open doors

I have got a cold this week, and along with the lack of physical energy my spirits have been flagging a bit.  But this morning I am determined to feel better.  The damn cold has just got to run its course, so I'm going over what I've accomplished in the last couple of weeks.  A blog post morning will do me good.

Last week I varnished all the 12x12 paintings.  We have had an unusually warm autumn and I was able to do this outdoors, in mid-October!  Sweet.  

I like the backyard with its fallen leaves, laundry on the line, gardening buckets and paintings.  A more domestic scene than I would've cared for a few years ago, but which suits me now.

I liked how the late afternoon light picked up the textures.

These paintings are now all signed and inventoried, and today I will put on the hanging wires.  Then they will be ready to go out!

I also have been working on a quilt for a friend.  She's just had a baby, and this started out as a baby quilt...  but then it took on a life of its own, and grew much bigger!  There it is pinned to the studio wall behind my working table:  

I haven't made a quilt in some years, and it was fun to haul out all the laces and pretty things.

I was hoping to finish it this week, but that didn't happen.  This quilt may wind up being a xmas present.

This week I put together 5 projects for teaching art classes in the schools.  For each project I do a concept/discussion outline, materials list, and step-by-step process outline.  It's a lot of work, but I know that once the ideas are developed they can be used for more than one class, so I'm setting up for the future here. I hope.  :)

As I do all the writing I am also making each project in my studio to work out the physics of the thing, so that it can be a successful project on both a conceptual and a practical level.

Here are some papier-mache bowls I made:

It's fun to make things outside my usual practice, and I really like how these bowls turned out.  Perhaps some of the processes I'm exploring here will find their way into future studio work...

Yesterday, after much writing and school-project-prototype-making and despite my cold and low energy, I finally was able to work on my own paintings again!  Just a couple of glazes on a few of the little oil paintings, but what a good feeling.

At one point I was hoping all the little oil paintings might be finished by the end of November, but now I think not.  These need a fair bit of work yet, and the oil takes time to dry, and I'd rather not rush things.

And the fence paintings endure.  This will be their fourth winter on the fence.  Here, lit by the porch light at night:

I'm really hoping I can find a good balance between teaching and my studio practice.  It feels like a good time to open some new doors.

crime scene

Maybe it's the flash effect that lends this photo a certain forensic tone.  Maybe it's the pink bathroom effect.  Maybe the jerry-rigged-electrical-socket effect.

*laughs*   (maybe it's the artwork itself, but I'm not going there... !)

Anyway, here is a small room in the back corner of the basement, fairly separate from the rest of the house, and so it makes a good oil drying room.  It makes a good darkroom, too, but for now it's an oil-drying room.

I had to stand in the bathtub to get this shot.  There are a few more paintings not in the frame, quietly and patiently drying, while the less patient artist is off in her studio room working on other things.

grunt work

Today I photographed the new series, all 24 of them individually plus various combinations of 3 or 4 together.  I also photographed several of the completed small oil paintings, and a few older, larger pieces.

It always astounds me how much time documentation requires.  The idea persists in my mind that photographing a bunch of paintings will take a couple of hours at most.  But no, it takes almost an entire day, every time I do it.

So here I am again at the end of the day, having finally got all the photos taken and also having run out the batteries in the SLR camera so I can't download them for cropping &c. yet.  It's a bit like doing renovations on the house...  *laughs*

But I took a few studio shots in between with my small camera, because somehow when I'm moving my paintings around I see interesting little things.

At the end of the day I consider my next line-up of work: painted pieces of canvas, ready for stitching.  It's good to have them peripherally visible on the wall while doing other things, as I'm mulling over how to approach the stitching this time around.

Maybe tonight I'll be able to run the "good" photos through my system of labelling and re-sizing.  Or maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

the list and the life

Last week I wrote about what I was going to do next in the studio.  I have a kind of running "studio to-do list"... It's more of an ideal game plan than a rigorous list.  Eventually everything does get done, but not always in the order I envision.  This week, 2 out of 3 things on the list got done.

Adding glaze layers to the small oil paintings: Check.  I worked on 9 of them but photographed just the 3 below:

Stitching the 16x16's: Nope, didn't do that.  

Contact galleries: Yup.  Now it's a waiting game.  Hope there's some interest; wish me luck!

Besides those tasks - and getting a load of dental work done, and finally having my hand ultrasounded and x-rayed and told "yes, this can be fixed" (whoosh of relief after 4 months of ambiguity) - I managed to do some more underpaintings of the splashy sort, a nice low-stress technique.

6 underpaintings in all, pinned over one another.

After all the small stuff I've been doing, I am eager to make some larger works again.  In some way the splashy prep painting feels like a re-hash of the work I made for the "CHROMA" show at CKG... but that's OK, it's just the underpainting so far, and I have got some idea of how to push the aesthetic of the stitching part.

Above: exploring colour combinations

Below: details of an underpainting I worked on yesterday

The cropped detail shots could almost be complete paintings in themselves, hey.  Hmmm....  I will have to keep this in mind.

I also did a couple more collages in my Book of Cities.  I think the students' work has informed my own, as these seem a bit different from the collages I made prior to doing the workshop.  I like that.

Start...           and         ...Finish

Below: I think I will do some colour washes over this one, to give it a bit more depth and to integrate the drawing and collage areas:

My "creative brain" has been keeping me company in the studio ever since I unearthed it a few weeks ago.  It hums along cozily while I work, and seems happy to be here.

And tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  My husband and I are hosting dinner this year and looking forward to it.  We have been talking about how fortunate we are: to live in this country; to have plenty of food in our garden and on our table; to be able to follow our creative pursuits; to celebrate love and family.  Life is not perfect, but it's good nonetheless.

A Happy Thanksgiving to you also, reader, wherever you may be.

:)

V

workshop + studio

Last week I did a workshop with two grade 6 classes at Irvine School!  It has been 20+ years since I've made art with school students.  We all had loads of fun, the students made some super collages, and I gained some insights about working with people of their age group.

To begin, I engaged the students in talking about how they experienced urban environments through all their senses, and they had some interesting things to say.  Then we got out the paper, scissors, glue and drawing materials, and got down to it.

Here are a few photos of the collages we made.  They are all 11x14"

above: Students hard at "work"

below: The morning class's collages laid on a table.  They were pinned to the board but I forgot to photograph them, and then we had to move them for the afternoon class.

below: The afternoon class's work up on the board

And some close-ups shots of their work:

All in all, the workshop was a great success.  Everyone got into the project and made some really beautiful collages!

I'm definitely looking forward to doing this again!

AND!  When I returned home the remainder of my 12x12" stretchers had arrived, so I was able to finish this series:

the edge colours are very important:

... and playing with photoshop is fun:

Next week: add glaze layers on the small oil paintings; stitching work on the 16x16" series; send out inquiries to a couple of galleries which I have in mind, with an eye to putting works into their xmas-season exhibitions.

Also hopefully in the next few weeks or months I will get to do another workshop or two, between studio projects.

I'm feeling pretty fortunate these days.