Bird Bee Bloom

gel prints, cardboard print, acrylic paint on w/c paper

On this fine spring afternoon, while I sit idle in the garden, the first white irises, closed this morning, have now fully opened. I, who have scarcely ventured out into the garden for these cold months, go round taking pictures-painting-writing-noticing their return, as if it were their first. Were they really this enthralling last year? this luminescent?

My birds, bees, blooms shown here are not copied from “life”.They are strange visitors from the crowded population of my imaginings. None of them wants to identify with one species, preferring to declare their one-of-a-kind status, even if they sacrifice beauty in the bargain. They mingle with each other in ways that can seem chaotic to the observer.

But ask any one of them a question. Ask for advise. Go on! They will answer at no charge to you, and you may possibly go away the wiser for it.

Listen carefully though, for they all speak different dialects, though of the same language. Bird chirps, sings songs, and can have long conversations. Bee is more prone to whispers, buzzes, bzzzzzzz. And as for Bloom, she holds her tongue out for Bee, who needs no sound from Bloom.

three gel prints

These may actually be my first gel prints. I knew I’d get to it eventually, especially since my husband Bob is a printmaker who uses gel plates along with many other techniques and is always offering to teach me. But my Arts Olympia group, which meets monthly for an art Salon, scheduled a gel printing session led by Diana Fairbanks in her studio last week. What fun! And can you see where the Birds Bees Blooms were hatched?!

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More Splatter Fun!

(Ralph Steadman inspired inks splatts continued)

I actually haven’t joined the “tidying up” frenzy of late, though I read about it all the time in jubilant Facebook posts and blogs. But clearly I’m having some kind of subconscious reaction. . .

splatter, spray, drip and draw acrylic inks on w/c paper

I was trying to lighten up! Look, I took everyone’s advise and tried Marie Kondo’s Japanese decluttering methods, but I may have gone a bit too far. . .and now I can’t stop. Looks like soon all I’ll be left with is my substantial snozzola.

Thinking about clearing things out for the new year? My advise is. . .take it easy!

I’ll call them the Dustbin Duo. . .or maybe the Polka Dotters, or Flying Lancers or Spotted Beatle Birds, or. . .

Any more ideas?

Getting ready for lots more fun when the Muse Group arrives for a new session on Monday!

 

Splitter, Splatter, Splatt!

Are you familiar with this wild man Ralph Steadman, king of the ink splatters? I just got his book Critical Critters for Christmas and I’ve gone quite literally gonzo about it. We’ve been splattering and doing all kinds of unorthodox things with inks in Muse Groups for years now, but Ralph takes it to a whole new level of fabulous, raunchy absurdity in this book.

So with a new Playful Muse Workshop starting up on January 21 I’ve been trying some things out for a Gonzo Splatter lesson! One sometimes gets a little weary of being a “good girl”, all neat and careful and inside the lines, after all.

I’m shooting for a day when it’s not raining so we can do the splatter part outside my studio, for obvious reasons. And I’ve been practicing with the mouth atomizer, another of Ralph’s tools, which requires a certain amount of lung power to operate (along with a lot of luck). I’m seeing a kind of rare endangered octopus in this one, but the swan sitting on his head is a bit distracting.

You guessed it. This one took advantage of a straw technique you might be familiar with from nursery school. I understand that straws are themselves becoming endangered creatures, at least in some California restaurants. . .but I have an old box if you want one.

8 days into the new year

explosions of mind detritus!

resolutions leaking from every pore and orifice

teaming up, multiplying, branching out. . .

GOOD RIDDANCE! (but pray they don’t find you. . .)

My weekend was spent in a meditation retreat where I made some small headway into clearing my mind, but OMG what came out in the process! Not for the faint of heart. But if some of my errant resolutions or worse come your way, remember to duck.

This one was pure ink dropper play. You might take just a moment to halucinate on it before the next. . .

This guy’s inner musician is celebrating the new year.

Now back to the octopus and swan. . .If this sounds like insanity it is, but no need to miss out on the fun on that account. Turn on the music and splatter! I think Ralph would approve.

Celebrate!

acrylic monoprint with collaged stamp prints on w/c paper, 10 X 11″

They say the heavenly angels are around this time of year with their hosannas and hallelujahs, exhorting us to celebrate a birthday with them. And today I noticed multitudes of mushrooms poking their heads up from their moist earth beds to join in.

The mushrooms are a divine wonder in this land of fires. Some of the outcroppings of ‘shrooms are so tiny I must use my reading glasses to see them. They remind me of childhood reveries where fairies inhabited the forest lands where I roamed. The moist earth is a heady concoction.

This monoprint is another piece from the “laboratory” of ideas I’m exploring for the next Playful Muse series of mixed media classes in my studio. It starts Monday, January 21 and runs 6 weeks. There are two spots left at this point. If you think one of them possibly has your name on it, you can find out more and register on my website.

 

While we humans sleep. . .

acrylic inks, gesso, collage on w/c paper, 10 X 11″

The cats are out tonight, bearing witness to the way the moonlight silvers the flowers. They have no need to paint or write poetry or make music. The frogs, crickets, owls and coyotes are music enough. The silence is enough.

And so they sit in unison until the moon drops aways and the morning star gives hints of coming dawn.

“Soon She’ll come out to get the paper and feed us.”

This is sort of a true story. We have two cats, both of whom adopted us for our plentiful outdoor servings of food and water fountain. Phil, the yellow cat came first and he most certainly also longed for the neck scratches and belly rubs. Sylvester came much later, attracted by Phil, but never let us touch him. They can often be seen side by side in stillness as I rush about my day. They seem to have mastered contentment, except when I open the door to get the morning paper and am greeted with the urgency of their empty bellies!

This was the beginning of the painting – a thoroughly enjoyable finger painting (grown-up style). I could have left it like this, but maybe I wanted more content, or maybe I wanted to get out some collage papers. While playing with this one I thought of all the ways to ease and blend the wet paint/ink onto the paper with fingers and palm and scratchers, playing with serendipity and design. A great lesson to open the next Artful Muse series!

January 21 the Artful Muse workshop is starting up with another 6-class Monday afternoon series in my studio in Sebastopol, California. Registration is open now and I hope you can join us! Beginners and experienced painters are welcome. For more information and registration visit my website.

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

Solo-Musing

Well, I’ve been sketching a lot lately, and now it’s winter and the rain is keeping me indoors, (along with the holiday bustle which I’m trying to avoid). So what do I do when there’s no one to Muse with?

I believe that abundance is tinder for the creative fire. So today I got out a pile of paintings/experiments I’ve done over the past year in my mixed media Muse group to take a look and get inspired again. It’s a rather big pile.  And here’s a tiny bit.

There’s everything from sgraffito to tar gel texture to powdered graphite texture and faux (foil) metallics. . .

And yesterday I visited the new location for Art and Soul of Sebastopol, our art supply store that has moved to a fabulous new location in town with lots of space. Among other treats I picked up a jar of pearlescent magenta Lumiere paint, just because it called out to me. (I certainly don’t need any more paint!)

Sometimes if you’re lucky in your rummaging, you run across something accidental that’s so perfect together.

Like this paper scrap with the smoke “people”. . .

And then I look at the works I’ve done in the last Muse Groups, which get clipped in succession on my wall, and remind myself that they all came together from this process of stepping fearlessly into an abundance of visually exciting materials and emotionally charged ideas from life.

There are some that I want to keep just so, like this combination powdered graphite and colored pigment with gingko stencil piece. It seems like enough just to enjoy the texture as is.

I’ll go into the pile now and see what comes next. . .and share it here. I hope you’ll do the same if you have your own pile?

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?

Start with words and a color combo

We started with words this week in Muse Group. I thought that this group of sage women with strong feelings and opinions might find their/our way into a painting by casting the net first for big words. Like those you find printed up in magazines. We used copies of San Francisco magazine, since not only are they well designed, but also filled with stories of exceptional, independent-thinking game changers.

Next we picked a dynamic palette and tried it out on a piece of scrap paper to gain the full scope of surprising mixes we would get.

Demo: color scheme; yellow green with accents of red and blue violet. Acrylic on w/c paper

Who is the hero? Is it the one who says “Bomb now?” or she who quietly goes about changing the culture. She grows green things and her own heros tend to be hero-ines. She looks to the earth for redemption of the spirit, and herself becomes a redeemer softly, and with a smile and an offer of help here and there. She uses her power to heal, to change the culture now, bit by bit.

There’s no rules to follow here. That’s the Muse Group ethos. Take a piece of it and go off in your own direction. Change the culture through your art, bit by bit.

And if you live anywhere near here, Sebastopol, California, come paint with us! A new six week session starts October 29. For more information and to register visit my website.

New Mixed Media Group starts Oct 29!

A new 6-week session of Muse Group fun starts at the end of the month and you’re invited to join!  We’ll be doing more lessons like this one, applying acrylic inks and gesso in abstract designs, adding textures and collage, and words. For more information and to register visit my website.

Two weeks ago we started out with a familiar Zen concept, that of enso, a Japanese word meaning circle and symbolizing the absolute, enlightenment, strength, elegance, the universe, the void. . .the expression of the moment when the mind is free to let the body/spirit create! 

If I were to step into this ENSO, there might be repercussions. Well, I hope so. There’s got to be a something in the white nothing. I can stand here forever on the outside, weaving my wreath of inks and collage, but the inside is where the ad-venture starts. . .the journey to the center of a swirling mass of colors and shapes, the bottom of the well. . .the ____ ?

The circle shape does raise the question of “what’s inside?” It points to what often cannot be seen or even if seen, words may fail to describe it adequately.  Of course that’s the business of the image, to suggest without spelling it out. In Muse Group we write for five minutes after the image making, not to describe or define the image, but perhaps to go deeper into the mystery of it.

In another enso piece, exploring the radiating form of the circle shape, the appearance of crickets led to more disturbing thoughts.  . .

What attracts them to the maelstrom which may be their oblivion? Is it the march of their species rising out of a wrong turn by some of its members, with the inexorable pull of primitive tribalism?  (Are we only talking crickets here?)

Who do we follow in life’s march, the one who we recognize as most familiar, or the wise one(s) who takes off down a new road that we cannot yet see the end of. Either way oblivion is terrifying, but also inevitable.