Archive for Art in Progress
Fantasy Photos and Ethereal Portraits
I am going to be applying for several festivals next year. I’ll let you know which ones I make it in to. For the faerie festivals (Maryland and Pennsylvania) I am working out a way to set up my booth to take photos on-the-spot to then collage as a fantasy portrait. If you always wanted to be a faerie, this is a way to do it and a great way to display your otherkin side.
I also enjoy doing simple portraits that have a bit of a dreamy feel to them. This also lends itself to boudoir photography, which I will also be offering.
I would like to try to get into Unique Boutique. I don’t know if they have room and I’d still have to be juried in and I’d have to decide which medium I want to submit for – 3-d or paintings.
I also may do River Artsfest this year, which is non-juried.
Of course if Artomatic is around I will be doing Body Politics there.
Anyway, I was thinking of offering these both as a service and for some of my photos, offering them as prints and card, etc.
I am working on a webpage devoted to my photography and will list prices and scheduling availability there.
Portraits and Headshots
I have been gearing up with the studio to prepare for all sorts of fun and business. I recently had the pleasure of shooting portraits of my mentor, Tammy Vitale.
She has been a huge encouragement to me. I have found over and over that I really enjoy shooting in the studio and trying to bring out the best in somebody. To capture their essence in a way that they are proud to display. It makes me way down happy when a client is overjoyed at the images.
Eviscerated by The Peach Jar’s Glass
I haven’t been dieting or journaling or weighing. There is just too much going on.
This picture is a long story. It’s images of me layered with images from some broken jars of applesauce and peaches, set to various colors.
This image will go on the cover of a sketchbook project. It’s probably going to have some acrylic paint “blood drops” added to it.
New Living Art Project Launches Tomorrow
Tomorrow I begin my new Body Politics related living art project, Weighting for You.
Interactive Art
I would love it if you would participate with Body Politics.
Read How to Participate at the Body Politics Website
At the moment Tammy Vitale and I are preparing Body Politics for Artomatic and it’s kept me buzzing around.
There are lots of things to do like making fresh prints, buying pens and chalk and figuring out the set-up.
Please, come by and visit the exhibit – it’s free to visit! There is also music, independent films and lots of interesting work.
Tile-Making Workshop by Parran Collery
I took a tile-making workshop this past weekend with artist and instructor Parran Collery at Annmarie Garden. That’s a bit of a jaunt for me, but it was worth it. My friend Jackie had forwarded the Annmarie Garden e-newsletter to me noting the many classes they offer. In scrolling down through the newsletter I saw a tile I recognized as a Parran Collery tile. Though it didn’t have her name anywhere in the newsletter. On their website however, it did list her name and I signed up right away. I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to take two classes in my birthday month! WOO HOO! Happy birthday to me!
I think it was two years ago when I took my first tile class with Tammy Vitale. Since then I have tinkered in clay making tile art and also some clay yoni art. From that one class and by renting kiln space, I have managed to make a good number of fun, spiritual and whimsical tiles. I also have been distracted by many other mediums trying to figure out what I like best. I’ve pretty much decided that clay is very likely to be one of my main art mediums and decided to learn as much as I could about it this year. I promised myself to take notes, buy books, read and take as many workshops as I could in order to determine how much I loved the medium and how plausible it would be to be more full-time with the clay. If I managed to learn enough this year and feel confident in my abilities to perform, I would perhaps treat myself to my own kiln next year. Just in the three classes I have taken – two by Tammy and one from Parran, I have learned so much. Addi tonally, it was totally cool to take classes from two artists whose work and spirit I truly admire.
There are aspects of both teachers that appeal to my own artistic style. In the classes that I took, I would consider Tammy as having immediate inspiration, going on raw energy and impulsive composition – which appeals greatly to the part of me that desires immediate results and works from unadulterated vision. Parran’s technique involves specific planning of some or all of the composition ahead of time, depending on your preference. I can see easily how a melding of these two techniques will very much shape the clay artist I will become. I think that for me, these are the two best teachers I could have had. I hope to take at least one more class from each of them this year.
In this photo Ms. Collery is demonstrating the sgraffito technique.
My sgrafitto piece is in the foreground. The hand isn’t shaped correctly and on the the dragonfly piece, I would have made the borders thinner if I did it over again, but I am pretty happy with the results having only just done them for the first time. The dragonfly tile took the longest. I would get quicker if I did that style more often, I’m sure. I also made a plaster cast of a tile I made with stamps – which I also made (except the lettering).
I have also found that I love both clay types that Tammy and Parran use. They both use a cone 04 clay – which made me happy to know, since it keeps things simple. I love the smoothness and background of the white clay for lots of reasons and especially with the cold finishing. However, I like the earthiness and grit of the red/brown clay that Parran uses. I have decided I will use both of these clays. I also like the idea of pit firing with both of them as well, to see the different results I can maybe get with them. Though pit firing might be off into the fall sometime. But I’m anxious to try it.
For now I’ve decided to just use commercial glazes, colored slip and under-glazing. However, I have a feeling that some day in the distance, when I grow tired of the same colors, I might like to try and mix some of my own signature colors. We’ll see! For now, just learning the clay keeps me busy enough!
When the pieces are all done – fired, glazed, etc. I will be sure to post images of the final work.
And then saving the best for last, is Uma, Parran’s pet and the clay class mascot. As sweet a doggy as you’d ever want to meet and by the end of the second day, she was pushing her head against my hand for a little bit of sugar, which I LOVE! Uma, like several of my pets, is a rescued animal. Please consider adopting shelter animals.
More Clay Play for Me – YAY!!!
My pal Jackie sent me the Annmarie Garden’s E-newsletter and as I rolled through it I recognized a particular tile art style:
I figured that HAD to be a Parran Collery piece, but the newletter didn’t say who was teaching the tile class. I went to the website and sho’nuf – Ms. Collery is teaching the class next weekend, which is good birthday timing for me, so I signed up! I got to take a Tammy class this month and now a Parran class! WOO HOO!
I’ll be sure to take a dust mask with me with all my recent lung drama. I’d rather wear a mask than miss out!
Fairy Fantasy Photo Fiddling
I have been playing around with Photoshop to see the different sorts of effects I can make on a photo. I have enjoyed playing with the lighting, the color, the layering. The backgrounds are of landscape, sky and plant photos taken by Robert, Will and me. My daughter Jade has taken some pretty teriffic flower photos, I may use some of those too. It’s been fun finally getting to use the images I’ve been amassing for so long!
I am also doing all of this in preperation for for my Snow White photo project I’m planning on. Can’t wait!
This is the original photo that I took in the summer of 2002 when I was just starting out with my little 2 or 3mp camera. Rob and Jackie did a great job as models. I have some great friends who like to play with photography as much as I do! Good times.
“Wake Up Little Fairy”
Below are the various incarnations of me toying with the image. You can click on them to see them larger.
This one has a very "romance novel" look to it. Some people think the purple wings are a bit over-the-top. Maybe I do too a little, but I still think like it! What's wrong with over-the-top sometimes?
This one is duskier in color. I how everything looks like it has a veil over it. It's a bit dreamy.
This one is sort of sepia-toned with a "hand colored" look to parts of it.
I did a hue saturation on this and I LOVE what it did to Jackie's hair. This crazy unreal coloring makes me feel like this really could be in some kind of fairy realm.
Rubber Stamp Victory
I finished the rubber stamp.
Things I learned:
I hope I can find a gouge with a less severe groove pitch – something with a wide u at least.
Be patient – if you rush, you gouge too deep.
Don’t be afraid to modify your design a bit.
The pencil drawing transfers VERY nicely onto the rubber stamp when flipped and rubbed.
I’m still confused about whether or not I need to flip the design when transferring to make it match the drawing. That double-backwards flippy thing is confusing.
I’m pretty happy with the way it came out. I hope that it stamps nicely!
The nice thing about carving your own stamps is that you will have a stamp nobody else has. When you’ve been stamping a while you notice that others tend to have your favorite stamps too because they are great stamps. And its fine to keep using those too – the world is big enough for that. However, it feels nice when you have something distinctive that was created from scratch.
Peace! Love! Create!
Arty Day
First, let me say that I am still working on getting the little gallery filled up so it can feed some images on the right side bar there. I also still have to make some color changes until I am happy with this blog!
Enough of that technical stuff let’s move on to the artsy-ness of it all.
Today I am attempting to carve a stamp. I bought some small blocks of Speedball Speedy Carve and a basic carving set. I also bought a block of linoleum, but I’m going to try that another day, for soemething totally different.
I am making a “creativity hand” or a “mystical hand” or “spiritual hand” – people call them different things. In any case, it’s one of my favorite types of iconic images. I am carving this stamp for Tammy Vitale. The stamp is intended for use in clay, but I don’t know how it will come out until it’s tested. On the other hand (hee hee) maybe I shouldn’t be giving Tammy my first stamp that could possibly suck terribly!
Sometimes I don’t work in my studio with little projects like this. Sometimes I work at the diningroom table and put on something like HGTV’s That’s Clever – formerly Crafters Coast to Coast. I enjoy that show in particular because it gives me a ba-jillion ideas and sometimes even touches on a technique I have been wondring about.
While carving my stamp today I played several episodes of That’s Clever. I laughed out loud when artist Karen Rossi was featured in the first segment of the first one I watched.
I immediatly recognized her work because a few years ago my mother purchased a work by her from a little gift shop, in North Carolina I think, while on vacation. My mother saw the little fairy-artist type ornament and wanted to give it to me. It has been hanging in my studio ever since.
One of the things I like best about That’s Clever is the chance to see inside other artist’s studios. For me, that’s half the fun. Had I seen That’s Clever years ago, I might have become an artist sooner. I had often felt like I had no place to create or not enough tools. Some of the artists carve out the smallest of spaces. I even recall one episode, some time ago, where a young woman was a nanny (I think) and she had a felting “studio” in the tinest nook of her bedroom, because she lived with the family she was employed by. It made me think, “YOU GO GIRL!”
I have lots of little inspirational things around me in my studio. I’ll post some photos later. I’m really curious what others have hanging in theirs!
An admirer from Belgium