Blogging from the Watergate

Posted on by
1

Hi from DC – I’m visiting my dear friend Victoria (who has a wonderful place at the Watergate on the Potomac) and taking a few days off to fill my artistic well with new inspiration. This city is amazing – so many things to see and do – and eat. One of my favorite places to visit is the Textile Museum – FASA friends, if you want some inspiration, too, check out the pages of the artisans who do work for the gift shop there. Personal favorites are Chris Triola’s Cloud Shawls, which are textile paintings as well as wearable art. Another inspiration – the delightful and super-accomplished Jean Effron, whom I met at dinner last night. She’s the founder of Jean Efron Art Consultants LLC, a Washington, DC, based art advisory firm that provides comprehensive fine art services. Jean finds artists whose work compliments the needs of her corporate clients. I really enjoyed taking with her about what she does, and the some times tough job of finding the right match for both the artist and the client.

Finally, here are some San Antonio connections at the Watergate – ahem. One of my paintings hangs in Victoria’s living room, looking pretty spiffy, if I do say so myself.

cp

And on another wall hangs a wonderfully mysterious figurative painting by Laura Mijangos – if you haven’t seen her work before, there’s an opening tonight at AnArte Gallery featuring her paintings – I’d be there if I weren’t here!

But I will definitely be in San Antonio next Friday for the Shared Spaces opening – hope you can be there too!

 

 

Altar Update: The Guardian of the Golden Bough

Posted on by
13

Done and delivered to Celebration Circle! Here is the finished altar for their silent auction during the month of September, and now I know why I needed to use the moss. The figure represents The King of the Wood from Sir James Frazer’s book, The Golden Bough (pub. 1890), which seeks to explain the roots of human religion, science and magic. Being an eccentric spiritual eclectic, it made sense to me to reflect my own private musings through this guy, The Guardian of the Golden Bough.

The completed piece

The completed piece

I had fun constructing him, and when I took him down to the collection place in Blue Star Art Complex, I got to see some of the other altars. They’ll all be photographed soon, so you can see them, too. Hope you can come to the fundraising event on Sept. 30th! Here are some other photos of Mr. Guardian (or maybe it’s Ms. Guardian?) And here’s a tip – if you have a Kindle and want to read The Golden Bough, it’s on Amazon for a free download!

 

Meanwhile, back at the altar . . .

Posted on by
3

When last we saw our altar box for Celebration Circle’s Silent Auction, it had a not-too-happy Spirit Doll lying in it, and it looked pretty creepy. Sigh. But I *knew* the moss was the right thing – so I kept thinking and working, and then I remembered a graduation gift I made for my grandson. It was a wall sculpture of the Celtic god, Cernunnos. I liked him because he was kind of a mystery, open to possibilities (actually, that goes for my grandson, too :)). Using Cernunnos as an inspiration, I am working on my Altar gift to Celebration Circle. It’s not quite finished, but here he is – The Guardian of the Sacred Grove with his little bird buddy, still a work in progress.

grove

If you want to see it finished, come to the Bijou Theatre Gallery between Sept.1 and Sept 30th and view all 50 of these wonderful Altars. The closing reception and Silent Auction is on September 30th at 6:00. With any luck, you can take home the Guardian of the Sacred Grove or another cool altar to grace your own place of creative belonging!

U

Gloria and Lyn (and the golden rooster)

Posted on by
2

The Friday Freebie golden rooster pendant goes to blog subscriber Sherrill Kahn! That’s really funny – Sherrill, you can pick it up when you come to visit in August, and I can’t wait for your workshops.

And speaking of August, (nice segue) please please save the date (August 16th) for Shared Spaces, an exhibit of paintings by Gloria Hill and me at my Studio. We’ve been painting together on most Wednesdays since the early spring, and you will see how two weird artistic brains can take the same media (and sometimes the same subject) and end up with totally different results. There will be the usual libations and munchies – here’s you OFFICIAL invitation.

invitation copy

 

Hot Tip and a Friday Freebie on Saturday

Posted on by
8

I’ll make this quick – I’ve been working on my website and if I spend any more time at this dang computer, well . .it won’t be pretty. But the site looks better. You can actually find workshop info (and I scheduled another Earthshard session by request on August 25th). Anyway, here’s the Hot Tip from my friend Barb at Ann Pearce’s. If you use Altoid tins for stuff, like I do for Spirit Boxes, you can fire up the barbie and put them on the grill. It burns off the paint and leaves them nice and shiny, kind of a patina black. Works great! Thanks, Barb. Now . . . look carefully at that fine golden rooster pendant on the newly-blackened box – he’s the Friday Freebie! If you are a subscriber to this blog, SHARDS, you’ll be in the drawing for him. Sunday night’s the deadline.

Whoopee – off to the Studio – happiness is this computer in my rear view mirror!

altoids

You, too, can make a rooster shard . . .

Posted on by
2
shardpendantsworkshop

Rooster shard necklace and other pendants by Lyn Belisle

Sunday’s Earthenware Shard and Adornment workshop will be fun, and there’s one space left for a brave soul. We’ll play with clay and create pendants and faces and roosters. Well, maybe not everybody will want to make a rooster, but a friend asked me to make some rooster jewelry for a rooster aficionado that he knows. Always one for a challenge, I did it (see the necklace, above). You can use regular decorative stamps like this one on thin pieces of damp clay in all kinds of ways. After Sunday’s workshop is over, I will take the pieces home and fire them to Cone 05, then we’ll meet again on Wednesday evening to finish them and string them at Ann Pearce‘s jewelry studio next door. It’s one of my favorite workshops. Even the rooster part.

Experimenting . . .

Posted on by
2

I’m doing some experimenting with mixed-media collage for a series of lessons I’m developing for CraftArtEdu, a pretty cool online teaching site for artists and students. It occurs to me that one of my favorite things is to put weird images together . . whether they want it or not. Here’s an acrylic-based collage I finished today called “Sweet Upon the Golden Child.” The doll’s face is a photograph that I took when my friend Ellen called me and said, “Come take pictures of my creepy dolls!” I think the face looks fascinating in the context of the collage. The large stone is an Ammonite. It has wonderful shape and texture. ArtPlay is FUN!

child copy

A litter o’ spirit dolls

Posted on by
7

Four of us birthed some Spirit Dolls this afternoon at our workshop – as we wrapped them up to take them home, we decided that they were like puppies from the same litter and would always have a sense of where their sisters were. These little sculptures almost created themselves – everyone seemed to know exactly where their work was headed. And none of them looks like the other. Except one of them kind of looks like me, and it’s not the one I created. Can you tell which one? All kinds of strange and wonderful things happen when Spirit Dolls get birthed! Thanks to everyone for sharing your time, talent, chocolates, hearts, and jewels.

Workshop notes . . .

Posted on by
2

Oh, no – she’s over-blogging again! But I did want to share some quick workshop notes and videos with you. valerieThere’s a Spirit Doll workshop this Sunday, and, as good timing would have it, I just received this photo from Valerie, who recently returned to her house in Freeport, NY after hurricane Sandy – she made this Spirit Doll using one of my face shards to celebrate the return. I love the colors and textures. Thank you, Valerie.

Last night was the Asian Painting workshop – great fun, lovely results from the participants. If you want to see me do a demo of the basics, click on this link. And here’s a video of the workshoppers and their artistry. They came as Grasshoppers and left as Masters 🙂

Tech tricks – easy “postcard” letters

Posted on by
1

GreetingFromCalifornia

Remember those old postcards that had lettering filled with scenic views? Like it would say “California” and the letters were filled with in illustration of orange groves? I made this informal tutorial for a colleague yesterday and figure why not share it with you guys – if you like to play with Photoshop, this is fun.
Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.