Paper Weaving

This card was made using a layer of handmade lace paper and a paper weaving. I wanted a way to fit in a short session of art everyday and with oils drying all over a small studio, this meant taking up paper projects. It took two 15 minute sessions.

The lines were ink blown on the paper ages ago with a straw. I just cut them up, wove them together, and stuck them onto mac tac. That was the first session. I love black and white. It's also refreshing to make non-representational art. I find getting involved in composition and the various art elements is engaging.

The next day I recycled a printed card by putting card stock over the image, adding my other paper layers and sewing them on the sewing machine. Paper clips worked like pins to keep all the papers from slipping while I sewed.

Our landlady just finished a kitchen renno in our apartment that was completely MCS safe. I stayed with family for a couple of weeks and came home to no fumes, a counter (before I had 8" on either side of the sink) and glories of glories: a dishwasher. At present, I'm convinced this appliance has made me into an adult capable of handling life ;) Who would of thought it all boiled down to the dishes? or more precisely, not having to do them.

"Trois" at Galerie Georges Goguen

The new show, "Trois", will be set up tomorrow at the CBC Georges Goguen Art Gallery and open for viewing on Monday. The hours are from Monday-Friday from 9 a.m.- 6p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Two new surprise paintings will be revealed. Normally I wouldn't suggest booking two shows back to back. It's customary to have all new work for each show when showing in the same city, unless you're in a huge urban center. I almost made it, too.

This fall I was dewy-eyed, in love with inspiration and I could feel painting after painting in my core ready to be put on canvas. Marketing for the first show, however, gave my muse the jitters. Production continued, but instead of 20 new pieces (the original ambitious goal) or even 10 pieces (the revised goal), I have 2 new fabulous pieces and 8 who didn't make the cut. Of course, if you didn't make it to the "Dynamics of the Spirit" show, then you get to see 12 fabulous new pieces ;) I'll be posting more photos soon.

The filming of "Luc et Luc" was fantastic. I would describe it as an Acadian, Conan O'Brien show. It had tonnes of energy and lots of laughs. It airs on TV this Sunday at 19h30 on CBC television.

Art Every Day month challenge

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L'aube des rêves 16"x20" oil on canvas © Shayla Perreault Newcomb.

This painting is about that soft, warm feeling when a dream is first born, we're just letting it glow a little, feeling the wonder, and no critical voices have tried to snuff it out.

November 1 marked the start of the Art Every Day Month challenge. I like the idea of this challenge. It fits with the idea of rituals and habit. Thirty days is what it takes to set a new habit. An art every day habit would keep me in a creative frame of mind, and would hone my skills.

My ms. perfectionist side is not invited. An approach of curiosity, play and humor are going to go a lot further production and happiness wise. That means that some days I may color in a coloring book, scribble, or dance in the kitchen. It doesn't have to be painting.

To keep that perfectionist side at bay, I figured it would be better to keep track in my art journal instead of posting every day. I'll post as per usual.

So far my Art Every Day month has consisted of working on a large oil painting.

Invitation

Here is the invitation for our show in November (clickable). My mentor, Jeanne Leblanc Mullin's painting on top is called, "A New Perspective" and my painting below "Life and Breath" was featured in the last post.

Jeanne and I only see each other's art at our art openings as a general rule. Our meetings are mostly about marketing and the local market. What's funny? eerie? cool? is that our art has a fair bit in common. Neither of us saw the work of the other and both have been working on a similar compostion, sometimes similar colors, similar themes and feelings. Perhaps it was from choosing the title of the show last spring that we ended up thinking and feeling similar thoughts. Our personal lives have things in common too, that are being revealed through the art.

There are many ways to keep the well of creativity full and some of them are a bit mysterious.

Art and Wellness

I made this card yesterday. Three squares may not seem like a lot of work, but I've been experimenting with card design for about two years and have come up with all kinds of awful stuff. Sometimes it's what you don't put in that makes the piece work. I was considering using a cool tree stamp I made and am itching to use, and was brainstorming how to use all the elements together when I realized I needed a brain break. The end result was a simpler piece. I'm learning to respect those limits, but the artistic payoff still surprises me. Who knew? We really don't have to suffer for our art ;) The squares are also made from my stash of "batik" papers that I made up last year. I tried a glue stick- which believe it or not- seemed perfumed. Why put perfume in glue? Liberty of Moving Beyond MCS recommended this better non toxic glue, which I have to try.

At the beginning of April, I started juicing- mostly veggies- and saw a big difference in energy. I had to share a photo of this smoothie. Isn't it pretty?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

These two pieces were made from my stash of forgotten odds and ends. I cut the papers to size, used my Faber- Castell watercolor pencils for color, my pigma micron marker for a few details and used tape for the collage elements with the black piece. That made for some depth shadows in the photo and some crookedness, but once I get a better glue I'll stick them down flat and straight.

Before buying new supplies, I'm trying to "reduce and reuse" by scrounging around for anything useful. Here's the post on the inking technique used to make the papers. I've heard good things about Prang tempura, which would be perfect for this technique, from a chemically sensitive friend on Coach Creative Space. They have a group for MCS/ Green Artists with lots of support and some useful resources.

I have some good news from Nancy and Bridgette about a new book by Karen Michel called Green Guide for Artists Non-Toxic Recipes, Green Art Ideas, & Resources for the Eco-Conscious Artist, available for pre-order. You can take a sneak peek inside on Amazon. Hooray!

Thanks too for all your supportive comments and emails. What would I do without you guys? *Big Smiles*

Spontaneous Guerilla Action

If you want to have some fun you should try this. The Global Guerilla Challenge has been extended by Sydney artist grrl+dog. Now there are only two days left. I just found out, haven't really met grrl yet, am not an official participant, but this is too much play to pass up.

I had a long strip of old practice knitting ready made and just right for tree sculpture. Well, maybe not wide enough, but I improvised with a corset-like lace up.

After scouting out locations, I decided on a tree in the park across the street.

Several blasé teenagers passed by, but no one approached. If someone wants to play too, there's an invite and directions to my blog inside the card.

Trying out a project that's out of the usual routine is a breath of fresh air. Happiness inducing. Hmmm, this may end up being another addiction.

Lastly, here's my trashed studio after hunting for for my knit sewing needle. Never found it. Improvised with a paper clip. I think a touch of spring fever hit, yah we're buried in snow, but the light isn't white anymore. It's yellow. Spring fever can have this effect on my studio.

The studio is slowly recovering...

"In one year and out the other"

I have a couple of new year's projects on the go. Above is a portion of a collage about what I want from the coming year and what I want to give it. Waverly Fitzgerald's concept of slow time has been especially inspiring. When hearing her speak recently she explained about natural rhythms, and different ways of measuring time. I've found them personally to be more gentle and surprisingly more productive than old fashioned time management and goal systems. I haven't read any of her books yet, but have noticed that she has a blog called Living in Season that you may find interesting to check out.

This is part of my abundance journal for 2009 which I customized. The silver dollar dried petals/leaves were sitting in my studio for quite some time before I figured out a use that I liked. They add a nice layer of depth to the leaves. Kate had a photo of silver dollars in her winter garden if you've never seen them and want to know what they look like (third photo down).

Lastly, I took some time to reflect on 2008 accomplishments. I didn't figure I'd have any, since I've been on sick leave for the year, but there they were. That's a pick-me-up! The highlights were signing on with a new corporate gallery, improving my techniques, visiting galleries in Halifax, and meeting some very cool people. I'll just mention two for now. Robyn helped me with a creative block, and her site is very muse-like. She's often showcasing outstanding artists for inspiration. Jeane's methods of deconstructing really clicked and let to some very satisfying studio time.

I hope you found beauty in your 2008 and that you'll find plenty of joy and abundance in the years to come. See you in 2009!

Winter White

This painting may or may not be finished. It's going to sit for a bit so I'll know for sure. I had fun embossing it with glitter so it looks extra icy. I've noticed that the seasons do have an impact on the colors I choose. Our snowy storms have changed to hurricane-like wind and rain. Nothing too serious, just cold and not wanting to come out from under the blankets kind of weather. Maybe my next painting will be of rain.

An extra big thanks to Jeane of Art It and Tracy of Pink Purl for awarding me this award.

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these kind writers. When you pass the award along please include these guidelines." This quote comes with the award, and all my friends in my sidebar fit this description, so I pass it on to all of them.

Kitty Art

An illustration for a friend...

Photography Fun

Did you guess what it's of? A cucumber skin.

Design and Chaos

8x8" mixed media

The leaves on this piece are made of mica sheets. You can find these online at Stampington. After cutting out the leaf shape with scissors, I stamped holes all around the edge of the sheet by tapping a sewing needle with a hammer. Then I wrapped gold thread through the holes and sewed the paper and rock layers together.

I made the paper using a similar process to batik. When the paper was cured, I drew bramble branches and sharp little leaves into the chaos. They're very subtle and won't be noticed by most. Still, they were very satisfying to do. I love putting a bit of design into chaos. Art reflects life, hah, hah.
This tiny piece took ages to do. I wanted to take it in a direction where the brambles were more noticeable, but it wasn't working. When I was finally ready to let go (after letting the piece sit for months), I was able to move ahead.

Road Trippin'

Hello Halifax! A thick fog muted much of the city noise while we were visiting. Halifax is the next province over, Nova Scotia. It's on the ocean and we enjoyed walking the harbour, looking at the ships, listening to lapping waves, and smelling the tar and salt water from city docks. There was a violinist playing and we just sat and relaxed, listening and in no hurry. I find going slow hard to do in a city, but the violinist was very good so 'being in the moment,' as they say, was easy.

The trip was to see The Dark Knight Returns on Imax with friends. This movie is convincing a lot of people to take the art form of comic books more seriously, which Jace and I find pretty exciting. It's a medium that receives a lot of prejudice, just like any 'new' art form and like all kinds of art there's some that's good and some that's not so good. Our Wednesday ritual is comic book night. We get our weekly deliveries, race home, set up munchies and then read our issue. The rest of the night is for analysing, debating and chewing over the material with each other. Then Jason goes off to write a review. It's amazing how an evening's entertainment can cost less than a movie rental and gives us so much to talk about. Ivory Madison just finished her first series, Huntress: Year One, that I quite enjoyed. Like any good art form she has several layers in her writing so you can choose to read it superficially, or go deeper. The artwork just kept getting better and better as the series progressed. Twilight Guardian by Eisner nominee Troy Hickman is another of those books that topple pre-conceived notions of comics. Some comics have even won Pulitzers and I know of at least one graphic novel that snatched up the prestigious Hugo award.

The next day was for exploring and gallery hopping, of course. The Argyle gallery shown above is in the Historic section. They have such a great attitude. The owner's main goal is to make art accessible to those who wouldn't normally go into a gallery. She's not overbearing, but is happy to explain and chat if you desire. This vibe is working for them. Their last art opening had over two hundred people.

I've been re-reading "Finding Your Visual Voice." For awhile I snubbed it, thinking I'd already developed my visual voice, but I still need to trust my intuition and the exercises are quite helpful with that. The pastel work-in-progress above was from an exercise that encourages you to recall a dream and to capture the emotion of it. This is based on a dream I'd had about Jason returning from a war.

I'm going on holiday for the next two weeks and may not be around a computer very often. Hope you're having a great summer!

Studio fun!

Goofing around with crayons is fun. I love the smell of them (ahhh! first memories of art making smell) and they keep me from being too serious. They got me craving 'grown-up' crayons- pastels. They're so creamy! I love pushing, blending and scraping with this medium. It's so sensual! I'm letting pastels be a medium for "play art" not anything I plan to show. I find it freeing. In the end it feeds my work.

Here's some more fun from the early art days. In grade one our teacher squirted black paint from a dishsoap container onto our paper. She gave us a straw and had us blow the paint around to make a tree. You get some really great shapes with this! I don't know what kind of formula she used, because acrylic even watered down doesn't move very well. I think she may have used kid's tempura paints (more good smells). I figured I'd try it with ink, since that would move well. Fluid acrylics might work too.

There is a small issue with the ink. Each time I placed the straw full of ink down on the paper and blew, it made a great big bubble that burst leaving these funny, circular growths. Since cropping is always possible, that's not such a big deal.

Jace told me about a way cool site The Daily Monster.

It has videos where the artist, Stephan G Bucher, drops some ink onto his page, takes some compressed air (you know those cans that you use to clean out the computer keyboard? at office supply stores) and from the resulting shapes he makes a monster. It's fascinating and relaxing to watch. He also has a blog by the same name where you can share your ink monsters. I think I'll try the compressed air next time to save some puff.

Tree of Life

This painting is for a very special little one that Aurélie and Mathieu are expecting in two weeks. We played twenty questions about a month ago. They told me about their views on parenting, how their world view changed when they found out they would be parents, hopes, excitement and all the good things expectant parents go through. I took the interview, thought about their answers and set about to represent some of those thoughts in the painting above.

This is the first finished painting where I used the lapis lazuli gemstone paint. Mathieu and Aurélie are really down to earth and aren't impressed by a material show so this color wasn't chosen for it's rarity but more for its symbolism. In the past artists have used it for the sacred. There is something so inestimable, and even spiritual about the beginnings of a happy family unit that this just fits.

I found it to be a very emotional piece to work on and very satisfying. It's like I could feel the tenderness for my as yet unborn children. Hmm? How much to share? I think I'll leave it at that. Suffice it to say, it was a magical experience creating this piece.

The couple also had a piece done when they were married so it's been very special to witness their life's journey together. Would you like to meet Aurélie? She sang at my exhibit last December. The words of the song are especially significant. In case you don't understand French, they mean in essence: Why is life worth living with all the problems around us? Answer: Love.

My favorite mistake

How about a quick tour around the garden before I show you my mistakes? Besides, photography is a very healthy exercise in getting rid of a creative block (unless you're a blocked photographer ;) That's a tip Robyn let me in on. She has some wonderful info on creativity here, here, plus resources for beating the block. Here's the last of the spring flowers, all from the back yard.

When the forget-me-nots are at their peak the grass looks like a carpet of blue. I sat in the garden today with my sketchbook, colored pencils, markers and enjoyed sketching in the sun.

The herb garden.

Lastly, here's the works in progress. I'm having fun with the blue one. Part of my process ended up being taking the painting to the bathtub and repeatedly pouring water over the last wet layer of paint I'd applied. I love the way it blended things for me. Originally the plan had been to wash off a thick layer of ruination, but it turned out to be so much fun. What's that Cheryl Crow song, "You're My Favorite Mistake"? Well the blue painting is my favorite mistake.

The little one beside it has been an experiment using rust as a finish. You paint on a layer of iron particles and the next day the finishing solution. It's pretty exciting to watch the rust develop and the piece turned out beautifully. I ruined it with the tree, there's no contrast at all but it was worth the lesson. I'm going to play with it some more. I think it needs only squares, not trees. The background will have enough going on. If you'd like to try the rusting solution you can get it at craft stores or here. I don't have much to say about the little red and black one on the wall, except that the process has been a real struggle.

And the large one is a gentle disaster. Gentle because I wasn't really in love with the painting. I liked where it was headed, but the technical difficulties that ensued didn't break my heart or have me sobbing inconsolably. I've never used crackling medium, and thought it dried clear. When I read the description on the package, I thought it meant that tinting the product was optional or a nice suggestion. Not so, this is going to dry white and now I have a puzzle to deal with. It needs to cure for a few days so that will give me lots of time to figure out what to do with it. I'm thinking a nice rub of paint with a soft cloth. Something that will creep into the cracks. We'll see. If you have any experience with the stuff and feel you should issue some warnings for other possible problems, feel free :)

It's been a long sweet summer day that finished with a stroll for double scoops of gelato (chili chocolate and one scoop of strawberry :D) Now for a curl up with a good book. Have a great weekend!

Strawberries, Shortcake and Cream

This was a sunny day color scheme. I absolutely loved that coral red! In fact I couldn't restrain myself with it. The whole first layer of the painting was that red. It took a bit of self control to let the mood I wanted get through. Somehow lots and lots of red can feel less "red" than a little bit of red. I wanted the eye to be craving more...

The gray days and thunderstorms have been influencing my pallette in other works in progress.

This may stay like this, at least for a good while. I'm not sure if I'm going to put the three squares on it under the trees or not.

I want to do a few more this size (16x20") in bright colors. Today I was musing about orange and hot pink, but so far it's still musing.

Here's a bit more red, courtesy of the back yard, in case like me you're hungry for more.

Have a great weekend!!

IF-Wrinkles

This piece was a series of challenges, but very enjoyable. The background paper was made by letting black paint seep into the wrinkles of a wax coating (more on that process here)

The first issue was with my embossing powder. Some of my white powder got mixed into my clear, so now when I'm embossing little swirls of white end up on the surface of my piece. I pulled them out with an old paint brush, but it left the resin coating uneven. I decided to put a piece of mica over the top- the square had taken a long time to complete and I wasn't giving up without a fight. It evened out the surface beautifully. I liked the way it looked uncut. I felt it gave the piece more of an organic feel.

Problem number two came after I punched the holes through the canvas to attach the mica. It's very small, only 6X6", and the support bars behind the canvas were blocking access to properly hammer in the eyelets. I thought I could maybe smack the bars with the hammer and the bars in turn would hit the eyelets shut. Nope. I ended up simply attaching the eyelets to the mica, then sewing through them to the canvas with gold wire. I used a bead for more stability, since there were still holes punched in my canvas. The bead sealed the hole snugly.

Conclusions? I will have to get a proper craft sheet for embossing. I've tried several substitutes and they don't work. The powder often sticks to the surface instead of going back into the jar. Tapping my improvised surface to get the rest of it off sprays embossing powder all over my floor and work space. I don't want a plastic particle beach in my studio. The sheet looks so cheap, but at least I know the powder will glide nicely into the jar and I guess you can even put it in the oven for melt art applications. That will probably be useful one day.

I scanned the piece in its frame because I like the black. Some of the frame has been cropped. I'm still not decided on the scan. I think it's darker that the piece and am going to photograph it for better accuracy.

Finished Painting

This painting has a story. When Jason and I were newlyweds we decided to hibernate in the country. And what country Cap Lumière is! The house that we rented was oceanview, 2 bedroom, tonnes of privacy for $325 a month. Can you believe it?!!

The moment I saw the place I knew that my soul had some claim on it. Do you ever have a stomach flip from riding the elevator? That's how it feels when you drive around the bend and get your first glimpse of Cap Lumière. The sky and the sea stretch as far as you can see to either side, and across the water you can see the red shores of Prince Edward Island .

There was a cliff just before the beach and the neighbor had installed stairs to go down. We'd picnic there, take off in the middle of the day for a quick dip in the summer and every morning I had a ritual of a morning walk. This piece is inspired by that view and insisted on being painted. Like I said earlier, I'd planned out a strawberry painting for my kitchen on this canvas.

There was a focal point on the cliffs that my eyes always rested on. A bunch of pines across from the house that signaled home. It felt like my little corner of the beach. Here's one of my pines, and I believe that the memory is a winter one. I'm thinking of calling it "Still Standing."

Painting of the Week

This is what I did with the batik papers I made. The piece in the center is pigment marker, watercolor and pencil crayons with 3 coats of resin on top. After the resin cooled, I cracked the piece so it would look a bit like shattered glass. Much fun!