Playing with Acrylics and Stencils and Gelli Plates and Rice Paper and... and... and...!

One of the joys of being a teacher is that I get to learn so much from my students...

For the last couple of years I've been working with a group of five women who asked me to teach them how to do Zentangles.  We worked with Zentangles extensively for about a year then I began to feel I might have reached the limit of what I could teach them about Zentangles and started trying to bring in some other concepts and exercises.  They got right on board and began bringing me things they wanted to learn.  In this way, we have ranged all over the place from book making to drawing to paint pouring, etc.  We have traveled to the beach for a week and Wintergreen for the weekend, becoming dear friends along the way. I feel utterly blessed to have them in my life. We are a goofy group of very unique women who somehow manage to get along - probably because we accept each others' eccentricities with an indulgent smile, knowing they will accept ours too without judgment.  It's quite extraordinary!

But I digress...

A few months ago at Wintergreen, Barbara told us about an artist named Elizabeth St. Hilaire whose work Barbara is bananas about. We talked about having Elizabeth come up here to teach a workshop and I contacted her to see how difficult that would be to arrange. Elizabeth was lovely, but the cost was going to be a bit high and the logistics more than I wanted to take on. Barbara showed us a video she'd bought and a book Elizabeth wrote. After watching the video and reading the book, I decided that perhaps I could offer the group enough instruction that they might get what they're looking for without the effort of bringing Elizabeth here.  Fast forward to warm weather...

We set up 8 tables in my wavy back yard - one per person plus two for supplies: fluid acrylics, stencils, sponges, mark makers, rice paper, tiles - anything and everything you could imagine to get marks onto paper.  The idea is to create interesting textures and colors on paper. Then we will tear up that paper and collage it onto a board to create an image - our goal is to create a beautiful apple!  I am hoping we will create other images as well since we have thus far spent about 6 weeks on this project, but we'll see how that goes!

For four weeks, and counting, we set up in the backyard and painted and splashed and splattered and made very interesting paper.  Last week we stayed in the studio creating our own stencils and printing plates out of foam core and other interesting objects to use to create more textures on the paper. We even made our own Gelli Plates out of gelatin and glycerin - I sure hope they work!  This week we will finish that up then go back outside to create more paper the next two weeks.

Then, finally, after 8 weeks of prep!, we will return to the studio where we will create a collaged apple out of torn paper.  I sure hope we have the right color papers!

After our last class, I found myself making some more stencils in my studio after class, then I wanted to play with them, so I got out a canvas and began creating a painting using the stencils and fluid acrylics.  I'd been wanting to paint the image for a while and woke up knowing this was the right way to do it.  I wasn't collaging the paper onto the canvas. Instead, I used the paint through the stencils directly on the canvas.  Here's the result:

It is so utterly different from anything I've ever done before! I really like how it turned out.  I'd gotten up at 6 AM to have time in the studio before I had to start my day and ended up feeling totally energized by 9 when I had to start the rest of my day.

The next day I finished the first piece all the way then began on a second.  It was going to be another representational piece, but I ended up having so much fun with the patterns and stencils, I left it as is. 

The hosed-down version.

I then began a third piece which isn't finished yet.  It's based on a photograph I took in Iceland of a rusty old door (piece of a boat??) beside the lake in Laugarvatn.  I piled on the paint, then realized it was way too heavy so I took it outside and hosed it down before it dried all the way. 

The Rusty Wheel
Acrylic on canvas
24"x 18"

 For the more final version, I left most of the stenciled part washed away, but glazed it with bright color.  I couldn't manage to get the wheel the color I wanted so I collaged paper on it - after all, I'd made reams of paper for just that purpose!  It was fun figuring out how to apply it and make that work.  For the left hand side, I created a few templates with irregular circles on it and used those to create the stones.  This piece is almost, but not quite finished.  Looking at it again today after a week of not seeing it helps me see some places I'd like to work on.

When I left for the workshop Friday, I was so excited about what I was doing with these canvases, I couldn't quite imagine focusing on pastels again. Now that I'm all excited about pastels, it's hard to know what to do with all the acrylics and canvases I just bought!

Am I fickle or what??!  So much fun to be had in the world!  I am one lucky woman!

#21-28 of 100 Creations in 100 Days: Visual Journal Explorations

#21

#23 from a fabric design by Knoll 

#21-24 are images I drew/copied from artwork I found on Pinterest.  I am drawn to patterns and lines and Zentangles and these were variations on those.  Eventually I'll incorporate more lines and patterns into my paintings - when I figure out how to do it!  But for now at least I can have the pleasure of doing them separately!

#22

#24

I had suggested to one of my students that she try copying some drawings by the Masters as a way to improve her observational and drawing skills.  I liked the suggestion so much that I decided to take it on myself!  Vincent Van Gogh used a quill pen or some other kind of ink pen when doing his drawing, but I didn't have that available so I used a couple of markers with wide and narrow points instead.  He is a true master!  I learned a lot from doing this - about his marks, his choices, his different kinds of strokes.  The trick now will be to include them in my own drawings!

#25 Apres Vincent

#26 Looking at Her

On our way to Wintergreen Ski Resort, we stopped at Tuckahoe Antiques in Nelly's Ford. I bought some antique postcards there then had the fun of playing with them in my visual journal over the course of the weekend.  #26 combines one of the postcards with a woven image I made of my husband.  It looks like he is oogling the girl, so I named the piece "Looking at Her".  I like the juxtaposition, but it does Chris an injustice as he would never, ever look at a woman like that - unless it was me!  He's the kindest, most appropriate man ever.  But the images worked together, so I'm sticking with them for now!

#27

I took my students to the museum last week and asked them to look for patterns throughout the galleries.  I have posted about that before.  At Wintergreen, I took the time to add watercolor to the images I'd drawn just because it felt good to explore what they would look like.  I enjoy having this set of images to use for documentation and for reference to include in my work.

#28

When I created the CitraSolv/watercolor tree, I first cut out a tree to use as a template. This is that tree juxtaposed against some watercolor paper I'd used long ago for templates of leaves which I used as stencils.  It was fun exploring how they'd work together.  I chose this weekend to not adhere tightly to what I would normally think was "right" or "OK" and instead pushed my boundaries and explored how things looked.  I enjoyed trying new things and doing things I wouldn't normally - like putting the pink flowered pattern together with the tree and the leaf stencils - I had to release my usual judgments about what would work together to let myself do this.  Ends up I like what happened!  Who knew that exploration and boldness could lead to cool results??!

#19 of 100 Creations in 100 Days: Dettifoss Waterfall

When Chris and I were in Iceland in October, we decided to drive to Dettifoss Waterfall because it reportedly has the greatest volume of any waterfall in Europe, 500 cubic metres of water per second plunges over the edge. Sure enough, it was deafening and impressive!

The drive to Dettifoss on icy roads

The drive to the site was long and arduous as the roads were icy, and it was beginning to get towards sundown. I wasn't sure we'd make it with enough daylight to see the place!  Chris was concerned we would have to walk some distance to get to where we could see the falls - I didn't think that was the case because most tourist sites make it easy for tourists to get to the good places!  I was wrong!  

Me, happy in my crampons!

When we got there, the parking lot was emptying out.  We headed to the trail.  Immediately I began slipping and sliding even though I had my great hiking boots on.  I asked people coming off the trail what it was like and how far it was to the waterfall - treacherous the whole way and over 1/4 mile.  Oops!  Thank goodness I had my crampons in the car and Chris was generous enough to go get them for me because I was slipping every step of the way - I don't know what kept him upright - great balance, perhaps?  He had no crampons at that point.  

My glorious crampons!  Like bears'
teeth. A wonderful invention!

Once I had my fabulous crampons on, I could walk over the ice beautifully!  They have teeth like a bear trap so they dug into the ice with every step and kept me from falling really well.  Note:  if you decide to go to Iceland in the winter, get/take crampons!  

The "trail" to Dettifoss

The walk was still arduous.  The trail wasn't clear and obvious - rather, we could tell where people had gone before because the snow was better packed down and in some places there were ropes showing us where not to go.  The terrain was rocky, full of ancient rhyolite volcanic boulders and debris.

Once we got to the waterfall, I was disappointingly underwhelmed.  It was, to be sure, massive - and LOUD!  So much water!  Therefore impressive.  But not beautiful.  There wasn't much light and the water appeared very muddy, not the fabulous white of other falls I'd seen.  Perhaps it was so turgid, it was grey and brown instead of white - I don't know.  Or perhaps I was tired and couldn't see the beauty. A friend of mine posted a beautiful picture of it from a different observation point from the summer and it looked gorgeous, so clearly it has a lot to offer which I didn't see this time around!

Dettifoss Waterfall (for scale, note the size of the posts and ropes of the trail markers)

And here's the artwork I created in response to our trip to Dettifoss.  The CitruSolve papers provided the perfect texture for me to express the flow of the water and the challenge of walking on the ice and the challenging rhyolite rocks.  The image of the falls themselves is from a postcard I bought in the area.  It gives a better sense of the actual color of the water than my picture since there wasn't much light left when we were there!

#19 Response to Dettifoss

#15 - 20 of 100 Creations in 100 Days : Fun with CitraSolv!

After a week of no entries, I'm back!

The living room converted into our work/play
space!

I spent the last four days at Wintergreen with four friends creating! What a wonderful fun time!  We stayed in two condos there, one of which we converted from a lovely living room into a temporary studio and filled it with more art supplies than Michaels and AC Moore sell combined!
And boy, did we play hard!  I haven't seen the others' work because I was so busy making my own, but we will share Thursday when we gather again.  I played with CitruSolv, an organic cleanser which artists have discovered will take the ink off of the pages of National Geographic and will turn into beautiful textures!  Leave it to artists to discover the craziest things!

#16 20 Shades of Blue

#17 Abstract Strips

The prompt for the piece on the left was 20 shades of blue.  I used my color pencils, watercolors, and Tombow markers for many of those, but when I needed more, I rifled through my CitruSolv papers to find more.  Unfortunately some of them have a bit too much glare on them to be able to see well, but some you can see.  The piece on the right was me playing with strips from CitruSolv papers to make an abstract design.

#18 The Wisdom of our Elders

This tree is one of my favorite Citrusolv pieces.  One of the women in the group shared with me a children's book about planting trees in Israel which had lovely illustrations.  I decided to make my own version of one of them using watercolor for the background and Citrusolve papers for the tree.  I'm crazy about the textures that come from this process!

#19 Response to Dettifoss Waterfall

#20

#19 is a combination of a postcard image of Dettifoss Waterfall in northern Iceland and strips of CitruSolv papers.  I write the story about it in my next blog post.

#20 contains an unlikely combination of elements - a page from National Geographic which wasn't completely destroyed by CitraSolv's magic along with a photocopy of one of Monet's late paintings.  I was drawn to the marks Monet made and their abstract quality juxtaposed against the texture of the CitraSolv and the ropes and other linear features remaining from the picture in National Geographic.

I can see that CitraSolv holds much potential for art for me.  I look forward to playing with it more in and out of my Visual Journal and am thankful for the chance to explore its possibilities this weekend!