sketching......

I thought I would share a little bit of my sketchbook with you today. Sketchbooks are places for many things - notes, ideas, thoughts, actual sketches, textile swatches, and the list just goes on and on - I don't journal - tried many times, but the pages just got ripped out and used for other stuff, so I put that idea away - one sketchbook I use, I do little sketches that take no longer then five minutes - sometimes shorter - this is really fun for me and is part of my art practice - the pages, as the journal pages, usually get ripped out and used for other things - however, I decided not to do that with the book I'm working in now - I told myself, "wouldn't it be nice to have a whole book of 5 minute works?" - YES, it would! - so here are a few to share with you - I have made a vow to myself not to rip this book apart - at least until I'm done with it! Will keep you posted.











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ousting the critic......

It's Friday and the weekend looms - We will spend a quiet Easter at home - a pleasant way to welcome a new season - this week has been very scattered and so studio time has been limited - I felt like sketching some heads - I love doing these - it's a very cathartic painting time for me - these are a staple in my art practice. Sketching these heads seems to ground me and free me up to paint with fewer negative thoughts jumping in to critique my work. These are little oils on board, 10x10's.





For those that celebrate Easter, have a wonderful one. Until next week.

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an oddity......

It's Monday and we've had an odd occurrence for most of the day - sun - I keep stopping and looking up to make sure that is really what it is - obviously it has been in VERY short supply the last couple of months - almost nonexistent - but here it is - not gone away at all - once in awhile I would see it trying ever so hard to poke through the cloud cover - a milky white disc hanging in the sky and then poof! it would be gone - but today! today it made it's entrance after black clouds dropped hail on us this morning - it has stayed all afternoon - I'm hopeful it will reappear tomorrow - fingers crossed - I wanted to share with you a few movie titles I've watched in the past month - I enjoyed each one for different reasons and highly recommend them:

The Art Of The Steal
Wasteland
Herb & Dorothy
The September Issue
Exit Through the Gift Shop

And below is a little painting I finished this afternoon when I finally stopped staring at the sky:

this is part of my 10x10 series, oil on board, 'She Ate The Center First'

Happy Monday everyone! hope you all get to make art this week.

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finally.......

I have worked on this painting for over 6 months - it just never got there - the last rendition with the green just killed me every time I walked into my workspace - these are just a few of the ways that came into being - I always liked one section of the work, but never the whole thing and when the green monster appeared I literally gave up - it has been sitting in a corner for a couple of months and felt so out of place in my world - today I thought, UGH!, either get rid of it or just cover it up,

one rendition - UGH!


another.....


the worst one of all.....


so I put it on my easel and covered it with raw umber and then some black and then two hours later I had a smile on my face - aaahhhhhhhh, this is an honest piece, finally - I've learned that if it doesn't hit me in the stomach, it's not going to stay - it can finally go inside to dry - very satisfying - happy Wednesday everyone!



oil on board 24x24, 'She Couldn't Fake It'

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scrapbook......

Literally, I made a scrapbook - Artfest 2011 has been camped in my backyard at Fort Worden in Port Townsend for the past week and on Friday night they had their 'vendor night' and Lis and I dropped in to see what they had. On a side note?, we have gone for the past 4 years, but this year there was a really different feel - it was not pretty - so much pushing and shoving, lots of shoving!! - it didn't feel fun, just extreme - we stayed just long enough to pick up a couple of items and exited - at the table I found this little antique photo album, we were shoved and pushed and one lady just snatched another antique photo album right out of Lisa's hands!!!! Geez! People!! It's just stuff! It felt like this was the absolute LAST place on the planet to pick up any art related materials - we checked that event off of our list of 'things to do' pronto!!

Okay, so this afternoon I sat and pulled things from my scrap pile and made a little book. It was really fun - I haven't uploaded all the pages, but here are a few to give you an idea....

This shows the spine and pages - I didn't trim anything - I like it all sticking out...



this is the front page.......


two of the middle pages.......



more inside.......



the back page......

this is one of those pieces that looks much better in person.....the weekend is almost over - hope you all had a good one.

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revisited......

As I already told you, after the weekend of 'wax & oil', I felt I had pushed my edges a bit and found some fresh ideas - revisiting my work isn't a new idea for me, obviously - sooooo, as is the process in my work space, I was digging in a pile of papers and STUFF!! and came across the three little pieces I had sewen into collages last year - I didn't even think - I just put one up on a work board and started painting - there wasn't a question that the next step was to paint - I got two of these to pretty good places before I quit - pushing myself reclaimed my trust in my intuition - that's a good place for me to be - now I'm actually looking at them and thinking about ways to mount them - that usually means they are cooked - I really like the journey these pieces took - paintings, ripped and torn, sewed onto another painting that was cut up and now painted again - visual diaries of the past 12 months -


The photo below shows the collage before I worked on it today........


this is the piece after I finished this afternoon - I feel it is much stronger........


again, the collage before I painted it......


and here is the finished piece.......again, I feel it's much stronger.
I will work on the third piece tomorrow - I think these would be wonderful mounted on raw canvas, probably sewen on......hope you are all having a fabulous week.

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almost done?, not!!

Every time I think I'm almost done working on my 10x10 series, I pick up one of the boards that was 'FINISHED' and rework it - AGAIN!. Won't even bother to show the before's on the piece below - it took a drastic turn after my escape into my weekend of bees wax and oil and whatever!! That was a really good thing I did for myself. Putting everything away and just messing around in a very random and untechnical way gave me new eyes and some fresh energy - I highly recommend it.
The work below is mixed media on board 10x10, 'She Could Only Sigh'....

I've now covered over two more paintings and have more then several in progress - if you are boring yourself, do something totally not right and see where it takes you. The weekend looms - hope you all have fabulous plans.

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