Windy Windy Sunday

The first day of spring! The wind woke me up this morning- thought it was going to tear the roof off our patio! I sit here typing watching the pine trees across the street look as though they are dancing to a frenzied jazz piece.

This past week I received my third check from art sales for the Month of Feb. A good start to the year.

Listen To The Whispers

Ode to Charles Wilson Peale
Cabinet of Curiosities

I also received notification that two of my pieces (pictured above) were accepted for the "We Art Women" extended 2 month show at the Visual Arts collective aka the VAC. Thursday April 14th 5-10. Opening Gala.

I applied for Art in The Park, a fundraiser for the Boise Art Museum. It's a big national Art Fair held at the park next to the Museum.

This coming weekend March 26th is the Grand opening of Green Chutes, I volunteered to host an ATC trading card booth.

Today, as a member of BOSCO, I have been invited to the studio of artist John Kilmaster. Should be a fun afternoon.

And last but not least I started on several new pieces of art, but I'll save that for the next blog.

Art in the Mountains

A friend of mine from Texas (Marianne) saw my posts on Facebook about skiing this past week and she was exclaiming..."it's spring...why are you skiing?" My response was that since moving to Idaho I have learned that spring comes much later than in Texas. The first year I was here we skied on Cinco De Mayo! 

This past week I joined a group of 9 men and 4 women on a backcountry ski tour, oh did I mention, I don't back country ski and was on snow shoes...well anyway... we had a great time and I kept up fine, even breaking trail on the way back through 25 inches of new powder! 

Tea Time for One

4" x 6" water color/collage

While at the Yurt I broke out my travel art kit and set out a fine cup of tea 

after melting 9 buckets of snow. 

Through the Yurt Door

4" x 6" Watercolor

It was still overcast and snowing, so I sat by the Yurt door and painted the scene outside.

And a Fine Powder Day it Was

 4" X 6" Watercolor

As the day wore on and it got warmer and sunnier

 I moved outside and sketched the yurt and Brenda's skis. 

After going a little stir crazy I  decided to make a bad girlfriend for Smokey the Bear. 

This is Smokey the SnowBearette. 

The whole crew celebrating 2 birthdays, Mardi Gras and St. Patricks day all in one night 

and yes I have a real elk foot flask in my hand! 

What a great trip it was! 

And All Came Out To Celebrate!

I found this sad looking piece of a former Easter decoration at a thrift store in Emmett Idaho last month for 25cents. I knew it needed a second life and wasn't ready for the dust bin yet! This was great fun. I had the fence which I painted and stained and glued on the back. I collaged the base and house. I added lots more figures and added paint to the window and door. I glued a bird peeking out of the window and a rabbit peeking out of the screen door. I painted and collaged a plane wooden chick and glued her to the roof.  

 I have named this piece And All Came Out To Celebrate!

Artist Journals and My Travel Art Kit

Art Journals

I didn't realize quite how many art books I had made over the years, until my friend Vicky asked if she could come see some of them yesterday. They range from travel journals with collages of tickets stubs etc. to sketching journals to altered hard cover books, to sculptural books with hand made covers. 

This then got me thinking about my upcoming backpacking/snowshoe trip to a yurt up in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho and how I would have a couple of days to work on some art while the others were off back country skiing in avalanche country. 

Travel Art Kit

So here is my travel art kit. It all fits in this 5" x 7 "pouch and all of it weighs 1 lb. Cause if you gotta carry it on your back you better think about taking just the necessities. Included is a small watercolor set with brush, pencil, sponge, eraser. A tube of white gouache, a small set of colored pencils with sharpener, a small set of crayons, a small set of markers, folding scissors, a glue stick a sketchbook and a watercolor tablet.

Monkey, Beehives and Flowers

Lucky Monkey

4" x 4"

Collage/Assemblage

After selling two of my little chunkies right away, one at the museum gift shop and one at The Gypsy First Thursday show, that was all the encouragement I needed to make some more.  Lucky Monkey has phrases such as "little rascal chattering like a monkey," " Stay in your pajamas, there is no need to get dressed," and "keys attached to his lucky monkey's head" The photo behind the glass cube is Curious George reading a book. Attached are some little jewels and 2 old keys from a small padlock that was my daughters.

Eloquent Link

4 X 4 

collage/assemblage

This piece contains the quotes "celebrated as the age of reason, an era when intellectual ferment, artistic, and literary experiences...," " chaos reigns in a crumbling world," and "plants provide an eloquent link"

In this piece I am using the juxtaposition of a genteel peace and calm with the chaotic world we live in.

 Wonderment

4 x 4 

Collage/Assemblage

detail shot of Wonderment

This piece is based on a story about Leonardo DaVinic's workshop. some of the quotes in this piece are: " A Beehive of mental activity," " Wonderland, " "adventure in the air," and "exploring." I love the little drawer. I have one more so you will be seeing it again.

I hope you have as much fun looking at these pieces as I have had making them. 

Artful March

Works in progress.

Saturday I was invited to be a part of an exquisite corps for auction pieces for the We Art Women Show coming up. It was a great time of sharing ideas and getting to know some artists I hadn't spent any real time with. Here is Marianne's good description of the event. http://mkonvalinka.blogspot.com/2011/02/corpses.html




Wednesday I participated on an artists panel at Timberline High School in Jerry Hendershot's AP Art class. There were 5  artists all in different media, presenting our work and starting a dialogue with the students about the idea behind your art, how to talk about it, what it means, etc. They are students that are just now developing artist statements and learning to discuss their work. This was what is hopefully the first of many interactions with this group of students. It was lots of fun and you could tell the students were very appreciative that we took the time (2 hours) to come speak. We ran out of time. Next time the students will share their work with us. This talk will be continued in an online forum which I think my blog will be linked to. 



Tonight I'm off to our Gypsy Gallery event for First Thursday @ Gallery J 14th and Main in downtown Boise.
 5-9 pm come on by....

Cards, Cards and More Cards

 I have a show coming up on Thursday. I wanted to make a bunch of collaged cards for the show as this is an affordable way for people to buy original art. I have been selling my cards for $3.50 this seems kind of low to me for the amount of time invested in each card.

 The cards all measure 4" x 5"

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think I should/could charge. 

Working Studio

 Here is my studio with everything open and in use, not cleaned up and perfect. I use shoe storage boxes in the closet, labeled with things such as glue, silk flowers, tools, tape, pencils, small assemblage stuff, broken jewelry, and notepads.

Hanging on the back of the door is a shoe holder, the pockets contain things such as rulers, scissors, jars of gesso, glue gun, heat gun etc.

I love my old desk, it has been repainted many times, but I am pretty sure I am keeping it this way for a long time. The bottom 1/2 is a collage of my life.

 Here is my main work table. I work on multiple projects at a time and seem to only clean it up and put everything away when I am finished with all the works in progress. By the time I am done I am usually working on top of the piles or in 1" of clean space! I am so lucky to have a space that I can just leave everything and come back to it. (Except when we have guests and yes this is the guest room)

Here is my lovely fireplace and space heater. I use the bins to store the art pieces that I bring to shows. On the side of the house was an old dog run which we enclosed and now use for storage, it is lined with shelves that these boxes fit on. I have a show this coming Thurs. so I better finish everything up and get it in those boxes! To the left of the blue bins is a a cart with 8 drawers that I bought on clearance at Jo Anne's...I think it was regularly $79 and I got it for 19.99 because the bottom drawer is hard to open. What a deal! as you can see I'm not closing them anyway!

 Behind the door to the room fits my wonderful little black shelf that hold many of my miniatures. I use the coat rack on the back of the door for necklaces that can be cut up and used in art as well as aprons. (which I never seem to use)

The back wall with all the cubbies of "stuff" and collections.  My inspiration wall. Another question posed was "do you like working with music, tv or quiet?" Really all 3 work for me, depending on my mood, what's on etc. 

Thanks to Ricë for starting the  discussion on studios at createmixedmedia.com  

G is for Giraffe

G is for Giraffe

7" x 3 1/2" 

Found Object Assemblage

The wood is from a new yurt up near Idaho City that I volunteered to help with and asked if I could take a few pieces of scrap. The hanger for the piece is (I think, a broken bracelet), the flat giraffe is from a mobile that someone gave me, the toy giraffe from Miriam cleaning out her studio. The metal giraffe from a thrift store and the ceramic giraffe on top from Bill's Aunt and Uncle in NY.

PLAY

 I bought this frame at a thrift store, I made the encaustic "play" in class, assorted game pieces I had collected. Giggle charm was received as a trade at Art & Soul.

Play

9" x 11" x 2"

I collaged pieces of  tissue paper and old illustrations to the frame, painted the edges and glued the monkey and game pieces. I tried to remember the "less is more ideal" that Marianne and I are always talking about and didn't add all the pieces I had collected for this one. 

Working with Alternative Materials

 Last Saturday I attended a workshop by Jan Hopkins, one of the Northwest Artists currently showing at the Boise Art Museum in the exhibit Critical Messages: Contemporary Northwest Artists on the Environment.  She is known for using alternative materials from the environment in her artwork. We were treated to a slide show of her work, showing her use of Bull Kelp, Rhododendron leaves, Sturgeon Skin, Black Bamboo, and many other materials.

We then got to do our own project using grapefruit peels. We used waxed linen thread and a chenille needle to do the stitching. We also used beads and brads that went through the peels like butter.

Here is my finished project. I am still working on the chair. 

My Dog Blue

My Dog Blue

5" x 5" 

plaque

No, I don't own a dog ( or any pet, for that matter) but just about everyone I know does. The main illustration for this piece is a wine label from  Chateau Morrisette. A great winery listed in the 1,000 places to visit book. We stopped there for a wonderful lunch on the Blue Ridge Parkway last spring and heard the story about how their wine sales were lagging. Then they changed the name of their signature wine to honor their dog that had died and sales tripled. Of course I had to buy a bottle of the white and the red and then saved the label for a future art piece and this is the result. 

From Valentines Mess to St. Patricks Day Art

 I rescued this canvas from my friends studios's trashcan. It was a new canvas she was trying and it never would tighten up and started buckling under the medium, she tried various things to make it work but then decided to and start over on a better canvas. Not being one to ever see anything thrown away, I asked if I could have it . I used an exacto knife to cut off the additions. Then flipped it over and coated it with modeling paste.

I had this cute little St. Patricks day bear that has printed on his paw "Me to You" He fit in the opening just perfect! He is not attached, so can be removed, if wanted.  I collaged tissue papers and stickers, added gems and an old really cool button.

Noah's Ark

     When I was given this Noah's ark plaque, my initial thought was this was something I would never use. Then I was trying to figure out what to do with all these little plastic animals and the Noah's ark plaque came to mind! 

     I started by gluing the plaque to the back panel of the shadow box and added paint and some of the animals. 

     Next I collaged all the sides of the box and glued alligators on the sides. Some of the quotes on the collage are "All or Nothing" and "Believe." Along the front edges of the shadow box I glued little rock beads and added dots of glitter and paint.

Teacher, You're My Hero!

2 3/4" X 2 3/4"

Collage

Last week one of the women on the Girls Weekend Trip brought all her valentines to fill out to give to her kindergarten students on Monday. She gave me the one that was intended for a teacher. I cut out the words, and collaged it along with a torn photo of a woman that looked like a teacher from the turn of the century, and added some charms and a broken necklace. Here is my result in honor of all the teachers either losing their jobs or taking pay cuts this year. Teacher, You're My Hero!

Weekend Fun

So now we are not only having Girls Night Out but Girls Weekend out. Got to spend a lovely 2 days, 2 hours out of town, hiking, downhill skiing and cross-country skiing with several of my friends at Marianne's place. I am a light packer, hard to believe but with so many winter sports, it's hard to pack light. I love the colors in this photo. (No retouching)

Even though it looks cold, we were skiing sans jackets yesterday afternoon. Apres skiing we got to listen to live music at two different venues downtown, now mind you this is a town of only 300 and the place was packed!

Came back to town a early this afternoon to temps in the 60's, noticed my Weeping Pussy Willow tree is starting to bud. Winter is far from over but it sure feels like spring.

Spent the afternoon organizing the studio. Not the funnest activity but I was starting to trip over things and you couldn't sit on the couch from all the stuff stacked up on it!

White Roses

Happy Valentines Day!

Studio Night at MK's

Echo came by to say hi. Marianne and Nancy being nice and making him feel welcome.

The non-dog lover is taking the picture. :)

Tomato photo I took on the kitchen counter and then used iphone photo shop.

Playing with the pieces and the layout. The postcard is what started this piece.

It is from 1907 and says" Come over and you can have a fine ripe tomato..."

Finished piece with background collaged with tissue paper and transparent acrylic washes.

This collage/assemblage is on a lumber scrap. The pitch fork is from a thrift store in Virginia and the ceramic garden fork sign is either from Idaho Youth Ranch or a garage sale.

The pitch fork, postcard, (from Terra Haute Indiana) and sign

are hanging on nails and are removable.

The little tomato's in the top left corner are buttons that I "antiqued" with acrylic paint.

Year of the Rabbit

2011- The Year of The Rabbit

This is the next in my series of 4" X 4" Chunkie's"

I dropped off 7 of the previous Chunkie pieces I made at the local art museum gift shop and the store manager accepted 3 of them on consignment. She preferred the less "cluttered" ones and liked the more thought provoking literary ones. We will see if they sell and then I may put more in the shop.

This has been a busy week art wise- Monday morning docent meeting, learning the script and tour for the exhibit: Critical Messages/Contemporary Northwest Artists on the Environment.

Monday evening- Treasure Valley Artist Alliance meeting. Several people came that I had invited. We met in the new VSA space which was very nice and good location and did a show and tell of our art.

Last night was BOSCO meeting, elected officers and set committees and date for our next Open Studios.

Tonight is making art at Mariannes studio, which will be a nice change of pace from meetings and really what it is all about.

Also, if you missed my show last Thursday at Atomic Treasures, I get to keep it up another week- through next Tuesday.