Category Archives: Teaching

Composition Camp – transferring ideas

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In yesterday’s workshop at the Studio, we explored composition through a mixed-media collage process using Ebony pencils, watercolor pencils, stencils, graphite transfer paper, white tempera paint, TAP heat transfers and digitally altered images. This non-traditional combination of tools led to some pretty spectacular results!

Image transfer, whether done with graphite sheets, TAP paper, gel mediums or any other method is simply another way of selectively inputting and arranging images on a substrate. It’s neither “cheating” or “tracing.” Even if drawing is not your forte, you can use graphite media to produce striking lights and darks in a classic drafting  style. Look at some of the work by iconic painter Larry Rivers to see how a master uses this technique.

We had some poets and prose writers in yesterday’s group – always a good sign for cross-genre inspiration! And our post-workshop critique was one of the best I can remember. There were lots of dream images and personal insights floating around. Fascinating stuff! Here are a few photos from a very rich and productive afternoon! Thanks, All!

I’m headed to Boston tomorrow for a few days so I can see the family and come home with a renewed appreciation of South Texas temperatures (it’s supposed to be 17F while I’m there – yikes). Now, y’all go outside, smell the Mountain Laurel, and bask in this lovely weather!

Texas Mountain Laurel - scratch and sniff :)

Texas Mountain Laurel – scratch and sniff 🙂

 

 

Calligraphy Guild, a project for YOU, and a Friday Freebie – or two . . .

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10Last night, I visited the San Antonio Calligraphy Guild to show them how to make a pretty paper pocket purse/pendant project (say that three times fast) and a folding votive screen card. Calligraphers are nice people! I can’t wait to see how they take these projects and adapt them to their own many talents.

Here are some photos – there were 30+ participants, all cutting and gluing and having fun and following the directions (mostly!)

ppppI thought that YOU might like to have the directions for the pretty paper pocket purse, so as the first Friday Freebie, I’m giving you a link to the downloadable Pocket Pattern handout that I gave the calligraphers last night. All you need is 9×12″ construction paper and 8.5×11″ decorative paper, plus some ribbon and such. Easy!

And to sweeten the deal (after all, it’s getting close to Valentine’s Day), I’ll give away TWO Friday Freebies, the little purses pictured below, one to each of two lucky SHARDS subscribers. Just be a subscriber by Sunday at midnight – winners announced Monday morning. Good luck, and happy weekend!!

Dragonfly

Dragonfly

Gaisha

geisha

Composition Camp commences with collages

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compcampcoldemo

My demo collage created during Sunday’s Composition Camp workshop – 8×10″, mixed media, titled “Again?”

First workshop of the year taught by ME (yay!- I love teaching workshops) was Part One of Composition Camp. So what is Composition Camp?? It’s an intensive three-hour workshop directed toward planning and starting your artwork with strong composition bones, no matter in what medium. And it’s super easy.

I’ve developed a composition system called the AB3’s, which stands for

  • Alignment
  • Breathing Room
  • Threes and Thirds

It’s kind of like a simple kick-start for your artwork because it lets you know in advance where your main elements will be most effective. The students in yesterday’s Composition Camp: Collage workshop were given a folder with photos of a random person and a random cat along with some scraps of paper – they had to make a narrative collage using only those elements.  Everyone  took the challenge and ran with it. Take a look!

Before we began our work yesterday, we talked about painterly influences on collage imagery, particularly the works of Larry Rivers and Robert Rauschenberg, two of my favorite artists ever. Rauschenberg said that he works “in the gap between art and life,”  that he wanted to question the distinction between everyday objects and art objects. I like that!

Robert Rauschenberg, Buffalo II, 1964

Larry Rivers, French Money, 1962

It’s always good to go to the Masters for inspiration! There are two more sessions of Composition Camp to come, and there will be more in the summer and fall.

Big Ol’ Sale Saturday and more . . . .

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I’m posting my newsletter info to SHARDS subscribers because there’s so much going on in the next couple of weeks at the Studio – take a look and join us if you’re in the San Antonio area.

BIG SALE – I’m very excited about this – Lesta and Alison and I always have a fantastic time, and Michelle Belto will be joining us on Saturday. Her encaustic work has been shown all over the world – you will love it. This BIG SALE will be fun. Date: This Saturday November 28th, time: 10-4, place: my good ol’ Studio. I’ll have tons of new earthenware shards and gifties and Bee Dishes and faces! Please join us for art and Chef Mike’s snacks.

blacksat

Aha! – and speaking of snacks, Lesta and I have decided to have an Art Snacks workshop the afternoon of Saturday, December 5th. So what an Art Snack? It’s a project that you can learn and complete in a short time to give as a gift or to keep. Here are some of the art snacks you will make and take that afternoon:

  • A folding votive candle card
  • A hand-painted collaged luggage tag
  • An origami gift tag ornament
  • A bookmark

It will be a fun way to spend some creative time of your own during a very busy season. You can read more about it and sign up here, tuition is $75, all materials included.

snacksinvit copy

By the way, there are two spaces left in the Wax and Fiber Talisman workshop the next day, Sunday December 6th. This workshop is a bit quieter and more process-focused – check it out.

The next official Show and Tell will be on Saturday, January 30 – yikes, a long time away, but we will have a LOT to talk about. And there may be a little surprise “pop-up” Show and Tell over the holidays – I’ll send out an email in advance.

Please join us at the BIG SALE this Saturday!!

Lyn

2016 Spring Workshops open for registration

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bannerworkshop

Yay! It took most of the day yesterday, glued to my computer instead of playing in the Studio, but the spring workshop calendar is finally up on my website. I hope you find something that you like! Thanks to everyone who helped me out with the workshop preference survey – I included most of the things you suggested (like three Composition Camps) and I still have the rest of the year (and some Saturdays) to add new stuff.

And I have some great guest teachers right off the bat – Clare O’Neill, of course (can’t believe she’s actually coming to MY studio – woohoo). There may be one or two spots in her workshops as things shift around, so email me if you are interested.

Also coming are Kelly Schneider Conkling who is teaching meditation as an art process – I saw how she worked with Zelime Matthews and was just amazed. And my friend Lisa Stamper Meyer is going to teach a workshop on simple screen printing for mixed media artists. When she showed it to me, I couldn’t believe how really easy it was. 

handsAnd then there’s ME – I’m teaching 10 workshops this spring, including some on Wednesdays.

Hope to see you in the new workshops! Thanks for making this so much fun – big ol’ group hug!!

 

Home from The Prairie

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belIt’s hard to know where to start when you’ve just experienced an amazing four days in an unfamiliar but totally inspiring place. Teaching with the gifted instructors at Vivi Magoo in Round Top was an honor – and the students taught me as much I taught them! My friend Bonnie said that it was like going off to camp – how true. Except the camp cabins at The Prairie were furnished with lace and soft pillows and rose chintz.

I did miss my pal Michelle Belto – she was a huge help preparing botanical prints and papers for our demonstrations. And I couldn’t have done it without help from Lorri Scott, whose advice kept me focused and confident in a new environment – so glad she’s feeling better! Each of the three classes had its own personality – and I loved them all. Remarks heard during the three days, “I love your residue!” – “Those look like tie-dyed underpants” – “Ow, ow, that rebar’s hot!!” – “Look, it’s an alien!” – and especially, “I feel like I’ve know you guys all my life.”

I’ll let the video give you a taste of all the truly fun things we did and learned, but videos can’t show the welcoming warmth of the students and instructors at Vivi Magoo (by the way, I did find out where the name came from). Many thanks to Barb Solem and her family. And what a thrill it was to meet fellow Artful Gathering (yay!) instructors Diane Cook and Debby Anderson in person. So Viva, Vivi Magoo, and y’all in San Antonio stay tuned for workshops at my Studio sharing all of this good stuff!

The timeless art of The Prairie – a gentle retreat

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viviUntil I was asked to teach at the Vivi Magoo art retreat, I had never heard of The Prairie, a meeting and event venue in Round Top, Texas. People from all over the country fly in to Austin or Houston to stay at The Prairie, but since it’s just a couple of hours away from San Antonio, we drove up on a quiet Monday to check it out. I knew it had been founded by Rachel Ashwell (the inventor of “Shabby Chic”) but I was curious to see how art classes would work there.

Now that I’ve seen it, I can’t wait for next week to get here! We saw no one when we first drove up to the collection of lovely old houses and barns – the only sound was the breeze, and the only signs of life were the white linen sheets blowing on the clothesline and a white horse in the pasture.

We explored a bit, and then found Sarah, a lovely young woman who was readying the main house for next week’s gathering. The whole place is otherworldly and serene – I really felt as if I had gone back in time. Here’s a collection of photos that I took while we were there – it’s truly a beautiful environment. If you want information on the upcoming Vivi Magoo retreat, click here. And if you want to visit The Prairie, you’ll discover it down a secluded gravel road about five miles out of Round Top, Texas – but be prepared to find yourself in another time zone!

Mood indigo

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From Interview with Toru Shimomura of Ai no Yakata Natural ai-zome craftsman in Ohara village

Part of the fun of teaching a new workshop is the research (aka play) that goes into developing a curriculum and a process. Michelle Belto and I have a chance to teach a class in indigo, shibori and rust dyeing for Vivi Magoo at The Prairie in early November, and we jumped at the chance. I had done shibori and rust dying, but had not worked much with indigo (OK, I so had never worked with indigo, but don’t tell anybody).

Like learning most new things, learning indigo dye techniques was a combination of asking people how to do it and practicing on my own. It’s an amazing substance – this plant has been used for dyeing since 2400 BC, and maybe earlier. Cakes of indigo were used as currency in the Revolutionary War. Once dyed, indigo is so colorfast that it can last for centuries or even millennia. Here’s a video of my first indigo adventure.

I have a lot more to learn about creating color with indigo, but yesterday I worked on learning some basic techniques, mixing the indigo properly, and experimenting using paper and fabric. The deep blue-greenish color is a natural partner for the terra-cotta shades of rust dyeing. I really can’t wait to teach these classes at the retreat and share this wonderful process! Hope you’ll think about joining us at Vivi Magoo at The Prairie on November 3rd. I promise that it won’t make you blue – well, maybe it will.

Super-special-teacher-artist-new-friend Mary Johnston :)

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Art One Linocut from one of Mary Johnston’s students

I love serendipity – what are the chances that (a.) a former student of mine (hi, Tyler!) who works at the San Antonio Museum of Art would (b.) start a random conversation with an art teacher from rural New Mexico in (c.) a folk art shop in Port Aransas?

And that (d.) my name would come up? And that (e.) that art teacher would then come to my Studio to meet me? She did, and we had a fantastic conversation!

The teacher is Mary Johnston, and she’s one of those art teachers who knows that art is more than drawing a realistic apple. It’s the heart of human culture, and that’s what she teaches. I received an email from her yesterday with photos of what her students have been up to – and these are students who had never had art before Mary arrived on the scene!

Look at the totems they constructed and the other work they created (below) and then read what Mary has to say about her approach to teaching.

From Mary: “Last year  (Fall 2014) was the first time any of my students had had art classes.  Because of this, I kept lessons fairly traditional and strove to stay in sync with the Northern NM rural community. I worked at nurturing what the students already knew and were comfortable with.

Art 1 . Georgia O’Keeffe Unit. Horse skull.Graduated painting technique. Oil paint on canvas .Mesa Vista High School in Ojo Caliente, NM. Teacher Mary Johnston

The ceramic totems were a grades 8- 12 collaboration and represented 12 NM Pueblos and their styles of pottery . The students chose a pueblo and used that specific pueblo style to inspire their ceramic creations. They studied and wrote about their chosen pueblo’s history and its contribution to NM history. The students  also researched  potters from that pueblo and their contributions to the art world and their pueblo heritage.

As well as being near many pueblos, the school is near Abiquiu, Georgia O’Keeffe Country .Almost all my students know of O’Keeffe and share wonderful  (never before heard)stories of their great grandparents and grandparents working for Georgia. Many of my students have interned  in  Georgia’s home at Ghost Ranch or  at Georgia’s Abiquiu home and garden. “

Isn’t this work fantastic? Mary concludes her note by saying, “My time teaching in Northern New Mexico has been a rich, rewarding and fulfilling experience .I will be forever grateful for this opportunity. However , I  need to get back to my Texas. I love the Hill Country and the San Antonio region and my goal is to reside in the direction of Boerne and teach in the  San Antonio area. My mother, almost 90 years old, is in Austin and needs me much closer than New Mexico.”
I would love for you all meet Mary and I have my fingers crossed that she can find a teaching job here next year – any school would be lucky to have her on their team. If you’d like to contact here about a teaching question or a teaching job, you can email her by clicking here. And you can see more of her students’ amazing work on their Pinterest Board.

 

 

 

 

Rust dyeing – multiple pieces, multiple materials, magical results

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Book cover made with experimental rust-dyed paper - Lyn Belisle

Book cover made with experimental rust-dyed paper – Lyn Belisle

Ever since I learned that I’ll be teaching dyeing and surface design at Vivi Magoo art retreat, I’ve had little else on my mind. Did you see the newsletter about this event? If not, click here – it’s going to be SO much fun, and it’s coming up in just a month, November 3-5.

One of the techniques I’m teaching with Michelle Belto is dyeing with rust. I’ve done a bit of that, but wanted to tackle it on a Big Scale. And it worked! I dyed a yard of linen (thanks for that old white linen skirt, Gloria), some scrap cotton pieces, and two types of watercolor paper – a heavy 300# cold press and a lighter #140 hot press. I did it all at one time with the same process just to see how the different materials would take the rust. All were slightly different but all turned out beautifully.

Here’s a short version of how I did it. I collected some rusty objects in a plastic bucket and poured a solution of bleach and vinegar over them to sit overnight. Do this outside! I got this recipe from the Internet (there are many rust-making solutions if you want to test other ones). There was about two inches of yucky rusty foamy gunk in the bottom of he bucket the next morning. Stinky yucky. But rusty.

I spread a plastic drop-cloth in the yard (away from plants) and put a layer of fabric and watercolor paper on the plastic – some of it overlapped a bit, but I wasn’t concerned, I just wanted to see what happened on the different materials. The whole area was about three by four feet. I dumped the contents of the bucket over the whole thing and spread it out, wearing gloves. . .very very random. Then I covered it with black plastic and weighted it down with some old outdoor cushions and some flower pots to keep good contact – also to keep Dudley the Tortoise out of the pile of stuff.

It sat covered in the sun for about six hours, then I took of the cushions and peeled back the black plastic – zowee! What great rust colors! It was exciting – take a look at the pictures below, and then I’ll tell you my observations. (If you can’t see the pictures, click this link)

Here are my observations and caveats – first, I haven’t washed the fabric thoroughly so I’m not sure how color fast the rust is, but since I won’t be wearing it, just using it for fiber art, that doesn’t concern me. You may want to try a small piece and see how it works for you if you’re going to make a garment.

Secondly, I wish I had dampened the 300# watercolor paper because it’s very thick and I think it would have taken the rust better if it had been wet. The thinner 140# watercolor paper was the most successful of the four materials. It had strong prints from the objects and lots of color variations.

After the process was done, it occurred to me that the formula that I got from the Internet included bleach, but that didn’t seem to affect the fabric – it still dyed a rich rust. Next time I’ll try it with salt and vinegar just to see. But whatever method you use, research it and try it on a small sample first. That’s what I did before I mixed up this huge batch. Work outside, wear gloves, keep your tortoises away from it!

In the Viva Magoo all-day class, we will be doing a version of this that uses lighter fabrics and papers and we’ll include some over-dyeing using the Shibori method (yep, you can do Shibori on paper as well as fabric) – I hope you’ll consider signing up for one of the workshops. If it’s half as interesting as this rusty experiment was today, it’ll be worth the price of admission!