THERE IS ALWAYS GESSO

After a few discussions of this painting with my friend in Maine, I felt this needed more work. With graphite and another small painting on paper I played with ideas as the above seemed too repetitious of the rectangle shape.

The idea, however, did not get executed as planned and gesso was the solution.

Though there is something interesting going on under the surface.

MORE WHITE

Who can work inside when there is so much beauty outside re-landscaped by the fallen snow?

A GOLDEN DAY

Last Saturday I took this workshop called "Not Your Mother's Acrylic Paints," at the Arlington Center for the Arts.  I would highly recommend this workshop.  It was an extremely informative day spent with Golden Working Artists Adria Arch and Patti Mollica.  From 9 AM until 4 PM they introduced us to Golden acrylic paint lines and new gels, pastes and grounds.  (Above is one of the displays they had featuring the many products.)  And we had plenty of products to play with.

 I am a long time user of Golden's Heavy Body acrylics but now I am adding the Open acrylics (slower drying time - yeah!) as well as Airbrush (like India Ink!) to my palette.  The grounds we were shown also offer new surfaces for furthur explorations especially Fiber Paste, Micaceous Iron Oxide, Acrylic Ground for Pastels and the Molding Paste as a ground.  Also very cool is the Black Mica Flakes and the Glass Bead Gel.  Adria and Patty know the products and provided a ton of information and food for thought.  Our heads were swimming by the afternoon. We all walked away with greater appreciation and understanding for the array of  products and their versatility--plus a very long shopping list .

Here is a sample of two boards.  This is Fiber Paste Ground where I applied heavy body & airbrush paints, and the very cool Black Mica Flakes (upper left).

This is Soft Leveling Gel with Fluid acrylics applied wet on wet along with Black Mica Flakes.

I now have other boards from the workshop with Golden's products. These make great references. 

A book too is recommended: Rethinking Acrylic:  Radical Solutions for Exploiting Today's Most Versatile Medium by Patty Brady

Adria is also planning seminars in the area so check out the Golden website and attend asap if you can not get into this workshop.  Also check out Jeanne Williamson's blog about this day as well.

ARTISTS COLLABORATIONS

Last week I signed up for the webinar: "Top Five Mistakes to Avoid When Collaborating with Artists," sponsored by the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts and conducted by Sheri Mason, Esq., Director of Legal Services at the VLA.  It was a valuable and informative one hour lecture.  First Sheri reviewed what is copyright (which every artist needs to know), what is copyrightable, the bundle of rights and who owns the copyright.  It is important as an artist to know if one ever enters into a collaboration who owns the work.  The top mistakes to avoid covered in the lecture are: ignoring copyright consequences, miscommunication and how to avoid it, understanding your relationship and what it means concerning your art, not finalizing your agreement and the pitfalls to avoid when using pre-existing works.  I would urge any artist who is considering a collaboration (or even needs a refresher course on copyright) to contact the VLA or check out the Arts and Business Council's website to see if this seminar will be offered again.  It is time and money well spent.

PLAYING AT WORK

For this month my 2011 resolution is to play more with painting.  Note: my resolutions are only on a month basis.  I took some paintings I no longer liked and gessoed over them.  That was a very enjoyable task.  For this work I am inspired by a orange tank top and a photo of a street scene from my travels to Beijing a few years back.  My plan is to paint, experiment, paint, evaluate, paint and if needed gesso again over it all.  These are the first explorations on 12 x 12 and 14 x 18 canvases using acrylics.  The photo quality is poor as I am using my simple digital camera that can only record at a very low resolution and the available daylight/room light.  Seeing the work in a different format (no matter what the quality) also helps me to better evaluate the painting.

The other fun part  about this work is that I have been emailing the images to an artist friend in Maine and we been critiquing/discussing the work.  My friend has provided valuable input and the feeling of working in a vacumn disappears.  So far this has been an easy 2011 resolution to stick too.

NEW STUDIO

Again, this year, I have sublet a studio space in Maynard, Massachusetts, at ArtSpace.  The studio is the same one I had last year.  It is a grand space with high ceilings, tall windows, and light all day.  This I share with fiber artist Merill Comeau.  The first week of January I packed up all my watermedia supplies, easels, tables, paper and other paraphernalia I can't live without and settled in, cluttering up my half quite quickly.  Luckily I am able to sublet the studio through April.  It has been great to be there working and I am getting more done as the distractions of shoveling, emails, husband, phone calls, cats, and the household jobs du jour are all left at home. 

SNOWDAYS

I have been so busy shoveling this month I haven't had time to blog!  Three snowstorms already and it is only the 23rd day of the new year.  There is talk of another storm on the way this week. Thus, I have become quite efficient with a snowblower this season.  And, hopefully, I will become a tad more disciplined in maintaining my blog and keeping family and friends updated about my work.  The good news is that I have been in the studio painting.  But for today, on this beautiful cold Sunday I will post these few photos of our snowscapes.

   

A WALK IN THE WOODS

On New Years day we went for a long walk in the snowy woods.  Hardly anyone was about.  The trees were still, the birds quietly perched and the wind was at rest.  It was a gorgeous day to be outside crunching about in the snow.  And as we went deeper into the forest we came across these delightful woodland animals along the paths:

The rabbit and the owl greeted us as did a lovely octopus (unfortunately the light was not strong enough to highlight the features of this sea creature with my camera.)

Their presence marked the first day of the new year as inspiring.  Bravo to the artist or artists for creating, with the elements of winter, such magical sculptures.