First time’s a charm. . .yay!

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Yesterday was the first workshop at the new studio. I am so grateful to everyone who helped me test-drive the space as a workshop venue (Lesta, Peggy, Claire, Mary, Rosemary, Mary Beth, Silvia, Cecelia). Not only did they give me great suggestions about workshop logistics in the new space, they also did some fantastic collage work!

The workshop itself  was called Intuitive Photocollage. We created mixed media collages using images, paint and other very simple elements to enhance our art practice through visual storytelling. The main goal was to examine how our intuitive choices influenced the process and to understand why we chose certain placements or values.

It was totally cool to see the differences in each person’s work, even when they used exactly the same images and materials – check out the video.

The Process – tear images from magazines and arrange them using Lyn’s AB3s of composition as your guideline. Veil, conceal and reveal the images with loosely applied acrylic paint, stamps, stencils and other collage elements.

The Goal – achieve an intriguing balance of images and paint strokes enhance by mixed media techniques for both a finished work and as an extension into other art forms.

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I gave everyone an A+ on both their helpful suggestions for the studio and on their intriguing artwork.

studio2The new studio is an intimate space, more like a home that a storefront. The test-drive participants suggested that workshops be limited to six people, and I agreed. We had eight yesterday, and while everyone worked beautifully together, six is a better number for both getting around in the space and getting personal attention. It may make getting into a workshop a little harder, but we’ll be more comfortable!

studio-1

Other than that, most things will stay the same. The tuition fee is still $65 for three hours, and I plan to continue providing most, if not all, materials.

We’ll have plenty of room to work with encaustics as well as other mixed media projects, including air-dry clay and other 3-D media.  And I can’t wait to create paintings and collages in my very own studio room next to the workshop space!

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So, yay! I’m looking forward to creating some interesting new workshops in 2017 that will help you in your art practice. The first one will be called Postcards to Myself.

That’s the Monday workshop report! In the meantime, you’re invited to the Carver Cultural Center this Thursday from 5-7 pm for the opening of a wonderful exhibit of magical realism works sponsored by GAGA (Gentileschi Aegis Gallery Association). I’m proud to be a part of it! Hope to see you there.

entrada

 

 

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Big problem, but I got it covered . . .

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My nifty new ultra-cheap ultra-cool floor covering in the studio workshop room

So when I moved into the new Studio, two of the rooms had wood-grain floors that I was really afraid of messing up with paint and glue and art stuff. I tried a drop cloth, but kept tripping over it and saying bad words. I tried plastic sheets, and that was worse. Think “Attack of the Saran Wrap Monster.“

In desperation, I went to Home Depot and asked a nice guy named Dave what might work. He showed me this fantastic indoor/outdoor carpet that is a perfect solution!

I’m sharing this with you guys in case you need something cheap and durable for your workroom floor. It’s called Elevations Indoor/Outdoor carpeting, and it comes in 12″ and 6″ widths. They cut it for you with a giant machine to whatever length you want. I got enough to completely cover two big rooms for less than $100. I kid you not.  Cheaper than canvas drop cloths.

This is where I taped a seam together with clear packing tape - works great.

This is where I taped a seam together with clear packing tape – works great.

The sheets of carpet lie flat and are light enough that I could lay them down by myself – I moved half of the furniture to one side of the room, lined the carpet up and rolled it out part-way, moved the furniture back on that half, then – well, you get the picture. No glue, no tape – when you move out, you just roll it up!

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You can see how nicely the edge of the carpet meets the door – it’s not glued down and it still lies flat.

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It has a tightly-woven grain – not bad looking at all!

 This carpeting comes in four colors – I picked “Stone Beige”, of course – Neutrals ‘R’ Me – but they also had a pretty blue, a grassy green, and a nice gray. It’s worth the purchase just to see them cut the stuff with the 20′ long cutting machine. Rowwrr.

And that’s your Studio Tip for the Day, kids – by the way, don’t you just love the way Home Depot smells when you walk in? It makes you feel all strong, like you really want to buy a chain saw or a flat of Sheetrock. Yeah!!

Elevations at Home Depot – great for art studio floors – yay. Hmmm, wonder if they’ll give me a discount for this free advertising  . . .?

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A new website – and it’s mine, all mine!

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TAH-DAH!! New studio, new website - life is bueno!

TAH-DAH!! New studio, new website – life is bueno!

Whew! My new website is finished (or as finished as those things ever get – tweak tweak). Take a look!

coverweb

I built it myself so I could include things like links to my Etsy page and a “Your Page” place to show video tutorials for you guys. It also has a super easy link to the Behind the Veil encaustic collage ebook, which makes downloading a snap.

Creating a new site was hard, but worth it! And it works sooooo much better than the old website, which had been around since the dawn of the Internet.

SHARDS readers are the first to see this, and I would greatly appreciate any feedback or suggestions, positive or negative (sometimes negative is a very good thing).

Yeah, I know the studio workshops aren’t up yet, but they will be soon, and the check-out process should be simple and easy.

So here’s the link – thanks for checking it out!! And stay warm and dry this weekend – here in South Texas it’s gonna get nasty – brrrrrrrr.

Après-turkey Saturday, out and about

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ASmith Gallery 103 N Nugent Ave, Johnson City, TX

I’m headed to Johnson City on this beautiful fall morning to take some work to Amanda Smith’s Gallery. It’s a new gallery for me, and I can’t wait to meet Amanda.

They specialize in photography, but do some amazing workshops with photoencaustic. The show I’m participating in is called, simply, “encaustic” – it opens December 17, 4-8 pm. Click this link to see all the accepted work. I especially like Sandra Carrion’s “Dragonfly.”

Sandra Carrion

Then it’s off to the Pearl for the San Antonio Clay Arts Festival.  I’m hoping that some of my favorite potters will be there, like Marcia Dahlman – love her work.

Marcia Dahlman

Marcia Dahlman

And then — TAH DAH – I’m going over to the new studio to do a little planning and a little art.  It’s so nice to have a comfortable space close to home to hold workshops and explore new directions for my own art. If you missed the newsletter yesterday, here’s a short video preview of the space – not quite settled, but almost.

A new place of creative belonging . . . from Lyn Belisle on Vimeo.

Oh, if you did miss the newsletter, another exciting happening is an invitation-only trunk show and sale with Monika Astara on December 10th from 11am-1pm at my home. If you’d like to be on the list and get details and an invite, just email me.

Monika’s designs are perfect for the holidays – elegant and easy.

The icing on the weekend cake will be a Sunday get-together with uber-talented Michelle Belto – we are planning an exciting collaborative website for 2017 that will be totally unique.

Michelle and I have worked together for several years – here’s a video from one of our first collaborations – always fun to revisit.

I hope YOUR weekend is a happy one – thanks, as always, for keeping up with SHARDS and me!

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Friday resources, mostly free, all fabulous

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But first, before we get to those resources, wanna hear a story? OK, so I needed to find a home for a wonderful easel that Nancy Powlas had given me several years ago. It had belonged to her late sister, and I loved it, but didn’t have room for it in my new studio space. When I got it, it was bent at the back, so I took a rubber mallet and whacked it straight.

Some arty intuition told me to call Lesta Frank to see if she would like it. She came to look at it and said, “Hey, I used to have an easel just like that that I gave away 17 years because it was bent, but I always regretted giving it up.”

And of course, as all good stories go, it turned out to be the very same easel that Lesta had given up and was now returned to her from the Mysterious Art Universe.

lesta

Lesta and easel, reunited at last

So now on to these free resources, most of which are image goldmines for mixed-media artists and designers.

The first one is Pixabay, which has a searchable index of thousands of copyright-free photos and illustrations. I did a search for “rust” and found this beauty – look at the colors and textures! Thanks to Leannah Kurtin Fulmer for reminding me of Pixabay.

rust

The second resource, Unsplash, came to me via Ivy Newport, an imaginative, inspiring and successful artist and teacher – she has curated a collection of portrait photos at Unsplash that are gorgeous. The photos at Unspalsh are offered without restriction – their motto is “Free (do whatever you want) high-resolution photos.” Wow. Here’s one from Ivy’s collection – just think of all the ways you could use this evocative face.

woman

Another photo resource, also free, is Noah Bradley’s Free Photo Reference Megapack. Noah Bradley is an artist and fantasy author who is building an amazing illustrated world called The Sin of Man. He has photos from all over the world to download and use as backgrounds and reference. I downloaded his American Southwest collection and his France and England collection – they are huge albums.

Here are two examples from those collections.

england southwest

The last resource was suggested to me by my friend Linda Krantz. a wonderfully perceptive artist from Houston who was in my class at Vivi Magoo a couple of weeks ago. It’s called MadRat Rubber – great name. While they don’t have free images, they have the most original and amazing stamps and other cool stuff for mixed-media artists.madrat

Here’s one – not your everyday stamp design, right? And their prices are very competitive, plus you can get them mounted or unmounted.

So now you have lots of places to get inspiration. Print out the photos, tear them up and collage them, stamp into them, veil them with paint and scribble over the paint. That’s going to be the first workshop at the new studio – Intuitive Photocollage!

And if you know a bit of digital imagery manipulation, you can work on you computer to combine these resources into something totally new – like this!

memory

Happy weekend –  if you’re in San Antonio, bundle up – it’s finally gonna feel like Thanksgiving weather. Thanks, as always, for reading SHARDS.

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Embracing the change – Nick says it’s OK

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I am so excited about the new studio space! It should be open shortly after Thanksgiving, and I’ll tell you about the December workshop very soon. I spent yesterday lugging stacks of my old work and hauling new supply shelves into this lovely serene place of creative belonging.

A first look at the new space - do NOT look behind the screen yet - too terrifying and totally disorganized to describe :)

A first look at the new space – do NOT look behind the screen yet – too terrifying and totally disorganized to describe 🙂 I did that framed piece on the wall in 1976 – yikes – that’s a lotta art years

This whole year has been a tangle of change, fear, joy, sleep-robbing worry and  happy anticipation – all wound up into one giant hairball. But part of the useful stuff that I extracted from the hairball was a look at what has changed in my artwork and what has stayed the same.

Interestingly enough, my art has sorta circled back to a similar place that I was in 2011. At that point,  I was working with Renaissance images of women’s faces in collage with some dimensional elements – this piece is titled “Shutter Speed,” and it was in one of my first shows at La Vida Gallery.

Lyn Belisle Shutterspeed Mixed Media Collage on Canvas 2011

Lyn Belisle
Shutterspeed
Mixed Media Collage on Canvas

After that, I decided to begin combining three-dimensional faces rather than images of faces into assemblages. This series was called Encantos.

Lyn Belisle Assemblage with earthenware and mixed media 2012

Lyn Belisle
Assemblage with earthenware and mixed media 2012

When I worked with Gwen Fox in Taos, I wanted to use the same idea as part of an abstract painting.

Lyn Belisle Acrylic and dimensional clay on canvas 2013

Lyn Belisle
Acrylic and dimensional clay on canvas 2013

And then, abandoning the faces, I wanted to work in a purely abstract manner on canvas (but notice that the colors and the “feel” are similar). I brought circles and geometric shapes into this painting (those seem to follow me everywhere). My friend Ramesh owns this piece.

Lyn Belisle After the Fire Acrylic on Canvas

Lyn Belisle
After the Fire
Acrylic on Canvas

But guess what? For the past year or two, I’ve been working in collage again, this time with images of vintage faces and found objects with beeswax – it’s kinda come full circle. But the addition of wax is very exciting to me, and I will continue to explore it.

Lyn Belisle Eva's Bird Beeswax and mixed media collage 2015

Lyn Belisle
Eva’s Bird
Beeswax and mixed media collage 2015

So is this bad? Good? My newest art hero, Nicholas Wilton, would advise us to embrace the change and don’t think of one phase as better, just different. This short video is so worth watching. It packs a whole bunch of great notions into less than three minutes. Plus ol’ Nick is a cutie. Maybe I could get him to visit my new studio? Hmmmmm . . .

nick

 

 

 

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Secret spaces and free stuff from the Graphics Fairy

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What do you think? Actually, this is not really the new studio space, but it has possibilities . . .

So I found a studio space. I can tell you just a few things about it at this point . . .

  • It’s very close to my new home – yay!
  • It’s cozy, smaller than the old studio, but still roomy
  • You’d never know it was there – it’s very hidden
  • The number five (my lucky number) played an important part in finding it

I’m in the process of moving this week and will keep in touch. With luck (and the creek don’t rise), I’ll offer a December workshop there. You SHARDS readers will be the first to know, I promise.

In the meantime, here’s a little creative inspiration from The Graphics Fairy. If you don’t know about this site, you should, especially if you work with collage and mixed-media. Here’s an example:

I’ve downloaded three more vintage scripts and graphics for you to print out (below), but you can search the Fairy’s site yourself to find many more. Just right-click on the images to copy them. They look especially cool printed out on tan parchment paper. Print ’em out, then rip ’em up and play with the pieces!

hand2  hand1

hand3

 OK, back to moving – stay tuned!

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Round Top Report – Vivi Magoo at the Prairie

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Historic Round Top home

The little town of Round Top, Texas (Pop. 1200) is friendly, charming, and enjoying an artistic Renaissance. I returned there this week to teach at the Vivi Magoo Art Retreat on the Prairie – lucky me!

When you go there, check out the Round Top Inn –  that’s where I got to stay. The Inn is really a collection of vintage farmhouses and cottages set on lovely grounds framed by oak trees and guarded by a huge furry black cat.

The main house porch

The breakfasts are yummy, too – organic and locally sourced. Here’s my Wednesday morning plate, a fresh tomato tart and sausage. Drool.

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I taught two all-day workshops, The Beauty of Beeswax: Behind the Vintage Veil (which includes collage composition and basic encaustic techniques) and Fabulous Fusion: Wax, Earthenware and Fiber Talismans (which included mold making, wax on earthenware, and assemblage techniques).

Here are two of the demos I did during those classes – you can get the idea of what we worked on from these photos:

Lyn Belisle: "Frisky Nun"

Lyn Belisle: “Frisky Nun”

Lyn Belisle: Wax, Earthenware, Fiber Talisman

Lyn Belisle: Wax, Earthenware, Fiber Talisman

But the real fun of these Vivi Magoo retreats is, of course, watching the students get excited by the process and create breathtaking work.  I am so happy when they take the methods I teach, adapt them for themselves, and then use them in their own spectacularly individual ways.

As you watch this video of both my all-day workshops, pay attention to the different directions that the participants take in their finished pieces. I always tell them there is more than one right answer, and each of them found a brilliant one.

To make the experience totally perfect, beautiful Barb Solem, the Vivi Magoo founder, invited me back for next year – yay! It was the best ending possible to a wonderful three days in Round Top, Texas.

Dixie and Karen make talisman magic!

Dixie and Karen make talisman magic!

Henkel Hall, where the workshops were held

Goodbye, Henkel Hall – see you next year!

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A workshop and visit with Julie and Greg from Australia – wow!

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How often have I had an Australian come to Texas for a workshop with me? Well, never – until now.

Greg is amazed by Julie's talent!!

Greg is amazed by Julie’s extraordinary talent – of course!

Australians Julie (Julz) Dandelyon and her husband Greg Dodge had been in touch with me for a while about a possible get-together when they visited the States, but I never thought their visit would become a reality.

It did! We’ve just finished the most amazing two days together at my new house working in mixed media, making molds, firing earthenware, and creating collages on canvas. We also ate, drank, visited, talked for hours about their extensive world travels and plans for the future. Total bonding!

Julie was such a quick study with clay – it was her first time working with the shard face process, and she quickly developed her own unique style, making her own molds and embellishments. Take a look at the video of some of Julie’s work over the past two days – beautiful stuff.

Of course, she did everything upside down . . only kidding. I hope to get to Australia next year to work with Julie on several projects that we discussed – what a dream that would be! Thanks, Greg and Julz!

 

Product review and freebie

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I’m always looking for new products that aren’t too gimmicky and have multiple uses – this Metallic Creative Medium seems to fit that description.

I ordered some of this CM Metallic from Imagine Crafts, thinking it would work well on my earthenware face shards. Here are some pics and comments:

Here's the Metallic Medium - kind of a creamy paste in a jar. It comes in bronze, copper, gold, and silver.

Here’s the Metallic Medium – kind of a creamy paste in a jar. It comes in bronze, copper, gold, and silver.

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First, I sprayed the fired earthenware faces with Walnut Ink, as usual, and wiped it off to emphasize depth and detail.

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I applied the medium with my finger to the clay surfaces, trying out all four colors. It is very transparent on the clay and I needed two coats. It also seals the surface – that may be a plus in some circumstances.

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Left to right – copper, gold and silver – very subtle on the clay. I added pigment and applied onto some stamped black paper – again, very transparent.

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Finally, I added acrylic paint and rubbed some Pearl-Ex into the surface while it was tacky – lotsa bling.

Verdict for using CM Metallic on earthenware – 6 out of 10. It’s a little too transparent for my purposes, although two or three coats work well.

Best quality – it dries super quickly, so you could stencil it on a surface and go over it with watercolor or (of course) walnut ink almost immediately.

I checked on Amazon and somebody was selling it for $18 a jar – EEK! But  JoAnn’s has it online for about $6, which makes me think they might have it in their store as well for that price.

This is kind of a cool project using the medium that would lend itself to lots of spring-off ideas – I like the notion of covering the blocks with vintage pages – and maybe vintage photos?

Creative Blocks

Click image for directions

Freebie time!! I have four extra jars of this medium, one in each color, that I’m happy to share with you SHARDS guys. Just leave a comment for me and the first four people can have a jar to play with.

The only catch is that you need to be in San Antonio to pick them up at the Studio, because I don’t want to box and mail them. Yeah, I know – chintzy. Sigh.

I may not be pretty, but I work!!

I may not be pretty, but I work!!

SPEAKING OF FREEBIES and such, and because we all help each other out, I have an artist friend who is in need of a cheap car. Really cheap, just reliable transportation of any kind or condition or color. If you’re getting rid of an old vehicle or can donate one, please email me and I’ll pass the info along to her. She can afford to pay $1000 toward getting some wheels, but that’s about it. Help!

Thanks, as always, and stay tuned for more Studio updates – in the meantime, go out and play!

 

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