Magical Visitor, Hooking Rugs and My Future Studio

First the  picture below is a new friend who came to visit my back yard and hunt my bird feeder. I saw her swoop down numerous times but never catch anything. I'm rather sorry about that as now I'm worried about her as I assume she was hungry to be hunting out in the open and in the day time.

She's rather small so I decided it's a she. :) She was here all day Sunday from when I first saw her out my window at 9:00 am until about 6 and the sun was setting. I think the workmen (see story below) scared her off or she went on to hunt elsewhere.

I hear owls all the time. But I've only seen one here once and that was a very long time ago and I hadn't lived in the hollow long.

All in all it was a thrill to have her here. I'll post the little ink and watercolor sketch I did in the near future. She was truly magical.

For the last year or so I've been planning then building an addition onto my house. Anyone whose done something like that knows the impact on one's life that causes. :) Add my health issues and I've not been focusing on this blog.

The addition is a garage with a studio space above attached to the house by a two story breezeway. Not only can I just walk from the house into the garage (in Winter!) but from the house into the studio.

The studio is amazing and less then a week away from completion. If all goes according to plan it will be done and all the little things finished and painted and I can start moving in.

 I'm going to create a separate page on this blog to post the pictures of the whole project. But a sneak peak is the picture above. It's turned out better then I'd ever dreamed. The guys that worked on it are true craftsmen and I'm eternally grateful.

I decided, along with redoing my studio I'd revamp this blog and it's focus. While the garden and kitchen are still important in my life my real focus has

reversed back to my art and craft work.

This past year I've done little art work; mostly due to the above health issues but also I've had no place to work (old studio is storing just about everything that had to be removed to start the construction). Aside from a little art journaling I discovered Rug Hooking. Or rather re-discovered as one of my Grandmothers used to do a little rug hooking and taught me.

This is a picture of a printed pattern I got from Deanne Fitzpatrick. I found her just searching the internet and loved her work:

 I chose my own yarns, fleece and colors. I'll be talking more about this craft in the future but one thing I'll add is I'm taking Dianne's online workshop, "Getting Wild with Wool" and loving it. She offers several.

I'm currently working on one I designed based on one of my Raven paintings you can see in the above Flickr feed. (assuming it's working properly again)

 My plans for this blog; which are subject to change at my whim... :) are to discuss and show what's going on in the studio in general, the processes of the work I'm doing, as well as some tutorials for some of the things I do. 

(I'm going to reproduce the "Birth of a Block Print" I first posted on Facebook a couple years back as a tutorial. As well as create one for the rust prints (see the rusted Raven in the above Flickr feed). This is the same technique that I created my logo/avatar image seen above.)

If there is anything in particular that you know I do and want to see how I do it leave me a comment or email me. I'll be glad to see what I can do.

As I said, the studio should be done in less then a week so I'll be getting to work and have some news and another update soon.

Early April Update

I thought I'd better poke my head in here to assure those I've been getting messages from that I'm doing well.

Been a busy two months with various treatments and procedures. I've got a window for a little over a month where I'm resting up. I've got some things I want to accomplish including update my blog.

Since just what I need is even yet another project; I'm going to create a separate blog just to discuss the LMS part of my life. While it is a part of the whole which is Me.... I want this place to be dedicated to the studio and garden (and the infamous Random Thoughts). I'll post here when I get that set up.

It will be my hope that it will be an inspiration for those dealing with LMS, cancer and other “terminal” illnesses.

So.... meanwhile back in the studio. I've not done a lot. But I have done a few things.
I do try to still do something creative everyday even if it's just reading about another artist or watching someone's Youtube video. :) Hoping that at least the brain synapsis are keeping connected. :)

One thing, is above, and is still a work in process but almost done. It's a little 2” x 2” canvas. It was fun to work on it; while it's size made it fast it took enough thought to make it interesting. Basically it's an acrylic painting with a photocopy of a little “grid” drawing (more on grid drawing in the future) I did in my journal that I copied and then pasted with gel medium over acrylic paint and then embellished with ink pens.

I liked doing something this small. It's a nice quick way of getting something accomplished and yet is reasonably quick and fulfilling.

I'm going to put little nails into the upper sides and hang it on some wire.

I've been taking a few online classes; free and one paid:
I took Cathy Johnson's Watercolor free class which I loved.
And Pam Carriker's Pursuing Portraits.
I've learned a lot from both of them.

So it will be interesting to see if any influences show up in my work.
I want to get back into the acrylic painting.


And I've been thinking of creating a tutorial for making my paper mache prints.
Any interest out there?
I miss teaching but don't have the energy to do it one on one anymore so this will be a good way to at least pass things on.

The Garden is waking up.... early, like everywhere else on the East Coast and perhaps elsewhere.
Though the weather shifted to a more seasonable chill and rain.

The greens in the greenhouse are up and growing but not big enough to eat.

I planted some Spinach in the coldframe but nothing is happening yet.

But the Daffodils are up as are the Hellebores and the tree buds are swelling. I'll have my Magnolia blooming soon. Today the sky is blue and it's supposed to get up to at least 55F.

I'll try to take some pictures soon.

The bad news is the ticks are worse then ever this year. After my bout with Lyme in the autumn of 2010 and winter of 2011 I have a serious tick phobia. So I'm very nervous when I go out and check myself the minute I go inside.

We've stopped feeding the birds and squirrels a week or so ago. We cut them off slowly to get them to start foraging naturally. As well as to make sure there is no seed around when the Bears wake up. :)
Those of you who have been reading this since the beginning may remember our Bear visits.

Well... hopefully I'll have some more artwork to show you soon. Stay tuned. :)

And lest I forget; Happy Easter, Ostara and Passover!

Updates on last weeks and this weeks Art Challenges

I'm a bit off schedule this week.
I didn't report on last week's Art Challenge finale on Friday as I'd planned; which was simply I had to do something creative for 5 days of the work week.

What I did was mostly “rusted” some of the paper mache prints I'd done in the past few weeks. I explain where I got the idea and how I was doing it in 'my last post's Studio update.

I really like the way they turned out. The image above and the next two are the rusting experiments:

This week's Art Challenge I'm going back to my first challenge: an 8” x 10” canvas frame a day for 4 days. (I'm heading back to Maine for the long weekend! So 4 paintings instead of 5). Any medium I want but it will probably be acrylic and either/or mixed media.

Here is the first canvas this week (yes, I'm still on my Raven kick :) ):

As stated in the past I'm trying to avoid spamming those that read this (and the Face Book posts) so I'll report back on the challenge on Thursday. I'll try to post a garden update on Wednesday too.

5 Day Challenge : Block Prints!

Challenge Two!
This challenge is a minimum of 5 block print projects. The basic rules are the projects must involve blocks I've already created or new ones. I can make prints, carve new blocks or at least the blocks must be used in a finished piece.

This is day two so there are two projects to report on. (I missed yesterday due to the Holiday here in the USA)

When I first put this idea into my list of future challenges I thought I would be just doing block printing. Then one day I was reading a chapter in Pam Carriker's Book “Art at the Speed of Life”. In it she uses single ply toilet paper as a paper mache technique used over forms she's made that when dry the paper has fit the form. If you want more information about it: and it's very cool, I recommend getting the book (or check your library system). The “ah ha” for me was I could do something similar with the blocks I've been carving over the years.

It worked well with some: not so well with others. Older ones the paper stuck to the block. Newer ones not at all. I think because of old ink and paint on the older blocks.

What happens is the paper fills the “negative” space and when dry and pulled off create a relief of the block. I found some that make great prints don't make great paper. Others do. One thing I tried this morning; and haven't quite finished is to print the infamous lizard block onto a blank block. I then carved it reversing the positive and negative spaces so that the paper would fill in the lizards body rather then the space around it. (hopefully these photos will help explain).

I then painted it with acrylics. Turquoise and silver. I think I'm going to redo it with copper. As soon as I buy some :)

The photo above is for the first project. You can see the original lizard on the left with the paper mache made from that on the bottom. The new lizard, made as described above and it's paper mache image on the right:

The next project was done to a block I call Owl's Roost. I loved how it looked and I painted it with Iridescent Bright Gold (fine) acrylic paint. Then sprayed it with red alcohol ink and watered down burnt umber to give it a tarnished gold patina. I'm really happy with the results. I'm going to try to actually gold leaf the second one I started at a later date to see how that looks over the faux painting style below. The image here doesn't show the gold showing through very well as well as I apologize for the glare. The image below that is the finished project, with the block in the center and on the left the paper mache dried, removed from the block and ready to be embellished.

Tomorrow I'm going to return to doing a regular block printing. I had an inspiration this morning while writing my morning pages today. I'll report back on Friday; the last day of this weeks challenge.

And for the gardeners I'll be reporting on how the garden is doing during my crazy summer. So stay tuned!! :)

Day 5! Last Canvas for this Challenge

Day Five and Canvas 5! Last day of my first self challenge.

And I think it's my favorite. I knew right from the start the direction I wanted to take and that I wanted to experiment with molding paste. I also wanted to do something dark so starting with dragging Titan Buff and Black horizontally. Adding the same type of collage papers I used in the others. I drew a picture of a Raven (from staring at photos online of them: no Ravens in my hollow that I know of). Then I cut out a stencil of the drawing on an old manila folder and used that as a mold for the molding paste.

Painted the Raven black, used some alcohol inks and highlighting areas with acrylic paint and water color crayons and then made a glaze from Interference Blue (Fine) over the whole thing. The image is a bit more white then it actually is.

I actually named this one: “Raven's Treasure”. The collage paper had some old bits of acrylic paint for texture that I think looks like stuff Raven might keep in it's nest. I like how the spiral left over from the collage paper from another project looks like a moon.

Next week the challenge is going to be projects with Block Printing. Carving, printing or other projects that involve the blocks I've made in the past or new ones in the coming week.

I'm also going to change the format a bit and only post the art work twice a week: that way I have room for reporting back on The Garden and the kitchen and the infamous Random Thoughts.

And, please, let me know what you think of them all as well if you have favorites.
Thanks!

So... here is the final canvas this week:

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