Just in case you haven’t heard of The Enso Circle, a virtual Artists’ Residency program that Michelle Belto and I founded a year ago, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that it’s open for application until January 10th. If you’re accepted, you’ll be notified by January 12th.

Here’s a copy of an email I sent out last week – the Circle may be for you, or it may not be, but it’s the kind of experience that really can influence your art and your way of thinking about it. And you can tailor it to your own studio practice. Just sayin’ – 🙂

Thank you for your interest in our workshops and our studio offerings. We want to let you know that the door is open for application to The Enso Circle, a ground-breaking virtual Artists’ Residency program that is now in its fourth term.

The Enso Circle is an invitational art residency, a dedicated three-month time period in which you will join a community of creators for a specific self-chosen  goal that is unique to you.  The online residency provides the comprehensive artistic support that you need to focus and strengthen your work.

It costs nothing to send in your application, and no payment of any kind is involved until you are accepted. There is a limit of twelve Artists-in-Residence for each term.

 

If you already feel a sense of connection just from this short email message, this may be your time to join. It is a wonderful way to begin a new year. Please explore the links below to learn more about our community.

The program basics – what Residents say

The Enso Circle

More about the Enso Circle Artists’ Residency

We are always happy to answer your questions and hope that you will apply for the upcoming Spring Term, which begins on January 18th and ends on April 30, 2022.

Sending all good wishes to you,

Founders, The Enso Circle

I’ve been invited to show a series of paintings in an upcoming GAGA exhibit, which should be good news, but I haven’t done any painting in quite a while and am feeling rusty. Unlike riding a bicycle, you can kind of forget your two-dimensional painting skills if you don’t do it regularly. Or at least it stops being as intuitive as it once was. Take a look at my steps and thoughts as I try to make this piece work.

First, here’s a little snippet from my concept for the series, which will be called FULL-NESS:

“I’ve given a lot of thought this past year about the resilience of the collective human community. The result is this series of six 24×24” mixed-media paintings on wood, each one based on the idea of Full-Ness, which is the quality or state of being “filled completely or to utmost capacity.”

I have always incorporated words in my work, and for this series I’m adapting six words for the six works that describe positive resilience and balance: Hope-Full, Peace-Full, Play-Full, Grace-Full, Joy-Full, Thought-Full.

The first step was to prepare six 24x24x2″ birch cradle boards. I taped the edges, then divided each one into roughly three sections – two sections were painted textured “rust” and one section is gold leaf for contrast.Then I stenciled the word “FULL” on each one.Here’s a detail. It looked pretty good! But  couldn’t just leave it like that.

Next, I looked for random non-copyright  photos of faces that would give me a clue as to what “FULL” word to use. The face below, transferred with Silkspan tissue to the substrate with adhesive and acrylic varnish, looked suitable for the word “thoughtful.”

In this first stage (above) you can see the gold leaf, the rust texture, and the face – none of it really hangs together, but it has potential.

In this version (above), which took me quite a while to get to, I am at that horrible in-between not-finished stage which looks good enough but NOT good enough. I liked the parts, but again, it needed unity. So I did a mental inventory of what worked for me and what didn’t – it’s hard to do a self-critique, hard to be objective.

What was working: The face, the diagonal paint lines, and the white circle were good, all keepers.

What was not: The white “thought” letters weren’t working – they looked like a title and not part of the painting. I wanted to incorporate letters like Jasper Johns did, but these looked too contrived. The white spatters added nothing but empty technique. I also was determined to keep a bunch of the gold leaf showing, which wasn’t really helping. Sigh.

So with all of this in mind, you can see what I finally did, below.

First, I painted completely over the letters “thought” and then started adding layers of color veils over the painting, including some areas of stencil patterns. These translucent layers unified the girl’s face with the lower third of the painting by suggesting a figure. 

I brought in more white and repeated the white circle on the right. That helped me realize that  the letters that said “thought” shouldn’t be white, but should reflect the colors of the layers and look much more random, like shapes in their own right. And I painted over most of the gold leaf, although it shines through very subtly. Yay!

It takes a relatively short time to describe this process, but there was a lot of cussing and fussing in the studio as I went back and forth with this for many hours. Art is about problem solving, and while there are many “right” answers, finding the “right” right answer is sometime like looking for needle in a haystack.

This completed piece doesn’t look a lot like I imagined it would when I began, but I like the result. And the next five paintings should be easier and a lot more fun since I’ve got a “thoughtful” prototype! Self-critiquing should be easier going forward.

These six finished (I hope!!) FULL-NESS pieces will be on view in the Main Gallery at the Kerrville Center for Arts in Feb 2022, details to follow.  There are 16 of us in this group show, including amazing painters Roberta Buckles and Mary James. Wow, the pressure! 🙂

In the meantime, stay joyful and thoughtful and hopeful this holiday season!!

Today at noon I’m meeting my classmates (virtually) for a workshop called Hand Coloring on Encaustic Images | Workshop in a Box taught by Kevin Tully and Amanda Smith. Amanda owns the ASmith Gallery in Johnson City, Texas, and she specializes in photography and also teaches and works in encaustic. She’s a wonderful curator and artist.

Why “workshop in a box”? Amanda and Kevin ship you a box full of all the equipment, supplies and tools you will need to participate which will be returned at the end of the workshop.

This includes a griddle, the wax, egg tempera paint, your own photos on panels plus a demo work, and an amazing assortment of extras. I received mine two days ago. It is packed with goodies, including a postage-paid label to return the equipment when the workshop is over. You meet the other participants for a mega-Zoom session.

This is a five-hour workshop with three sections – here’s a brief description of the first section:

Starting with a desaturated image we will begin coloring on the print with colored pencil, pastel and water color. Then apply wax to the image. Followed by a demonstration of the application of water soluble wax crayon, egg tempera, pastel and cold wax.

Doesn’t that sound wonderful? I hardly ever get to take workshops these days, and this one, via Zoom with four other people from around the country, feels like a challenge.

Here are the two photos that I will be working with. I took the first one in Cuba, and the second one in my back garden:

I’ll report back on how the day goes! Off the the workshop 🙂

Lyn

The Enso Circle, developed by Michelle Belto and me,  is a new concept in creative communities. It’s a virtual artists’ residency program, joined through application, and limited to twelve participants.

The Circle has definitely exceeded our hopes, both as a successful model for group dynamics and as a platform for encouraging individual artistic achievement.

Part of the appeal of The Enso Circle is that each individual artist sets an individual goal. It could be something specific, like creating twelve pieces of fiber art for an upcoming exhibition, or it could be something general such as learning more about encaustics and producing three exploratory works. Journaling is encouraged, but not required, and there is lots of lively 24/7 conversation in our Slack space.

A huge hunk of icing on the cake for me is what I’m learning as an artist as I work right alongside the Enso Residents on my own project, a series of encaustic collage works with historic photographs of child laborers from the early 20th century.

Here are three huge takeaways I’ve gleaned at this point in the term – they are not new ideas, but the “learning part” is how effective and important they are to getting art accomplished.

ONE: SET A GOAL – IT’S THE SETTING, NOT THE SPECIFIC GOAL

Just do it – write down a goal based on something you are already doing, something you have always wanted to do, something based on another artist’s intriguing techniques that you want to explore in your own style (yes, that’s OK). Two of our Residents have changed their goals since the started – they knew what felt right, so they adjusted. That’s OK, too.

My own goal was pretty specific: Working from dark to light in mixed media and encaustic photocollage pulling images from the dark of the past to the light of the present. In 1904, the National Child Labor Committee formed in the hopes of ending the horrors of child labor. One of these investigators was the photographer Lewis Hine, who traveled across the country meeting and photographing children working in a variety of industries.

I’ve never been a write-down-your-goal person before, but, boy does it help!!

Here’s one of my first experiments toward my goal:

This led to my panel idea (below).

TWO: MAKE A TIMELINE – REVIEW IT OFTEN AND HAVE A MIDPOINT

I wanted to be halfway this week. I had decided to make five panels, each with photographs of the children on black backgrounds. If that timeline didn’t exist, I probably would have thought “too busy” and just let the project lapse, but I felt a self-imposed obligation, thanks to the others in the Enso Circle who were all reporting on their own progress.

Here’s the halfway point – the screen panels have been finished and connected. I had to figure out the best way to connect the waxed panels, and ended up using strips of hand-dyed canvas. It worked great.

Next will come finishing the back with handwritten stories of each of the children pictured  on the front . I’m still not sure what that will look like, but I’ll ask my fellow Residents what they think.

THREE: SHARE YOUR WORK – WARTS AND ALL

Even if you don’t belong to a structured community such as The Enso Circle, you can still do a “show and tell” with like-minded friends. Do it on a regular basis. Right now, it will probably be virtual through images shared on Instagram, email, or Facebook, but it won’t be long before we can gather again in small groups.

I have learned about the importance of talking about work in progress – it’s an authentic way to expose yourself to feedback. In the Circle, we use Slack, uploading pictures, asking questions, and making comments. So far, the sharing seems to be keeping us all on track.

Here’s how Katherine, one of our Resident Artists, put it:

It is unbelievably helpful to see other artists in action. To truly see the individual style, prep and steps along the way of each artist and their projects. To see successes and failures and the opportunities in the those too.

I will be putting together a mid-term catalog of Works in Progress from our Residents – stay tuned for that in the next week or so.

______________________________________________________________________

I hope my three takeaways from The Enso Circle help. You can do this for yourself, particularly if you are stuck and feeling kind of directionless.

And while I’m not formally recruiting for The Enso Circle, we are taking applications for the Second Term, which begins on June 14. It you are interested, here’s the link to the application.

Thanks for reading, and take good care.

“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.” —Bill Copeland

We did it! 2020 is almost in the rear-view mirror.

We will have tales to tell – happy ones and scary ones, lonely ones and sad ones. And we will never forget this year.

I am so grateful for the collective art practice that keeps us creative, resilient, and inspired. Thanks to everyone who joined me in a workshop online, and to all the friends who Zoomed with me across time zones and borders. Lessons were learned!

Here is a little card for you based on an origami model called the Diamond fold. It’s actually part of a short video that includes a free little tutorial on how to create one of these cards for yourself.

Click on the image to open the card and the video.

If you don’t see the image, click here to access the video.

Please remember that even though the year is almost over, we must continue to take good care of ourselves and each other. We can do this.

Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year!

~Lyn

PS – If you need to make a last-minute gift, don’t forget about the free workshops at my Teachable Classroom, Lyn Belisle Studio. I’m sure someone you know would like a Lotus Book or a Votive Candle Card. And you can whip out one (or five) before Christmas – honest!

The Lotus Book

Glowing Paper Votive Screens

Thank goodness for cyberspace! Otherwise I’d be a sad teacher with an empty workshop studio. But fortunately, I’ve got a three new online workshops to tell you about.

First, thanks to everyone who ordered my new interactive eBook, Postcards to Myself, which just came out. And special thank for helping me tweak it! The response has been great – a new comment came in just yesterday, “This is one of the best workshops I’ve ever taken, it’s full of ideas and very thoughtfully done.” Yay, thanks, Rosmary!

An “interactive eBook” is an interesting critter – you download a PDF document that looks like a hard copy, but it also has links on its pages that take you to a video that shows you what you’ve been reading about.

At $18, it’s a real bargain for people who like both reading instructions and watching demonstrations.

Here’s a sample page from the book:

And here’s an example of the video clip on that page:

Link to Video 16 from Postcards to Myself by Lyn Belisle from Lyn Belisle on Vimeo.

You can order it here. And . . . .

I’M GIVING AWAY THREE FREE COPIES OF POSTCARDS TO MYSELF THIS SUNDAY – WANT TO ENTER THE DRAWING? CLICK HERE.

But wait! There’s more! (as always)

I have two workshops online at my new Teachable site, Lyn Belisle Studio. Both workshops are new versions of classes that I’ve taught at Artful Gathering in recent summers. Now that Artful Gathering faculty has scattered, I’ve brought back those classes at (ahem) really low prices so more people can enjoy them. They are all such fun, and each class has about two hours of instruction.

Teachable is super-easy to use.  The first introductory workshop – still only $10 – is about making unique portfolios –  “Story in a Story.” More than 30 people have already signed up for that one. Here’s what that looks like once you’ve signed up:

The second workshop, Small Worlds: Altered paper landscape collages, just went live last night. This was one of the most popular workshops at my old Studio. If you haven’t played with Citra-solv papers, you will love this one. Tuition for that one is $29, which is a lot less than the Artful Gathering price of $89.

Like all my Teachable workshops, it’s self paced and you can download any of the videos or just watch them online wherever you want.

When times get strange and scary and sad, we get comfort in doing what we love, and I love teaching. Right now, I’m putting together a free mini-workshop called Spread the Word. You’ll hear about that one soon, but it’s my small way to teach about sharing kindness through words.

So sign up for a workshop! This old schoolteacher needs students <grin>. And have a nice weekend. I could not do without you – and this wonderful community.

(from the Small Worlds workshop :))

“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” — Zen Buddhism 

I have a book called Chop Wood, Carry Water that I bought decades ago. It still helps me remember to focus on the things I can control in my day-to-day life, and to try to do those things with a full heart, to keep on keepin’ on.

So I’ve found comfort, as usual, in art and teaching. Now that my duties as President of the San Antonio Art League are over, there’s more time to return to those beloved foundations.

The new eBook workshop I’ve been putting together, called Postcards to Myself, will be finished by June 10th. I’ve been working on it since February, off and on.

It’s actually kind of metaphorical. First, you make a big, mixed-up picture with lots of words and images, and then you focus only on the most beautiful small areas and take notes on why those little parts make your heart sing. This helps us remember that there are little patches of beauty in today’s crazy-quilt of chaos.

Anyway, before I get too carried away, here’s a short clip that tells you more about this interactive eBook book and the 19 (!) videos. Or if you like, just skip to the bottom of this post where I have a question for you.

VIDEO LINK

Here’s the question – I’ve been talking with friends in my circle (Lesta Frank and Michelle Belto among them) about how we can continue our work in art and teaching during this time of physical distancing and beyond, into whatever the “new normal” might look like. Interactive eBooks (like the one above) can almost substitute for an in-person workshop, as can online classes and Zoom critique groups.

As part of this change, I’m updating my own email list so that anyone interested in sharing their thoughts and getting further information about all of this can be included in the discussion. I won’t be sending out a zillion newsletters or anything like that – who has time? – but I may send occasional updates on new classes and collaborations from my studio and with other artists like Lesta and Michelle. And I’ll be asking what you think.

If you’d like to be included in future updates, just click this link to submit your email.

And there’s more! If you submit you email (and optional comments) before Friday, I’ll put your name in a drawing to win a lovely new face mask from Johnny Was. Winner announced Friday afternoon, shipped to you or available for pickup.

In the meantime, chop wood, carry water, put one foot in front of the other, and keep on keepin’ on safely and kindly. Thanks for your help.

♥