Monday, December 27, 2010

lavonne ~ watercolors, soft pastel, colored pencil and casein paint on muslin

watercolors, soft pastel, gouache, colored pencil and casein paint in zecchi journal

i was feeling like i couldn't think of anything 'good' to draw, and then i was thinking that that was a very silly thought. so i started drawing whatever came to mind... and then i was happy because i got to play and color...


i've laid down 'bird on a wire' to stitch this silk together. a friend sent me the center piece wrapped around a gift, and all i could think about was making a scarf out of it. i've slowed down from my initial charge to complete it, though; stitching silk to silk without a backing is like stitching clouds! i have to keep giving myself pep talks about how soft it'll be when it's done...

thank you, ruth, for telling me that the painting in my moleskine was by suzanne valadon.

* * *


"I understand that Picasso told my Dad, "Just do it, Henry". And that's what Henry told artists and writers all his life. Paint or write every day, and it will get easier, and it does."

~Valentine Miller speaking about her father, Henry Miller


XO

Saturday, December 25, 2010




* * *

“You ask
why I make my home
in the mountain forest,
and I smile,
and am silent,
and even my soul
remains quiet;
it lives
in the other world
which no one owns.
The peach blossom.
The water flows.”

~ Li Po (701 - 762), via tumblr... thanks robyn ...

XO

Thursday, December 23, 2010

incognito

sparrow ~ watercolors, oil pastel, gouache, colored pencil, pencil & casein paint on muslin

i'm stitching, painting, reading 'war and peace', and sleeping late...

and watching the sun get higher in the sky. i swear it's higher already!



isabel (wants to go to france) ~ watercolors, soft pastel, gouache, colored pencil, pencil & casein paint on muslin

blue girl ~ colored pencil and soft pastel in moleskine pocket sketchbook

the painting on the lower left is from the magazine 'art forum'. i cut it out and threw away the artist's name; if you know it, please let me know...

in progress...

* * *


“Art does not lie down on the bed that was made for it; it runs away as soon as one says its name; it loves to be incognito. Its best moments are when it forgets what it is called."

~ Jean Dubuffet

XO

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

xoxo

morning sun through woodsmoke, december 2010

from my cocoon to yours, i'm wishing you a beauty and peace filled solstice...

* * *

“Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. It’s true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away - an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains.”

Carl Jung, 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections'

XO

Friday, December 17, 2010

i'm gonna make myself a cocoon ~ pencil, colored pencil, watercolors and charcoal in 4" x 4" muslin book

XO

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

stitching


i've been stitching on pieces of muslin that i've used for cleaning paint brushes and blending stumps... washed them and then soaked them in walnut ink water before i started stitching. i've got quite a stack of them, and i don't know what i'm gonna do with them once they're done...


i bought this book last week at barnes and noble. wow. what a fantastic book... i've never given making silk flowers a second thought, but the idea of making them from recycled sari silk totally sends me!


i'm also waiting for jude to make the 'cloth to cloth' videos available. soon, i think...


XO

Sunday, December 12, 2010

part II

gilberto ~pencil, soft pastels, casein paint, watercolors & oil pastel on muslin; approx. 5" x 6"

i think i wasn't very clear in my last post about the casein paint... : )

it's the casein paint that creates the texture - it comes in a tube and it's thick. it almost reminds me of wet plaster. it has a matte surface, but if you buff it with a soft cloth it quickly develops a soft sheen. it does smell something like pine-sol when it's wet, but not when it's dry. it is a milk based paint and it's non-toxic. let's see, what else... it dries quickly and they say not to use it in thick layers on canvas (or other flexible surfaces) because the binders will crack. of course i'm ignoring this completely. pencil erases off of it easily.

on gilberto i used soft pastels to put the color down for his face, and then i smudged creme caran d'ache oil pastel over most it. the casein paint (white background) is not slick - you have to really push the oil pastel around with a blending stump.

pencil, soft pastels, casein paint, old wallpaper, watercolors & oil pastel on muslin; approx. 4" x 5"

this is the next page (after gilberto) in a muslin journal i've been working in for months now. the dark spot near her nose is a hole in the page. this happens sometimes when i sand the pages... a bit of something gets under the sanding block and in the blink of an eye i've sanded right through the page...

thank you all for your questions about the casein paint... without them i would've thought i'd done a great job of explaining. ; )

* * *

toe tapping and smile making...



XO

Friday, December 10, 2010

casein paint

pencil, colored pencil, casein paint, gouache, oil pastel & watercolors in zecchi journal ~ 3.5 x 5

i've been messing around with white shiva casein paint, seeing what i can do with it. the reason i got it was because i was looking for a gesso-like paint that wasn't acrylic. so far i like it better than gesso...

sir charles edward - pencil, colored pencil, casein paint, gouache, oil pastel, soft pastel & watercolors in zecchi journal ~ 3.5 x 5

you can paint on it with watercolors and gouache and it doesn't dissolve, but if you get your finger wet and smear it around on the surface, viola! you'll cover up or 'fade out' what you've already done. sir charles once had a body...

dancing shoes - colored pencil, casein paint, gouache, soft pastel & watercolors in zecchi journal ~ 3.5 x 5

and you can dig into it... the butterfly in the upper left was done by digging into it with an awl. anything you can easily dig into is at the top of my list.


most of the opaque color on these pages is pelikan gouache, which i'm growing to love more every day. thank you, olivia, for turning me on to it...




some close-ups so you can see more of the texture. i left them big if you want to click.

unnamed angel - soft pastel, colored pencil, pencil, gouache & casein paint in zecchi journal ~ 3.5 x 5

i feel like i've found another 'ingredient' that'll enable me to paint what and how i want to paint. its only drawback is that it smells like the stuff they used to mop the floors with in grade school when it's wet (pine-sol with an edge). it's odorless when dry, though.

it comes in big tubes for $11.26 at dick blick...

* * *

"In the universe there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors."

~ William Blake, via tumblr

XO

Wednesday, December 8, 2010


people have asked why i didn't show my stuff at the group show... the reason is that i figured you'd already seen everything here before!

i didn't hang william p. turner III and a small eyed boy because i didn't like their frames. the small eyed boy found a new home anyway...

now that's settled... : )

XO

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

watercolors, oil pastel, soft pastel, acrylic paint, colored pencil & collage on canson watercolor paper ~ 8" x 10"

Sunday, December 5, 2010

harmony


this is what it looked like most of the way to ashland. roxanne drove from her place, and boy was i grateful...

roxanne invited five women to participate in a show at paschal winery with her; i don't think that any of us knew for sure how it'd work out in the end, so we were all delighted to find out that it was a blast! here are a few pics from the opening night; the flash seems to have stopped working on my camera so everything's pretty dark.

i left most of the pics big so you can click to see more detail...


this is anna standing beside some of her encaustic pieces... she's who roxanne and i stay with when we go to ashland.


more of anna's work...


some of roxanne's pieces in very poor light.


roxanne...


wendy...


more wendy (who is blogless)...


one of gaelyn's pieces...


and another...


some gorgeousness from jan (also blogless)...


and more jan...


roxanne and jan... we all had smiles like this!

* * *


Beauty is in the honest gesture. It is harmony between you and your work. Integrity and presence are its main ingredients. No aesthetic concepts can replace what is authentic. When you let go of result you are free to be yourself. There is no greater beauty than the manifestation of that truth.

Michele Cassou and Stewart Cubley, Life Paint and Passion


XO

Friday, December 3, 2010

openness

pencil and colored pencil in moleskine sketchbook

the red is from a venetian red derwent drawing pencil. it's a very soft lead, and it's the only one i have, but if you click on the link you'll see all of the other colors there are. beautiful, huh?

lately i keep going back to look at the work of herbert pfostl. it's like a nourishing broth for me...

* * *

The poet John Keats described this state of openness and preparedness for the advent of extraordinary in the midst of the ordinary “negative capability.” He defined this as “when a man is capable of of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.”

Tracy Cochran, Parabola

XO

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

william p.

oil pastel, soft pastel, colored pencil & graphite on stonehenge paper

turner, III

william's been framed and is waiting for the trip to ashland, oregon where he'll be part of a group exhibit that roxanne has gotten together. william and seven friends will be leaving with me tomorrow; after that i plan to hunker down for a while...

XO