Painting a Dream

I'm really enjoying Katie Kendrick's class, Layered Impressions. One of our assignments was to paint a dream we've had. I sometimes write them down if I remember them but I've never painted one.

My mom is in a lot of my dreams. They aren't necessarily about her but she's in them. Last night she was in another one. I recently lost an aunt who died in a fire. That's been on my mind a lot. In my dream last night all I remember was a room, kind of cave-like, but with couches and rugs, like a living room. Mom was there and she was apologizing for the room being so dark because we were going to read. We used to love to read together. We would have our books and just sit for hours reading. I said it was okay but I remember thinking the room was just too dark.

In our assignment we were to capture the feelings as well as the dream itself. I call this "Turbulence" because of the unrest that I felt when I woke up. I think all of the emotion surrounding the events of the fire plus Mom's presence always with me all came out in the dream. I found it a very healing exercise.

I've been absent from Paint Party Friday for too long and wanted to have something to show today. Check out the other artists who participate. They never disappoint!

Playing With Layered Impressions

I am taking a wonderful class by Katie Kendrick called Layered Impressions. This painting is from one of the lessons. Hubby says she looks like she's hungover.  ;-)  I don't know. I kind of like the result. Starting with a found image we were to add our own touches with paint and collage. The goal wasn't to get a realistic face but just to see what the papers and paint were leading us to do. This class is so much fun! Katie has a very laid back teaching style and I love the techniques she's showing us.

Also this week I'm getting ready for my trip home to Ohio to visit with my friends. I'll be leaving next weekend and will be gone for a week or so. I'm really looking forward to that. My knee is still giving me fits but it is trying to heal (slowly).

I'm working on a few other pieces right now and hope to post again before I leave for my trip. Have a great week everyone!

Let It Go

"And in a burst of light that blinded every angel

As if the sky had blown the heavens into stars

You felt the gravity of tempered grace

Falling into empty space

With no one there to catch you in their arms."

--from "Iridescent", by Linkin Park

I'm often inspired by music and poetry. This song has been playing on my iPod constantly. There has been a lot of frustration for me lately. Maybe it's because the knee is still not completely healed. Sometimes when I'm hurt or sick, little things will often become magnified. Aarrgghhh! Then I find myself having little pity parties. Well, I have to stop that. I have to keep reminding myself that the little things are not worth it and I do need to just let them go. Otherwise I let them eat at me and take what little energy I do have.  :(

So I went to the canvas and the verse I quoted above really stuck with me. And when I started to paint I just let it ALL go. It felt good! :-) I have these gold mica flakes that I love to use for special effects. They don't show up very well in the photo but on the canvas they really shine, like little stars. This piece makes me happy. That was my goal when I started, so mission accomplished! Here's the song that started it all. I hope you like it as well as I do:

Playing With Graphite

After a long, dry spell I'm slowly working my way back into the studio. This was an experiment with graphite powder and acrylics. Fun, but messy. ;-) I'll be doing more with the graphite. I'm still mixing it with other media and playing. I saw these lines in a poem called Statuary by Katherine Larson and was inspired:

"The late cranes throwing 

their necks to the wind stay

somewhere between

the place that rain begins

and the place that it ends

they seem to exist just there

above the horizon at least

I only see them that way

tossed up

against the gray October

light ... "

I also took a tumble down the five steps that lead into our garage while I was unloading groceries from the car. Yes, I landed in a big pile on the concrete floor. My knees and wrists took the brunt of the fall so it could have been worse.  I'm on the mend now. I haven't fallen in a while. It always scares me when I do. No broken bones, just many bruises and a swollen knee.  :(

The Summer stupor has started to wear off and now I'm beginning to feel the energy that always seems to accompany the beginning of Fall. It's about time! I have a few things in the works and hope to have something to share later this week. 

Soul Searching

This is a mixed media piece I did a while back when I first started experimenting with beeswax. It was before I had any of my encaustic equipment. I thought the art papers had a nice aged look and just begged for some wax! I loved the little goddess and had to use her in this piece. The text at the bottom is from an old dictionary and the reference is the soul.

I want to thank you all for your awesome comments and wonderful emails! I truly appreciate it and love hearing from you. I'm sorry I haven't been online as much these past few weeks. I'm trying to get back to a normal schedule. I promise to visit everyone in the next couple of weeks! I've got family visiting this weekend and am stressing about that. I'll be glad when that's over and then I can get back to a normal life, I hope.  ;-)

This song has been playing a lot on my play list, soothing my nerves. I hope you enjoy it too. A BIG hug to you all!!

Very Cool Surprise

What is this, you ask? Well, the folks at CitraSolv asked if they could use my Warhol collage to help promote the use of their product for art. Of course I said yes. Especially when I heard other artists such as Robert Burridge were also included in this little venture. But how were they going to do this?

Voila! Little tags will hang from the bottles showing how you can use CitraSolv in your art! And there is my tag! :-) Have a look inside:

There will be different artist's tags that will hang from the bottles. They will have a little info directing you to the artist's blog or website. How cool is that? And here is the back of the tag:

I was pretty excited to receive my tags in the mail yesterday. It was a very nice pick-me-up! I want to thank Melissa and the folks at CitraSolv for thinking of me!

Reflecting

If She Only Had One Minute

by Kay Ryan

What would she put in it?

She wouldn't put

she thinks; she would take,

suck it up

like a deep lake --

bloat indiscriminate

on her last instant --

feast on everything she

had released, dismissed, or

pushed away; she would make

room and room as though

her whole life of resistance

had been for this one purpose:

on the last minute of the last day

she would drink and have it; ballooning

like a gravid salmon or the moon.

Another of my favorite poems of Kay Ryan's. *sigh* This is a mixed media piece I did a while back. I'm still digging through some of my older pieces looking for inspiration. I expect that with the coming Fall things will pick up. I am already beginning to feel the stir of excitement in anticipation of the new season. That's when I begin to come alive artistically. For now, I'm just being a little quiet; taking it all in.  ;-)

Imprint

I haven't been very productive lately. I don't know why. I have been taking a little time to energize and hopefully find some inspiration. I'm also planning another trip home to visit my friends in Ohio in a few weeks. That always helps lift my spirits.

This is a mixed media piece put together with a little bit of everything. I found this little scrap of a poem I had written along with it in my unfinished box:

A deep impression

Time washes away the tears

But your mark remains

I was experimenting with rusted elements at the time so it was nice to include those. Digging through this box of unfinished pieces has yielded all sorts of surprises. I hope to be back with some new pieces soon -- and back with regular participation in Paint Party Friday!

Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To know that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost

Maybe it's the HOT weather that influenced this piece. We reached 100 degrees yesterday and it felt like it again today. I was playing with my CitraSolv papers and some alcohol inks and came up with this. Just a little experimenting. My sister is visiting this week so not much art getting done. But we are having a great time. I hope it's not near as hot or humid where you are. Personally, I'm looking forward to Fall (my favorite time of year). Meanwhile, I'm wishing summer would hurry and move on... 

The Walk

The Cold Hill Side

As months and years accumulate,

I miss you more and more.

Forgetting where I put the key,

I sometimes find a door

and other times feel stunned and lost,

though living in my own

body and life, presumably,

bewildered and alone

as the knight, kidnapped and released

to a dim world, who said

And I awoke and found me here

on the cold hill side.

--    Rachel Hadas

I loved that poem when I read it. I keep a box of poems that I come across and from time to time I go through it for inspiration. This one begged for a painting. And I found a new medium to play with: plaster! All sorts of fun to be had there. A new book called Plaster Studio caught my eye:  

Who knew you could do so much with plaster? My painting is done on a base of cotton. Then blocks of plaster gauze are cut and adhered to the cotton. After that dries you paint! Easy peasy and so fun. There are more plaster products I want to experiment with. This was my first try since it seemed the easiest place to start.

This is also my entry for Paint Party Friday. I haven't painted any new work for awhile. It felt good being back in the studio making a mess!  :)   Stop by the party and check out what everyone else has been up to. You won't be disappointed.

Discovery

This is a piece I did a few years ago when I was experimenting with adding CitraSolv to National Geographic magazine pages. I have a nice stash now and frequently add them to my paintings and collages. Here I've also added some gold leaf along with some copper and bronze pigments. Then I covered the entire canvas in resin. That's the glare you see on the edge of the canvas. After I finished, I thought the round piece looked like it could be a stone. The entire thing reminded me of an excavation site so I named it Discovery.

This week in the Summer of Color we are working with yellow (or shades of it). I hope to have some new pieces to show in the coming weeks. Things are finally slowing down on the landscaping and I'll be able to get back to my painting. ;)

Paint Party Friday

This is a painting I did early last year in one of Misty Mawn's classes. It was my first attempt at using Shiva Oil Paintstiks. I really liked them! Not at first, but after getting used to how they worked (and with Misty's guidance). Now I use them in my encaustic painting for different effects but they are fun to play with. This is done on watercolor paper. As you can see I did smear a little in the background but I never really painted the background, so technically it isn't finished. Maybe that's why it's still untitled?  ;)

Check out all the other entries for Paint Party Friday. There is always a lot of inspiration to be found there. Thank goodness it's raining here today. I get a day off from shoveling gravel! Yay! Hubby picked up another load yesterday so tomorrow I know what I'll be doing...

Hope

Hope

What's the use

of something

as unstable

and diffuse as hope--

the almost-twin

of making do,

the isotope

of going on:

what isn't in

the envelope

just before

it isn't:

the always tabled

righting of the present.

--Kay Ryan

This is another of my encaustic paintings. It's also my (pink) entry for this week's Summer of Color, although I'm a little late for the party. 

We literally had two tons of gravel delivered to the house and are going back for more! So I've been shoveling gravel and doing a lot of work outside. That doesn't leave much time for art at the end of the day. :( I'm finding that I'm not as young as I used to be and when the evening comes I seem to want to just take it easy now (not to mention the sore muscles)! Hopefully this last load will be the end of it and I can get back to my painting. ;)

Shattered Hearts

"But you cut me quick

In the light of the shade,

On the edge of the green

Of the yard's sharpest blade..."

Sharpest Blade, by Over the Rhine

These are a pair of paintings I did last year. It was when I first started experimenting with encaustic painting. I love this medium! Now that summer's here I have cleared that part of my art room and am eager to start in again.  You must have adequate ventilation (open windows and exhaust fan) for the fumes but it's worth it. I've been stockpiling all kinds of new colors of encaustic paint every time I visit Blick Art Supply so we shall see what develops in the coming weeks. I'm still new at it but I'm ready to bring out the torch and see what I can come up with. Don't tell hubby but I've got a new torch, too! I'll be careful not to burn the house down...  ;) The first painting is called Shattered Hearts.

The second painting is called Bleeding Hearts. It's done over an old painting I bought at a store and then decided I didn't like so I thought I would just paint my own! ;) So these are my heart paintings for today.

For this week's Paint Party Friday I wanted to contribute something so I thought I would show you a different medium. Be sure to check out all the other entries. There is always a great deal of eye candy there! ;)