This is the incubation time between Muse Group sessions when new mixed media lesson ideas are swirling around in my mind. I always bring back some of the ones we’ve been enjoying over the years, like crinkled Masa paper and smoke painting, but the seasons change and suggest new possibilities. El Dia de los Muertos is coming up soon. . .hmmm.
There are still a couple openings in this October’s session. Want to join us? Please visit my website for more info and to register.
I pulled out an older mixed media lesson for Muse Group this week – one of my favorites – “Building” a House of Dreams. The idea is that you don’t have to be an architect to build a house for your dreams, a temple or sanctuary, a place that feels just right. You can start out by picking materials and images that speak to you and allow some kind of structure to spontaneously evolve as you play with them on the two dimensional surface.
demo: black gesso, acrylic ink and collage on w/c paper, 10 X 11″
Small wonder that I found pictures from this harbor scene in Denmark, which echos that of Amsterdam where I’ll be next month for another International Urban Sketchers Symposium. Reminds me of Bergen, Norway where I lived and felt so at home for two years when I was 20-21. I’m not a good sailor and never could handle the North Sea, but the canals of Amsterdam have great appeal!
I started this piece by painting the paper with black gesso, which has good coverage and a lovely mat finish. The white spots I left were random, just to see if they could be useful later on. Some ended up looking like clouds? and the one in the center is an opportunity to let the imagination explore. Is it a daytime scene of the harbor and sea? a symbolic place of rest beyond the turbulence, or a dangerous rock that could sink a ship? What do you see there?
It was too hot for thinking straight that day, so I puttered in the studio and wrote about this new piece. Forgive the silliness. I should probably not even post, but then, why not. You can probably relate.
Acrylic inks, pencil, gesso, collage from an old alphabet book, etc.
F is for Fear that sends me running when someone points a Finger for even Flimsy reasons.
F is for Frozen – on a day like today, the ice cubes in my tea for the second before they melt.
F is for Famous, which I may never be for more than a Fleeting day and certainly wouldn’t want to be for more than a Fortnight.
F is for Foremost, the thing I overlook when rushing into the Fray of the day.
F is for Fooey! and Fiddlesticks! and this F—-’n poem which may be headed for the Trash (which isn’t even an F word!)
The eggs that are hatching in my garden now are the Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly larva. But for many years I had chickens behind the studio. And I’ve always been a bit enthralled, especially in spring with the way nature reproduces itself with the wonder of eggs and nests. My own wonder has led to incompetent to efforts to make nest-like constructions in my art. I suppose this one is the spring 2019 version, “hatched” in my Muse Group last month.
Suspension
hanging on by tendrils
threads woven of plant fiber
married with that animal matter of fertility
eggs colored pastel in dyes for the season
warming under feathered bodies before their big break.
mine are remembered each year in flat painted form
they have no smell, no thickness even,
but they will never crack
frozen in memory, always perfectly as they were/are
reminders of tadpole hunting in ponds
with little boys two decades ago
Ah, over two decades ago I haunted ponds in Tilden Park with two little boys who loaned me their wide open eyes each new day. Pollywogs and chrysalids came home with us from those expeditions, and frogs sang to us at night from our small backyard pond on Albany hill.
