New Mixed Media Group Starts Jan 21!

I’ll be starting up a new 6-week mixed media Muse group in my studio in Sebastopol, CA on January 21. Hope you can join us! It’s a six-week class exploring painting and collage methods like the ones shown in my last post, but it’s honestly so much more. Excellent supportive company of the artist kind for one. Meditation and writing and even some poetry thrown in. Whatever it takes to tickle the creative nerve. For more information and to register visit my website. Limited to 7 participants. Students of all levels are welcome.

class demo: embossed acrylic medium textures, antique postcards, acrylic glazes and ink on w/c paper 10 X 11″,

The post now is rarely of personal nature. Your name on the envelop is computer generated. Cut it up and rearrange it any way you want. Dye it different colors and glue it back together. You can only improve on the boredom of the daily mail.

Or try to imagine yourself in times past, even before your parents were born, when script was elegant and letters could verge on poetry. Go back to the time when the pen danced in loops and swirls and Miss Eda got a hand written card from Sis. 1915

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Oh No, Not Again!

I was on the phone this afternoon with my son, paying only partial attention to the skies as they transitioned from bright sunshine to a peachy gunmetal gray, which worked its way up from the horizon until the entire sky was filled. Bob placed a piece of paper in my lap that said it was smoky outside. And the words came to mind, “oh no, not again!”

It took a bit of online searching and a leap of the imagination to believe that the smoke was blowing all the way from Butte County, where a new and fast growing firestorm was blowing through 15,000 acres with no signs of slowing, and 1000 ‘s of people were fleeing. Oh no, not again.

And I still thought that referred just to the fire.

acrylic and cheesecloth texture on watercolor paper, 10 X 11″

Out in my studio  I looked around for a way to give shape to what I was feeling. A cheesecloth textured piece reminded me of a horizon in flames.  I knew I was looking for the faces of those who would be fleeing the conflagration.

We refer to a mask of fear, of sorrow, and this is what I wanted as a kind of prayer of solidarity. Yes, I was grateful to find out that the fire was not closer, at least not this time, but. . .I still feel the fear, and the loss.

And then I’m watching the evening news about the shooting in Thousand Oaks, a country western music night for young people, some of whom lost their lives and others who will never feel totally safe again. And then the news announcer uses these words, “people are saying oh no, not again”.

What the season holds in store

I got out the cheesecloth in Monday Muse Group and realized I would have to learn all over again how to make interesting textures with it. I was still refreshing my memory when I did this one before class. God awful bright,  I know, but this is the season of rich colors, so why not?!

Skies aflame and birds circling. They know what the weather signifies, what the season change holds in store for anyone who pays attention to the timber of the light, to the patterning in the fields, to the leaves and seed pods in dense clusters of writing that black birds comprehend as they follow their own flight patterns and land in choreographed formations designed to satisfy the hunger of bellies so long aloft.

You English teachers might be annoyed with the run-on sentence, but the leaves don’t pause for you to notice them falling or the river slow down so you can freeze action. This season is coming on us in glorious and unsettling ways that doesn’t allow for regular punctuation. Are you getting into some spookiness?

The Inner Gollum

See what sometimes happens when you mix your media and do that daydreamy, let it happen kind of play? You run smack into your inner Gollum. But somehow he/she/it is never so scary. In fact it’s good for a big chuckle. Of course “they” are hanging around all the time hidden inside us. Surely you’ve met yours?

sand and rock dust in acrylic paste with inks, acrylics and pencil on w/c paper, 10 X 11″

I’ve been doing a lot of on-location sketching lately, but I’m also really looking forward to hunkering down for another full season of deep diving into mixed media painting in my workshops called (for about 12 years now) Muse Groups. We explore a different mixed media technique each week and it’s all in the interest of opening up the creative floodgates.

We artists all seem to need some activity which reminds us of the rich hidden veins of the never-before-seen that are just waiting for us to open the door and let them come onto the paper/canvas. I’ve always found the energy of a group to be a particularly fertile way to tap into that vein.

There are of course the most extensive networks of virtual art groups to join, and I will continue to post demos on my blog. But if you are close enough to me in Sebastopol, California I hope you’ll join us in person this fall. There’s nothing like a room full of artists and seemingly endless art supplies to get your creative tail wagging. (By the way, stop wondering IF you are an Artist and BE one.) Whatever your experience level you will be welcome.

Here’s the details:

For more information and to register, contact me.

 

Mixed Media workshop coming up!

On June 24 and 25 I’ll be teaching a workshop on one of my favorite techniques – achieving the look of patina in experimental mixed media painting. At the moment my studio is strewn with my own experiments and ideas I want to share. There are a couple spaces left in the workshop at this writing. Let me know if you’re interested and available to come join us!

For more information and to register visit my website!