Monday, July 26, 2010

creek people


i have been without words lately... without words to others, that is. oh yeah, i have plenty of words for myself; words about what to keep and what to get rid of mostly, both internally and externally. but the one time every day when the internal dialogue is silent is when i sit in a chair in the creek and 'paint' these faces. i use oil pastels for the skin and watercolors for everything else. i like that they repel one another...






she's the only one i added oil pastels to after i came in from outside. you can see it on her cheeks, neck, and hair...


otherwise it's just pencil, creme oil pastel, and daniel smith watercolors in a little travel set.









one thing that i want to say is thank you all for your comments and support. i appreciate your words immensely... and i hope you're all having a wondrous summer (or winter, as the case may be). even in my state of social wordlessness and big inner change, i am...

* * *

"Since I can't read music and everything, I find out that I do the best when I just listen to where I'm trying to go with it; where it can go, and not try to rush it, not try to make up things as I'm going necessarily, just let them come out. Then I'm a lot better off. If I start trying to pay attention to where I am on the neck and the proper way to do this or that, you know, then I end up thinking that thing through and instead of playing from my heart I play from my mind, and that's where I find I get in trouble. If I just go with what's in my heart and let it come out, then I'm okay."

~Stevie Ray Vaughan, on Texas Flood

XO

Friday, July 16, 2010

gestures and mumblings

dewey - pencil, colored pencil, oil pastel

dewey was drawn on an old envelope given to me by julie prichard... i am smitten with the idea drawing on old stuff! this envelope provided an exquisite background - all i had to do was draw... it's postmarked 1945, and besides the great stamp and gorgeous handwriting, it has little airplanes on it as part of the postmark. thank you, julie...

marvin - pencil, colored pencil, oil pastel

this is marvin... he was born albert, then he changed his name to edgar, and finally to marvin. the last thing I told him yesterday was that i was gonna give him horns and call him el diablo if he didn't settle down. (marvin thinks this is hilarious because he knows i would never tell anyone to settle down)


i finished this today...

when i started stitching a month ago i had no idea i'd keep going. now i don't see myself stopping. i like that i can be abstract with cloth. i don't seem to be able to do it with painting - i always want to add a face or an eye or a heart. something... but with cloth i feel comfortable not telling a story. although i did stitch words on this one.

* * *

via jeane today i found lisa pressman's blog, and this post about the art of hannelore baron. wow...

this quote was part of lisa's post...

"Everywhere there is evidence of a tale that can be told only by gestures and mumblings, not by the orderly written word."

~ michael brenson

XO

Monday, July 12, 2010

onward

pencil, colored pencils, oil pastels

i've been happily drawing again... instead of thinking about what i can't do, i thought about henry's words: "paint as you like and die happy". everything gets pretty easy then...

i'd like to thank marilyn rock for inspiring me to draw faces on old book pages, and pablo at the 'museum of pablo' for giving me the idea of drawing faces from old yearbooks. pablo, i can't find your blog - are you still out there?! anway, this face is from an old photo of one of my aunts. it's a lot of fun to do this - i highly recommend it!

pencil, colored pencils, oil pastels, inktense pencils on muslin

in my muslin journal, an imagined face...

i stuck this here so it'd be ready to work on the next morning. it looked so good! like a tree apron! (except this isn't a tree. i know...)




i decided i needed to start putting some 'secret words' on the back. : )

and now, some links and info that i've come across lately...

the first is the work of frédéric bruly bouabré, who i read about in raw vision. if you click on his name it'll take you to the postcard sized images that he created every day. he drew whatever was calling to him on found paper. i love these images and this idea... you can buy a boxed set of some of the images (i think it's 200, but i can't remember where i read that) here.

on roz's blog i read about places to get sample packs of paper. the sample packs at legion paper look fantastic. i love the idea of trying out a whole bunch of papers...

maira kalman has a new book...

and finally, in bratislava, slovakia this is the year for INSITA, an international triennial exhibit of naive/outsider art. i can't find much about it on the internet, but it runs from july 3 to september 26. from the article in raw vision, it sounds like it's well worth investigating.

* * *

Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness.

~Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark

XO

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

flutter and flap


i think my favorite thing to do these days is watch things flutter and flap in the wind. whether it's leaves or pieces of cloth, i'm mesmerized... i put up more stuff so i can watch it blow around.


before any more time goes by i want to say a big thank you to kim mailhot for a love filled package she sent to me a couple of weeks ago... most of it has already been distributed on mt. shasta.


the rocks were left where people will find them; what a delight it was to place them here and there! i felt like a 'blessing bestower'!


the heart rock i kept, and the sticks are now in the bark on big mt. shasta trees (i forgot my camera that day! i felt naked!)

thank you, thank you sweet kim for this goodness... also in the package was a tablet of paper made from stone. have you heard of it? it's wonderful!


i've been drawing and painting a little, a very little...


most of the faces have this crown chakra thingie on them... like thai buddhas have. (well, sort of ; )


this is the cover for 'regina', which i finally finished. i've started in a new muslin journal, but only barely.


i've hardly opened my pocket moleskine...

what i've mostly been doing is being outside.


i started a stick that has only burned designs on it. it's more than 5' long, so holding it and burning at the same time is intense. that tiny dot of light has to be just right or it doesn't burn. i can hardly breath and burn at the same time, although i'm getting better.


stitching...


burning muslin - thank you, kathy, for this idea!


experimenting with patina-ing copper using salt, vinegar, and a few drops of miracle gro. it's addictive... (you shouldn't get the liquid on your hands once the copper starts to dissolve, and it's my understanding that the copper salts that form the patina shouldn't be against your skin for long.)


walking and taking pics... this is a wild columbine not far from here.




hanging stuff in windy places!


cooling my feet off in the creek... i left my flip flop on a rock to dry after i'd been out walking, and took this pic while i was resting on the edge of the creek. somehow it describes perfectly how i feel right now. in the flow but not part of it. between the old and the new...

* * *

a few weeks ago i watched this video of harry ally working and it influenced me tremendously. afterwards i felt like my art doesn't even begin to hit the mark. now i feel in limbo - not satisfied with what i've been doing but not knowing how to proceed. except to just do whatever presents itself each day and know that it will unfold...




XO