Goddess Banners – wishes on the wind

Goddess banner surface design in process during workshop

Goddess banner surface design in process during workshop

In my last post, I said that I was excited about the upcoming Goddess Banner Workshop because it was something new for me. The idea was a combination of influences – Joanna Powell Colbert’s Gaian Soul Retreat, of course, and also the small-space dyeing techniques that Rosemary Uchniat teaches. And personally, I’ve felt an urge to explore the healing aspects of iconic feminine energy and consciousness, aka just plain ol’ being kind and being nurturing, both to ourselves and the planet we live on. Soooo – it was a joy to work with the eight women who participated in yesterday’s Goddess Banner workshop.

Before you look at the video, you should know that every person worked with the exact same image, an anonymous early 20th century photograph (1915) from the Flickr Commons archives. But each face look very different in the individual completed banners. We all remarked on this – each of us brings ourselves into the process and transforms our images unconsciously and almost magically. I’ll be offering this workshop again soon. Thanks to the participants who helped me bring this idea to reality in yesterday’s class. Wonderful banners all!!

Back from Boston, and summer at the Studio

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Setting up in the little courtyard off Charles Street in Beacon Hill, Boston

Boston was great – I met lots of interesting people at my third annual Beacon Hill Art Walk, had a number of folks recognize me from last year (“Hey, Shard Lady!”), and sold some art. Interestingly, the encaustic pieces got most of the attention, but the Citra-solv landscapes got most of the bucks.

lsThese little mixed media landscape collages are always popular with art buyers, and  easy and fun to construct. As a matter of fact (what a coincidence), I’m having a workshop on Sunday, June 21st from 2-5 to show you how to make the collages, and there are lots of spaces left. You’ll learn how to create some amazing decorative artisan papers using Citra-solv cleaning solvent, and you will learn a lot about composition, as well. All materials are provided, as usual. Here’s a link if you’re interested. Come join me!

There are other summer workshops coming up at the Studio, including a Goddess Banner class on Sunday.goddessbanner That class is full, but I have had so much fun developing it that I’ll offer it again later. I’ve combined small-space dyeing with transfer, paper “quilting,” and other fabric surface design to make a layered banner that celebrates the idea of the Divine Feminine in whatever fashion pleases you. Here’s a first look at the prototype. When you hang a banner made with intention, like this one, the wish or affirmation is supposedly sent by the wind in all directions. I like that!

There’s a Spirit Box Workshop in July, and a Mixed Media Collage workshop in August – that one may focus on Goddess Banners again. Any takers for another Goddess Banner session? Email me!

It’s strange to think that I won’t be going back to Trinity University in the fall to teach, and it’s scarily liberating. FYI, Friday Freebies will return next week.

speedyFinally, one of the nicest things that happened during the Beacon Hill Art Walk was a Close Encounter of the Dog Kind – I was walking down a crowded street in Beacon Hill when a little doggie on a leash dragged her human over to see me, and began jumping up and down. It was my son’s dog, Speedy! Rick and his family were out of town, but Speedy recognized me and came bounding over to say hello. The pet sitter was very surprised, because he didn’t know who I was, and Speedy is usually a shy dog. But she is a good art critic – she looked at my art and licked my face in approval. 🙂

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone – hope it’s filled with dog licks, ice cream, and fun.

 

 

 

 

Yes, you do have homework this weekend

I’m outta here, headed to Boston, but you guys have homework. I want you to go see two shows, one tonight, one Sunday.

Tonight’s show is at La Vida Gallery at 1110 S. Alamo in Southtown. It’s the gallery where my work is shown, too, but the fabulous Yvette Shadrock has an opening tonight. I told Yvette that it kills me to miss this – she is amazing.

The second MUST-SEE show is at the San Antonio Art League at 130 King William Street on Sunday from 3-5. Five contemporary artists are represented: Richard Conn, Elizabeth Elequin, Linda Hammond, Stefani Spears, and Jim Stoker. Here are some pics I took when I got a sneak preview on Wednesday. Go!

OK, no excuses, do your homework – I want a report when I get back. Get out there and see these shows!

A must-read poem from Maripat

maripatLucky me to have dear friends who share their creative insights. Maripat Munley is one of these. Maripat is an RN with a masters in Art Therapy who has made art all her life. She studied oriental brush painting while living in Seoul, Korea, and her life reflects a balance of eastern serenity and western practicality.

Currently, she’s working on a poetry project with incarcerated women – she practices the healing power of art every day in every way – pretty cool. Maripat was a joy to work with in the recent workshop I did with Lesta Frank. Afterwards, I sent out the video to the participants, saying how proud I was of their beautiful folding handmade books. Maripat wrote back with this heartfelt poem, which I have permission to share with you. Thank you, Maripat, for all you do and all you are!

How to Be an Artist

Be still; silently breathe in my studio
wherever that studio is.
Use simple tools and colors that draw me.
Remember, making art is my spiritual practice.

Begin by releasing attachment to outcome or product
Bless eyes, hands, tools, paint and mixes.
See, touch, hear, smell everything I use.
Become one with the materials.
Remember, making art is my spiritual practice.

Immerse myself in the art process.
Let it be my prayer and my calling.
Draw and paint for the joy of it.
Be patient, able to stand back and gaze.
Remember, making art is my spiritual practice.

Get up early to walk, to meditate, to create
Draw EVERY day.
Spend time in the company of other artists.
Learn from them.
Remember, making art is my spiritual practice.

Let my quiet breathing prayer
mirror images beckoned from that silence.
Accept these images from the depth of my soul.
Remember, making art is my spiritual practice.

Maripat Munley

Sumi-e painting by Maripat Munley

Sumi-e painting by Maripat Munley

 

Sensational stormy Saturday show and tell

This has been a week of frustrating tech woes and long calls to support people (all resolved, hopefully), so I was especially looking forward to yesterday’s Show and Tell at my Studio. I hadn’t heard from many people and there were more storms predicted in our area, and I didn’t expect a crowd. Surprise!

crowd

Almost thirty people came to listen and learn, network and eat, and enjoy the creative company. These informal Saturday afternoons have become my favorite Studio event because it’s a happy free-for-all marathon of collaborating and brainstorming. Take a look at the video and you’ll see what I mean – it was a fun day, even when the storm knocked out the power! Hope everyone got home OK :). And if you’re around next month, be sure and join us – details coming soon.

Mixing it up with Lesta

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Art Book: Lyn Belisle

I love teaching with Lesta Frank. She’s imaginative, patient, talented and funny, and she has a huge following of devoted students, some of whom met us at the Studio yesterday for a special workshop. Our idea was to create mixed media accordion books that would function as a little showcase for 6×6″ collages. The collages feature hand-decorated paper and digitally copied faces enhanced with oil pastel. You can see the prototype I made, above.

1The workshop was scheduled for half a day, but as soon as Lesta got into demonstrating surface design on paper, I could tell that we should have scheduled a full day because everyone was having so much fun.

We did manage to make a bunch of gorgeous paper, construct several small collages, put our gallery books together, and have time for a critique. We’ve invited the participants back for an extra two hour bonus session following Show and Tell this coming Saturday (more about that soon).

I think you can tell from the video below what an enjoyable mixed media afternoon this was – and you can be sure that we will schedule another one soon. Thanks, Lesta!

PS – congrats to artgirl3313@gmail.com who won the Friday Freebie Beeswax and Collage download – I’ll send you the download link right away, and thanks for subscribing.

eBook and Friday Freebie

TGIF, y’all – some of you hopefully downloaded the free eBook I did on Dimensional Collage for the Gaian Soul Retreat on Whidbey Island  in March. And some of you have asked for more information on my new beeswax collage process, especially since last weekend’s workshop was such a success.

3 So – tah dah! I’ve written a new eBook called Behind the Veil: Beeswax and Collage.  The 34-page PDF eBook describes my new encaustic process, gives suggestions for photo sources, and includes a gallery of examples.

This one isn’t free. I’m embarking on my first step toward a publishing empire – yahaha. Only kidding. But I did want to see how selling eBooks online worked, so I figured out how to set up a PayPal button on my website. And this little gem of a book can be yours for a mere $5.99. That’s less than a Double Meat Whataburger! I started to ask $6 but marketing people say do the 99 cent thingy. Here’s the link to my first-ever “eBooks For Sale” page.

beescoverwebadMy friend Rosemary, who encouraged me to get this thing done and out there, just read it and said, “It’s like being in the room with you!  Everything seems to be here, the pictures make it clear.  It’s really wonderful!” My first review! Yay!

Anyway, Behind the Veil: Beeswax and Collage is available on my website, and I will give away a free download as a Friday Freebie to one lucky subscriber to SHARDS, name to be drawn Sunday night.

If you decide to buy the eBook, and something doesn’t work, for heaven’s sake let me know! But so far, so good. Thanks for reading my blog!! Happy weekend.

veilcvover

Beeswax Collage Workshop – five stars!

noraIf you’ve kept up with my new work, you know how excited I am about my beeswax collage series using early 20th-centure photographs.

Along the way, I’ve developed some techniques for using beeswax and pigment on paper that have worked well for me, but I hadn’t taught the process until yesterday afternoon at the Studio.

I wasn’t sure if other people would be able to get the same results, but it was fantastic! Everyone was so happy with their finished pieces, and had a million ideas about taking this process to new levels with their own personal photos. Take a look!

 

Easy color-to-sepia photos for beeswax collage using iPiccy

Sunday’s workshop at the Studio is Beeswax Collage (it’s sold out, yay!), and I’m going to ask the participants to bring a sepia-toned photo to work with. I’m sending them the link to this post to show them how to do a sepia effect with iPiccy, and you can find out, too, by following these instructions!

First, you need to choose a photo that you want to transform to sepia, and remember what file it’s in so you can find it to upload it. Then go to iPiccy and choose Start Editing!

sepia

You’ll see a window that asks you to upload a photo.

sepia0 Browse to the file on your own computer that has the photo you want to change from color to sepia and select it

sepbird    Your photo uploads into the editing window.

sepia 5

Look on the left side and find the bar that says Colors.

sepia5Click on it and scroll down that list until you come to the bar that says Sepia – choose the sepia tone that you like.

sepia3Once you’ve transformed the image to sepia, you can click on the Save icon at the top right and save it back to your computer

sepia7Give it a different name so it doesn’t overwrite our original color photo. Now you are ready to print it out and use it for your beeswax collage – or whatever creative purpose you desire!

Happy weekend, everyone!

How to describe your personal art style using Pinterest as a tool

corwindetail

Lyn Belisle, “Corwin,” Assemblage 2015

“Oh, you’re an artist? What kind of art do you do?” I get that question fairly often, and I usually just say, “Mixed media.” But if you need to think in terms of a fuller description (such as when writing an artist’s statement), you might need to come up with adjectives that are more specific to your personal style.

One way to do this is to  start a Pinterest board with images of the kind of art that resonates strongly with you – chances are, these images will reflect your own aesthetic. For example, here’s a recent selection from my own Pinterest “Stealboard” (as in “Steal Like an Artist”):

pinterestone

From this small selection, I can see that I gravitate toward a neutral palette of grays and rusts. I like organic shapes, twig-like lines, and odd and mysterious iconic faces.Not surprisingly, these elements show up consistently in my own work.

Now compare my favorite images to the Pinterest board of North Carolina artist Eileen Ross:

pinterestthree

I don’t know Eileen, but from her selections, I’d say she likes elliptical shapes, whimsical impressionist content, deep pastel colors, washes of paint, and calligraphic elements. When you look at her own work, you can see the strong relationship between what she likes and what she creates. Interesting!

What if you don’t have a Pinterest favorite art board, or even a Pinterest account? It’s easy and free to set one up. Just go to Pinterest and follow the simple directions. I would also suggest that you install the Pinterest browser button – here’s how. This little tool allows you to click on your browser’s tool bar to add a picture from the Internet to your Pinterest favorites board instantly. Be warned, though – once you start collecting, pinning, and analyzing the kind of art work that you love, you can get addicted!