An Artist's Date And A Workshop

 This week, an artist's date.  This is something I bought tickets for in 2019 to do in 2020. The pandemic interfered. Finally on Thursday this week I got to see the VanGogh Immersion.  Fascinating!

When I bought the tickets Detroit was the only place it was showing in Michigan. Since then it has been scheduled to show in Grand Rapids.  I may go again.

Meanwhile, I'm taking a Karen Stamper workshop, Free Up Your Sketchbook and Grow.  The idea is to learn to use your sketchbook pages to eventually make paintings. I did use my sketchbook when I was doing poured watercolors.  For those I did a value study or the drawing before I started a painting.  I haven't used my sketchbook for abstracts so I decided this course may be a good one.

Karen uses a concertina sketcjbook and recommended it for us to use.  I had done on for our Florida trip and liked it so I bought one for this class.  This is the start, just making marks without thinking and using a variety of mark making tools. I can already see boats. They may or may not stay. I'm guessing at least one will survive.

Another lesson for the first week was to use a separate piece of paper to make marks on and then tear it up and use parts to make a collage and/or add parts to your sketchbook. I did both.  My collage is on the left and parts added to my sketchbook on the right. I see a couple sterns, may have to turn flip the left piece to horizontal.  

 

That's all I got done on this weeks.  Fortunately with internet workshops one can work at a time that works for them.  I'll have access to this workshop for a year but I want to get it done by the end of the 6 weeks it's live.  I'll post an update next week.

New Works In Process

 

It's been awhile since I started some new work.  These two are 8x8" and totally different from the way I normally start new work.  My normal starts on mixed media pieces are some collage papers and mark making, no color, just black and white or cream.  I decided I needed some color so -- these are the starts. 

I'm seeing flowers right off but I want to live with these for a bit before deciding on the next layer.

Meanwhile, the paper that I cover my table with when I'm working got replaced when I started these.  The old paper is too good to throw away but has a lot of interesting stuff on it. Spilled paint, testing a color, trying a stamp and over spraying are just a few of the marks.  I use it to make envelope journals.  On sheet makes two journals.  So far I've only finished one with this sheet.

Closed it can fit nicely in my purse or in a travel bag.  And below you see its contents.  A few pages for notes or sketching and some papers to use for collage or the pockets can hold ephemera that I pick up when traveling.  I got the inspiration from Robyn McClendon.  These also make nice little gifts for artist friends.

It's also a way to get rid of some of the many scraps of paper I have cluttering up my space.

The #100DayChallenge Continues

 And I have a mess but this is often what a piece of my art looks like part way through the process.

Stay tuned, this is no where near finished.  At this stage I did get some wonderful collage papers.

Some of this paper may end up in the finished pieces -- or the next piece.