Just Shoot Me!

(LMAO Disclaimer: I wrote the blog post title this morning before finding out that today's photo class assignment is a self portrait. I swear I didn't know! )

It's funny how the drama of sunrise is so etherial. Five minutes and gone. A reminder to do something wonderful today.

Summer has turned my brain to mush. I want to be free of my obligations (as much as I love them all) and just work in the (literally) blooming garden. "But wait," you say, "it's just now Spring!" Well tell that to this crazy record breaking climate. The birds are going totally nuts around here vying for territory and mates and building nests like their eggs are ready to drop at any second. The poor kitty who lives here has had several breakdowns over the commotion. The first day the wild noise began outside he ran about from window to door, howling all day.  I was ready to call the vet for a tranquilizer (for one or both of us). By day three, he'd setting to just excited watchfulness, and my nerves could settle too. But this last Saturday, when the whole world exploded into summer weather, the "air traffic" was out of control with dive bombing cardinals at the front door and my poor baby moaning and backing up the stairs like it was a Hitchcock movie and he was the blond heroine under attack.

A woodpile, underexposed, speaks of decay
 and the lost promise of time wasted.

Just one week ago, there was just barely a hint of spring in this overexposed shot of my back yard. Today the green is bursting out.

Because I was already enrolled in or completing projects for at least four online activities, plus a wagon load of things to prep for for my quilt guild show in two weeks, I decided it was necessary to enroll in yet another class. Photography is becoming an essential tool in my art arsenal of mediums, and for both practical and pleasurable purposes I am determined to learn some skills with my camera. I am again taking a two week intensive session with Steve Sonheim, Photo Silly Advanced. We are at the halfway point, and I can say I am once again making discoveries of what can be done that I would never have thought to try without a good "silly" lesson.

A naturally backlit still life in the sewing room.

Late afternoon sun and a kitty chasing shadows and reflections.

Husband on a mission and captured in the light of sunset.

One thing I learned last week is that a husband who works an 80 hour week must be caught on "film" to prove he really exists. But like Peter Pan, he was more elusive than his shadow. Our only date of the week was a quick trip to Home Depot for wooden dowels, and plywood for an upcoming drawing class (more about that another day, except meanwhile you may want to check out Carla Sonheim's new class offering in April.) The best discovery was how much I like black and white photography, and that, yes, a digital camera can be set to shoot in b&w rather than removing the color in editing. Who knew? Steve's assignments usually include doing something scary, like photographing strangers. I got to do a portrait series with a workout friend I barely knew previously, and found the experience to be tough, but exhilarating and liberating for both of us.

A portrait is a moment captured that reminds you who you were just then.

Hippos gather for "Bedtime Stories."

Charm and imagination lost in the color and light.

The scene of the crime showing alternate light sources I tried: holiday lights, candles, cell phone and the small flashlight in the middle that was used.

I've been doing quite a bit of stitching lately, some creative, some routine, but all quite satisfying. No matter what, needle and thread will always be my natural choice of writing medium. Probably because it has been with me since childhood, and has become so natural a part of my everyday life. Drawing will take a lot more time, but my ease with it grows every week. The shrine book from Arlee Barr's class is in its final stages of construction (mostly waiting for the Man to cut the dowels). The TAST challenge continues weekly with worldwide inspiration and friendship from fellow stitchers. And that quilt show. It's a rather big affair for a small local guild, and I find it's the perfect way to force myself to complete whatever is on the back burner from the previous couple (or more) years.

Horizontal sashing complete, vertical choices await cutting.

My biggest challenge has been turning a mixed media piece (my first ever) from a class last year into something more polished and connected to my recent artistic mission. I have begun to let my creativity flow in all directions as it will, and be more accepting of what emerges. Having spent quite a bit of time writing this blog the last year and a half, that direction is starting to be more verbal. The theme of the unfinished quilt, "The Time Machine," was based only on the visual impression of the paths and pendulum-like arm that appeared in my freely drawn quilting design. For over a year  I have stared at it and tried to find a way to complete the thought. One night last week as I was waiting for sleep, a small simple poem came to me and I knew it was the answer:

If you will only listen carefully

the universe will show you the way...

Follow the Time Machine

back down the path to lost hopes and dreams.

Rediscover Yourself.

Adding the embroidered borders.

It is the truth of my life and it summed up my recent artistic journey as a time travel to reclaim something I left behind. Additionally, with the usual synchronicity of such moments, a perfect piece of fabric had been plucked that week from the stash of a dear friend who purchased it with good intention, but died last year without giving it purpose. Her contribution now rings the quilt with a freely lettered and stitched piece of the poem. If you will only listen carefully...

No Time to Talk!

Excuse me! Pardon me! Comin' through! I know I haven't been around for a while, but who has time to sit and write it all down when the tables are piled high with projects and the mind is overflowing with visions of color and stitch. I know I'm supposed to be documenting my journey, but I've never been that good with keeping a diary. I'm not by nature a verbal person, more a visual one. This writing stuff takes too much effort. I totally love and admire those who can rant beautifully about the things that cross their paths. For example: Rice Freeman-Zachery at her blog "Notes From the Voodoo Cafe" comes  to mind. I love to read her rambling take on things both trivial and important. She is always insightful and amusing. But most of the time when I come to the end of a read (hers or others), I find it hard to muster the energy to leave a comment.  I follow Jude Hill's blog, Spirit Cloth, and her ongoing design whispering classes, and even though I am a known part of that community of textile lovers, I must think too hard and edit myself too much before finally leaving a bit of me on the page.

My TAST sampler pages for the five January stitches.

Learning to form shapes and fill spaces with common stitches

February has been more difficult to free form, but also more rewarding as I learn to improvise and take stitches to new places.

So the very best diary for me and the one I use almost every day is my flikr photostream. Just like a diary with stream of consciousness writing, it records where I've been and what it means to me at the moment: good and bad art, trivial and important observations about the inspiration or methods involved. A place mark to revisit my own growth, but just as importantly, to share growing steps with like minded artists of all mediums and levels of experience. Images connect with others in ways that words can't, especially when the audience is international, and that too is an amazing benefit. To meet and see the work of so many influences and feel the cultural similarities and differences. This visual diary is the real me: on the paper, the cloth, and the screen.

The portrait quilt is finally done, and I must say it came out better than expected (there was no plan, just moment by moment improv.)

Purple and green Dave is my favorite.

I have been taking a class with Sharon Boggon on the use of an artist's visual journal as both a creative diary and a workbook of ideas for future art. I have never consistently kept one before, and I am trying to learn the benefits and the habit. Since I resist writing, the studio journal is a place to tuck snippets of inspiration: photos, sketches on napkins, labels, lists, sources: whatever may be of use (or not!) down the line. There is no commitment to use anything you keep, but taking what you keep and developing it a bit further  by annotating or trying an idea in a quick study will leave behind more of what inspired the artist on later inspection. These bits of color, texture, inspirational quotes, faithfully glued and inked to the pages are left to age like fine wine. When thirsty for ideas, just uncork! I have barely begun to make this a habit, but like the art itself, I can see how meaningful it will be.

Arlee Barr's FrankenStitch class has taught me new textural additions to surface design beyond the stitches. This is a fabric "geode."

A second geode grows on this panel as the concept develops from 2D source art to part of a "Shrinebook" screen.

Buttonhole lace, stuffed, becomes a "nodule." 

Sourced from the painting, "We Drank All the Limoncino, " another panel comes to life with "nodules."

I had a recent revelation on my art journey. Something I knew inside but didn't quite acknowledge as acceptable until I recently heard Jude Hill repeat it in one of her cloth whispering sessions. That it is not necessary to have the whole concept or design the whole piece of art when you sit down to begin the making of it. I have long felt that "pre-designing" is akin to making yourself a kit, and when you begin working the kit, your mind and creativity have been left at the door. Not much different from working a kit by another artist. Granted, many of you may enjoy this sort of thing, and I don't mean to cast a broad net and say all use of other's designs is bad. But for most of us, doing that sort of work means we are not seeing all the good ideas we have inside. We decide ahead of time it is too hard to do, or that we are not good enough. What is really happening is that no one ever told us how to get the ideas out, how to make a medium our own: that we are all creative beings.

From a new sketchbook series: Starbucks Saturdays,
playing with Inktense pencils and a waterbrush to find new joy in doodling (while drinking soy lattes) on my weekly date with David.

Inspired by waterbottles in the cold case. The drips were from my new fountain pen (more about that another day.)

Trying to loosen up and draw freely feels good,
 and sometimes results in funny drawings.

I couldn't attend Carnivale in Brazil (although I know someone who did), so I just  drew with abandon.

After scanning the image, I found this samba dancer on a parade float, so I turned on a Zumba DVD and danced along!

This week in the studio journal class we are exploring design inspiration through cutouts and kaleidoscopes. I made this classic study of positive and negative spacial imagery using a photo of my own face, then inserted it into a kaleidoscope app to produce the designs on the right. How much more personal can you get than a motif created from your own profile?

I am coming to realize that the best way to find your creative voice is to start somewhere, with something that inspires, to begin the work and not worry where it will go, and just see what happens. What's the worst that could happen? You won't like it and you will start over. But from my recent class projects, I am seeing that quite often it isn't a matter of starting again, but continuing. Continuing to add, subtract, turn it around, see it with new eyes, be open to what is going on, both on the surface of the paper or cloth, and what is going on beneath, in you heart and mind. Keep on doing, everything is ultimately connected to the "you" inside. Finding your own voice is easy when you turn down the volume on what others say and do, and listen to what really inspires you.

Mining for Inspiration

This time last year, after having discovered the world of online art education, I was embarking on my first real creative endeavors to draw and paint. I had joined the Yahoo "Everyday Matters" group, was enrolled in the first Strathmore Artist Papers workshop with Pam Carriker, and was learning for the first time how to work with basic art materials and how to mine my own life and art for even more art inspiration. I had made a first journal page based on the experience of staying in a favorite hotel (go here), and another about dinner at a favorite restaurant (here), and then in Pam's workshop I had learned to combine those elements into something much richer, layered and more fascinating (then here.) Since then my drawing time has produced somewhat more literal interpretations of the favorite bits of my life, but as with my blog, there tends to be a story to bind up the parts.

This January I have been fortunate to spend some quality time under the excellent creative coaching of Traci Bautista. (The first four week class of Strathmore Online Workshops is over in real time, but you can still sign up and work the lessons on your own.) I included the results of week one doodling last time, and now I'd like to show off the rich results of the last three weeks' joyous play.

In week two, we moved into all water based media, and I was able to learn about layering not only with brushed-on paint, but watercolor crayon, pencil and markers as well. The result is a painting that is sheer and glows, and when mined for closeup detail images, displays every bit of the energy and inspiration that went into three non-stop hours of fun.

"We Drank all the Limoncino" is 18 x 24 inches
(all the images from this and last year's class may be found in
 this flikr set.) 

When my Designing Women met for our January creative play day, I decided to take some of the mined detail shots and turn them into something 3-D and practical, and created a pattern for a lidded box inspired by a self-closing tea box I was getting ready to discard. Lined with a coordinated calico print, my art is now ready for gifting or selling.  

Next up was the need for something suitable to inspire a series of pieced and embroidered panels for my ongoing class with Arlee Barr, and her highly textured techniques in surface embellishment. I have been collecting fabric forever, but most recently have started acquiring OOAK hand dyed linen bits from Jackson Art Fabrics and Deb Lacativa. Of course the colorways were highly suitable to the inspiration of my painting, since I long ago learned that my intuitive sense of color mixing will generally yield a consistent palette without much conscious thought. Color is the one area in which I am most confident and happy to experiment.

Nothing purchased. Just pulled from the closet.

This photo shows a detail inspiration shot on the right, and the design starting to form in fabric on the left.

Moving on to a new assignment for workshop weeks three and four, we returned to the use of acrylics and various found items of a household nature to use as texture plates. We were creating backgrounds for what would be fanciful "girly glam" faces a la Traci's style in week four. Here are the three pieces I made in quick succession. Much of the work was done in a finger painting style. My favorite textures came from the sequin waste and the dry walling mesh, although some other useful materials were the cut off end of a plastic basket and a stamp made from rubber bands adhered to sticky back craft foam.

Everything I used minus the hose connector used to stamp
 the large circles above.

We also doodled on newsprint in India ink and a script liner (skinny brush).

Last week we faced the hardest part of the doodle challenge: faces! Although I did an intensive week of faces with Carla Sonheim last summer, well, that was last summer, and I haven't done any since. This was supposed to be totally simple and stylized, but I needed some real glam inspiration. I opened W Magazine to the first ad I saw and this was perfect.

The face and hair area laid in, and several ink doodles secured with  matte gel to use as line inspiration.

After Session I: The facial features were done in watercolor pencil and some overlay of paint, and the rest in basic craft acrylics with various small flat and round brushes. (The colors appear a bit more golden due to the ambient lighting.)

The finished painting (minus varnishing, done later.) The colors were read very true by the scanner. Although Traci's style was to add detail in various markers and pens, and colored pencils, I stayed with the paint and brushes for all of the layering. I did use some metallic gold paint for shimmer.

This happy accident is how the painting scanned when I mistakenly hit "color correct". I love this blue based palette as well, and I expect I will mine this image for all sorts of details to be used down the line in other art and projects. And so goes the inspiration.