February 2017 - Reorganizing my art studio

A great idea to transform a small space into a more efficient art room. When I started making art, I need tables and we simply placed these A-frames under old doors. Nothing wrong with that except that with time, there was no possibility to store anyhting and all my material was on the table surfaces, leaving no space for actually working on them!

After browsing on Pinterest (Yes!) I came up with the idea to replace as many of these frames as possible with shelvings! With plates of 1/2" plywood, my husband made  6 shelving units! that became support for the tables and enabled me to store boxes, mat cutters, pads, unfinished canvas, etc...

My small studio had become an airy and efficent art making space!

Also, a large drawer enabled me to store large pieces of paper and pads.

In the same vein than Shelter Bay, I am working on a tryptic; although autumn colours are at their best right now, skies and seas are my inspiration. I find the water and the skies, when they melt together at the horizon, almost intoxicating. Shelter Bay was after the real shelter bay where cargo from the whole world linger before they cross the Panama canal.

Shelter Bay is a 16" x 12" acrylic and mixed-media.

Always interesting to see the beginning of a piece...this tryptic will evolve!

Summer has come and gone...I spent a lot of time sailing and cruising lake Ontario and brought my watercolours paints, crayons and pencils along to reacquaint myself with the techniques.

Here, at the home studio, I experimented with linking drawings and some of my first acrylics with colours that I particularly liked! The small portraits are inspired by the beauty of Caribbean women, les belles antillaises...

It was fun to collage some papers and ribbons, retouch the watercoloured portrait with acrylics and do some printing to embellish the design.

The weather has been terrible and the spring is very very timid...perfect timing to complete art work!
"Traces" is now finished: 2 panels with collage, acrylic paint and varnished. Enhancement for our entrance...gives a wonderful warmth!

New Pages are being added

Yes, new pages will be added to this blog...with art related photographs that I shot during our travels, Reflexions about art and psychotherapy, and others..It just takes time!

12th Annual Juried Art Salon

Today I finally submitted 3 pieces of art work to the Art Salon.

The Kingston Arts Council’s annual Juried Art Salon enables member artists from the region to enter up to three pieces in any medium and have their work judged by three professional artists. The winners and finalists are exhibited at the Wilson Room of the Kingston Public Library during the month of May.

I decided to submit the following art work:

 These pieces (Mixed-media 8 x 8 on canvas.), Curious and below, Timid are the first 2 of a series that I would like to continue working on in the future.  As you can see in the January posting, I was already working on these 2 canvases and I changed their colour hues dramatically.

I like them better now because the dark and light tones are more balanced.

The last art work submitted was difficult to capture in a good photograph.  A 48" x 12", this piece is also mixed-media with several photo transfers and collage of rope, japanese papers, silk papers and several layers of acrylic medium. 

These 3 pieces are "in progress"

2013....a new year...and so many projects!

Some of my Art related "resolutions" are to paint in lighter shades (!) and to re-invent many of my unfinished paintings. I learned a lot since last year...encouraging! Most of all, I have great pleasure to paint and create for the sake of it!

Art

Collage

Sailing and painting can be compatible!

We left for a week on our sailboat and I enjoyed painting on our cabin table while it rained alllllll day!

The rainbow and the evening skies were inspiring enough...

Setting up my new computer

Finally, I made the move and bought a new computer which is 100% dedicated to art stuff: tutorials, paintings that inspire me, other artists's works, techniques, and of course it will have my music library. Very exciting...I am just setting it up and tomorrow, I will set in up in the studio!

J'ai finalement fait l'acquisition d'un nouvel ordinateur qui sera dédié à 100% à l'art visuel: vidéos sur les techniques, oeuvres d'art d'autres artistes que j'admire, textes qui m'inspirent..et une librairie de pièces musicales bien que j'aime souvent travailler dans le silence...

I met Donna Brown at the workshop of Karen Rosasco last summer. Donna has been painting for several years now and has her studio in Kingston. She will be showing her work at the Wellington Street Art Gallery in Toronto from May 16 to June 2. Bravo Donna!
(This is one of her art work entitled Protection; to see all the art work exhibited, go to the website of the Gallery as listed below.)
http://www.wellingtonstreetartgallery.ca/exhibitions.html

Toronto IS grunge...Here are 2 "real" examples of grunge, encountered on the streets of Toronto...on posts and doors. I cannot say that I find that "pleasing" but it is an amazing experience to be able to recreate this type of "mood" with texture and colours.

When I came back in the studio, I was full of those images and started working on the rehabilitation of one of my failed designs. "Grunge city" emerged...

 Other collages done in the context of Act Natural workshop by Julie Prichard.

We went for a walk today and enjoyed the spring colours! I olve the yellow green of the willows, the translucent blue skies of April..if it could get warmer!!! As long as the weather is rainy and cold, I paint spring!

Another collage with a large stencil used to shape the background and scrapbooking paper and coloured silk paper. It is spring and I feel the need to see buds flowering! The weather here is awful but at least, I have control over what "grows" on my paper!

Alchemy of photo transfer!!!

I am still working on collages and photo transfer. The acrylic washes worked out great, using Payne's grey, transparent red oxyde, Van Dyke brown and Titan buff. These photo transfers are trickier to do because the instructor is asking us NOT to let the tranfer dry before removing the paper.  In the past, I managed to use Inkjet printed material and glossy liquid gel with fair success. For this type of transfer, however, it is not working as well...but one has to keep experimenting!

Another collage including a failed photo transfer! I decided that no piece of art should be thrown away: it can be transformed and recycled!!!

Working on several pieces

The day is not long enough!!! I am taking part in this Grundge Art workshop and must do the exercises...such as this second Grundgy collage! It is very relaxing and fun to do!!

Andddddddddd I am working on 2 other pieces ..are they finished? not sure yet!

Grundge Art Workshop

I registered in an online art workshop by Julie Pritchard "Act Natural"...how to make grundge art. I began with Lesson #1, of course and this was much fun! It consisted in doing a collage in neutral colours which could serve as a background for future paintings.

Here are the pieces of papers (receipts, book pages, envelopes) that I used. I did not have a great choice of vintage papers but I decided to go ahead anyway!! It's just an exercise...now, I know what kind of materials to collect!!!

The second step is to peel, very lightly, pieces of the papers.

Sanding the collage and applying some neutral colour helped to unify the look! It was early in the morning, I was just having my first coffee sooooooooooooo I gave a little to my collage!!!





I dipped a rag in Raw Umber and made scratches and added drops of acrylic ink...sprayed water, to get to the final result down below.

This exercise is to train one to make interesting and grundge looking backgrounds for future paintings!!!

This is the last version with acrylic glazing liquid to unify colours.

It is kind of addictive...I will do many more! A fun way to experiment with materials and to relax...