Art Is Everywhere

 " You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water"

And you can't make a painting simply by looking at your paints.  But you can do a quick sketch every morning and you can do art so many other ways.

You can do art other ways as well.  I was reminded of that this morning as I was reading an email sent to me by one of the Gallery Uptown artists, Chris Brown. He wrote: "To me art is every day. I may not do my oil pastels today, but I may cook dinner, trim a few bonsai's, drive to the lake or farmlands and take few photos. Art is everywhere."

I was reminded of my smile this morning as I looked out at the shadows the sunshine was making on the snow in our back yard.  It's rare, sunshine in winter in Michigan, and much appreciated when we are lucky enough to get it.

Looking through images for inspiration is another way of doing art, sometimes one stands out, sometimes not but the looking at images of things that have inspired me at one time or another is enjoying art so that counts.

Breakfast with friends is another I think.  Sometimes the conversation -- or the art on the walls --or the decor on the tables.  Sometimes it's just a bush waiting for Spring when it will begin to bloom again.

Parts of this one may be my morning sketch tomorrow.  I usually post those on instagram and sometimes on Facebook.

And speaking of posting and Chris Brown, I got the email from him because the Gallery Uptown is bringing back it's blog.  The Gallery is celebrating 50 years in business and among other things the blog will be featuring a bit of artist history.  We're doing interviews via email and I got a return from Chris this morning.  Watch the gallery blog for some interesting reading.

It's The Month For Hearts

 So I made one for my spouse.  He doesn't read my blog or Facebook so he won't see it until it's time.

I love the penmanship.  I have several letters from Paddy to my mother and I am stingy with them but had to use one for this.

Dancing, choir practice and my morning sketches were pretty much all the creativity this week.  One sketch I posted and said I might add color when I did my afternoon journal.  I did and here she is along with this morning's quick one --

 

These morning sketches are done very quickly, anywhere from one to five minutes.  I do them in a daily journal that I write in at the end of my day in the studio. As you can see from these two, some come out decent, some not so much.  But it is a good exercise.

The rest of the time was sorting, purging and finally finishing taking down Christmas.  So much for my plan to work on at least one painting this month.  Oh well, the month isn't over yet.

Fun With A Pot That Wasn't

 

The group I paint with on Tuesday mornings went to Spring Lake Library this week. Most of us use a sketchbook dedicated to our Tuesdays.  The one I am currently using just wasn't working for the type of watercolor sketching I normally do but I have more pages to fill so I decided to add some gesso, collage paper and masking tape along with coffee splatters to them to see if that helped.  It did this week but what I painted isn't what was there.

Spring Lake Library has violets on it's windowsills. Someone was sitting at the table with the sun hitting it so I went to the one in the shade.  I loved the look of the pot and thought it would work perfectly with my recently doctored paper. I quickly drew in the shape and a few violets just because I thought the pot needed to hold something.  Then I began to examine the pot.  It wasn't what it appeared to be. The reality -- an ordinary garden variety clay pot sitting in a dirty plastic container.  Oh well, I'll just paint what drew me to it in the first place and I was correct, it does work on the doctored paper.

Collage Papers Fun and a Warm Up

 

This warm up is too busy for my taste but I did have fun making it.  Then I went back to making more collage papers.  I was especially enjoying making bubble papers once I finally figured out how best to do it.

 

The quick morning sketches have also continued and you can see by one of them, I'm still putting Christmas away. I get Christmas out and in place a little bit at a time between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve and I put them away the same way -- between New Years day and the end of January. The tree will be the last thing that comes down.  I enjoy sitting by it late in the afternoon and working in a new daily art/journal. The sketches are done in the morning, the journaling in the afternoon.  

 

And the daily journaling has been consistent so far.  It's also been fun doing different lettering.

Today more Christmas will get put away and the many collage papers I've been making will get sorted so I can make some collages tomorrow.  I'll post those next week.

 

Back to Stones and other things

 I’ve been keeping a schedule which was one of my goals for this year.  Not perfect yet but a start. Another start is getting back to a sketch every day and stones.  Here are two small, 4x4 in, stone pieces finished. 

 

As promised, here are the two small ones from that free collage workshop I wrote about last week. These are also 4x4 in.  I didn’t realize it until I looked at the photo but the vintage paper on the right will be 100 years old on the 27^th of this month.

One concept she was teaching was pick papers you love for your collage based on what we had done in the class. Since I had picked colors that aren’t part of what I normally gravitate toward I wasn’t in love with any of them, vintage excluded, but I did like some way better than some others and I think that’s close enough and a good rule to follow. There are a couple shows coming up so I need to get busy doing more of these.

What else, daily sketching, so far I'm sticking to it..  I finally realized the for me, an art journal is part art and part journaling with the journaling being primary.  So, I’m back to doing some morning sketches and sometimes a bit of collage paper in the journal to separate out spaces to write.  At the end of a studio day I sit with that journal and write about what I did or did not do that day.  The hats are one subject.  That started with the one I posted last week.  Here are a couple more…  

  

The one on the left was very colorful.  I may do it again and take some time to add color.

Back to Sketching and a New Journal

 

Even if it’s just a quick sketch like this one, I’m back to doing it regularly.

My Mini was recalled so I had to take it to the dealer for service.  That meant a trip to Grand Rapids and Ed following to pick me up.  We decided to visit the Museum since we were in town and, being a hat lover, I had to do a quick sketch in the fashion section. I took some photos so there will be more of these in future journals.

My word for this year is JOY and I started a new sketchbook/journal with a page writing about why I picked that word.  And because it’s a word I have been concentrating on I keep finding more joy in my life… even on not so good days.  This is the spread.

Instead of what most think of as an art journal, this year mine is going to be a journal with some art.

Another January project was a free Collage Taster Workshop.  10 Days of collage lessons, most of them preparing papers.  I did learn some techniques that were new to me and some ideas for selecting papers.  I found that some of her techniques would take more practice than I wanted to take time for primarily because I already knew a way to get the same result with a gelli plate. I was also reminded of some techniques that I had totally forgotten about.  Like using marbles.  I didn’t have marbles but I did have fake pearls, they sort of worked.  I’m going to the dollar store for marbles.

I’m hoping to do two small collages tomorrow using the papers I selected from the many I made during the class.  I’ve also added some vintage just because I like vintage.  These are the papers.

I’ll post the finished pieces next week.