Category Archives: Inspiration

Jane Dunnewold’s Design and Print Your Own Fabric

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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.

janeVery 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!

 

Spring Fling: the Trailer (approved for audiences of all ages)

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Alison, Lesta, Jan and I had the best time setting up for today’s art show. Here’s your special sneak preview – I took some photos with my phone as we were finishing up and made this little video. My three fellow artists are just amazing in their versatility and creative talent – please come see for yourself – 10-5 today at the Studio, and here’s a map for you so you won’t lose your way!

 

 

It’s showtime! Come fling with us . . .

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Spring Fling springs open tomorrow morning at the Studio. My pals Lesta Frank, Alison Schockner, and Jan Longfellow will join me in our first show and sale of the year – hope you can drop by. There’s always lots to see, and lots of ideas and techniques to steal – er, I mean, emulate. I’ll have some new small textured earthenware adornment pieces, most around $8 or sotext1 text2 text3. Here’s are a few samples:

I’ll also have the new Milagrito hanging constructions and the first series of Shardian Angels (what a name).

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Anoba, Celtic forest goddess

Anoba, Celtic forest goddess

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out this elegant necklace that Jan Longfellow will have tomorrow – love the stone! And Lesta and Alison will have a huge assortment of gorgeous fibers and watercolors and treasure of all manner. See you tomorrow, 10-5, at the Studio for Spring Fling!
janposter

Steal like an artist . . . .

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From time to time, I’m going to post other artists’ tutorials for my own reference (I know I can always find them if I put them on my own blog!) and also to share with you if you are interested. This one has a nice technique for using a Titan Buff glaze. It’s at the end of the video and gave me an idea for a painting series that I’m working on called Badger Dancers – here are a couple of my own first paintings in that series, and right below these is the demo video by Chris Cozen whose ideas I am happy to steal – with gratitude :).

Ironroot Dancer

Lyn Belisle, Ironroot Dancer 30×30″, Acrylic 2014

 

Lyn Belisle, Badger Dancer, 30x30", Acrylic 2014

Lyn Belisle, Badger Dancer, 30×30″, Acrylic 2014

Art is alive and in good hands . .

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Last night I was invited to Night Gallery 14, the annual spectacular showcase of student art from North East ISD. What an eye-opener! I was part of this show for 30 years when I taught art in NEISD, but, I swear, it’s just getting better! The teachers inspire, the students respond and the results are thrilling. Take a look at the video – and say congratulations to my wonderful friend Gloria Hill, who is retiring as Visual Arts Director for NEISD to pursue her own painting career. You can see her work on her blog, Open Doors.

Cheers all around to these dedicated and talented teachers and students – thank you for enriching our world with your creativity!

They came, they showed, they telled

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My brain is overflowing with all of the tips I learned and the notes I took at Studio Show-and-Tell Saturday – wow! It was so cool. I hope you were there – if you couldn’t make it, we will definitely be doing it again, probably in early May, so stay tuned. Thanks to everyone who came and especially the wonderful artists who shared. Here’s a video – sorry that the sound isn’t better but I was using my phone camera for the video segments – next time I’ll be better prepared for the spectacular demos!

Show-and-Tell Saturday

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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!

Winner, workshops — and my new Shard work

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Happy Monday! And congratulations to Mary James, winner of the Friday Freebie Face Shard. Mary, when you’re coming by the Studio, she will be waiting for you. Now, about the Mask, Robe and Rune workshop on Saturday – it was glorious! Here’s a link to the video so you can see for yourself the participants’ wonderful dimensional creations.

I was so inspired by what we did at the workshop that I spent yesterday working on a new series called – are you ready? – Shardian Angels! These are assemblage pieces made with shards of earthenware clay and natural materials, and each one is named after a Celtic goddess. Here are the first two. I am absolutely loving the construction process. I’m still working on two others, and will be doing more in this limited series, but they will be at the Studio soon and will be available for sale at the May 3rd show with Lesta, Jan and Alison. Yay for Shardian Angels!!

Anoba, Celtic forest goddess

Anoba, Celtic forest goddess (17″ high)

andraste

Andraste, Celtic victory goddess (20″ high)

 

Fun and free photo editing tutorial for you

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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

Colorado Springs, 2011

Gallery talk and hand sanitizer

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Tonight’s gallery talk at Nueva Street Gallery should be fun. It starts at 5:00 – hope you can be there. My title is “The Face: An Enduring Iconography,” and I’ve done a short slide presentation of how faces inform and inspire my work. I’m giving away little face shards, as well – and this is kind of interesting because I used the same press mold for each one, yet they turned out so varied. They look like they are related, but not identical. Here’s a photo of the freebie faces that I’ll give away at the event:

facesnueva

OK, now about that hand sanitizer. . . yesterday, my friend Gloria Hill helped me do some experimenting with transferring digital images onto fabric for my upcoming online collage-on-canvas class at Artful Gathering (checkout their catalog). We used hand sanitizer to transfer the images, and it worked! See the pics below, and in a future post, probably the next one, I’ll give you the directions. Till then, hope to see you tonight at Nueva Street Gallery!

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