Wild and Crazy

These are my paintings from the end of week 2 of Flora Bowley's online class. It's been lots of fun doing layers and layers of paint, but I'm feeling the urge to tame them now. We will be working on these same canvases for 3 more weeks, so they should look radically different by the time I'm done.

Flora's class is so beautifully designed, a lovely cross between painting and The Artist's Way sort of thoughts and exercises, with a little yoga thrown in. Flora has such a lovely presence with a calm, centered quality--it comes through even online.

I have no problem throwing paint on canvas and letting go. It's the next stage--the turning all the joy and wildness into a well-composed painting that doesn't lose its energy--that is challenging for me. So my fingers are crossed that I can continue to stay focused on the process and not worry too much about the results.

Tag Tuesday--Happy Valentines!

I'm kind of killing many birds with one stone this week. Tag Tuesdays' last two themes were hearts, then Valentines. I made this Valentine for my art group Valentine swap, so I'll just check off my whole list.

This was inspired by Jude's cloth weavings, using some of my hand-painted fabrics for a bit of a graphic touch and both machine and hand stitching. I copied some of my painted fabrics on paper and used it for the background.

Happy Valentines Day!

Tag Tuesday--Lace

The challenge for Tag Tuesday this week is lace. I've never been a lacy kind of girl, so wanted to see what else I could do with it. I decided to follow the lace pattern and do some chunky embroidery on top of it.

That might have more potential for playing with smaller lace patterns.

I was looking over my list for my personal "Just 30" challenge, which I wrote about here and found that I worked on, if not completed, everything I had on the list for the month. 30 days is so much more manageable than a year! So I'm going to jot down a few more things I'd like to do in the next 30 days.

Carve more stamps for printing on fabric

Make more fiber components, both hand and machine

Try deconstructed screen printing

Do some layering of printing on fabric, with dyes or discharge

Paint

It's a shorter list because I'm starting Flora Bowley's online painting class, so I want to stay open to however much time that requires or inspires.

Pilot Parallel Pens

I really like the line variety that dip pens give, but they are a little scary to take out sketching in public. I've been experimenting with a bunch of different pens trying to find something that gives nice line variety but can be thrown in a purse.

I'm really excited about the Pilot Parallel Pens. They come in different nib sizes and have replaceable ink cartridges that come in different colors.

This nib is the 3.8mm, about 1/4" wide:

I think it's my favorite--I used it on this bouquet and like the irregular line.

They don't have waterproof ink though, at least I haven't been able to find any. This was black ink, but when I put watercolors on top it bled a beautiful purple color. I love the effect.

This sketch was done with a smaller Parallel pen, 1.5mm, and the black ink bled gray on this one. Not sure why they differ.

I'm always trying for a looser, sketchier look in sketching, and these pens help me give up some control.

Tag Tuesday--Vintage

I find it funny, and a little sad, that stuff I had in high school is now very cool to my teens because it is vintage. So for the vintage tag challenge this week, I decided to delve into one specific period--high school, California, early 70's--that time when the bright 60s colors were still around but earth tones were starting to creep in.

You can see other tags here. I'm still a week behind, and probably always will be. They are now posting for the new challenge--lace.

Tag Tuesday

I was catching up on some blog reading and found so many fun challenges/classes/themes for the new year that I could spin in all sorts of new directions. But I was especially drawn to Carolyn Saxby's Tag Tuesday challenge. Unfortunately it was full by the time I found it, but I decided to play along on my own.

Carolyn gives a theme each Tuesday for a tag to be created that week. The nice thing about playing alone is I can use whatever rules I want, so I decided I wasn't that interested in tags themselves, but I do like the challenge of experimenting on a very small canvas with a theme to challenge me.

So here is my non-tag for the challenge "White" this week. Thinking snowballs, using a variety of silk and other fabric samples/scraps.

Actually I see I'm a week behind and everyone is already posting the next challenge "Vintage," so I'll try to squeeze another one in before next Tues. and get with the program.

Teens and Trees

We had a long winter break in my teen Art and Design class and are just getting going again. Here are a few pictures of one of the projects from last term. We were studying shape and visual texture. They had to design a stylized tree, simplifying its shapes, and cut it out of foam core. They then covered it with black and white or neutral magazine pages that showed strong visual texture. (As you may notice with any assignments I give, there are always some rule breakers, and I'm fine with that.) They could then add pops of color if they wanted.

The trees are designed to be free standing and are just spectacular that way. I had to lay them on the floor for a few quick photos as we ran out the door and wish I had better background colors to make them pop, but I think you can still see how great they turned out.

Here are a few of them:

They are such a talented group--it is a thrill to watch them create! You can see some of their earlier assignments here.