More Playing & Art Walk

I’ve been playing with mixed media, trying to take it a step further.  But that’s after I finished my Art Walk entry.

For those of you who aren’t from the area, Art Walk is a competition that runs at the same time and on the same order as Art Prize which is held in the fall in Grand Rapids.  Art Walk’s prize money is good, Art Prize money $400,000 plus.  But the downside of Art Prize from my perspective is that your work also has to be huge to even be noticed.

This year my venue for Art Walk is our Tri-Cities Historical Museum.  The piece I’m entering is “The Shack”

It’s small, 8”x8”,  another mixed-media piece combining mono-print, collage and colored pencil.  I’m pleased with how this one come out and have more old building images that may get the same treatment.  I’m also thinking some of the old rowboat images I’ve used over the years may work as well.

On a day when I was doing the monoprinting I also tried doing people, I chose a photo I’ve been wanting to do something with for a very long time.  The monoprint alone didn’t work for me and I didn’t think the treatment I gave the buildings was going to work.

Finally, after watching a Carla O’Conner video, I decided to do a bit more experimenting.  I wasn’t going for the look, it was her technique that intrigued me.  I didn’t photograph the monoprint before doing anything else to it but here is stage two and three…

 

Now, again, I have to look at it awhile to decide… add more, take some away or call it done.  These two women were alike in so many ways and yet so very different.   Both expert stitchers, one practical, one fashionable,  I learned much from both of them, got some of the good genes too.

A visit to a delightful garden

I sketch with a group of friends/artists on Tuesday mornings.  In warm weather we are outside, sometimes even when it rains.  This week we had an opportunity to visit another friend’s beautiful gardens. 

Fortunately she has a porch with a view because rain it did and hard.  Here are a few shots I took before the rain started…. She had a variety of cone flowers, different colors in different beds…

And there were several spots to sit and enjoy a cuppa, or journal, or sketch.  This is just one of many.

A variety of sculpture, varied and scattered.  I only got this one before the rains started.

Possible still life material….

And finally, my view from her porch….

We have been invited back and will certainly take advantage of the invite, hopefully on a sunny day.

An interesting artist and some new work in process and a bit of other stuff

I’m at Spider Lake for the week, it’s an annual thing, an art retreat with my friend and fellow artist Terry Hart Brancheau.  Yesterday we went in to town, Traverse City, for lunch with friends and a stop at the Dennos Museum to see the current exhibit.  We were blown away!

Seungmo Park is a Korean artist who works in metal.  This is one of the images that is several layers of wire mesh, each layer carefully clipped so the end result is what you see here….

And it’s huge, almost floor to ceiling.  You can see more of his wire mesh art here.  It’s worth a look, his work is amazing.  The following photo is Terry standing behind one of his landscapes.

There was also a Warhol exhibit and when Terry and I wandered into the children’s play area we found a fun motion detector that showed on a huge screen.  Here are a couple examples of us playing….

We’ve also been making art.  On the first day I worked on more Little Gems, still not finished but progress.

And yesterday I did several more starts and collage papers….this is the the mess that is the first stage of most of my work these days.

And here are a few monoprints; the next step will be to add collage, my fake Chine-collé. 

 

 

The buildings are wetcanvas images which artist have permission to use.  The two on the right are from Lisilk who always has photos I am drawn to.  You can see more of her work here. The two women, Sis and Sis, my mother and her sister and that’s what they always called each other.

What is Chine-collé you ask.  It’s  is a special technique in printmaking, in which the image is transferred to a surface that is bonded to a heavier support in the printing process.  It requires a press which I don’t have so I do the monoprint and then add collage. I have done it with a press, when my friend Annie still had her press.  This is a real Chine-collé

Okay, it’s time for me to get back to making art.  I’ll post again at the end of the week.