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)

 

Frabulous Friday Freebie – so, subscribe to SHARDS!

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I am loading the kiln this morning with some new work for Shades of Green and also some 3-D assemblage pieces that I’ve made for a new sketched-out sculpture concept (stay tuned) – it’s great to be working with clay again. Here’s some of the stuff that’s going to be fired today:kiln1

So in honor of Firing Day (and to bribe new subscribers), this is the Frabulous (?) Friday Freebie (below) – a face shard that’s about 6″ across, already fired and finished with walnut ink, and ready to hang on your gate or your wall or put in a bowl or whatever else your heart desires.

kiln2 Just make sure you’re a SHARDS subscriber by midnight on Sunday and I’ll do a random drawing of all subscribers to pick the winner (and will ship if out-of-town person is drawn) – thanks! And TGIF, y’all.

 

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

Shhhhh . . fabric and hand sanitizer transfer secret for Shards subscribers only

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OK, so I’m not posting this to FaceBook or any other site – just to you blog subscribers (yay for you!). Here’s how the hand sanitizer transfer process works. This technique and a bunch of other cool ones will be featured in my Collage on Canvas class at Artful Gathering this summer. (Hint hint).

You’ll need some inkjet transparency sheets (be sure to get inkjet, not laser) and a color inkjet printer. Here’s a source for some very affordable ones at Amazon. Print your image onto the transparency using the grainy textured side as the printing surface (usually face down in the tray). Set it aside while you cut or tear a piece of white cotton sheeting to approximately the size of the transparency. Tape the fabric piece down to one of those flexible chopping boards boards at all four corners, stretching it taut but not overly tight.

So now you need a small bottle of clear hand sanitizer. I used one of the little travel sizes that I got for 89 cents at Walgreens. Run a strip of the stuff across the top of the fabric, and pull it down evenly with an old credit card 6or small piece of mat board. Once the fabric has been smoothly coated, place your printed transparency, ink side down, on the fabric and rub it in to adhere it. You can use the other side of the old credit card or mat board to do this. Set it aside for ten minutes or so, then rub it again before testing a corner by pulling it up. It should have transferred the ink from the transparency to the sheeting. Optional – take a hair dryer and slip it between the fabric and the cutting board to dry the fabric before you peel the film off – this will set it and hopefully keep it from smearing (although I have never had a problem with the ink smearing). Peel off the transparency film. That’s it! let me know how it works. Even if it doesn’t work perfectly, you’ll be germ free – LOL.

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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!

hs1 hs2 hs3

 

Boston spring break retreat and finding answers to all of life’s artistic questions (sorta)

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snow

This was the view out my window on a snowy spring day this week in Boston. I’m home now after my short getaway – I took an evening printmaking class at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and did a bit of shopping on Charles Street at Black Ink, a very cool store. Retreats like this are s’posed to help you figure out the answers to the Big Questions. I didn’t come up with many of my own Big Questions about art and life, but did have fun painting some answers. This is an acrylic-on-canvas triptych I did while there. They can be hung in any order depending on your desired outcome:

triptych_edited-1

Today I’d start with the one that says “Yes” –  glad to be back working at the Studio and yes, also, to being very grateful for the time away to recharge and visit with family. (And “no” to living all winter in the snow!)

 

Mask, Robe & Rune

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I spent this afternoon refining and working with the free-standing structure form for the Mask, Robe & Rune Workshop that Michelle Belto and I are doing on March 29th that combines encaustic monoprints with mixed media faces. The results are exciting so far (see the first slide after the title for my completed construction – it’s still kind of a prototype). Here’s the video, below, of work in progress and you can find workshop details here on my website. It’s going to be an amazing day of creative discovery – consider signing up and joining Michelle and me!