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Changes

::insert some David Bowie here – play ridiculously loud::So. It looks like color is slowly coming back to my creative mix. After what feels like a year of working in primarily black and white and avoiding paint brushes, here I am painting – with watercolors no less! Strange days indeed. I am definitely in the midst of a shift. The video game I have been immersed in is about to end. A final battle to be won and then it is over. I could have finished it yesterday, but busied myself with old side quests instead. I don’t want it to end. The story has been so good and I was so in need of the escape, but that is at an end too. If you know me, my love of playing video games is no surprise. And as with my art, I move in and out of playing as the mood strikes. But every now and then I go deep and play a lot. It’s usually when I have a bunch of things on my mind and I see it as a way to process. It is often accompanied by a creative dry period. Again processing. But playing a…

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The Artist’s Way

One tube of white paint at a time. Today’s easel view. I will be forever entertained that the gun print in the background always seems to be pointing at someone’s head! We have been in our new house for over a year now and I can’t even express how much I love my studio space without resorting to lots of little hearts and glitter. And I don’t roll that way. much. I love sitting at my desk and being able to turn and mad dog whatever is on my easel. Today we have two acrylic paintings that I have been working on in fits and starts for a couple months. Actually the bottom panel was an old unfinished painting from last year. So many layers. And I’ve spent the past two days just adding white paint over white paint. I have no idea where it will go from here, but it’s at an interesting place right now. And then there is all the stuff churning around in my brain. I was hit with a wave of ideas for art pieces last week while flying down the freeway blasting some permutation of Jack White on the stereo. And it wasn’t just…

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Going with the flow… or not!

Someone long ago had painted “ONLY DEAD FISH GO WITH THE FLOW” on a sidewalk at the University of Michigan. I don’t know if it was something I walked over once or everyday while I was there, but it was forever etched into my memory. Struggle against the flow. Go with the flow. Fight. Surrender. I don’t have the answers. Some days it’s one. Some days the other.  Making art is a struggle. Sometime you find that flow and go with it. The painting comes easy. Some days not. But I understand the game. “Don’t fall in love with the background!” The “ugly teenager” phase. It’s temporary! The “click” when it starts to come together. And  I know the materials. I feel competent that I can make them do my bidding. No big surprises. And then I started painting with encaustics, and the unknown is as vast as an ocean. I am a beginner here. Any sense of control that I may feel is false. With heat the wax becomes fluid and unpredictable. The lines move. Too much heat and you melt through to the wood panel underneath all those layers. You blow a hole into the painting. And you have…

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An Official Happy Dance

Wow. The Big Names, Small Art event at the Crocker Art Museum last Thursday night was a blast! Saw a bunch of friends, was out-bid on all the pieces I tried to win, and met people who were actively trying to win my piece! It sold for $185. sweet. But the best part of the night? Going inside the museum and seeing this:  Yep. A really bad cellphone pic of my print hanging on the museum gallery wall! Pretty freaking awesome! oh and even thought the auction isn’t until June 6th, you can bid online here! And my encaustic painting “Holy Wound Five” went to it’s new home.   Friday was a day of rest (read: headache) and then Saturday we got the keys to our new house! Greeting from the pool. 🙂 And believe me, that pool is mighty nice after a day of moving garage stuff in the 95 degree heat!    

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You gotta keep ’em separated

or not so much… My printmaking class started this week so I’ve been thinking about what images I want to create. Since I am in the “advance” class – 40B, I can pretty much do what I want. And you must have picked up by now that that kind of artistic freedom can be kinda paralyzing for me.  Last semester we learned the following printmaking techniques: drypoint, collagraph, woodcut, and monotypes. And with each new assignment/technique, we were given a theme as a starting off point for our image. I played nicely within the given parameters and was pushed, learned a lot, and made some cool prints. This time around? I need to write a brief proposal of what I plan to do this semester. What do I plan to do… what do I want to do? I know I want to make more monotypes. That’s kinda a no brainer. I definitely want to do another woodcut! Collagraphs were fun to create, but unless I have a flash of inspiration, I’m not that concerned with making another one. And drypoint… meh. Unless I come up with a really cool drawing, I could skip that too. Inking those plates is hard…

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On your mark, get set, go!

Happy New Year!  (just a couple weeks late – not too bad considering my blogging track record) Christmas is over and so is the club volleyball season. I would do a “no more volleyball” happy dance, but conditioning for the high school season starts next week. So yeah… the volleyball, unlike the holiday season, never ends. It just changes uniforms. Hey, here is some great news for the new year – Chris has finished his last class and is getting his Masters Degree in Financial Services!! More alphabet soup to add to his business cards. CFP and MSFS – so proud of him! I’m still working on my 20+ year AA plan. One of these days I’ll take that damn Speech class. Really! But this semester I’m sticking with Printmaking. Class starts on the 28th. Can’t wait. In the meantime, thanks to Santa, I have the supplies to work in encaustic (painting with pigmented wax) at home and am trying to find my groove with this new medium. Finished a piece I did at the Wax Works West class last Nov: And the new pieces I created: I also did a small mixed-media painting and have another panel started. So…

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