Workshop wowsers with household cleaner

Posted on July 21, 2014 by lynbelisle

That Citra-Solv stuff just keeps on giving – it cleans up cat barf (personal experience), it’s organic and smells good, and it goofs up old magazine pages and turns them into art paper. I learned about it when artists Bonnie Davis and Rosemary Uchniat demo’d it at the first Studio Show and Tell (the next one is this Saturday, 2-4, so be there). Two workshops later, we’re having a great time combining Citra-solved paper with impeccable composition and inspired vision and turning it into lovely small artwork. Here’s a short video from yesterday’s collage workshop – look what these guys did!

If the altered paper process intrigues you, here’s a great tutorial from good old Cheap Joe featuring Cathy Taylor, who really specializes in collage with Citra-solv papers. It’s a lot of fun to play around with.

A wordle-y diversion

Posted on July 3, 2014 by lynbelisle

You’ve all probably seen word clouds, those designs that are made from a selection of words in a paragraph. There’s a free online program called Wordle that I use with my students on the first day of classes at Trinity as an introduction. I have them write a little bit about themselves, then transform it into a design. You just paste the words into the Wordle window, choose your colors and layout, click Create – and voila! Here’s one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems, Wild Geese, as a Wordle word cloud (the poem itself is underneath the design). Give it a try, and have fun Wordle-ing!

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

Watch out for flying pigs . . .

Posted on June 16, 2014 by lynbelisle

So I’ve always said, “The day I get my workshop page organized is the day pigs fly.” But guess what? I spent the weekend putting together a new workshop calendar for the rest of the freaking year! And I think it will be easier for you to find what’s coming up. Just click right here. You can also get to it from its new place on the home page. You’ll notice a few things – first, July is heavy on the Citra-solv paper, but that’s because everyone loves it and I’m not tired of playing with it (I’ve added a third session on July 27th). There are also some repeats – those paper purses that everyone asks about, for example. There’s a new workshop called Twiggies!! – check that one out. I think all of the links are in place, but if you see anything that looks goofy or won’t work, let me know. And none of this is set in stone — for example, if I were to get allergic to Citra-solv — oops.

You’ll also see all of the details about the one-day June workshop with Michelle Belto (yay for serendipity!) and the exciting Tarot-based weekend with Joanna Powell Colbert in early October. That one is filling very fast already with people from all over the country, so if you want a place, grab it now.

I sincerely hope to see you at some of these workshops – at least the calendar is organized if the presenter isn’t! Thanks, everyone, and don’t forget to drop by the Studio on Friday for Pablo Solomon’s awesome exhibit!

Wax Paper Inkjet Transfer Tutorial

Posted on May 28, 2014 by lynbelisle

I didn’t have a chance to demo this technique at Show and Tell last Saturday, so here’s a quick how-to. I’m showing this technique on watercolor paper in this tutorial, but it works even better on dampened white cotton fabric. (Because the wax-paper transfer is just ink-jet ink, it will need to be sealed if it’s on fabric or it will wash out.) Here are the steps – click on the pictures below to enlarge, and feel free to share.

: Decide on the picture you want to transfer, locate it in your files, and open a MS Word blank document

: Insert the image into the Word document – you can change the size by dragging the corners

: You will need to flip the image since it will be reversed in the transfer

: When the image has been reversed, leave it up on your computer screen and prepare your work surface and the wax paper

: You’ll need a plain piece of printer paper to support teh wax paper and a surface to transfer it to – this (left) is watercolor paper

: Cut a sheet of wax paper to fit teh printer paper and lightly tape it to the top – you will run it through your inkjet print with the wax paper side down

: Just before you print your image, lightly dampen the watercolor paper – don’t use too much, or the image will smear

: Immediately after printing, make the transfer. The ink should not dry. Place the wax paper, printed side down, on the dampened watercolor paper

: Lightly rub with your fingers – this is a little tricky because if you move the paper, the ink will run and smear, but it’s easy to get the feel of it once you try it

: Here’s the transfer – you can see that the grain of the paper makes it a bit textured and distressed, which is rather nice

: And here is the transfer in a mixed media work – this method is so easy and cheap and fast – that’s a rare combination!

ArtTech Networking at the Studio

Posted on May 21, 2014 by lynbelisle

Here’s part of an email invitation (below) that I sent out last week to the Studio “regulars” – and the response has been amazing. About 20 of us are getting together tomorrow @ 5:00 at the Studio to discuss how we can best network together to learn new skills in social media and digital imagery – like giving the Mona Lisa an iPad – it’s easy!!

“Dear All – Just in the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a number of requests for help with tech issues for artists, such as learning Photoshop, creating on iPads, blogging, and using other social media for art promotion. There’s a huge need for this these days, and I am “lucky” enough to have been forced to learn some of it when I started teaching at Trinity ten years ago. My idea would be to discuss what the needs are and then possibly set up either individual sessions or a small group workshop or two during the summer (these would have a small tuition charge), but then we would go further than that – you could partner with a tech buddy (or several) who is interested in the same things you are and you could help each other when I’m not available. It would be like a learning circle. I can give you all kinds of links to resources and tutorials so you could learn on your own in the direction that best suits you. What do you think? ~ Lyn”

I expect people will want to learn new things in two areas – how to work with digital images in Photoshop and other editing programs, and how to get more exposure for their art via the Internet. We’ll see how it goes, and I can set up some classes to fit the needs of my fellow artists. Come by if you’re interested and share ideas with us. It should be fun. If you can’t make it in person, do read Alyson Stanfield’s book, I’d Rather Be in the Studio. It’s a great guide to promoting your art. And if you’d like some free (free is good) beginner Photoshop Lessons, here’s a link for you.

We’re all in the together – might as well share what we know!

Klimt-ing Mother Earth

Posted on May 12, 2014 by lynbelisle

Yesterday’s workshop celebrated the archetypical woman as Earth Mother through influences and interpretation from Gustav Klimt. OK, *enough* art jargon – we had a blast. Two parts worked really well – drawing the faces in a lesson that showed how the face works on the entire head, and making our own pattern stamps using foam shapes.

The face-drawing lesson I’ll share in another post. The stamps are easy – take 1″ sections of a large dowel or 1×2″ board, trace around any outside edge onto a sheet of sticky-backed craft foam, cut out and adhere, then add a second layer of foam in any shapes you wish. Stamp away. We used tissue paper, mulberry paper, foil and construction paper and applied cut and torn pieces to painter board. Here are a couple of photos of the stamps and the patterns.

: Foam stamp shapes stuck onto dowel section

: Marcia’s collage in progress

As always, even though we all started with the same premise, each artist’s style shone through in the finished works. I’m anxious to try the same kind of pattern building in another project – still thinking about possibilities. To all who came, thanks for sharing Sunday afternoon with me at the Studio! And I’m especially excited about the upcoming drawing workshop on May 25th. If you don’t think you can draw, you have another think coming – I dare ya to sign up – LOL. And now, for your viewing pleasure, here’s a video of yesterday’s diverse visions of Mother Earth.

Jane Dunnewold’s Design and Print Your Own Fabric

Posted on May 5, 2014 by lynbelisle

I’ve been a fan of Jane Dunnewold’s work forever. Her book, Art Cloth, is a must-have encyclopedia of surface treatment for fabric, and a design inspiration for every artist. Recently, she asked me to review her new video for Interweave called Design and Print Your Own Fabric. Wow! So, I’m not really a fiber artist but this video opened up a whole new area for me as a digital artist. She is great at de-mystifying the process of taking an idea for a design, getting it into your computer for enhancing and refining (she effectively explains those thorny pixels and resolution), and ending up with fabric-on-demand from Spoonflower.

Very very cool! And way too much fun. The download is just $14.95. I have a ton of art book and videos, but this one is truly useful for those of you who are somewhat befuddled by digital design and how it can work for you. I’m so glad Jane asked me to review this and I am happy to share my enthusiasm with you!

Happy Monday, all, and thanks to everyone who came to the Spring Fling show on Saturday!

Wonderful workshop weekend – not just one, but TWO videos filled with great ideas

Posted on April 28, 2014 by lynbelisle

Well, happy Monday, everybody! Hope you had a great weekend – as for me, I had the most fabulous time at the Studio. On Saturday, ten amazing NEISD art teachers met to experiment with Citra-solv altered magazine pages as collage components. And on Sunday, a flock of beautiful Spring Goddess Spirit Dolls were born. Thanks to everyone who graced the place with their creativity – take a look at what they did! (Oh, and congrats to talented and generous Vicki Siptak, random drawing winner of the Milagrito Friday Freebie.)

Art Teachers’ Workshop

Spring Goddess Spirit Doll Workshop

Show-and-Tell Saturday

Posted on April 4, 2014 by lynbelisle

Citra-solv art paper

Tomorrow afternoon from 3-5 at the Studio is the time to show all and tell all (art-wise, of course). This is the first time I’ve asked you all to teach me how you work – what new techniques and ideas do you have to share with the rest of us? Most of us, including me, will be watchers and note takers. It’s a very informal set-up – we’ll just decide who wants to do what, and there’s no “official” schedule. It’s going to be so much fun!

I know that one of the “shows” will be using Citra-solv to create altered art paper from National Geographic magazines. The results look amazing. Even though I’ve never tried it, I did find a very cool video (below) on how to use these papers in collage, so if you want to learn how to DIY, drop by the Studio between 3:00 and 5:00. There will be refreshments and libations as well, of course. Hope you’ll join us tomorrow to show, tell, listen, sit, chat, steal ideas, give suggestions and hang out in a place of creative belonging!

Fun and free photo editing tutorial for you

Posted on March 26, 2014 by lynbelisle

I’m teaching photo editing and web design right now in my Trinity class, and I thought I’d make a tutorial for you guys to show you how to use iPiccy, which is a free online editing tool. Click on the artsy-effect photo of me, below, which I just edited and fancied up in iPiccy in less than five minutes, and you can access the tutorial and see how to art yourself up too! Have fun 🙂

Colorado Springs, 2011

SHARDS: fragments and reflections

Lyn Belisle's online journal of artwork and teaching

Category Archives: How-to

Workshop wowsers with household cleaner

Like this:

A wordle-y diversion

Like this:

Watch out for flying pigs . . .

Like this:

Wax Paper Inkjet Transfer Tutorial

Like this:

ArtTech Networking at the Studio

Like this:

Klimt-ing Mother Earth

Like this:

Jane Dunnewold’s Design and Print Your Own Fabric

Like this:

Wonderful workshop weekend – not just one, but TWO videos filled with great ideas

Like this:

Show-and-Tell Saturday

Like this:

Fun and free photo editing tutorial for you

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: