Another great online course

I said I was busy this summer. I took Mary Ann Moss's stencil class called Pure Exerimentation Stencilry. She had great videos and it is so much fun seeing what everyone else was up to. Here are a few of the ones I did. I am still cutting out more.I used an electric stencil cutter which was pretty cool. It's interesting while I was taking this class I found all kinds of things that I could use as a stencil.Second hand stores and garage sales added to my supplies.

Facebook and Artists

How quickly this summer has gone by.I had all these good intentions of posting and then don't get to it. I took a great seminar this summer called Facebook and Artists. The instructor was Dee Overly and she was terrific. We learned the why's and how's of using this popular social networking tool as part of your art web presence. If you get a chance to hear her take it - www.deeoverly.com.

This painting is called Questioning and it is a mixed media piece that was in a show at the Riverside Arts Center in Ypsilanti, Michigan. It includes paint, collage and a photo transfer plus pen. I ever seem satisfied with just one medium.

Chaos

"The creation of true art requires some mysterious innate ability to thrive in chaos" - Sharon Hubbard. Ain't that the truth!  I have been meaning to post for some time now but other things like committee meetings, local art groups, museum openings ( University of Michigan has just reopened and it is fabulous), and now I am a on facebook talking to other artists but I will not twitter at least not yet. These two paintings were in a show I was in at the Riverside Art Center. Lady of Means is a mixed media piece with a photo transfer, the model was a gal I paint with and is also a Chelsea painter - a group that I am a member of. The first piece "remembering" is also a mixed media piece with a photo transfer of her face and a lot of other media on top. This afternoon I am going to try to conquer some of the chaos in my studio.

Men at Work

 This is a piece I worked on while mentoring a young lady, she just turned 17. She also wants to be an artist. First we covered some print paper with black gesso, let that dry. Then we cut out figures out of plastic, different weights. We then applied watered down white gesso over the black and layed our plastic on top. Let that dry and then I went back in with colored pencils. She has not finished hers but I will post her's soon. I want to do a whole series of shadows and figures. I have them dancing around in my head, we'll see if they want to come out and play.

In a Juried Show

I got two pieces in the State Wide Fine Arts Competition at the Ella Sharp Museum of Art and History here in Jackson Michigan. I was unable to go to the opening because of a snow storm. It seems to snow every day but to day we are up to 22 degrees, we're having a heat wave. So here I am playing with Photoshop and getting ready to go paint in my studio. I have so much to learn with this program. I figure my brain will stay forever young, here's hoping.  

It's been awhile...

I have such good intentions of doing this more often. Today I was glued to the TV watching the inauguration and proud to be an American. He is quite a man, this President of ours. I figure with what this man is facing I certainly can get to my art blog. These are the pieces that I continued with collages.

New Collages

Robert Henri wrote in The Art Spirit, "I think the real artists are too busy with just being and growing and acting (on canvas or however) like themselves to worry about the end. The end will be what it will be. The object is intense living, fulfillment; the great happiness in creation."

I have been playing with a collage layering workshop that one of the Yahoo groups that I belong to offered. The group is The Latest Trends in Mixed Media art. I'm not sure if it is not done. In the first picture I applied various papers, second I added color and in the third gesso and more color. There are more steps but I think I will life with it for awhile.