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Watermedia play

February 1, 2012 By

Surface Study #2

A few weeks ago I started a class at the Vancouver Island School of Art called Watermedia Drawing with the inspiring instructor, Tracey Nelson (http://www.trace.nelson.com)  The first day we had to tape off a section of the classroom tables (you know those 6′ plastic ones that get covered in paint, etc. from overuse)  then create a painting.  The first one I did, Surface Study #1, appears on my Home page for the month of February and on the Painting Page.  I took a photo of the table so I could continue working on it at home.  Keep in mind that the table was just a reference and I took it a lot further.  The painting above, Surface Study #2,  done on BFK Rives paper with ink and fluid acrylics, was done in a similar way, using a photograph I had taken of a concrete floor in a building on Salt Spring Island.  This is a great method to get started on a painting and or a background for a calligraphy piece. 

Today I will be heading over to Cecelia Press (printmaking studio of Lorraine Douglas and Susan Underwood) to begin working on new prints!  I have lots of ideas whirling around in my mind and can’t wait to get them down on paper.  Lorraine, Susan and I are booked to do a show of new work at Gallery 1580 here in Victoria May 22 – June 1.

Filed Under: mixed media painting, printmaking, watermedia

Watercolour & lettering play day

January 26, 2012 By

Baby's first art acquisition!

 Last week when Victoria got a huge dump of snow, I decided to stay indoors and had some fun playing with watercolours and fun lettering styles.  (BTW the snow is all gone!) It’s nice when you don’t have a real deadline and you can take time to have fun with your materials.  Here are a few small pieces I created that day.  My hair stylist gave birth to her first child on December 31.  The original of the baby piece is for her family.  (Sam, I hope you don’t mind that I will print this as a card).  The other piece is a second original painting that I redid as I gave the first one to our neighbours when we went to their place for a fabulous New Year’s dinner.  I forgot to scan that one so I decided to do another one which I will also have printed as a card.  (These images are tiny so if you can’t read the authors’ names and would like to know who they are,  send me an email).

Perfect for your kitchen!

These cards will be for sale as well as several other designs, at my Open Studio Show & Sale on February 25 and 26, 1 pm – 5 pm  both days, here in Victoria.  I’ll be putting my art (paintings and prints) up around our home and my home studio will be open as well.  We enjoy having people come to our home to view the art on the walls and socializing with our friends and other art lovers!  I guess I should start thinking about designing an invitation …

P.S.  When I saw today’s date it reminded me that this would have been my sister, Sandy’s, 57th birthday … Happy Birthday Sandy …

Filed Under: art

Begin 2012 on a creative journey!

January 7, 2012 By
Sample from "Easy Hand Lettering #3"

Drawn Versals sample

Begin the new year with creative resolutions!  You keep saying you’re going to take a workshop, learn a new lettering style, make your own cards, etc. etc.  So, what are you waiting for?  I’ll be instructing a new workshop at Island Blue here in Victoria BC: “Easy Hand Lettering #3″ on Sunday January 29, 12 – 4 pm.  In Part 3 of the Easy Hand Lettering Series you’ll be introduced to the beautiful handwriting style, “Copperplate” as well as drawn versals from old manuscript books and some contemporary decorated capital letters too.  These will enhance your art and craft projects and are perfect for greeting cards.  You can sign up by phone 250-385-9786, in person at the store 905 Fort Street at Quadra or online http://www.artstore.islandblue.com/artclasses/  Looking forward to seeing you there!

Filed Under: art

Snowy, snowy night

December 30, 2011 By

We travelled from Victoria to Whistler on Boxing Day to visit my husband’s parents who have lived there for the past 22 years.  I took this enchanting photo on Boxing Day evening from their back deck.   That night’s snowfall was 20 cm –  a bonus for the skiers!  Some of the family skiied the following day and I went for a refreshing run in the snow on the Valley Trail.   We reconnected with more family at the Four Seasons Hotel for a fun evening with little ones buzzing about and the rest of us catching up with our past year’s adventures.

This weekend we’re back home and I will be working on our New Year’s cards to send to our out-of-town family and friends.  We are always so busy before Christmas I decided a few years ago to send my cards at New Year’s instead.   Tomorrow night we’ll be ringing in the New Year at our neighbours’ over a gourmet dinner for 12!

“And now, let us begin the new year, full of things that have never been.”  (Rainer Maria Rilke)  HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE & BEST WISHES FOR 2012!

Filed Under: art

Portfolio for prints

December 14, 2011 By

Here are a few photos of the portfolio I constructed for the set of multimedia monoprints “Oh! What a Life!”.  I used instructions from “Books, Boxes & Wraps” by Marilyn Webberley & JoAn Forsyth (under Folders & Soft Wraps, page 145, 146).  I used a tobacco coloured Canson Mi-Teintes paper which is flexible for folding and wrapping.  I was able to use up most of the full sheet and one of the off-cuts was perfect for the piece to wrap it all together!  I used a small square of the kraft coloured Stonehendge (this is the support paper for the prints) to make a personalized label with the title and my family member’s name.  I was very pleased with the final product. 

You can make these in any size so you might want to make a few for a package of cards or other artwork.  I believe you can buy this book through John Neal Booksellers, http://www.johnnealbooks.com  They have everything you need for calligraphy and bookbinding!  A few other books on bookmaking to recommend are “Handmade Books & Cards” by Jean G. Kropper and “Bookworks” by Sue Doggett.

And … today is the day I take 7 of these portfolios with the prints to the post office for shipping to my family in Calgary, Georgetown and North Bay!  Yea!

Filed Under: hand made books/portfolios Tagged With: , , ,

Fun with monoprinting

December 4, 2011 By

This Wednesday I’ll be participating in a small office art show and the theme for framed work is “umbrellas”!  I had fun creating this print above titled “Rain, rain …”.  I scanned a photo of our son, Read, printed it from my laser printer on white bond then cut around him to removed the background.  I rescanned the image and printed  it out onto a very lightweight green paper with embedded fibres that I bought at Opus.  I made a mask to cover him and also some narrow strips.  I rolled red oil-based ink over top of the masks then I rolled up a styrofoam food tray (the kind with the little bumps) and “stamped” onto the paper.  I used some scraps of paper that I had rolled blue ink onto and cut strips.  I “chined” the blue strips and the green paper onto BFK support paper using the etching press.  Then I added the words with a mechanical pencil and used pencil crayon to colour the top of the umbrella and his t-shirt!

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: printmaking Tagged With: ,

Everyday art

November 25, 2011 By
 

Cha cha anyone?

Pike Market Veggies (can you spot the lizard?)

Last weekend we took The Clipper passenger ferry to Seattle WA.  The trip was a little long, 2-3/4 hours but very comfortable and it was great to arrive in the downtown harbour which put us a short distance from the Westin where we stayed for three nights.  The weather was chilly but no rain or snow (as predicted – the cabs had studded tires!) so we walked everywhere and were amazed at all the public art!  Here are a few photos of some fun things we saw.  Victoria has a lot of public art too.  Here’s a link to find out more and perhaps to set up your own walking tour http:/www.LandmarksPublicArt.ca

On the return trip I spent my time catching up with my travel diary and writing postcards – what else!  How is your letter writing going?

Filed Under: art

Write a letter challenge!

November 16, 2011 By

Letters from home

Yesterday I spent some time writing letters – yes the old-fashioned way of sitting down and writing a personal letter by hand. The envelopes pictured above were hand addressed using a variety of writing “tools”; one for my parents who love receiving mail (phone calls are great but mail delights them), a birthday card for my friend, Kathleen (who I haven’t heard from for ages), and an envelope stuffed with little treasures for our daughter, Kayla.  I personally like receiving hand written letters and cards in the mail so I assume others do as well. 

You can have a lot of fun just addressing the envelopes.  For some good examples go to http://www.calligraphersguild.org/envelope.html which will take you to the Washington Calligrapher’s Guild site where there’s information about the annual contest, The Graceful Envelope Contest.   Anyone in the world can enter so think about it for 2012.

For now I challenge you to grab a coffee, tea or glass of wine (depending on the time of day!) and sit down for a short while and write a letter to someone you care about ….  tell them about your day, what the weather’s been like where you live, what the rest of your family are up to …. I guarantee they will love you for it.  Oh, and please, send me a note to let me know how it went; did you take time to chose some really cool postage stamps; did you decorate the envelope, did you make a card to go inside; did you buy some special paper and a new pen; I’d love to hear about.  Good luck!   P.S. Go see my pieces at the AGGV on November 19 for the Christmas Small Works Show as there’s one about receiving a letters.

Filed Under: art Tagged With: ,

Yes, I’m still working on 90th birthday project …

November 8, 2011 By

Prints & plates

Here’s a photo of some of the prints and plates for the 90th birthday project I have at home.  There are more drying under weight at Ground Zero Printmakers Studio which I’ll pick up when I go back on Thursday or Friday this week.  I spent this morning arranging repeat images of more photos of my Dad on the computer and printing them on my laser print onto the Usukuchi paper that I have been using for chine colle.  I’ve talked about this before so it’s just more of the same.  I am planning to complete the project by the end of November and host a showing in December.  Date TBA so stay tuned!  My mind has been whirling with ideas for a new project then my sister called from Calgary to invite me to show my work there!  Hmmm … more on this event later!

Filed Under: art

Lettering demo for printmakers

November 1, 2011 By

 

Tonight I will be doing a lettering demonstration for the members of the Ground Zero Printmakers Society.  They are doing a mini workshop on print-based cards and asked if I would show them a lettering style that they could use on their cards.  The style I have chosen to show them is a monoline capital lettering style that came out of looking at the work of some European calligraphers such as Yves Leterme.  I have made up my own exemplar and I call these “Euro Style Caps” because I have seen them used primarily by Europeans (however with a broad edge tool).  Besides I wanted to come up with a catchy name!  (Yves noted that these caps are being used in Australia, Argentina and Japan as well as North America!)

I contacted Yves to ask if he was okay with me demonstrating these letters and sent him a copy of my exemplar and some pieces I had done.  Here are some of his comments, “… I like your example but would add that it’s the nature of these letters to not use as an “alphabet” but to apply small changes to all these letters … (i.e. crossbars, serifs, etc.) it would also enhance the beauty of the letters if you’d apply some weight here and there but believe me, that’s hard to teach …”   He also said he was itching to make some corrections!  I should clarify that I used his letters as a jumping off point to come up with these “Euro Style Caps” and be it known that these are not part of the historical calligraphy alphabets used for intensive calligraphic study.

I hope I’m not opening up a can or worms as that is certainly not my intention and I look forward to seeing some familiar faces there tonight.

 

 

Filed Under: art
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