Sunday May 22, 2016

Just realized that its been a couple weeks since I posted!
I haven't really done any art.  I have found a walking buddy and since the weather has warmed, we get out there when we can.  I also have been working overtime at work, so by the time dinner, cleanup, walk is done, its time to go to bed and get up to do it all over again.
I did do this though.  I am trying to make silk purses out of sows ears again.  I ran across some old mats that I had tucked away.  I mean, these are OLD!  Yellowing, bent, stained, yuckked up.  I just have to try to make them over.  If not, nothing hurt, then I feel like I tried to save them, and it didn't work. But gotta TRY!
Here is an 11x14 white mat, with a 8x10 opening, that had seen its better days...

 As you might be able to see, there is a bend in it...

So I disguised it!  I don't have anything to put it said mat at the moment, but will keep it for sometime soon.

 Here is a start for the upcoming (Fall) Bonsai exhibition.  Not sure where to go with it from here.

And I have been working on this one since last year.  I get to the boring flowers, and its just like wading through mud.  Soooo boring...!
Well, thats about it for this week.
Stay tuned!

Sunday, May 8,2016 Happy Mothers Day!

I am feeling blessed.
This weekend has been a busy one, and I am having a bit of quiet time for the rest of the weekend. A very nice Mothers Day weekend indeed.
 
I did start a new drawing, thought I ruined it, saved it, and sold it!

It was 11x14, sepia ink on lt brown parchment paper, and the straw is where I thought I went wrong.  After this pic was taken, I worked with that a little more and it looked better.  My bff bought it for a Mothers Day gift!  I forgot to take a final shot of it, though.  She was thrilled!

I also saw a shot on the way in to work the other day and had to turn around to get the pic.  It was all about the light and not particularly the subject matter, but I have it sitting up so I can walk by it
for a few days.

I need more tree branches and some more bushes/shrubs in the background, and I think I may have to do more shading on the house.   Its 24x24 acrylic.

We'll see. Stay tuned.

Happy May Day 2016

So yesterday was the summation of the Raku class that I wrote about in the last post.  Here is what happened:  Since we threw our pots, (and no, we didn't throw them anywhere, but when you put clay on a spinning table and shape it into a tubular structure, it is called THROWING a pot) (as opposed to Hand-building which means using a piece of flat clay to shape any shape you prefer) last time, they fired our pieces and made them bisque, (hard), so they would be ready to apply glaze.

Glaze is a funny thing.  It is liquid, usually pastel, and usually doesn't fire out to the color you just painted.   You just trust that whoever brought the glaze knows what color it might fire out to be.  For instance, the baby pink liquid that I painted, turned a mossy green/coppery color.

 Pots can be dipped, or painted with the glazes...

 The chrome kiln in the background fired the glazes up to 1900+ degrees.  Then they are taken out and put in metal garbage cans filled with straw.  (I have seen this done with saw dust too) and the temp of the pottery starts the straw on fire that finishes the firing.

And the results are remarkable.  You can put the glaze on where you THINK you want it, but the same glaze, fired in a different spot of the kiln, or where it sits in the fire, will make it change, or run, or the finish might bubble or crack and be different.  Its kind of controlled chaos.  Did everything turn out beautiful?  Some more than others, but the fun of it all and watching them come out and cool on the ground will make you oooh and ahhhh... just like fireworks!  You can hear the glaze crackle as it cools.

By the way, mine weren't as pretty as the ones in this pic... but I am a rookie and already thinking about what I would do different next time...
Here are mine.  I am happy with them.  Nothing show stopping, but I didn't expect them to be.  I had fun.  And learned something new.  And it keeps you humble because you just don't control it totally.

> This one was dipped in Cobalt glaze on wone side, and then in a shiny pewter on the other side, (looks brown in this pic) with bare clay between..  So the glazes are smooth, the bare clay throws in another texture as its rough.

< This is metallic copper and a yellowish sheen.  The black and grey are bare clay.  It started out snow white that morning!

>This is silvery, with a swatch of copper, with the cobalt blue interior. 


I would definitely take this class again.  I learned that artists can plan all they want but they can be open to something unexpected.   I learned that not everyone thinks cracked is ruined.  I learned that though we all think differently, we can all support and help.  As we should!  I have heard that artists can be different thinkers. (GOOD!) and some can be critical. (I have run across some of those!)  But this group was supportive and fun and restored my faith in trying something new.

Always something new.  Stay tuned!

Sunday April 24, 2016

Happy Spring!

<< NOT MINE

I have not thrown pottery much, but decided that the Raku Pottery class that was offered just might spur on some creative mojo with this dry spell I've been having.   This week we threw pots on a wheel, (well, I TRIED!) (everyone there were nice and said I did well for the first time... lol)  I wouldn't exactly call mine pots.  More like bowls.  At any rate, they will be fired to bisque this week and we go back next week to glaze and Raku them.

Here is how I understand it happening...
We glaze them, then put them in an outside kiln and heat them to some extreme temp, then take them out and put them in newspaper or dry straw in a garbage can and clamp a lid on them, where the extreme heat of the piece alights the dry stuff in the can and starts flames, which gives interesting and uncontrollable colors and glazing.

My friend, Maureen, who has been a potter for 25 years, (and does some awesome stuff) went with me.  It's almost just as fun just watching her go!  She did some beautiful work.  I took pics but either my phone or my computer are not cooperating.  Just imagine big tall beautiful pieces, next to some dumpy looking bowls.  Thats ok.  I am a rookie and I had fun.  I can't wait til next week though.

<<Mine

 Maureens^^

At work, for Mothers Day, we are being asked to pick up these white, non-descript coffee cups, decorate and fill them for voting and to raffle off.  I did mine.  Not sure I like it, but I participated.  I also have a pic of that to show someday too, if'n I ever get technology to smile on this post.

Call it Spring, call it feeling better, but I feel my mojo starting to come out of hibernation.. I think I will go clean the art room to get ready for that day. 
 
Stay tuned. 

PS:  Finally got my pics to load.  Makes the blog MUCH more interesting, dontcha think?

Sunday April 17, 2016

It's been a bit.  I have had a dry spell, art-wise.

I did put two pieces of old stuff in an exhibition.  I intended to do some new, but just wasn't up to the task. So, these did the job.

 This new art center has this above their door.  I love it!

 The Art Center is also right next to a pizza place and these stand out front...

Yesterday, I did a bunch of these garden bricks out of a kit I bought long ago.  I have decided to donate these to the Mothers Day gift basket raffle at work. 

Coming up there will be an exhibition with a "Barbie" Theme, and there are a few ideas rumbling around in my head.

Then I hear there will be another Bonsai exhibition in the fall.  Lots to think about.  Stay tuned!

Easter Sunday 2016

Its the 27th of March already.  Last post was weeks ago!  I can't believe its Easter and April is at the end of the week.  We had a relatively mild winter, but we have already had some bad storms to start the Spring.  As I write, the beautiful Easter day we had is turning cloudy and the radar says we have some pretty colored storms coming our way.  You know what they say... if it rains on Easter Sunday, it rains for seven Sundays after.   At least most of the day it was beautiful.

I have been so un-inspired art-wise.  I did accomplish a couple things for Easter...

I gave the minion eggs to the girls at work and abandoned most of the bunnies.

I have an art exhibition in April that I have to have two framed pieces by Friday.  I have known about it for weeks and haven't felt like doing anything new.  Anything I already have framed, everyone has seen a dozen times.  I just might sit this one out. We'll see.

Well I hear thunder off in the distance... so will cut this off here.

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter and YAY! to Spring, eh?

Stay tuned!

Sunday March 6, 2016

Remember last post?  I ran across this and it hit home...funny that she and I would be feeling this at the same time.

Artistic Shades of Mediocrity

Alena  Freysinger  Henry·

"Sometimes we can’t see past the end of our noses or even into next week. I’ve been quietly struggling lately (like for the past 40 years). I really want to feel that I am an artist - except for all of the “buts”. I really want to be an artist - but I get too bored if it is easy and discouraged if it is too difficult. What’s the use?

- but I have time and money responsibilities toward my family.

- but I’m afraid someone will criticize my work or worse - that someone I love will reject something I’ve made for them (it has happened before and has derailed me for years). Why bother putting myself out there?

- but there are so many out there who are so much better than I am. What could I possibly create or contribute ?

- but I can’t grasp the value of it - I should be helping others, not painting pictures.  I ran across a blog post that told the story about a mediocre Russian artist, Viktor Hartmann, and the “butterfly effect” ....the concept that movement of stagnate air by the soft fluttering of butterfly wings is all it takes to set off a rippling chain of events that can create a hurricane, excerpts from the blog of Karen Ullo “ During the summer of 1873, the artist/ architect Viktor Hartmann died suddenly from an aneurysm at the age of thirty-nine. Hartmann’s forgettable talents led to a series of mediocre works that momentarily captured the attention of a few major figures in the artistic community of St. Petersburg.  In all fairness, Hartmann’s work should have died with him. – The only reason Hartmann’s work did not die is that Modest Mussorgsky, a man of much more memorable talents, happened to attend a posthumous exhibition of his friend Hartmann’s work, which inspired him write a piece for solo piano. Several decades later, that piece caught the eye of the brilliant Maurice Ravel. Ravel was not the first to orchestrate Mussorgsky’s work–over a dozen composers have tried their hands at that task–but Ravel elevated Pictures at an Exhibition into the canon of established symphonic music.

It took three men in two countries more than forty-eight years to create the half-hour of music. Creating music that would inspire generations was not the intention of the original artist. Somewhere in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1873, a butterfly flapped its wings.

For me, however, the lesson is simply this: Viktor Hartmann did his best. His best could never put him in a class with contemporaries like Monet and Gaugin, and I guarantee that when he sat down to paint “The Hut on Hen’s Legs,” he had no notion that a Frenchman not yet born would someday use it as the backdrop of an orchestral work that would endure for centuries. Hartmann sat down to paint it, nonetheless.

It so happens that I count myself among the world’s mediocre artists. Someday, my voice and my arms will die with me, and this creative stuff I have been slaving at for decades will become nothing more than fodder for my obituary. The odds that I will inspire some greater artist to create something lasting are pretty slim, but I have, at least, been known to inspire smiles. I have taught a few people to improve their craft, and, most importantly, enriched a few prayers. It is enough.

Viktor Hartmann’s legacy demonstrates that if we use our talents (however forgettable) to ignite just a tiny spark of beauty, there is no limit to the wildfire the winds of the Spirit can flame. No artist should ever strive to be mediocre, but neither should the fear of mediocrity deter us from plying our trades. So get out there. Create. Get better every day. Make someone smile, and then let the butterflies do their thing. “ This story that helped me understand that the ACTION of making art is valuable in itself. The results of being an artist are not necessarily the folders of undisplayed “ not good enough” paintings I have upstairs in the spare-room closet, but more - a tiny ripple of observation, appreciation for beauty and creative energy sent out into the world. Hmmm...."

Alena had run across a blog post of Karen Ullo, and copied what Karen wrote to her blog, who inspired me to copy it again here... kind of a ripple there, isn't it?

Alena has helped me look at what I do with a little more surety.  Something drives me to release what I see, for a reason.   May any ripples begin!

Stay tuned.