Windows

I pulled out all my dry media materials last week for Muse Group; pencils of all sorts, pastels, crayons, charcoal. Lots of those things which I normally stay away from so my pieces don’t get all smudgey when I put them in the loose leaf books.

But there’s something so satisfying about delineating with texturey marks or coloring in, not to mention, smudging on purpose. I pulled out a piece I’d begun weeks ago, and then played around on it with a charcoal pencil.

acrylic, photo transfer by Bob Cornelis, collage, charcoal pencil on w/c paper

Windows have eyes on the world

Everywhere. Stand still and gaze out. Or

Stand outside. Pick a window that has movement beyond it. Now

You’re a peeping Tom, a busybody. So

Be discreet and tell yourself you’re just an artist, a storyteller,

A poet, a blogger looking for “material”.

Privacy no longer exists.

Perhaps it never did

For the artist.

Ah! such a one am I. Not a snoop by nature. But there’s something about looking closely at things, people, landscapes, animals – looking at the details – which leads to a growing fascination and a curiosity. And that leads to words and paragraphs.

Oh dear please. I am not a busybody, am I?

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Focus on Line

Acrylic inks, Inktense pencils, on w/c paper, 10 X 11″

I am a bird sitting on eggs

atop a red sunset

atop a riverbed 

atop a boat on seas 

atop fish to be captured by the likes of me

I am atop as I am below

my life in the skies depends on my life below

in a constant ebb and flow

Five tools for design making in art: shape, value, color, texture and line.  We’ve been focusing on one in each Muse Group and this week was LINE, defined as a mark with greater length than width and having direction.  Well, there’s more to it, but just focusing on making line type marks is rewarding in itself.

So we started making lines with eyes closed and a hunk of charcoal in hand.  I took the shapes I’d made with charcoal and using the ink dropper, started on a fresh sheet of w/c paper with the same movements.  More ink, some gesso and water soluble pencil and lo and behold, the ubiquitous bird and egg appeared! And what about the boat?  Maybe there will be a trip, a cruise perhaps, in my future?

Tapping the Creative Nature at Osmosis

Osmosis Day Spa secluded back gardens

On July 22nd I’m looking forward to doing art in its most sensual, sensory based form, bypassing the mind and getting straight to the spirit, the big nature spirit that will be welcoming us in the serene back acres of Osmosis Day Spa. I’ll be the Vitality Quest Leader in the day of “Tapping the Creative Spirit”.

By the way, we’ll have this nature area all to ourselves, just the plants and critters, among which we can count ourselves.  I’ll be the guide to discover the joy of sensual contact of finger touching charcoal and pigment powders touching paper, of moving with the inner impulse, uncensored by the planning mind.  Nature seeping in through all the senses and cycling back through the hands to paper to reveal itself anew.

A juicy day all around, starting out with an enzyme bath, massage and sound healing in the hammock garden, and a gourmet box lunch, tuning all the senses before even reaching for the paper in the afternoon.  Can you imagine?  Can you come and join in?

To get the details go to Vitality Quest.