a marketer, so any help appreciated. And while a blog post is ephemeral enough I don't care too much about typo's, if you find some on those Pages, please let me know. Thanks.

Star Factory

2010-06-17T08:42:00.002-04:00

I’m never sure, when it comes to abstraction, who, if any, will “get it”. And while I hate having to explain my art, I am absurdly fond of this one. I love as astronomy in a most amateur way; while I don’t own a telescope, and can only name about 4 constellations (you probably can name the same ones), I love the idea of billions and billions of stars being out there, and while our planet is small and finite, beyond it’s confines there is space, lots of it, filled with fascinating things like dark matter and black holes, exploding stars and nebulae, gas giant planets and their earth sized satellites, oh I could go on and on…and not just billions of stars, but get beyond that, you get galaxies, and if you can follow the theory, whole universes. But never mind, I have no affinity for science beyond a layman’s love.

Above is a gelatin print. The red smoosh, is what artists like to call a ‘happy accident’. Actually experiment… the result sat in my pile for some time waiting for step two. I followed up with blue patterns from glassware & little star linocuts. The smoosh, right from the beginning brought to mind those fabulous photos of nebula, the birth place of stars. For the final touch I just painted in some nebulous blue shapes and added sparkle. Art does not need to be literal, and there is more than one way to interpret the universe.

And because I can’t participate myself (I’m on dial-up—too slow), try out the Galaxy Zoo, where you can learn how to categorize galaxies, and should you pass the online test, you can help catalogue the universe as an online volunteer.

PS. I’ve just been asked to exhibit in Nature’s Creations, at the Fall Forest Festival, in York Regional Forest. I am HUGELY exited! Imagine the opportunity to exhibit art in the very forest one has depicted to people who have walked, or will walk those very same pathways. The thought is somewhat surreal. I have an unknown “Forester” to thank. There are people in this world who are being exceedingly kind to me.

PPS. working on ‘something green’ in coloured pencil. More on that later.

Growing History-My Big Pink Peony

2010-06-15T10:22:00.001-04:00

Growing History—My Big Pink Peony & Itsy Bitsy Little Roses

Here is history encoded in the genetics of heirloom plants; my big pink peony and an explosion of spice scented old roses growing wild in Glen Major Tract/Uxbridge.

As to the peony, the big blowsy flowers may have gone out of fashion since their extravagant blossoms first graced the country gardens, but their ancestors forge on; they can still be found thriving alone and unloved in remnants of gardens, overgrown by fallow field. While they compete successfully with the surrounding weeds and tall grasses, they never commit the crime of becoming invasive foreigners. They merely hold their own, looking gorgeous, until the next land-owner falls in love and tends them.

These particular plant is among a list that ‘came with the house’. My home is a renovated cottage, first built in 1964 when Musselman’s Lake was still but a weekend getaway. It has had a succession of owners, but one of them at least must have been an avid gardener. They left behind many plants that I still treasure; the scented red daylilies, the weird egyptian/walking onion, ornamental catmint, lilac and narcissus. When I look at them, I wonder at who planted them, and would they get satisfaction knowing they still thrive?

Now to the roses growing feral in Glen Major Tract. Their pedigree has long since been lost to history, but it’s genetic code passes on through generations. Once their was a house, a farmstead, and a lover of roses; abandoned or bereaved, these roses forged on, growing to towering heights (some are 20 foot mounds) and propagate in the clearings. Unlike their modern counterparts, these roses need no fussing, mulching, dusting or sprays. Summer through winter, they thrive, their dense growth providing both food and shelter to the local wildlife that now inhabits the land.

Its fragrance is as exquisite as its blossoms; a beautiful survivor of a bygone era.