Professing and confirming the eternal YES
View from Gaviota Peak Monday January 24th
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Inside Outside Upside Down
I had the great pleasure of working with Marcia Burtt last week. She held a 5 day workshop at the beach and allowed me to come for two days to learn her methods of working in acrylic paint on location.
Now I have been strictly an oil painter and devout studio hermit these last 23 years. Over and over I've tried working outdoors and what I've found is that I paint extremely trivial, conservative, representational compositions when I'm faced with the actual landscape in front of me.
I don't know why that is. My guess. . . that I feel like I need to be true to what I'm looking at, honor the actual scene that stares back at me. I thought perhaps working quickly with a water based medium might help, something that dries too quickly to fuss with and allows me to work later in the studio with oil.
Marcia has a wonderful set up with her acrylics that makes it light and easy to travel. I had a great two days with her. I am still wondering if it is something that will get folded and stitched into my process, but exciting possibilities continue to flower in my mind.
These were three of the unfinished compositions from the time spent at the beach. The colors are brighter, perhaps it's the new medium and perhaps it's being outside. I know it will take some time to learn how the acrylic tints mix. That was one of my struggles, learning to mix the right color with the new medium. Just when you thought you got the color, the tide would ebb, the sun would dry it out on your palette and the race continued to catch the fleeting moment while mixing and remixing the colors.
It's not bad for a first effort. I still look at these and see Marcia. It is her palette of colors after all. She is a most convivial and generous teacher. It really was a joy-filled two days despite the struggle with working in a new and unnerving situation.
Tideline 20x30"
Ebbing 14x36"
High Tide 14x36"
Now I have been strictly an oil painter and devout studio hermit these last 23 years. Over and over I've tried working outdoors and what I've found is that I paint extremely trivial, conservative, representational compositions when I'm faced with the actual landscape in front of me.
I don't know why that is. My guess. . . that I feel like I need to be true to what I'm looking at, honor the actual scene that stares back at me. I thought perhaps working quickly with a water based medium might help, something that dries too quickly to fuss with and allows me to work later in the studio with oil.
Marcia has a wonderful set up with her acrylics that makes it light and easy to travel. I had a great two days with her. I am still wondering if it is something that will get folded and stitched into my process, but exciting possibilities continue to flower in my mind.
These were three of the unfinished compositions from the time spent at the beach. The colors are brighter, perhaps it's the new medium and perhaps it's being outside. I know it will take some time to learn how the acrylic tints mix. That was one of my struggles, learning to mix the right color with the new medium. Just when you thought you got the color, the tide would ebb, the sun would dry it out on your palette and the race continued to catch the fleeting moment while mixing and remixing the colors.
It's not bad for a first effort. I still look at these and see Marcia. It is her palette of colors after all. She is a most convivial and generous teacher. It really was a joy-filled two days despite the struggle with working in a new and unnerving situation.
Tideline 20x30"
Ebbing 14x36"
High Tide 14x36"Saturday, January 22, 2011
O.S.C. obsessive stamping compulsion
The latest items have just hit my shoppeee, my newest obsession with hand carving stamps. It all started with the idea of wanting to make my own wrapping paper for the holiday. OF COURSE it was pet inspired, border collie infatuation and sincere pet worship which has been perverted into my foray of making hand made, hand carved rubber stampages.
It started with my own dogs, then dogs playing frisbee and then I thought "hey! why not all the breeds!" and "why not portraits of friends dogs?" I continued to spin out from there. I want to carve anything and everything. Dogs first... then maybe some cats... other beasts, and we'll see. I'm in the falling in love stage so anything and everything seems possible.
Here are the first stamps made and you have to mosey over to the Etsy Shop to see more and then keep checking back. I'm at about 4 dozen dogs at present {and counting!}.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Speechless
and spoiled in Southern California. It's 5:40, the sun just went down and it's a balmy 75 degrees out. It's been a pretty spectacular weekend. Far better than the summer ever shaped up to be. Drinking in every last drop of it.
Santa Barbara Shores off Hollister to the dead end... walk through the Eucalyptus trees through the field of grass, down the cliff to the best tide pools. Bliss.
Santa Barbara Shores off Hollister to the dead end... walk through the Eucalyptus trees through the field of grass, down the cliff to the best tide pools. Bliss.
Solar Plate Open Studio
Enjoy a full day of printmaking at the Rusty Barn Saturday, February 5th from 10am-4pm. $60 will give you access to an amazing studio with two presses... one large enough to print full sheets and multiple book plates.
Harmon Cabin 7x12"
It's an open printing day but I will be available for instruction and help with solar printing... exposing, printing, curating... whatever your printing need might be. Plates and paper available for purchase. Light boxes are handy in case there is a lack of sun for exposure.
Make sure to check out all the other interesting workshops lined up for 2011 HERE.
Harmon Cabin 7x12"Make sure to check out all the other interesting workshops lined up for 2011 HERE.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Jumping in... 2011
Ready for a long winter hibernation in the studio. Work sounds like the perfect way to spend the first month of the new year. October is the distant goal, with my next solo show in Santa Barbara set to open on the First Thursday of October 2011. That gives me 8 solid months to pull myself together and connect the dots. Right now it is a random constellation of disparate ideas, with a twinkle of what might be, where I might be led and how to get there.
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