I might be having a moment

 I've been at work (both at school and at the easel) because, even though things are crazy busy,  I have a show opening to be ready for on January 9th, so this is no time to snooze. I do have something to post, or will soon. However, I've run into a snag that I will have to resolve before I share my new painting.

     All semester, I've bumped into articles about A.I. apps like DALL-E and others that will create art for you based on verbal prompts. This means that anyone who can string some words together can access the skill to make an image that illustrates those words. The image is compiled by the app's access to images that are part of art history as well as popular culture, the news and whatever other source of images it can access. It is my understanding that DALL-E and similar apps are limited by programming with a standard of ethics, so that images not in the public domain would be inaccessible to them. So far so good.

   But now, I've heard of a new app called Lensa that has not had the proper upbringing, and it considers any image on the internet fair game and gives no credit to the originator of the material. 

   I have always wanted to share my work and information, because that's what art is about. Sharing is one of the ways we grow. But, geez. If my work is going to be scattered to the winds and diluted by all the other work that is available to the apps, then I'm not sure I want to join the party. I have to decide about it before I share more work.

   I have a feeling that A.I. art will change everything, whether individual artists want it to or not.

Dream

Last night I dreamed that a powerful, nefarious woman took control of a group of women, and through some sort of magic, merged them with cats. And then, she poured acid over one of each of their arms, melting away the flesh but leaving their bones intact. I can still hear their screams of surprise. Before I joined the group, a sad woman gave me a cup of her tears to drink. I think that saved me from their fate.

As always, studio time is welcome and at this point is also necessary, as I have agreed to participate in a gallery show in January. I have a new painting in progress that I hope to finish in time. When it starts to quicken, (it is close to that now) I will post it here.

 

In the Zone

We're sailing into the 9th week of school, and this is the first time I've posted. It has been a whirlwind, composed mostly of work and family time. Today, I played hooky from grading and was able to enter the Zone for the first time in a long time.

    It's a good thing, too, because I signed on for a gallery show in January, and I've got some work to do to be ready. I spent today on this one, working on the setting and figuring out how to puzzle those wings together so that they might possibly fit in that space. It has always helped me to see the problems when I post them here, and that strategy hasn't failed me yet.

 

Signs of Life

Believe it or not, I'm still alive. And working, if only in baby steps.

These are photos are from this year's volunteer pumpkin patch, grown from a shove of two Halloween pumpkins down the hill after the first frost. We'll see if they have time to become pumpkins. The flowers are huge. If they make it, they'll be ding dong daddies.

In other news, the experiment in varnish glazing was a failure. I'm sanding and applying thin layers of paint to try to overcome that particular moment of errant experimentation. Pro (or novice) tip: if you try putting clear layers between layers of paint, don't use a spray varnish. It doesn't work. The alternative would be to use a brush on version, which I am told is very difficult to apply evenly. It still sounds like a great idea, but I'm not sure I'm up to the fuss. So, I am abandoning it. Maybe it would work better in oil.

The good news is, I still sort of like the painting. Which, these days, is at least something.

 

Pencil Thief

 

Alas

During our yearly drawing session at the river, my excellent friend Molly told me about how Maxfield Parrish used to get those glowing effects in his paintings by layering transparent glazes between layers, so I thought I'd try it with this new image. It's not working so great, because the paint isn't absorbing into the surface well enough and is pooling up. I may have to sand that area down to make this canvas work.

 

Life Skills

I know it seems like I've been lazy, but I have actually been up to a few things besides recharging. The first picture is my first attempt at mortising for a hinge. Not so good.

The second one was much better. I did five in all, after combining a few YouTube videos into

a process I could manage with the tools that I had:

Once again, I feel like my carpentry skills are lacking, and I should do something about it. I think I am going to look for a teacher.

 

New Kitten

How she tucks me in:

 

Calling it

Well, I have another couple of images I want to work on, and knowing my recent record for not finishing things, I tore into this one yesterday, and I'm willing to call it done. The ellipses continued to haunt me right up until the last minute. If I start making noise about doing that again, I hope some kind soul will remind me what a pain they are.

 

Mistakes were made, but I learned something

I think I'm going to call it on this little print, because I'm realizing that the roofing tin I"m using will never allow a brighter value. It's easy to scratch into, and some mistakes can be smoothed out, but I don't think I'll ever get the value range I'm looking for. I've started another print on a steel plate leftover from my Solarplate days. In the meantime, I might try to add some color to this one with Prismacolor colored pencils. The buckets of blood will look much better in red, right?

 

All the elements

As far as I can tell, all of the elements are in, although I still don't know exactly what I'm going to do with the blue squares. It's all still pretty rough. I'm remembering the time my prof told me that my work looks terrible until it doesn't. Truth.

 

A little dark

A lot of people have been asking me how I am spending my summer. Apparently, trying to relax and recover from a tough year isn't the answer they are hoping for. They always look so disappointed when I say that.

    Journeying inward is what I'm really doing. That usually involves studio time.

    I'm working on the plant painting, and I like it so far. The changes I make from day to day would look pretty small on screen, so I'm saving it up until more happens. 

    In the meantime, I've been combing through my sketchbooks for images to develop into little dry point prints. This one comes from a dream, or nightmare, actually. Up until now, it didn't seem like a good image to take any farther, but today, since so many things in the world are awful, this one matched the feeling I get after reading the news.

    I'd like to march through my sketchbooks and make drypoint of all the images I've ignored for one reason or another over the years. I've already started this one. Because I'm usually so detail oriented, I'm trying to loosen up and let the image develop with fewer tools and more work with my eyeballs and hands.

    I promise the next one won't be so dark.

 

Organizing Space

There are still a few elements to go...

 

The long and short of it

 

Back in the saddle

 

The Way Back Machine

      Ive been going through sketchbooks and files to get myself kickstarted for the summer's art making. I've been away from it so long, it often feels like there is a parallel being in my studio who does things exactly as I like them done and has left me with all kinds of tools and images that will help me right now. I'm very grateful to her.

    This plate was one of my finds. It comes from my very first printmaking course with the awesome Scott Evans at Idaho State University, around 1991. At that time, it was printed as an embossment, on pure white paper and no ink. Time and poor storage added some interesting oxidation patterns to the surface, so I was curious to see if they would print if I inked it up, and they did! 

    Next, there are a couple of areas I'd like to smooth out with a file, and then, I think I'm going to play with those negative spaces with colors and maybe some sgrafitto. 

     What a nice way to get back into the swing of things.

 

Blooming

As I mentioned before, snake plants produce blooms like this when they are slightly stressed". These little flowers open at night and close in the daytime. Their scent is filling the air in my room right now. If only all tension could be relieved so sweetly.

 

Shower Flowers

Once I figured these out, they were fun to make. They took some time, but it was really satisfying to see them come together. I've been accumulating different papers for years, and my stash came in handy for this project. The green was leftover from my Mrs.Swift and Dreamer paper quilt projects from grad school, and the white is Japanese rice paper that I sometimes use for ink or printmaking. The only new paper is the rose colored one. It has the Hand of Fatima embossed in gold on the surface. Very pretty, and now I have a sheet of that left over for my collection :)

 

The Hold Up

Well, it's lovely to be done with school, even though I'll probably be puttering about there now and then all summer. It was a challenging year. The image I have of it is driving a car really fast, with my hair straight out behind me for nine months straight. It'll be really good to slow down.

    I'm looking forward to getting back to my own artwork. I walked by the plant painting yesterday, and I see some things to fix. And I see what should come next. I have a few other things I'm thinking about, too. Plus the traditional cleaning of the studio. And there is a mold making project at Ferris I've agreed to help with. But, I hope, all at a slow pace. Slow enough so my hair can be vertical again.

    First up, though, are these paper flowers for my niece's wedding shower. Twenty of them, coming up.

     

 

Ruh roh

   Well, this appeared a few days ago, and according to the plant books, it is a sign that the plant is experiencing mild stress. Admittedly, I let it get too dry, so that could be it. It is finals time, though. I wonder if plants are affected by my season? Stress or no, it's really pretty. What a lovely way to express it.

    I reckon I'll have to try to get this into the plant painting. Which, in a few days, I can get back to.

 

In the shop

After two years of teaching sculpture online, it's nice to have students back in the shop!

 

Beach Life

This little thing was my practice image for figuring out how underglazes work, so I could have a clue about it in order to help my students with their ceramic pieces. I just learned that real glazes look nothing like the color they will be in the end, and the beauty of underglazes is that they look like they will after they are fired. This photo was taken just before the second firing, which will set these colors. Before firing,  it could all be washed off clean. We will get another chance after this firing to adjust the color one more time, and also apply a clear glaze which will give it a shiny surface in the end, after the final firing. Ceramics is as close alchemy as any art form I've ever studied.

     This image comes from my time in San Diego, under a pier on one of the magnificent beaches. I'll try to tidy up the lines before the next firing. 

 

Look at these beauties

These little ceramic bas reliefs are responsible for the majority of the work of our sculpture class this semester. We are collaborating with Ferris' Card-Riley Wildlife Center to create touchable displays for the museum. It has been quite a journey and a huge learning experience for all of us. It's a good thing we had excellent help  and advice along the way. Below are a few of them up close, right before they were bisque fired. The students are currently working on the glazes. Stay tuned for the color versions.

 

Symmetry

When I sat down to work on this today (can you believe it? In the middle of the week!), it was the first time I was satisfied with what I was starting with. And then...when I started to work on the pots, I saw another error. I think I have it now. I know I've said that about three times in a row now. But this time, I think I'm close.

 

Tiny steps

Everything in this image now has more than one layer of paint. I think that is progress. Also, I cheated on the ellipses. One of my professors at Kendall told me once that I should follow the perspective rules, but in the end, sometimes you have to cheat to make it look good. I did that in this image. I'm not telling where. If you can see it, good for you.

   One of the reasons I post progress shots is that it helps me to see mistakes and what to do next. Thanks to this, my path is clear. I think it means that posting is part of my process. Who would have thought.
 

Looking for a title

I just entered this little drawing for an exhibition in Berlin. I would love to be accepted into it. If it does get in, I'm going to need a title. I wasn't thinking about this when I made the drawing, but now it reminds me of all the refugees in the world, on the move and looking for a safe landing. Maybe it could be just that; Safe Landing. 
 

Small fixes for the last time (I hope)

 I made a correction on the big square, and I’m sure I will continue to suffer over ellipses, but I’m going for it.

Perspective tweak

And... as soon as I posted the last version, I changed it again. I am a Prisoner of Linear Perspective.

I'm using 3 vanishing points in this one; two for the squares and one for the pots. There are two more pots to go, but they won't be upright and will be pretty small, so I'm saving them for later. The string is my makeshift straightedge. The VP's are too far away for any of my straightedges, so I have a good length of flexible cord that I tape to the VP I am using at the moment. Then I stretch it to the place it needs to go and use a white charcoal pencil to mark out the lines. We'll see how this looks to me in the morning.

 

Pretty close

 I think the squares and pots are pretty close to correct. I’m sure I will keep adjusting until the cows come home, but I’m going to jump in and start building layers now.

Practice

My students have been working on a ceramics bas relief from imagery they took from Ferris' natural history museum, the Card-Riley Center. The pieces will be displayed along with their original source animal/plant/fish, as touchable art. I've done some work with ceramic clay before, but it has been a longgg time. As a refresher, I made this little  piece loosely based on an image I took under a pier in San Diego. Or it could have been La Jolla. I'm surprised at the level of detail you can get with this type of clay.

    The student's work looks great, and the next step for us, after the bisque firing, is to paint on the glazes. I wish I had a little more time and patience to fuss with this one, but I reckon it will do as a place to experiment with the glazes.

 

Begin again

The squares are still a little wonky (this is what happens if you abandon the traditional grid and you are no M.C.Escher), and there are many elements and layers to go, but this is the image that got me back to the studio. I hope it works out. I have two others that are languishing, unfinished. I would just as soon not have a third.

 

After skiing dream

 

Ice

    Lately, everything here has been covered in ice. I took probably twenty images, and this is the only one that showed the rainbow sparkle that went on for days. I should probably start carrying a better camera with me.

 

Look what I found!

This is just like the plant in my dream! It is a snake plant, which is an air purifier and good luck bringer. Pictured here with my handsome boyfriend, Zoro.

 

Demo

 

New Growth.

Languishing is a word being used a lot to describe how people are reacting to the effects of the pandemic. I reckon, at least in the area of art, it fits me pretty well. There is sort of a numbness in my creative self that I'm not used to. The latest article I read about languishing said that at some point, doing something is better than nothing, just to kick it to start.

    So, last week, in absence of the motivation to make something new, I figured I may as well at least work on technical problems in the meantime. I also had an aha moment when I realized my excellent student worker could help me with some of the heavy lifting (literally). So, after a two year period in mothballs, we fired up the litho shop.

    Our goal is to get a successful print, even if it is just a simple crayon drawing. 

    And then, last night, I dreamed that two snake plants, one healthy and one in a broken pot growing out of only an inch or two of soil improbably packed at the top of the pot and the bottom completely empty, both very quickly grew long vines that arched over and joined to make a new plant in the space between them. I was very happy to watch it happen and see the new life begin.

I'm taking it as a good sign. 

 

Same Time Last Year

I found this in my sketchbook today. I remember drawing it because of all of the rumors leading up to January 6th. It got cut off in the photo, but underneath it says Listening for the Riot.
 

Learning

I think that one of the causes of my recent case of the art doldrums is that I've been using tried and true techniques, and frankly, I've been bored. This little piece is far from resolved, but just because of the new materials I'm using, and because I don't always know what to expect out of them and there is an element of discovery of process, I feeling a glimmer of hope that my current will pick up speed.

    When Covid hit, I switched the color portion of my classes over to colored pencils because they are clean and tidy to use and students have an easier time adapting to them. One result of that change is that I have enjoyed using them as well. 

     The colored pencils are changing how I work with color. As a painter, I use a very limited palette and usually mix the colors that I need. Mixing can be done with colored pencils as well, but often, there is already a pencil of the right color. I'm in the process of identifying the pencils that create the effects that I would normally mix.

     Another new element is the surface I am drawing on. On paper or illustration board, it can take a bit of hand strength to build up the necessary layers of color to achieve the desired tones and hues. This piece is drawn on drafting film, which is a slightly textured translucent plastic. The colors are much easier to apply, and they can be blended easily with rubbing alcohol. It is also easy to erase on this surface, so I am enjoying the freedom of making mistakes and correcting them until something good happens.

   The Tombows are great on this surface as well. Even though I would still love to have built in erasers on each pencil, the pack I bought came with a wonderful eraser tool that has a very thin drafting type eraser in a clickable pen form. Since I also like to work reductively, that little eraser is a big help as I discover this new process in the New Year.