Art Every Day month – Day 8

I had a day full of eye candy! I just wish I had pictures to post here. There seem to be a lot of shows and studio open houses on during this time of the year…the Christmas-time shows. Today we (Cariño and a friend) went to two of them…

First we went to the 260 Fingers Show – an invitational show and sale of 26 clay artists. It was wonderful…such amazing and beautiful things…I fell in love with many pieces! There were the gorgeous pots, mugs, platters and bowls that you would expect at a pottery show…but this was not just a pottery show, it was a clay artist’s show, so there were also sculptural pieces.

I was truly inspired by two of the sculptural artists – one of them didn’t have a card and I was hoping to be able to see her on the web site…but now that I am looking I don’t see her listed…I may be haunted by this…I hope I get to see her work again…it was mixed media incorporating clay, wood, leather, metal and bones I think – just amazing. She had two wall hangings that I could have looked at forever! I am going to have to hunt down her name…

The other sculptor that I really, really loved her work – Christina MacEwen – also did mixed media – using much the same materials (clay, bone, metal, wood, linen and paint) - wonderful, tall ‘creatures’ or spirits - about 6 to 9 feet tall!…she had a book for sale called “Spirits from the Shore” showing her sculptures as well as writing about them…it is the only thing I bought at the show…I just had to have it!

There were a few other artists that I really liked as well – Chandler Swain – I love her works…my favorite coffee mug is one of hers – has a happy woman floating along on it. Tim Storey’s fanciful creatures were great – his Big Fish was especially wonderful and he had a dragon tea pot that I wish could have followed me home! Paula Murray made exquisite sculptural containers out of porcelain…so fragile looking – some looked like curled birch bark.

After the 260 Fingers show, which was on at the Glebe Community Centre, we headed over to the New Edinburgh area of Ottawa for the MainWorks Studio Open House. Karen Bailey (who I have mentioned before) has a studio here along with 14 other artists. MainWorks is located in the old Crichton Street School which is now the Crichton Cultural Community Centre. The artists’ studios are up on the third floor – huge windows, super high ceilings…it is a neat spot!

Saw some paintings there that I would have liked to have had follow me home as well…but, thankfully, most of the ones that I really liked were sold already! It’s ok if they are sold – then they can’t haunt me! It’s when I really like them and they aren’t sold that they can leave lingering whispers in my head!

As for creative things that I have done today…not much… but that’s ok…it was an inspiring day with all the creative eye candy I got to see!

I am still sitting with the big painting…

I did add a bit more to this little one…it is one I take out every so often and add to…not sure where it is going…it is becoming fanciful…sort of gives me the feeling of a dream…a nice dream…

Art Every Day month – Day 7

Yesterday, Day 6 of AEDM, I didn’t do anything to show…I took the rest of the pieces of colour off the backing sheet. I had a pottery class as well, but missed it because I had an interview – interview went well, I think, but took way longer that I thought it would!

Usually Cariño walks the dogs in the morning, but this morning he had to rush off to University for a meeting, so I walked them…I found a beautiful stone heart!

















Today I managed to spend some creative time!

I had a helper though…Pimkey (one of my elder daughters cats that we are watching) is a very needy cat…she pokes at you with her cold nose and kneads you with her sharp claws…kind of drives you nuts after a while! It is hard to get mad at her though…she looks at you in such a love-me-pet-me-need-me kind of way! The problem is that she never settles, so eventually you have to tell her to leave you alone! A couple times as she was rolling in needy ecstasy on my work table, she rolled right off!












































She is a funny creature! Hard not to love though!

I played around with the placing of the pieces of colour…deciding which way up I liked each piece and where to put them on the canvas…think I am happy with it now…next is to stick them all down with gel medium…another one of the more tedious steps…but I can get lost doing that as well…it’s like sanding pieces of wood…meditative in it’s own way…or maybe I just like mindless, repeditive things sometimes!






















The other main thing I did today was to paint the next step in my Flow painting (couldn't help the glare...it was dark by the time I was ready to take a picture)…I have to sit with it for a bit now…decide if I need to add more or make it ‘less’! Part of me is thinking that maybe I want the top part to just be some blues and a bit of the off-white…part of me likes the red as well…part of me likes the riot of colour! So I will let it sit for a while…have to wait for it to dry before I put on the ‘flow’ anyway…

I imagine what I will do is get another 30”x30” canvas and try it with just the blues…and maybe some red…

I used palette knives to paint this…started with a big one and got progressively smaller as I moved through the colours…from about a 12” one down to one that is about an inch!


















It is the weekend once more!!! There are a number of things on this weekend...tomorrow Cariño, a couple frinds and I are going to go to a pottery show and a multi-artist studio open house...will post links for them tomorrow...

Art Every Day month – Day 5

I didn’t get much time to myself today…the few moments I thought I might have…I got whisked away on other matters…or received news that I had to sit and digest for a while…not all days can be stellar ones…but it is these days that we can use as markers against which to measure the better ones…

I tried to work on another postcard, made a sketch for it and started, but didn’t get very far before I had to leave it…

Tonight…after dinner, after dog walk…I came up and started taking my 50 pieces of colour off their backing sheet…a somewhat tedious job…when I am painting them, I don’t think about the job I will have taking them off…I can’t…it would constrict my painting of them…I just know and accept that it will take some time and care to get them off…it is one of the steps in getting to ‘know’ them…each ‘piece of colour’ is like it’s own little painting…when I am laying on the paint, to a certain extent I pay singular attention to each piece, but I am also looking at the combination of all the pieces as well…when I am getting them off the temporary background (the globs of paint stick them down), I pay much more attention to each little square as it’s own whole…I enjoy the texture and colour dynamics of each piece then…I use an x-acto knife to trim off the overhangs of paint…

Part of the fun of this series is the playing with each piece…they are all different…each a little abstract painting on its own…when I am arranging them, it is like doing a puzzle…for me, they have an order that feels right and have a way up that feels right…they weren’t painted that way…I just play with them until ‘it feels right’…

I wanted to get them all off the backing this eve…at least start to ‘play’ with their arrangement on the canvas I have waiting for them…but it couldn’t all be done this evening…I am tired…long day…I can finish tomorrow…

Art Every Day month – Day 4

Just a quick post today...

I am so enjoying this project that gives me a reason to get up into my studio...it isn't that I really need a reason...no...not really...I love escaping into paints and colours and the smells of creating...but, I must admit...there are times when I feel that I should be doing the dishes or something like that instead...you know, you can eat up all your time doing 'those' things...maybe I feel guilty for having so much fun...I don't know...there are bigger things at play here I think...

Anyway...I did get to spend a bit of time being creative...none of what I was working on yesterday is dry - that's a lie...the part I did of the 30x30 for a "Flow" painting is dry...but I still haven't decided on the colours for the top part yet...and when I do I will likely need to go buy them...it is a big canvas (for me) and it takes a lot of paint!

Today I worked on some postcards and ACEOs (these are 2.5"x3.5", the postcards are 4"x6") for the two other projects I am participating in through WetCanvas

The postcard project's theme is dream vacations...I signed up for it to challenge myself by having to paint more realistically...I am being challenged! The ACEO project is an 'anything goes' one...not as scary for me...but fun all the same...these projects also force me to get creative and I have great fun just experimenting and trying new things...I can let go without worrying about 'ruining' a big piece of paper or a canvas...I learn a lot and grow through projects like this...

Both of these projects are swaps - so I have to make a postcard or ACEO for everyone in the projects and I receive one from everyone in the projects...it is so much nicer getting little pieces of art in the mail instead of just bills!!!

The sailboat in the moonlight is done from my imagination...the other three come also from my imagination, but thorugh a lens influenced by both Norval Morrisseau and Ted Harrison...two artists I love...for many reasons...colour being one of them for sure!

Here are my efforts for the day...














I can't believe how clean and clear my work table is...I'm sure that won't last!

Art Every Day month – Day 3

Spent a lovely few hours this afternoon up in my partially reclaimed studio – reclaimed enough so that I can use my table, the floor and my easel…my paints are becoming so thick, though, that working flat is easier…

I get lost in the drips, the overlapping and dragging together of colours…hours become minutes while I am transported away…becoming transfixed by how the colours mix and drape over themselves…I use paintbrushes sometimes – but I am just as likely to use the other end of it as I am to use the bristles…I usually have a brush one way in one hand, a second the other way in the other hand…I use palette knives a lot and at times squeeze paint directly from the tube onto the canvas…I quite often start with big utensils and end up finishing with tiny ones…the hardest part is waiting for things to dry so I can move onto the next step…this is why I work on a number of things at a time…

Today I worked on two canvases (30”x30” and 12”x16”), fifty 1.5”x1.5” squares that will be used for one of my “Pieces of Colour” series and one postcard…didn’t finish anything…but am close on one of the canvases.

The 30”x30” canvas that I started will be the biggest piece yet that I have done…it is going to be for my “Flow” series…I painted what will be the bottom part of it…but now I have to wait until that dries so that I can turn it right way up and paint the top part…the ‘flow’ part is painted last…after the top and bottom parts are dry…I am still unsure what colour combinations I am going to use for the top part on this one…

Here is a picture of one of my finished “Flow” pieces…


















The canvas I am close to being finished is one of my “Meditation Garden” ones…very similar to a smaller one I painted this past spring, but I wanted to see if I liked it bigger…I would love to try it really big…but it takes a ton of paint! I need to let it dry now and then I will probably put on just little bits of the different colours here and there…in some areas they have mixed quite a bit and I want to put back some of the highlight colours…


















I really enjoy doing the “Pieces of Colour” series because there are a few different steps to it, each of which has it’s merit…the one I was working on today is the third in this colour combination series on canvas…once I decide on a size, figure out how many squares, cut all the squares, tape them to a backing for the painting process…then I paint them all the background colour…once that is dry I do the really fun part (though each step has it’s own repetitive, meditative qualities that I do like, the step of laying down the thick colours is by far the most fun!)…that is what I did today…now I have to wait for all the squares to dry, then I remove them from the backing and play with them on the painted canvas like a puzzle to decide which pieces to use and in what order…then, once I decide how I like them, using gel medium, I stick them all down to the canvas…each square is like a mini painting on it’s own and when I have a stack of them in my hands and all around, I am happy! They each have a weight and life all of their own…

Art Every Day month – Day 2

I was so happy to get back that hour that was taken away from me in the spring!

Didn’t do much in the way of creating anything myself today – put a blue base coat of acrylics on five postcards and that’s it…but it was a day full of creative things…Cariño and I went to the Ottawa Valley Weavers’ and Spinners’ Guild Exhibition and Sale with some friends. We saw some beautiful things – the weaving and knitting that you would expect at something like this, but also felting and some lovely wire-work jewelry. I had never known much about felting until one of these friends that we went to the show with started doing it (her youngest daughter got her started)…it is really quite wonderful…some of the pieces look like watercolour paintings – except it is wool being used instead of paint. There were also some felted vase-shaped pieces that were just amazing…felted sculptures and teddies too! Another woman had absolutely beautiful rug hooking…she used perfect, rich colours.

There were a few things that tried to speak to me, but all I came away with were some silk worm cocoons that I just couldn’t resist (not sure why, but I’m sure they will find their way into something I make) and some bits of un-spun wool.










After the Weavers’ and Spinners’ show we headed down to the Market and the Terrance Robert Gallery on Sussex Drive to see David Lidbetter’s exhibition which I really enjoyed.

By the time we got home again it was time to get dinner started and then the day was ending…but it was a wonderful day…nice company, great art eye candy…a nice, sunny, crisp fall day!

Art Every Day month – November 1, 2008 – Day 1

I am glad that the first day of this project is on a Saturday…nice to have a couple days to focus on it without the added pressures of a weekday…not that I live conventional weeks or anything…but, even still, the “weekend” holds a certain charm…

I spent most of today ‘reclaiming’ my studio…no small job as we had my elder daughter, her beau and my son all living with us for part of the summer and fall...and all their stuff…so my studio became a dumping ground. Believe it or not…it is better than when I started…but still has a long way to go!


















I doubt that during this project that I will ever start and finish one piece in one day…I always work on a number of pieces at a time (that way I can be doing something else during dry times)…I also have a whole lot of different things that I am working on right now…I have joined a postcard swap and an ACEO swap – both through WetCanvas…I have two solo shows coming up – one in February and one in April…I am taking pottery classes (hand building) and I am itching to get going on making some mosaics (haven’t ever done that before)…

In my pottery classes I have started making pieces (to add to all the mosaic pieces that are being ‘made’ for me – kiln casualties and all the stuff my dog broke) to be incorporated into the mosaics that still reside in my mind…I am on the verge of starting some planning sketches.

A couple of classes ago I made this ‘thing’…haven’t glazed it yet…thinking about how to do it…I am really happy with it…it is fun to look at…lots of texture.














Last class I also made a few tiles and a couple of chunky hearts (that I like on both sides) …here they are still wet.
















Finally, this evening, I got started on some postcards…started the background using acrylic inks splattered on watercolour paper sprayed with water…I also blasted it with canned air and sprayed it a bit more with water once the inks were on…then I sprinkled salt over it all…this is an experiment…so we shall see how it turns out…I had fun doing it though!














A good first day of the project - this is going to be fun!