shared visions art

Yay! I’m coming out of a long and deep dry spell. This is actually the 3rd phase of a piece. I’m mad at myself for not recording the first two – the drawing and an underpainting of fluid acrylics. This is a painting that has been in my head for YEARS. It is one of a series that I call my Om Visions. They are visions that have come while listening to an album of music called, “There’s No Place Like Om”. Music that helps me sleep on difficult nights. It’s actually the 2nd vision. The first one has not yet been begun, though I did a watercolor study of it during on of my 30 day challenges. The third is also languishing in my psyche. The fourth is my Blue Angel (“These Wings are Heavy”).  This will be called “Trinity”. There are more very specific elements to come….

I started on the mixed media part of this piece that many of you are familiar with. Sadly, after working on her this evening and not being happy with the results, I forgot to take a picture of my unhappy result. This is a phase after I took some glazes to various parts of the piece. My studio is not well lit at night so I hope I am as happy with the results in the daylight. You may have to enlarge to see that there are real feathers as well as paper feathers decorating her wings. She is by no means done.

I am so proud to have won and Honorable Mention in the current Jacksonville Watercolor Society show. It’s my first time entering one of their shows! The work of these talented artists is truly impressive. It is a huge honor to have won in such an august field and has me on an emotional high like never before. Thank you “Poppies”, Italy and Robert Leedy for making it happen. “Poppies” was created from the many reference photos I took while studying with Robert last year.

“Poppies”

The desire for Paper Making that is! Why it always seems to be that I get a huge hankering to make paper at this time of year, I don’t know. Something about birthing ? Is Couching birthing? Blending does bring forth a new being. And it is a joy to behold any of it, and all of it.                                                                                                  Like my Sumi-e, however, I think I need to go back an learn it properly. I have been so enthralled with that I haven’t slowed down enough to perfect it. I definitely want to learn how to do thinner more delicate and orderly pieces.

These final two pieces from my play date, had me moving in a landscape direction. They aren’t complete, but I’m not in the least bit certain what I will do to them next. I will leave them hanging in my studio some where, so that I can ponder that, and wait for inspiration to strike. Oh and the other good thing about “play dates”? Lots of material for blogging!

After spending hours playing and creating collage worthy papers during our play date last week, I decide it was time to attempt to create at least the beginnings of an art piece. For my first attempts, I simply tried to create a focal point within some of the papers I had already created, using some of the same techniques I used for the “base piece”. Here are, I think, some beautiful results – and one failure.

These are by far my favorite pieces from our Gelli Plate “play date”. I’ve loved printing on black paper since my early monoprinting days. What is it about the palette of the the brown, white and black ones? I think I respond to them in a primal way. Perhaps they evoke primal memories of cave paintings? I will be adding a little something, if only because I have to in order to enter them in a mixed media show.

I’m really excited about these two pieces. For some reason I see myself adding textiles of some kind to these. I love fiber art, but don’t know how to produce it myself. My idea with these is to do some mash up mixed media piece with fabric and threads and yarn and ribbon. Stay tuned for the results!

My third “Play Date” recently was put on by SoMMA (Society of Mixed Media Artists) here in the Jacksonville, FL area. This was facilitated by two wonderful artists, Wendy Sullivan and Christy Hawkins ( a post will follow with some pictures of their work). These women never stop learning and lucky for us they were willing to share some of what they have learned over the years about Gelli Plate printing. This “Play Date” was both energizing and exhausting. It was also very productive in terms of base materials for future work. Some of the papers I created may be torn up and used in collage/mixed media pieces for years to come. Some will hopefully be turned into works in their own right. ALL that I LEARNED and PRACTICED and WORKED on will be used in future work. Here are several pieces from the days work/play. I’ll be posting more about these shortly.