An apple today for artists at play

Things have been very hectic around here because we’re replacing our kitchen countertops, which naturally leads to many other related projects such as changing the lighting, refinishing the sides of the island, cutting precise miters on trim molding, and on and on. It might be easier to just tear the house down and start over. But the art must go on, right?


Since I’ve been doing quite a bit of collage lately, it seemed like it would be fun to take a mini-workshop with a local Orlando area artist, Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson. She calls her work paper paintings, an apt description. Fellow artist and friend Joyce Shelton and I will be there today for four hours, tearing and pasting away. Since time is limited, we have prepared our underpainted panels ahead of time and are bringing our painted collage papers along. The subject: an apple. Below is a cropped photo taken at a farmer’s market with nice greens and reds to play off of each other.

We’re working on a 12" X 12" wooden panel primed with clear gesso. The idea is to perhaps allow some of the wood grain to show through in the final image. I sketched the composition onto tracing paper, then taped it along the top edge of the panel. I don't really transfer the sketch directly, but sort of redraw the image underneath the tracing paper, using it as a guide.

I painted over the lines with a gold metallic acrylic then started splashing on color with Golden OPEN acrylics. They’re nice to work with because they don’t dry as quickly as regular acrylics which allows time for blending. The colors are intensified a little or a lot.

It has proved invaluable to take photos along the way with my little point-and-shoot Sony in black and white to see how the values are working (or not!) 

Here is the completed underpainting which has a lot of nice colors already. I don’t expect to finish it at the workshop, but it’s easy to add more collage and/or paint later. As you can see, I couldn’t seem to stop brushing on paint which would’ve allowed the wood panel to show through...oh well!

One glitch that I can see already is that the apple in the lower left is too large compared to the others, so that’ll have to be tweaked. No worries, it’ll take just a stroke of paint or a shred of paper. Wish me luck!

Still looking into the treetops

Here is another experiment with the oak branches as a subject using “hard” collage, as opposed to soft quilting techniques...there are so many possible options it’s pretty amazing. Below is the reference photo, taken on Big Talbot Island in north Florida:

The spiraling branches are what caught my eye in the park and inspired this piece. The large broken off branch in the lower right didn’t seem to add anything, so I left it out of the composition.

I’m not crazy about the texture of canvas, so some torn pieces of handmade paper were collaged onto the bare canvas to cover some of it. I sketched in the branches using watercolor pencils and painted in the basic structure with Golden OPEN acrylics. They’re nice to work with because they don’t dry on the palette/canvas as quickly as regular acrylics.

Blues, greens, and turquoises were painted on fairly quickly, just to cover up the white ground, primarily. Fortunately, I was liking it already, always a huge relief. Many, many pieces of torn paper and words ripped out of a defunct old book were added. The word “cathedral” in all caps (seen at the center bottom) inspired the name of this piece.

The words form a poem that can change, depending on the order in which you read them...

Cathedral

quiet woodlands

branches spreading to the sky

ageless strength

peace and restful calm

priceless beauty

cathedral

Take two on the oak branches

Actually this is the third painting/collage I’ve done of this subject, but this one is based on the same photograph (cropped down) as this first version so it seems like #2, even if it isn’t really. It’s engrossing to test out various ways to depict these trees. While not 100% satisfied yet, I don’t hate these tryouts, which is a refreshing experience. Often In the past when painting, my reaction after a few hours of labor has been a strong desire to throw the canvas in a nice hot bonfire.

This version is less stylized than the first one and incorporates more paper than fabric in the collage part. Also, it has something ripped out of an old National Geographic. It’s current title is Splendorous, based on one of the torn-out words. I can’t recall seeing that word in print before, love it. Who knew how fun it would be to add some text to the image? Here’s a detail shot:

So here’s the question, dear readers... Is it finished? The in-process photo below shows the Spanish moss I was originally thinking of adding. 

The clumps of moss aren’t all in the exact spots where they would go, but hopefully this gives you an idea. Yes, no, doesn’t matter? Thanks for any opinions!

Critter sighting

Hmmm, what is that in the backyard? A pushmi-pullyu?

Nope, just adorable twin fawns. They wandered around nibbling here and there (please, help yourself to the grape vines, guys!) I never did see a doe, although a buck with velvet-encased antlers ate his way along the side of the house. The twins settled down near the pond as twilight came. I assume later they went into a more hidden spot, but didn’t want to disturb them by shining a flashlight around, you know?

Oddly, the deer like to eat citrus tree leaves, so we hang bars of soap in the branches which sort of discourages them. They keep out of sight when anyone is outside but sometimes when we walk around the yard, there’s a big crash in the palmettos when we’ve spooked one. It would be fun to use them in some artwork, wouldn’t it?

Branching out

Sorry, couldn’t resist! My husband Andy and I recently took a little trip to visit several Florida state parks, including Big and Little Talbot Islands. I shot quite a few photos looking up into tree canopies, mostly oak and pine trees. The twisting branches of live oaks are amazing, like a bonsai that just kept growing.

The shot above is the cropped photo that I used as the basis for the artwork. While I’ve worked mostly in soft fiber art mode in recent years, I wanted to try “hard” collage using acrylics for this piece.

First I sketched the image onto a 12" X 12" hardboard (an Ampersand pastel panel that was hanging around), then painted the basic shapes with black, lavender, and white. After drying, it was time to add...

...some pieces of fabric from my stash. I set up the easel to lay flat so quite a few pieces could be laid out before being stuck down. The adhesive is Clear Tar Gel gloss by Golden, but other reasonably thick gels also work. 


Hmmm... a problem became evident about midway through. I take photos along the way, which has become vital to my process. For some reason I can see things in the little display of my camera that are not apparent in the artwork right in front of me! The lavender was too similar in value to the green leaves, which made the image lack contrast. So, I painted over most of the lavender with white acrylic, though it still shows through.

More fabric pieces were added plus some tiny bits of painted papers. Though perhaps a few things here and there could be changed next time around, I like how it turned out. 


This is becoming a bit of a roll, because the wolf from a couple of weeks ago was also satisfactory. While that may not sound overly enthusiastic, if I am not happy with artwork-in-progress my reaction is along the lines of YUCK, THIS IS AWFUL!!!! Having created over the years more than a few pieces of artwork that “went ugly” and couldn’t be rescued, this is a nice change!

Reading Rockets 2010 Big Summer Read

How nice to find out that The Shocking Truth about Energy is on the list for 6-9 year olds recommended by Reading Rockets. The entire list of about 20 titles is here online and there’s a PDF if you’d like to print out the list to take to the bookstore. 

Other titles on the list include: 

Face to Face with Manatees by Brian Skerry
She Sang Promise: The Story of Betty Mae Jumper, Seminole Tribal Leader, by J. G. Annino
Mirror, Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer


The Reading Rockets web site is full of excellent resources to help encourage kids to read.


I created an e-card for them a few years ago, which can be found on this page along with several more by various illustrators such as Robert Sabuda, Marc Brown, and Betsy Lewin. The idea is to send them to your favorite little reader to give them a little extra motivation throughout the year.


So, here’s to happy reading, all summer long!

Ta-dah...the finished wolf

After glue-basting the patches down and cutting out the wolf, I tried some possible background fabrics. The idea was to vaguely suggest a landscape while keeping it very simple. I considered introducing some subdued greens, but they looked hideous, so forget that!

The above colors were pretty good, but overall it was too blah. The fabrics below were almost what the artist ordered, but the gray “mountain range” seemed too similar to the wolf’s underlying fur color. I also fixed his mouth...above it looks like he has an overbite and his lower jaw was too rigid, so below it’s a tad more wrinkled.

So, after some free-motion machine stitching and a fabric binding, here’s how he turned out:

I’m pretty happy with this piece, all things considered. There were some glitches with the eye... next time I’ll probably paint the entire eye instead of fooling with teensy pieces of fabric. I’m not crazy about this “typical” binding and need to come up with a more interesting option. Maybe painting a more irregular “frame” that is rigid because of the acrylic paint and stitching it on would do the trick. (Will have to try that idea, probably doesn’t make too much sense!)


Last but not least, any ideas for a title? Other than Ta-dah, that is.