An Artist’s Travels

acrylic, collage, stamps, pen in w/c journal book

Always hanging from a precipice somewhere,

never knowing where she will land,

with no need of trains and planes, she travels

beyond the bounds of the believable,

her ticket but a paint brush

her fare, a sudden notion,

ill formed yet compelling,

heavily trudging, her destination far over the horizon,

or soaring in open flight.

It is the same lunacy of the heart she trusts,

the artist’s GPS navigational system

guiding the journey which never ends.

This was my entry in the Traveling Muse Journal I was entrusted with this month, the theme being “An Artist’s Travels”.  Although I love to travel, to go places on trains and planes, mostly I do my traveling at home.  It should be enough for us artists, though an occasional trip to France is nice too!

If you’re in the area (Sebastopol, California) I hope you’ll stop in and see the exhibit of my art journals at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts which opens this Thursday, Feb. 11 with a reception 6-7:30pm!  My book Conversations With the Muse will be available for purchase at the reception, with journals dating back several years on display.  The show will be open Feb. 11 – March 21 at  6780 Depot St. in Sebastopol (one short block north of Hwy 12 and 2 blocks east of Petaluma Ave)  Gallery Hours:  Tuesday through Friday 10am-4pm, Saturday 1-4pm and closed Sundays and Mondays.

Nature Is Coming

Acrylic, collage, stamps, pen on coffee baked w/c paper

I had been trying to finish up a particularly frustrating painting on canvas and needed a break from “problem solving” on Tuesday when the Muse group met.  In other words, I needed to play.  We were carving stamps out of soft linoleum blocks, which is one of the most relaxing occupations I know.  I went around gathering up thises and thats for collage, finding among other things some coffee baked paper I’d saved and a brown bag envelope from HippyTree, a company my son had purchased a T-shirt from.  I saved the envelope because of all the wonderful doodle art on it and slogans like “Nature is coming” and “Save the buffalo”.  What an interesting thought, that nature is coming.  Coming from where?  And it seems to be going as much as it is coming these days with ice caps melting, rain forests being cleared and creatures endangered.  But right now, in the midst of rainy season, the thing that is coming (aside from drips from a leaky roof!) is mushrooms!

Find me

Acrylic, collage, gel pen on w/c paper

This piece, done last week in Tuesday Evening Muse group is a bit of a riddle.  The words Find Me came up.  It’s a bit like the kind of riddle language that Alice encountered in Wonderland.  And so I search the image for an answer.  The goddess in the throne chair is Athena I believe.  And all the children seem quite intent on her.  She stands in a frame like a figure on television and they seem quietly entertained or perhaps transfixed.

But who are the ghost children in their blankness.  Find me! they chant.  And like in a dream the answer arrives so slowly, along a current and on the back of a turtle – two ancient figures to join Athena in saying, “You are ageless.”  An invitation perhaps, to step into the emptiness to find ourselves in that ageless form.

One World

Acrylic, collage, gel pens in a “Traveling Muse Journal”  whose theme is Far Away Places

The Traveling Muse Journal project began some months ago in the Saturday Muse Group, each person starting out with an 8 X 12″ spiral watercolor journal book and picking a theme.  The books have been traveling each month since to a different person for an entry.  Last month I enjoyed working in this Far Away Places journal, most likely because I am increasingly feeling like I live in one world and frequently travel to any part of it in my imagination.  I’ve re-subscribed to National Geographic.  I’ve collected some antique books so I can also travel to other times.  And my sons are both headed off to Central America this year for volunteer/study/vacation trips which are exotic trips of the imagination for me!  Yesterday I even journeyed back to the year 1300 B.C. and visited the tomb of King Tut (at the De Young Museum in San Francisco)

Ironically on the drive to the museum my husband Bob and I (or mostly him – he’s the philosopher) had a discussion about whether or not art has progressed over time as medicine, technology, sports has.  Later, seeing the intricacy and astounding beauty of the Egyptian tomb art was a confirmation that in the area of art at least, “progress” as a concept seems irrelevant.  I was dying to get out my sketchbook, but we were herded through the rooms in crowded batches with no space to sketch.  Nevertheless I believe the powerful images will be appearing and re-appearing in my art.

Michal returns to model

10 min Charcoal sketch on 18 X 24″ paper, Bill Wheeler

O.K. so this is not Michal. . .yet.  She was late for the Thursday night drawing group so our fearless leader Bill sat in for her.  And what a great subject, with his cowboy hat on his knee!  Beth took a turn next. . .and then Michal (alias Puck from Midsummer Night’s Dream) our evening’s paid model showed up, thinking she was on time.  Oh well.  She more than made up for her lateness with her inspired dramatic poses!  You could almost hear the lines she was running through in her head.  Shakespeare?  or something more contemporary?

charcoal studies

Black Vis-a-vis Wet Erase Fine Point pen, spritzed with water and smoodged around with my finger. . .on HP w/c paper

This sketch is an example of exaggeration of one feature which beguiles.  In this case it’s that flirtatious eye over the shoulder.  Other parts got a little out of proportion, but at least I caught the feeling.

charcoal and pastel, 18 X 24″

Last 20 minute sketch of the evening.  I see I’ve exaggerated the nose.  I draw noses big sometimes and they look better to me.  I always thought I have a rather large nose myself, especially when I was a teenager,  so perhaps this tendency to enlarge the proboscis is, at this advanced age, a sign of self esteem?

If you’re local to Oakland, CA and you want to try a figure drawing marathon, there’s one coming up February 7.  This is my absolute favorite setting for sketching the figure, organized by the Bay Area Model’s Guild.  I have to miss this one, but check it out!

the earth quakes us

acrylic, collage, gel pen, stamp

The latest in the Guardian Angel Figure series started earlier this month. . .mine was not the only one in the Muse Group which offered prayers and blessings for the victims of earthquakes and warming.  The world’s events, the suffering and triumph filters through all of us and onto the pages of our art. I find that often it appears without any planning on my part.  In fact I always try to start with pure playfulness.  A polar bear, a piece of a girl lying on a float in a pool playing a flute, an ancient statue of a god. . .what does it mean?  The conversation with this silly looking angel figure clarified. “Yes”, he/she said, “This earth IS a veil of tears.  We cry and we must also dance and continue to play.  It is what life demands.”

Every(rainy)day sketching

. . .from the rainforest of northern California:  soggy weather, perfect for doing art inside,  especially with others.  Which is what I did on Saturday at the Everyday Sketching in Your Watercolor Journal workshop.  The day combined some of the quick travel sketch style with some indoors-contemplative-everyday journaling style.  I spread out  items from my house for drawing exercises, fruit bowl, basket, silverware, coffee maker, roses and this teapot. . .

by Susan:  Sharpee pen, watercolor, hand cut stamp

At lunch time we headed over to Henweigh Cafe in Sebastopol for lunch and restaurant sketching to include simple figure outlines with most of the detail left out.

by Susan:  handcut mushroom stamps for a border

The afternoon focused on page designing with borders, stamps, textures and words.  Here’s some student sketches:

by Adrianne

by Gale

We played around with stencils and stamps and textures and other ways to divide up the sketch page and then add words.

(unfinished) by Corrie

On Sunday I went to an exhibit at California College of Arts in Oakland featuring Louise Stanley’s art journals.  Her work follows in the tradition of history and narrative painting, documenting current and fictitious events using myth and allegory.

There were intricate sketches, often done in art museums in Europe in pen and gouache and gold leaf in beautiful hardcover journal books.  I particularly liked her rules for keeping a sketchbook, quoted here:

Uni:  Never, ever tear out a page unless you sell it, in which case you can replace it with a copy.

Due:  Start on the third page to get your courage up.

Tre:  Go back to the first page and do a self portrait when you’ve got the nerve.

Quattro:  Strap your journal to your body.  Don’t leave home without it.

Cinque:  A little gold leaf and color peps up a page.

Sei:  Always carry a pencil.  Many museums won’t let you use ink.

by Louise Stanley

Caterwauler

by Ellen Loffswold (my mom)

Remember I told you that my 90 year old mom’s reaction to my book Conversations with the Muse about art journaling was “I can do that!”  I thought you might enjoy seeing one of the pieces she’s done since we set up the “art” card table in her bedroom at the assisted living home.

You may not know the meaning of this word “caterwaul” -  “to utter long wailing cries, as cats in rutting time”.  The word came to Ellen as she looked at the ink shapes that appeared spontaneously on the paper.  All she had to do was add the tongue and red eyes and voila!  A caterwauler if I ever saw one.

The Angel Guardians Speak!

by Muse Gail

More Guardian Angel figures, this time in the Tuesday Evening Muse group.  After the playful painted beginnings and collaging fun and more painting and some drawing, we had written conversations with our figures to find out what they had to say.  And boy did they have lots of sage advice for each of us!  Advice tempered with copious blessings for our lives.  I photographed the Muse student pieces where they hung on the clothes line gallery at the end (hence the visible clothes pins!)  No uniformity here of Muse expressiveness.  But the angels’ blessings were received by all.  And some of the words may be added to the pieces at a later point for a finishing touch.

by Muse Adrianne

by Muse Pauline

by Muse Rhonda

by Muse Dani

by Muse Muriel

Medieval Angel

smoke, acrylic, charcoal, feathers, collage, tag on w/c paper 11 X 15″

A variation on the Guardian Angel figure theme of late.  I was trying out the technique of painting with smoke which lent a somber feel to the piece and made my figure look more like a witch than an angel.  Of course it is likely that many of the witches who were burnt at the stake were actually healers, Shamans, medicine women.  And so my figure became a Witch Angel.

Witch Angel from the Middle Ages, come wave your wand at me.  Banish the ill humours and restore balance to my life.  You stand amidst smoke and carry a parchment made of papyrus from Egypt.  What writ is this?  Will I stand with you in meadows green some day – Ireland perchance, and sing the Celtic songs of old?  My baggage packed and tag addressed, “To the land where lasses roam free in the heather and soar with the hawks.  And the wind blows the fragrance of earth, of peat and bracken.  To that land will I go.

You may want to try the smoke painting, although you must do it outside.  I made the mistake of not waiting for the rain to stop and doing the first application in my studio, which smelled horribly for the rest of the day!  You simply light a candle with a plate beneath it to capture the dripping wax, and then incline the surface of your paper over the flame, close enough to actually bend the flame back until it releases the smoke onto the paper.  If you get too close to the edge of the paper it catches fire, so you have to be ready to douse the flame.  I love the mysterious quality it lends to the paper surface.  The smoke smudge is water soluble so it’s not easy to glaze over it.  Have fun!

We’re starting to frame my art journal type paintings, including this one, for my upcoming show, “The Personal Image Revealed” at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts which starts February 11 and runs through March 21.  I hope you’ll be able to come!  The exhibit will include my art journal books from the past 6 years, wall hung art, my new book Conversations With the Muse, and demonstration videos.