I love love love this shot of a multi-tiered ruffled skirt that appeared on a mannaquin at ARTpool Gallery last month. The color of the skirt is a full blown red which did not interest me near as much as this image with the color removed. Often, black and white images are so much more intriguing than the original colored item. Sometimes the color of an object elicits such an initially strong emotional reaction that the beauty of the item is lost. Using a photo with these qualities makes a terrific study for drawing…just one ruffle would make a gorgeous rendering in your journal. Don’t overlook pictures with “nothing going for them” but texture because when these photos are turned to black and white in your photo editor they reveal their “true colors”. Have fun and don’t forget to practice your tonal drawings.
Ruffles
Posted: March 1, 2012 in photographyTags: ARTpool Gallery, new art work, photography, shop window
Day of the Dragonfly
Posted: February 28, 2012 in art journalTags: altered book, art journaling, journaling, mixed media, new art work, stamp, stitching
Last summer we had epic rain which resulted in the spawn of mosquito larvae on our flat roof which was holding puddles of water. About this time, dragonflies reached all time highs in populations and record breaking sizes and colors. I even saw a rare for this area bright red dragonfly; most of them here are an iridescent greenish-blue or brown. It was not unusual to see dragonflies last summer the size of birds, and in packs of 50+ swarming the backyard. If I had an ounce less of dragonfly love it would have been positively creepy and The Mist-y. I commemorated one dragonfly filled day with this journal page. I have a ginormous dragonfly stamp and did a lot of coloring with marker over top of already pretty scrapbooking paper. Patterns and lines were made using a white gel pen and I found a cute tree frog in a magazine to paste onto a wing looking like he was getting a free ride. Whee! I sewed around the edge of the page when it was finished with a blanket stitch. I love this page because it reminds me of a real day in the backyard enjoying nature and because of all the summer colors in it.
Fierce with reality
Posted: February 25, 2012 in art journalTags: art journaling, journaling, new art work, pen/ink drawing, terry lee getz
Sometimes a journal page is nearly an excuse to document a quote. Or it can seem that way, unless you do something, anything, to showcase the quote in a new setting. For some reason that I do not begin to remember, I decided to make this quote into a turban like headdress and do a partial portrait of a wise woman beneath it. The quote is by Florida Scott-Maxwell, who I am not familiar with nor had I heard this quote before but I loved it immediately and wanted to save it to refer back to. I ended up loving this page even tho it is a bit sparse. There is so much to think about in the quote I did not really want to distract from that thought by putting in a bunch of color or textures or patterns. This is pastel chalk directly onto a naked white journal page, no special paper, no gesso. Just a sharpie, white page and a tad of planning–not much, though. I wanted the page to remain fresh when I view it. As a side note, I also see in this page which was done months ago, an interest in more white space which is on my mind these days when I make art. Not that you’d really notice a change yet…still in the percolating stage.
Crow on a wire at twilight
Posted: February 24, 2012 in art journalTags: art journaling, new art work, painted canvas, painting
Although this piece is on canvas board I consider it an art journal piece. The canvas had an image on it that did not work out and I began to play around from scratch over top of it. The crow kind of materialized out of the darker paint I was using to cover the previous work. I believe there is metallic paint in several colors on the crow and the rest of the color is regular acrylic. A white pen was used to journal a shrine-like shape around the bird. I love crows although I find them hard to render unless I am stamping them in black ink in a really graphic way. All that dark can make definition hard to achieve to separate areas of the body and face. I “solved” the problem somewhat in this piece by doing some sweeping lines with the white pen, which gave the bird some personality and unified the body of the bird with the rest of the piece. Certainly not my favorite piece, nor best created, but I did resolve the problem of a canvas that was not working at all and turned this into a decent journal page. I will copy it and paste it into my altered map journal one of these days.
“To listen is to lean in, softly…
Posted: February 23, 2012 in art journalTags: altered book, art journaling, found images, journaling, mapmaking, maps, mixed media
with a willingness to be changed by what we hear”-Mark Nepo. This is a page from my altered map book journal. The page started with a black and white copy of a map I made of my hand, then collage elements and a rough border were laid in on top of the illustration. Watercolor provides a unifying burnt yellow and the quote, shrine and bird pictures are all from magazines or junk mail. This is the first page in this book and I covered it for protection with an old piece of brown wax paper which was pulled back for the photo. I like using evocative quotes culled from reading material and already printed, ready to glue into the page. I also rubber stamp and hand write quotes that seem appropriate for the day that aren’t pre-printed. I believe this is the second page I’ve shared from this altered map journal, I continue to work into it frequently but it takes time to move through it because everything has to dry properly before moving on.
Mail art treasures
Posted: February 22, 2012 in personal essayTags: mail art, mementos, terry lee getz
I have a dear friend I have never met who specializes in spreading mail art treasures around the world. Being a lucky recipient of everything from mini zines on bees and elephants, full sized zines, including one featuring the Hand as a symbol, slips of poetry from some of the worlds best contemporary poets, printed on vellum and illustrated with rubber stamps, computer art and many 3-D stitched items, kiragama, origama and found objects. Even the envelopes are beautiful, adding an anticipation to the opening of the mail. Lunar Daughter has been sending me mail since 2000 and I have been saving it because it is too precious to dispose of. Period. In this day of hasty emails and faxes, who has a message worth saving like these are? I’m going thru all kinds of stuff in this house and I’ve run across this collection. At first I thought I might put the art into my own journals, with the poems and the stitching and the 3-D jewel encrusted branches and thereby mingle the contents with my own art and collection of ephemera. But handling the treasures, I realized I no more want to dissect these than to get a stick in the eye. The care in creation, concern for me expressed, concern for the environment discussed, the sheer loveliness of the objects Lunar Daughter has wrought require not disassembly for expediency’s sake but a place of honor. So I am devising a means to store these, better organize them and a mission to take them off the shelf periodically to review their individual and collective loveliness. Sometimes we need to slow down and examine what has heart and meaning for us, even if it means another small, decorated box on the shelf to hold that which has been created with joy, time and talent.
Lotus flower mandala
Posted: February 20, 2012 in expressive paintingTags: mixed media, new art work, painted canvas, painting
Another expressive painting, this time in the form of a mandala with a lotus flower as the central image. Charcoal was used to define outlines and make marks and pointilism was used to add some interest. I dipped the end of my paint brush into white paint to make the dots. I like this strong image and the colors that emerged as the work was layered. All these expressive paintings look good with a simple black frame, which I am working on finding at the thrifts. My absence in the past week from my blog was due to a nasty cold and fever I had which has thankfully gotten better in the last couple of days.
red boa pink umbrella
Posted: February 13, 2012 in photographyTags: ARTpool Gallery, mannaquins, photography, shop window, terry lee getz
To get you into the mood for Valentine’s Day tomorrow we have a very red shop window photo from the window display by the talented Marina Williams of ARTpool Gallery. Bob and I had a quiet weekend because he is sick with the Creeping Crud and now I have it, so I guess it’ll be a quiet week as well. He mustered enough strength to attend the MUSE party at ARTpool on Saturday night and that was amazing. About 20 models had their bodies fully painted in all types of characters, including the good angel, the fallen angel and a parrot, a couple of skeletons and an awesome Maori inspired (to my eye) warrior. Quite a few of the models remained in character and it was great fun. We even got to see a burlesque act! ARTpool rules.
Shadowlet swirlies
Posted: February 10, 2012 in photographyTags: found, found images, photography, shadows, stencils, terry lee getz
Perhaps these should be called Shadow Lites rather than shadowlets. Caused by sun randomly striking my kitchen countertop in the afternoon while some mehndi stencils were out for use. After the first one I set some up, some stencils worked better than others. I like how there is actually a shadow of the shadow working in this one in some spots. I’ve spoken about shadow play before and I urge you again to watch for opportunities to capture random patterns that occur anytime the sun is in the correct position and angle. Just the other day I captured Count Dracula on the paper supply in my printer. The sun came through and shadowed the paper holder in such a way as it looked like a vampire with a cape. I’ll show you that one if it came out, at a later date.
the future’s so bright…
Posted: February 8, 2012 in photographyTags: ARTpool Gallery, mannaquins, new art work, photography, shop window, terry lee getz
This mannaquin is set up in front of ARTpool Gallery in honor of approaching St. Valentine’s Day and the MUSE show on Saturday. I call this manny “little girl lost” because she is quite waifish and vulnerable looking. I love the mix of the black and white polka dot hoodie and the pink sunglasses. Normally I turn my manny photos to black and white but sometimes the colors drive the image. I placed four mustachio’d lady portraits in the MUSE show that will run for the next three weeks, plus my wall space and cubby hole are chuck full of cool work, some of which sold last week.
Crickyn 