GPP Crusade No. 52: Seasonal Wardrobe

Cover art on Strathmore Visual Journal

 This month Michelle Ward challenged Green Pepper Street Team participants to share seasonal "wardrobe" changes in our art.  Do I change my color palette with the change of the seasons? 
How does the changing of the seasons affect my art?

I tend to work with a limited color palette and usually prefer saturated colors.  But looking back at the past winter months I see that I played a lot with softer colors, especially aqua.  Maybe a desire to be at a warm beach during the long cold winter was influencing me.

Lately, I've been experimenting with bright green.  Today's project was to embellish the covers of a Strathmore Visual Journal.  They have a tough, shiny cover that I sanded to give more tooth for the paint.  Then I applied gesso that I distressed with waxed paper.  While the gesso was wet, I lay a piece of waxed paper on the surface and lifted it off.  The gesso dried with an irregular texture.
Next, I painted a thin layer of lime green paint on the surface and dabbed some off with damp cheese cloth.

The special seasonal touch to this cover came from the leaf masks. A short storm left bunches of leaves and twigs on the ground yesterday. I picked up a few and pressed them over night.
I laid the leaves on the covers and sprayed a couple colors of diluted Liquitex Acrylic Ink.

I really like the results of this project so far and have started a similar project on canvas.

This crusade has me thinking about the influence the seasons have on my work and I can use that awareness.
 When I get stuck for inspiration, I can let the unique qualities of the season spark ideas.  The bright green that I'm working in seemed too intense when the ground was covered with snow.  But now the outdoors is bursting with green and it just seems natural to be working with it.

Triple Galaxy Painting at Octagon Art Center

I'm happy to announce that this painting was juried into the current Community of Artist exhibit at the Octagon Center for the Arts in Ames, IA. 

I previously posted about this painting when I was contemplating whether or not it was finished.  Honestly, I don't think I added anything more than my signature.  I took it to the critique group that I was attending and we all agreed that this orientation of the painting was best.  Sometimes when I work abstractly, I end up hanging the painting in a different orientation from how I did most of the work.  This is one example.  Most of the time while working, this painting was in a horizontal position on my easel.

I haven't been as productive with painting or making jewelry as I'd like.  The Linn Creek Arts Festival has invited me to return this coming July and I look forward to being there.  One of my creative outlets has been making lots of cards...  graduation, birthday, sympathy, etc.  I was introduced to the Martha Stewart scoring board which has been a great tool for creating cards and matching envelopes.  Tri-fold cards are so simple to make with the board.  Heavy scrapbook papers make a great base.  I should have photographed some to share with you.  Maybe I'll do that with future cards and a future post.

Earlier this week we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary by spending an extended weekend in the Twin Cities.  We stayed at the Bird House Inn in Excelsior which is just a few blocks from Lake Minnetonka.  What a wonderful time we had and my artistic juices were renewed as well.  The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum is just a few miles away.  The peonies and yellow lady slippers were glorious.  I definitely want to revisit this place.

I hope to post here more often.   Thanks to all my faithful followers. 

Art at Snus Hill Winery on April 30th

I've been making some new earrings to prepare for the upcoming art sale at Snus Hill Winery this coming Saturday.  The event is part of a multi-community celebration in honor of the High Trestle Trail.  Read more here.
This grouping features different stones and sterling silver.  I've been shaping and hammering sterling wire.  That's lots of fun.
So is hanging out with fellow art lovers.  I hope you'll come out this Saturday and see us at Snus Hill Winery.
We'll be there from 10-5.


Turquoise and Sterling Silver Earrings



African Chrysocolla and Sterling Silver Earrings



Just a few of my earring creations.

Hope Rewarded

Digital art from my painting and photography

My computer is operating again.  Hooray!  I need help from Hubby to tweak a few things, but I very happily played with Photoshop Elements this evening.  I really missed using it very much!

I combined a face that I painted following Sharon Thomlinson's class last year and a photo of daisies that I captured last summer.   Over the past several months, my computer was behaving very badly and I quit manipulating images on it.  Most recent pictures that I've posted here were edited on my smart phone using PicSay Pro.

Now I'm happy to say that my hope of having a faster running computer has come true.  I created several layers and many adjustments to my images.  There was no slowing down.  That is why this post is titled Hope Rewarded.  Thanks Hubby! xo

Triple Galaxy Painting

Painting image taken Saturday under partly sunny skies.

 Do you ever wonder when enough is enough on a painting?  I have found that taking a quick digital image often helps me see the weaknesses in a painting.  There have been times when I thought I was done and was preparing my images to post a blog entry when I saw flaws that I knew I couldn't live with. Back to the easel...

Saturday was a good day to go outside and spatter paint.

 This is a painting I started several months ago and set aside while I contemplated what else to do with it.  It began with gesso resist monoprints and layers of blue-violet and red-violet.

This past week I added glazes of transparent color to give the painting more depth.  Some were sprayed on with a mister bottle and some were dry brushed on.  I added a bit of spattered gesso.  More glazes were added, but I knew I needed to put more energy onto the canvas.  That can get messy.

Fortunately the weather was calm and mild this past Saturday.  I laid the canvas board on the ground and shielded some of the areas with torn paper and the canvas circles you see on the above image.  Then I aggressively spattered gesso across the painting.  I followed that with some spritzes of glaze color.

Detail from the painting.

I liked the way the canvas appeared.  I like the digital images even better.

Inside my house is another matter.  The lighting is diffused, and the white areas are not distinct like they are on the digital imagery. The painting seemed dark and didn't have the visual movement that I could see outdoors.

This morning I put a thin layer of gloss medium/varnish on the painting.  That helps bring out the whites and gives the painting a bit more depth.  I hesitated to take this step because I wasn't sure I was done adding glaze layers.  The gloss layer isolates any new layers from the previous ones and any subsequent painting will go down differently.

It's time to step back and wait.   Again.

GPP Crusade No. 49 - Journaling Forensic Self Portrait

Journal spread featuring a tea I like.

 Let me start by saying that I am very happy to be getting a post up today.  My lap top died last week. The hard drive is kaput.  The new hard drive that Hubby purchased turned out to be defective.  We are waiting for the replacement to come in the mail.  Now I'm using my computer that is operating on a Linux operating system from a disk!  My husband is a genius!

This post features a couple journal spreads I created earlier this month.  They are my entries for this month's Green Pepper Press Street Team Crusade.  Follow the link to learn more.

The above journal spread was built on pages that were prepped with leftover paint during a painting session.  I roughed in the face at the same time.  I decided to use this spread for the challenge when I opened a bag of Awake Tea and the color coordinated with my spread.  I've been drinking a lot of tea lately and enjoy a good black tea.
The page was embellished with tea bag ephemera, rubber stamping (clocks), chalk pencils and stenciled ink.

Layers of paint, ink and ephemera on one half.  The right side started with scrapbook paper.

 I've been following Strathmore's art journal free online workshops.  In a prompt to journal about favorite sounds, I remembered the sound that the rows of flags make snapping in the breeze on Memorial Day.  I created this spread to remind myself of that sound and to show my patriotic side.

The completed spread.

Many layers of paint and ink went on the left half.  A patriotic themed scrapbook paper was adhered to the right side.  Distress inks helped to unify the color of the two pages.  Stenciling with a doily gave the pages a common texture.  I collected canceled stamps for the borders.  The photos were taken at my home town Memorial Day observance.  I put the top left photo on a flap so I could journal more personal thoughts under it.

High Trestle Trail Grand Celebrations

On April 30th, the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation is celebrating the grand opening of the High Trestle Trail.  This trail features one of the largest pedestrian bridges in the world!  The bridge is over 1/2 mile long and 13 stories tall.  The trail is part of a 670 mile trail system that connects Des Moines and several Central Iowa communities.  Get out you bike or walking shoes!

Several area communities are hosting festivities to mark the occasion. One event is being held at Snus Hill Winery where 20 artists will have their work for sale.  A new artists group, the High Trail Trestle Artists, is organizing the event at Snus Hill.  Their members have invited other local artists to join them.  I'm blessed to be one of them.

There will be something for everyone at Snus Hill, including some great wine tastings.  The winery is set in the country where you can enjoy the rural Iowa scenery.  The artists will be set up indoors, so the weather is not a factor.

I hope to see you on Saturday, April 30th.