Re-use, re-read, re-ward

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I have emerged from an intensive week of making videos for my two Artful Gathering workshops, which will be announced in February. They are cool, if I do say so myself. More soon about those classes.

Anyway, one of the ways I like to reward myself after a long project is to head to Half-Price Books – the one by Brackenridge Park is the only one that will do. I love the way the place smells of old books, and the way the stairs creak when you climb up to the Art Book room. It’s browsing therapy at its best.

Here’s what I scored yesterday –

A hardcover accordion-folded portfolio called A Shoal of Fishes by the Japanese Artist Hiroshige. It’s from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and it’s gorgeous. It was hidden away on the bargain shelf for $3. What a find!

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Also, a book about books – this is a good one. It has references, projects, and inspiration – I can’t believe I didn’t already have this one. It was also my most expensive purchase at six bucks. Worth it.

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Finally – tah dah – a reproduction of the 1902 Sear and Roebuck catalog. This will be collage fodder and good reading for a long time!

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There’s nothing like rewarding yourself with a browse in a used bookstore. And it’s the best kind of recycling!

While you’re in the area, get over to the Twig Bookshop in the Pearl – my all-time favorite independent book seller. Happy creative browsing!

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Whiter Shades, the Sequel!

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Lesta Frank and I had been wanting to repeat this popular Whiter Shades of Pale  workshop collaboration, and yesterday we got to! Yay! Plus we got to teach it at Lesta’s cozy studio – what a treat.

We added a few more things to the mix this time, including beeswax and gold book foil. Some of the participants had not worked with encaustic techniques before and they loved it.

As usual, the results from this workshop were fantastic. We had a full day to work on this project, including a lunch break in Lesta’s sunny back yard.

Take a look at the video, and then, at the end of the post, I’ll share some of the things we did in the workshop.

These were some of the ways we created our own pale papers:

Methods

  • Tissue “glued” to gray palette paper with matte medium
  • Brushed with gesso, sprayed with walnut ink while wet
  • Deli paper stenciled with gesso, dipped in coffee when dry
  • White stamps on kraft paper – ink, acrylic paint with felt
  • Walnut ink on kraft paper, dried, brushed with gesso
  • Tinted white paint stenciled
  • Circles stamped with cups and objects
  • Cheesecloth
  • Walnut ink through lace
  • Silver and gold acrylic glazes

There really are no rules, just guidelines and suggestions. Discovery comes through experimental play.

After we made the papers, we constructed a collage on canvas:

Constructing the Ephemeral Collage on Canvas:

  • Review the AB3s of composition
  • Pale images manipulated and printed on plain paper
  • Glue stick to matboard, add small collage elements and wax
  • Sand edges
  • Punch holes
  • Add torn hand-decorated paper to canvas
  • Add box
  • Add sticks
  • Add fiber
  • Sew with tapestry needles
  • Attach with hot glue
  • Overpaint with gesso
  • Overspray with walnut ink, burnish
  • Glaze with metallic acrylic

You can see the steps in progress on the video – these steps, combined with everyone’s individual ideas, led to stunning (and pale) results!

Art unites. Keep up the good work with your creative life – onward through the fog, one step at a time!

 

Who owns your work – and where did you find that photo, pal??

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copyright

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of giving a presentation on the torturous, mind-bending subject of copyright in the digital age to an audience of first-rate artists at the Coppini Academy of Fine Arts.

Copyright issues are of particular importance to artists  – one, because a visual artist’s work can be so easily copied and distributed digitally these days, and, two, because most artists use or take photos as reference sources or use them in mixed-media pieces.

The presentation was limited by time and scope, but I created a Power Point slide show to illustrate some specifics. For this blog, I converted it to a video (who knew you could do that?? Live and learn!) because I wanted to share the presentation with you guys. It works just like a regular Power Point, but if you want to read a slide, you need to pause it. Of course, you won’t hear my not-so-brilliant comments, but you can get the main points.

Many thanks to Charlotte Cox and the Coppini for inviting me to present! It gave me a chance to brush up on those points that I used to teach at Trinity University in my Computer Science class. And, as I said in the summary, below, copyright is a slippery subject, rather like trying to nail Jell-o to a wall.

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So get out there, create, and Steal Like an Artist – but respect the laws of copyright!

 

 

 

 

What do you have to say to yourself?

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That was the question in yesterday’s workshop at the studio called “Postcards to Myself.”

It’s a new workshop, one that I designed to see if we, as artists, create unconscious messages to ourselves as we work on art pieces that combine random images and text. The small works that were produced were amazingly lyrical, and many did seem to have meaningful messages.

The project itself was done in seven stages on an 11×14″ sheet of archival matboard.

  • Stage One – images and objects
  • Stage Two – veiling
  • Stage Three – vintage text chosen randomly
  • Stage four – enhancement and alteration
  • Stage five – selection
  • Stage six – wax or acrylic medium
  • Stage Seven – interpretation

When the collage layers were complete, 4×6″ post-card size areas were selected with transparent plexiglass rectangles. Those were cut out, and then finished either with beeswax or acrylic mat medium. We even wrote notes to ourselves on the backs of our “postcards.”

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In the example above, this postcard-size section from the larger work shows faces from two different cultures and contains words such as “separate,” “restrain,” and “ruin.” It sounds like a trailer for a mini-drama! And yet it’s a completely coincidental juxtaposition within the larger collage.

We had such fun and learned so much from this project. I’ll definitely repeat it, and will probably create an eBook with with a list of materials and instructions. In the meantime, please enjoy the video from “Postcards to Myself.”

By the way, the first prototype postcard I did included text that said “eat one’s words” – so I was very careful about what I said during our critique!

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Spring 2017 workshops at Lyn Belisle Studio

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As promised, SHARDS readers are the first to know about my upcoming workshops. Here is a list of new workshop that will be offered in the coming months at the Studio. There may be more as time permits, but these are definite. Click on the images for registration information.

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Thanks! I hope to see you at the Studio soon!!

 

New year collaboration with Lesta Frank: Whiter Shades of Pale

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Lesta and I had such a great time teaching this workshop last September. We’ve decided to repeat it, this time at Lesta’s studio. The date is Saturday, January 21st and it’s an all-day workshop from 10-4. Click this registration link for more information.

If you’d like to take a look at the last Whiter Shades workshop at my old studio, here’s the video. Notice how mellowed out Mary Beth is – this workshop will totally calm you!

Remember that the best way to know when a new workshop is announced is right here on my SHARDS blog. Thanks for reading – and happy new year!

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New year, new workshops, new adventures . . yay!

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“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
           (Little Gidding)”― T.S. Eliot

It’s not quite the new year, but I’m already planning new workshops for the new studio. Some things will be changing. As I said in an earlier post,  the space is different, more like a home than a storefront, so our workshops will be limited to six instead of eight.

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Intuitive Collage workshop in the new studio on December 11th

When we work together, I want to concentrate on the incredibly satisfying Practice of Art (more about that later) and to bring you ideas that you’ll get excited about and use as catalysts to do more personal art on your own.

It’s fun to bring home a finished piece (and we will always do that) but that piece should be a springboard for you to use, change and claim as your own inspiration for something new. In other words, Steal Like an Artist!

Here’s the first of the new year’s workshops – it’s called Postcards to Myself, and it’s designed to send a message to yourself without knowing what you’re going to write in advance. All will be revealed through the process of layering collage and beeswax. Sounds like fun? I hope so! It’s also a good way to learn about using beeswax as a mixed-media tool.

And its hidden agenda is to get you excited about your own art. Click on the image below to go to the sign-up page.

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By the way, did you know today is Boxing Day? It’s celebrated in the UK and other places the day after Christmas. Here’s an entertaining article about its origins and somewhat goofy modern-day activities.

Six Color Christmas Bows isolated on white

My personal take on Boxing Day is to celebrate the old year by mentally “boxing up” last year’s memories, tying a silver bow around them, and packing them away in a special cupboard at back of my mind, clearing the boards for new adventures! What a year it was, what a year it will be! Thanks so much for being a part of it all.

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Wax and trees and happy meetings

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Opening night at ASmith Gallery in Johnson City, Texas

Opening night at ASmith Gallery in Johnson City, Texas

In an earlier post, I mentioned I was taking work to ASmith Gallery in Johnson City for an encaustic show. The show(s) opened this past Saturday, and the exhibited works are a wonderful combination of diverse photoencaustic and lyrical photographs of trees in every artful interpretation. And the gallery is gorgeous. Here’s a description:

Established in May, 2010, A Smith Gallery is located in Johnson City, Texas in the Nugent Avenue Arts District. The gallery exhibits the work of both amateur and professional photographers through juried and invitational exhibitions. Amanda Smith and Kevin Tully are the Gallery Directors.   Izzie, Be and WeeGee are the official gallery cats.

Amanda Smith is the director. She and co-director Kevin Tully also teach workshops in encaustic and photograpy. In addition, they provide printing, matting and framing services for photographers whose work is selected for juried show.

I love the layout of the exhibit space – there is a small “salon” area inside a larger gallery perimeter. Meeting Amanda was such a pleasure – I am adding her to my “steal-ideas-from” list!

Amanda Smith and me at the ASmith Gallery last Saturday

Amanda Smith and me at the ASmith Gallery last Saturday

I also met two artists whose work resonated strongly with me. Pat Brown is the first. I was looking at matted work in the bins and every piece I picked up seemed to be hers! Here are two – and, oops, all of the photos I took at the show that were framed have reflective light spots on them, but you can get the picture :).

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The other artist whom I met (and whose work I loved) is Keith Kesler. Here is one of his photoencaustic pieces.

Keith Kesler

Keith Kesler

When he’s not wearing his artist/photographer hat, Dr. Keith Kesler is a Board-Certified Psychiatrist with an active psychotherapy and coaching practice in Austin, Texas. He and I talked about encaustic process. I got some great ideas about layers with tissue and wax from Keith. His work is very dreamlike and symbolic. Nice!

The theme of the photography portion of the exhibit was “trees.” When you visit the exhibit, take your time walking around the gallery walls – you will be delighted with the fascinating interpretations of trees through the eyes of master photographers. Here are just a few (please ignore the light reflections in the photos – these are taken with my iPhone)

Amanda has had a number of excellent photography exhibits at the ASmith Gallery – I had fun looking through her catalogs and at the archives on her website. Great inspiration! She also has a wonderful assortment of curiosities and small works that grace the walls and table tops.

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Here’s the best news of all – if you’d like to make a quick trip to Johnson City (which is just a little over an hour north of San Antonio) and visit ASmith Gallery and the Nugent Avenue Art District, there is a second reception for this show on January 28, 2017 from 4 to 8pm. I’ll be there – hope to see you!

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Last-minute gift tags

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This is a quickie post – we’re all holiday-busy! Four years ago I designed some little gift tags for SHARDS readers, and I actually needed to print out some for myself this morning.

I found the old post from 2012 and decided to share it again with you guys. Here’s what the gift tags look like – you can just print out a sheet of six on card stock, fold them and attach them.

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Get your tags here!! And happy wrapping!

Stack of books and other presents in basket. Christmas decoratio

Hebe Garcia, and “The Mirror’s Entrance” at the Carver

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Hebe Garcia, La Novica

Hebe Garcia, La Novica

I met Hebe (pronounced (A-bay) Garcia for the first time on Tuesday while we were bringing our work to the Carver Cultural Center for the  La Estrada del Espejo ( The Mirror’s Entrance) exhibit, which opened last night. It’s a stunning show.

Hebe’s painted ceramic work work was lying on a table, and it drew me like a magnet. I asked Sylvia Benitez, our curator, whose work it was, and she introduced me to Hebe. We immediately hit it off, and launched into a great conversation about ceramic glazes and underglazes and such. I am fascinated with the painterly way she enhances her surfaces.

Hebe was raised in Puerto Rico, and her work reminds me of the kind of magical realism that I find in Isabel Allende’s books. She’s now living and working in Abiquiu, New Mexico where renown artist Georgia O’Keeffe once painted her iconic desert landscapes. Here are some more pieces from Hebe’s website (which includes her acrylic work). Lucky me to get to meet her in person!

“Lilith” Hebe Garcia, “Lilith” Acrylic on cradled gessobord, 8″ x 8″ x 2″

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Hebe Garcia, Moonlight That Reaches from Within

The whole exhibit at the Carver resonates with this kind of magical realism. Here are some photos that Sylvia sent to our group of exhibiting artists after the show was hung. Thanks to everyone who came to last night’s opening! If you weren’t there, I do encourage you to go see it before it closes on January 13th..

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