2012/365 - Day 101

sometimes talking is just as good as doing

I got together with Ruth today...it seems like it has been quite a while since we've been able to just get lunch and coffee and talk...and then come back to my house and work on artist trading cards or other things.  

We started out with good intentions, although Ruth hasn't been feeling the theme for this month's ATCs. We were hoping to get something going for her when we came back after our late lunch/early dinner at Tuscan Cafe.  

 When we pulled in the driveway I wanted to show Ruth these tulips that look like they have been painted by an artist, there are so many colors on each flower.

Ruth wanted to bring one inside to look at it closer.

See the stylus and little foam rectangles just beyond the flower?  Ruth really did try to make something for the trade but she really just hasn't been feeling connected to the theme.  She carved a picture, we printed it...but it wasn't happening.

We talked some more about some of the things we talked about over coffee and I went down to the basement to retrieve some photo albums to show her so she could put faces to people I was mentioning.

While I was grabbing the photo albums I remembered the Rubberstampmadness article about some carvings I did a long time ago and she hadn't seen it...so I brought that up, too.

Ruth is always so interested in seeing what I'm working on in person...she sees things in the blog and likes to come over and see for herself.  I dragged the canvases out to the dining room because it really is easier to see the emerging creatures in person vs viewing them in photos on a laptop.

We had a sort of mini work-in-progress show.

It was cool because we brought each canvas over to the table and looked at it closely.  We talked about how I might be able to define the creatures, how much to leave in, where to stop, do I paint them, leave them alone, ink them, add more paper...

stuff like that.  It was really good to get feedback.

We had such a good time.  We both really needed it, we really needed to get out of the house and get together.  Sometimes talking is just as good as doing.  

I'm a little talked out and thought out right now.  I have all the parts for my ATCs printed out and cut out -- all the pieces and supplies are ready -- I just need to assemble them.  I will do that later tonight and have them ready for trading tomorrow.  I wanted to blog now so I don't have to worry about how late it is getting and rush the deadline and all that later on. 

365 Day 298

long day, lotsa stuff


Today started out at 8 a.m. at Tuscan Cafe in Northville with Suzanne Schimanski-Gross. Suzanne is a Teen Services Librarian at Northville District Library.

We met up this morning for coffee and shared a sandwich and talked about all kinds of stuff...like Detroit Derby Girls season and Art-o-mat and sewing and sock monkeys and artist trading cards. Suzanne also brought me a bagful of plastic lids and tops for me to use in my plaster cloth projects.








Next it was on to Brenda's house in Harrison Township.

Brenda has a kiln and we have been playing with clay on and off for a while. Today we unloaded the kiln from last week.

Brenda glaze fired two of her large leaf pieces that she makes for gardens.

I am planning my things for Art-o-mat (of course). Since I don't have my own kiln (yet) and Brenda is about 45 minutes away on the other side of town, this is becoming a drawn out/time-and-labor-intensive project. I am going ahead and making the pieces all at once, but the prototype still has to be submitted and approved first. That is why I am not going to reveal exactly what it is I am making just yet.


Here is Brenda unloading the kiln.


















This large leaf has a baby's face on it.


















This one has a dragonfly.
















My stuff was way underneath everything else.


















ta-daaaaaaa

















sneak peek...no details yet













Today I put a second color of watercolor underglaze on them.










On the way out to Brenda's this morning I stopped off and got us both a large canvas.

It has been quite a long time since I made my last vision board. I first learned about this exercise in "The Artists Way". Actually, that is how I met Brenda...she was the instructor when we took the course. I figured it was about time she and I both made new vision boards (and the last one I made proved to be really powerful).

When I got home this afternoon one of the first things I did was to pull the wrapper off of the canvas, take it outside and spray it with two colors of paint. Then I brought it in the house and slathered the canvas with matte medium and laid down a piece of mulberry paper -- all so that I couldn't stall and say I was chicken to start on a blank canvas. It is hard to tell with the lighting in that photo, but half of the canvas is "Sugar Melon" and half is "Poison Light" -- both colors by Montana Gold. The mulberry paper is a light pink color. It looks better in person...LOL. Now I have no excuse to not get started on it.



And then -- a little later on -- Matt Gordon came over so we could talk about my painting some more.


And we talked a little more about doing something for Art-o-mat. That will done in small increments. It'll take a while...but it will be worth the wait.





And now...back to the next step in the Tookies assembly line!

365 Day 39

work(s) in progress

Some of my goals for this year's 365 Project:

• use/explore some of the materials I already have
• re-visit projects that were set aside "for later"
• organize areas in the studio so that I can work IN the studio instead of at the dining room table

Today I am DOING some of that!

This canvas was originally a wish board from a session of The Artist's Way. It proved to be a very powerful wish board, indeed. Pretty much every thing, image, wish became reality.













When I first moved to this house I decided I was going to repurpose the canvas. I pulled off a lot of the collaged images but some of the things remained...like a bit of mulberry paper, some star-shaped rivets and a few phrases written in Sharpie.

Okay -- wait a second. Before I go any further I need to say this one time. I won't harp on it throughout the year, and I am not putting myself down...I am just stating fact. I am not a real painter and I am not trying to pretend that I am. I don't really have a feel for which paints do what or blending colors or layering or mixing types of paint -- I also don't have a sense of not doing those things (as in "OMG -- you can't DO that"). I have very limited drawing/painting abilities...it is often hard for me to get what I am seeing in my head onto a surface. Much of what I do in this area is the result of just playing around and letting the piece make itself. Okay -- back to the narrative.

When I first began to alter the canvas I turned it upside down and the mulberry paper that was used as ground now became a bit of ceiling or clouds or something. The "new" placement of the stars and telltale lines, etc. looked to me like 3 ghosts. The stars were their eyes and mouths. I was thinking they were ghosts because you could see so much of the old images and things coming through the new paint and stains I was using.














































I made those 3 ghosts, hated the solid pink paint, hated the spots of the guy on the left and was just not very happy with it in general...although I did like the ghost idea...so I set it aside "for later", which turned into like 4 years.

Today I decided I wanted to do something with Lumiere paints. I love them. I love the colors. I chose this canvas and this is today's layer. I sincerely doubt that I will actively work on this canvas, but I will keep adding to it in between projects.




































































I needed a place to put the canvas while it dries and I chose this spot in the CD closet...it can soak up good vibes and subliminal inspiration from all the music surrounding it.


And here is what needs organizing -- sheesh! This will be worked on a little at a time. I already had that table cleared off not too long ago, remember? I guess I need to find more permanent places for things instead of just shuffling them around.