Energy Confined: Two Stages

Energy Confined: 

Gallery View

Stage 1

Energy Designed & Confined: 

Stage 2

Experimental Sketchbook Class: Time & Space to Create

Some of my work during the weeklong class.

It was perhaps the best art class I've ever taken at University. 

We were encouraged to experiment.

Push out of our comfortable ways.

I started getting scribbly & messy (not shown here)

so it was a relief to do some minimalist drawings.

Zoom grids became an integral part of my experience.

I wandered out of my familiar box.

I cut up one of my watercolor "still life" grids

and pasted fragments into a booklet.

And then, relief, back to the familiar~ 

except with a bit of a grid.

A grid containing The Tiny Fears of Rita

Les miniscules craintes de Rita

We tried a wax resist/ink wash/charcoal layering technique

that Maine artist, David Lewis, uses.

(His drawings are very sophisticated & refined...) 

We collected shadows by tracing actual shadows.

Some of the students turned their results into imaginative

imagery, unrelated to the original subjects, and then 

turned them into handmade books.

I loved my Swedish Ivy design & didn't transform it,

except to put it into an accordion format.

Last class exercise: Do 20 versions of the same object, 

using various papers & drawing materials.

I got 3 done in our half hour allotment...

But THIS is the idea which I most want to continue

at the moment...20 objects? 50? 100? 

Maybe they would be painted and drawn, then,

hand sewn together into a paper quilt that folds 

into a book. We shall see...

The beautiful thing is that I have SO many wonderful

inspirations & directions with which to continue.

Thanks to my instructors & to the class, composed of

young undergraduates, graduate students,

& some oldsters like me. 

So much inspiration,

& this is only the tip of the iceberg...

What I Took For Granted...

Funny, I took spiritual gifts less for granted

than material objects, before the virus & shut down.

I don't shop online,

but art tools & materials 

were available at local shops 

within a 100 miles.

Now those shops are closed.

So a friend kindly helped me to order new #11 blades,

and a great, new ergonomic Excel knife. 

They are luxuries to me!!

I did a few test cuts, magnificent feeling

of cutting with a precision blade! 

My edges could be smoother,

but that's me needing to practice...

 I realized I could arrange these simple snippets

in an infinite number of ways,

with lovely negative shapes inbetween...

Like letters in a word, words in a sentence...

An infinite number of ways.

Boggling...

But then, a lot is boggling these days...

In and Out of Lines

My tiny holiday Zumba Girls have changed to Winter Girls.

When I'm watercoloring their fashions, I'm reminded of

my hours of coloring in childhood. 

Later coloring books were shunned by everyone I knew

as being detrimental to creativity. 

Now they are tremendously popular with adults,

& are sold as meditative activities. 

Are coloring books good or bad or neither?

My Prismacolors have replaced Crayolas.

Making this chart also felt like childhood coloring days.

I've been thinking about staying in lines, or not,

sharp edges verses soft, tight verses loose. 

Punching out colored penciled stars from my swatches creates sharp, 

manufactured edges and shapes.

Is this good for creativity, or bad, or neither?

What are your thoughts?

Tis the Season for Color

 

I love playing with bright colors at this time of year.

I made a chain of 70 Origami birds for 

a friend's 70th birthday which she hung in her window.

My new "Art Bin" box.

I bought it at a local art shop 

It has replaced my old broken paintbox.

I transferred my half pans & made a new color chart. 

See what it can do. More painted collages.

Some are for gifts, some for a new show.

And then, there is the contrast of the winter outdoors.

Cold, dark & muted colors.

It is soft & beautiful & restful.

An advent calendar with over-the-top glitter!!

I bought it at a local bookstore.

Merry & bright, somber & dark. 
They are opposed, but they complement each other nicely. 

More Watercolor Wandering

 I continue to explore my new watercolor tubes. 

I focus on not judging what I see happening 

but on watching closely how the water & paints react.

It's like watching raindrops on the windshield,

slow, careful observation of a drop as it morphs & changes.

I ponder: 

What is the difference between being influenced by 

& learning from an artist~ & copying them?

Artist Mattina Blue, in a brief workshop, had a big influence 

on my waterpaint experimenting. 

To see her work, click HERE.

 I loved her designs & motifs, 

but I knew I didn't want to copy them.  

What I got from her was a spirit of allowing the water 

to carry the paint,

of allowing the colors to respond to one another.

(Fun when working on a slanted surface.)

Mattina told me to work in series, 

each painting leading to the next.

What will be discovered along the way?

I think it is enjoying the evolution, 

rather than just a brief dabble of something new.

A spirit of "More will be revealed."

Motifs & designs emerge by themselves. 

All of us have our own.

One of mine: Light peeking from behind darker lines, 

In this season I see it in sun on thinning colored leaves,

behind dark branches & twigs.

These "plaids" have other meanings for me too,

which come to me after I'm done painting. 

They are grids, they are boxes, 

& even when I don't know what they mean,

they are pleasing to draw.

While painting (I try) to think of nothing 

but what I'm observing,

& this meditative focus calms me, fills me with serenity.

Exploring New Watercolors

My new watercolors are 

much more saturated than the old ones.

Still getting to know them. 

With these new paints

my small sketches are more abstract these days.

(This was a scene in shop of pretty things

here in town.)

Sadness has come into my life recently...

I release it onto paper... 

Life has it's darkness as well as lightness.

Colors change from day to day, month to month...

C'est comme ça.

From the Familiar to the Un...

The familiar: Line sketches at the market, and taking notes.

These notes from a gallery talk at the Farnsworth.

More notes, these from attending a workshop.

 Out to dinner at Darby's: 

A surprise~ The Celtic Music jam session!

 

It was heaven! The lady at the bar thought so too. 

Especially when she got up & started step dancing!

 The Annual Fiber College at a campground in Searsport. 

Another surprise: 

My favorite Belfast Bay Fiddlers 

were playing on a sunny, breezy

late summer day! 

After a short watercolor workshop & some sketching,

my senses were open & ready!

This lady was spinning wool while listening.

And now the less familiar. 

Experimenting with watercolor.

Oooooh, juicy. It's not you painting,

it's you letting the watercolors express themselves,

say my teachers. But studying & notes help with that process.

Beth's Maine Coast Surface Design Class-2

Beth's Midsummer Surface Design Workshop.

I got to go for 2 days this time! 

(see previous posts.)

 I made a little book for Beth last year,

inspired by all of the wonderful design work

that I always see in her studio when I visit her.

Now, not just a visit, but an official class!

We made cover designs using plastic credit type cards

swooshing around paint on large sheets of paper.

 I also printed with the edges. 

On top of that I "pounced" and swirled circles

with a small round sponge gizmo.

Another student had discovered the swirling technique.

 Some of us "copied". 

I found myself cutting out circles,

& then began cutting them into spirals. 

It gave me a delicious bunch of small

snail-fiddlehead-brussel sprout-y creatures. 

I pasted them down & hung metallic thread.

How fun! The process was doing its own thing.

All I had to do was to let it!

 

We used our covers for coptic stitched journals.

I experimented on my top cover,
sort of ruining it (no photo of that!), 

so eventually I pasted a collage design over it. 

It's called Rita's Book of Progress & Imperfection

One of the biggest things that happened

at this workshop is that my perfectionism,

the crippling kind, began to be lifted. 

Beth models & teaches that: 
"You try things,

if something doesn't work, no problem. 

You just keep trying things, & having fun!"

 With a 1 1/2 " hole punch 

I've been continuing to punch circles

from my sheets of painted paper. 

These are on watercolored squares that I'd had made.
They remind me of one of those color theory exercises
that you see in books on painting.

I'd seen Beth's hand-dyed cloth beads several years ago,

& in fact she'd gifted me with some.

I finally got to make my own!!! Total joy!

Above, the cover of a small accordion book.

 Embellishing one of Beth's tags. 
I made the bead,

The rest was from 

her big box of printed papers & ribbons.

"Cloth Paper Scissors", there's a magazine by that name. 

I haven't found the magazine yet, but Marcella,

Beth's assistant shared some wonderful books. 

Austin Kleon in Steal Like an Artist says that

side projects 

inbetween work on your major project

are valuable. 

"Productive Procrastination".

"Just play. That's where the magic happens."

Now, I'm back working on my exhibit at the library.

I'll be showing sketches that were all done

"Not Far From Home" .

Which happens to be the name of the show.