2012/365 - Day 56 -- part two

yow -- this guy JUMPED right through the layers

Last Wednesday I worked on covering over this former vision board canvas that I wasn't connecting with.



Today as I was walking past it to leave the studio it kinda screamed at me.


I took it off the wall and turned it from its original horizontal position to this vertical view...that's when it happened.

This guy absolutely JUMPED out of the layers...no emerging for him!








I started to draw a light pencil line around what I was seeing but it was telling me "NO -- use PAINT!". Okay.




Also, at first, I kinda saw a sled dog...just sayin'.














Nooooooo...no sled dog. THIS guy.


This dancin' guy.

I filled in his eyes and nose and mouth with neutral gray but he wanted raw umber for the outline of the rest.









I guess he was right -- it is easier to see the raw umber outline.

















I think this guy might be a bit bossy...but he's a good dancer.

















I started to put the canvas back up on the wall (in the horizontal position) to dry but he insisted on being put next to my desk and chair against the shelves...off of the floor!...on the box.


Sheesh.









Now...if only the other repurposed canvases would give me directions/hints...

2012/365 - Day 53 -- part two

covering over another canvas

I started a large sized vision board last year. I wasn't very into it or the images and words I was putting on it. I was pretty much going through the motions and I knew it at the time. I didn't like looking at it when I'd walk past it. I wasn't feeling any of it.

I have had wonderful results in the past with vision boards, but they were very focused and the intentions and hopes were very clear. Not this time.


Here is an deliberately blurry photo of the canvas "before".

This was after I'd pulled off as much of the images as I could.













I wanted to just cover over the whole thing with a few papers that I like. I wanted to give it a fresh start.

This canvas is much bigger than any I've ever tried to work with before -- it is 24" x 30" --
I am used to working so much smaller.

I'm pretty excited to see what happens with it.









I tried to choose neutral colors so they wouldn't disrupt whatever will be added later...but mostly I just pulled paper I like a lot that I haven't used in a while.

I slathered gel medium all over the entire canvas, applied the papers, added more gel medium, added more layers of paper, covered up wording, covered up parts of the old images, left some of the color around the edges to show through the first layer of paper.











There.

Now it can just hang on my studio wall by the door and dry. I think I might keep putting it back up there throughout the entire project.



I will leave the wire on the back where it is, even though I will most likely try to use it in the vertical position. When I repurpose these old vision boards I try to turn them totally in a different direction with the new project.

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!