Lisa and Her Inner Child

Well, before I get carried away with the current woodcarving project, there was one more thing that had to be done before February 1.  That was a portrait.  There were hundreds if not millions of ways I could have gone with this assignment, and any of them probably would have been easier than the one I chose.  The paints, brushes, easel and a spanking clean canvas were sitting right there next to my drawing table and they shouted louder than anyone else.  My guess is that they were feeling neglected and wanting attention.  It worked.  Before I knew what had hit me I was smearing paint around on a small 20" x 16" surface.  Some bubble wrap was handy so it was smeared and pressed onto the other smeared pigments. A small piece of netting - the kind produce sometimes comes in - found its way to the canvas and paint was brushed and smushed over it leaving a delicious texture.  I just painted, smushed, smeared, crushed, smashed, slapped and slumped almost everything I could find onto that surface.  Basically, I produced a monotype without the transfer from matrix to intended surface.  Again, those printmaking skills were saving my derriere.

Then it just had to dry for a day which I spent cutting word stencils from heavy paper.  I had asked Lisa for some words she would use to describe herself and some she thought her friends and family might use to label her, too.  She sent a list to choose from.  I started with curious, then caring and creative, honest, and lastly: kind.  The idea was to use different fonts and sizes for each, but I didn't have a huge surface, so fortunately there was a limit built in.

When the first layers were dry enough I stenciled the words in a more or less random manner.  The idea I had in the back of my mind was to create this richly textured surface with the words woven in and a simple line drawing of Lisa over the top of everything.  So far, the work was going according to plan.

And, then it came time to add that line drawing idea.  It looked like it didn't even belong in the same room, let alone on the same surface.  I had made the background too dominant.  Rats.  Two choices: glace and tone down the background or just fill in the line with a grisaille rendering.  I settled for the grisaille because, here again, a deadline was nipping at my backside.  (Grisaille is a monochrome under painting used mainly to establish darks and lights and shadows for modeling.  When this method is used the artist generally goes on to then put in all the flesh tones, eye color, etc.  But, I stopped with grisaille.) 

This exhibition was originally to be a portrait exchange.  Each of us would choose another artist, from our group, or not, and we would each produce a portrait of the other person.  About half of us did the exchange thing,  some did self portraits.  There are some wonderful portraits in this show!  Anyway, it was a delight to meet Lisa, look at her work, and I had much fun attempting her portrait.  In Lisa's work she uses a lot of animals and especially a rabbit, very much like this blue one, that she had labeled her "inner child".  Every portrait should include one's inner child, don't you think?

Lisa and Her Inner Child

The opening of the exhibition was Feb. 1 - this had to be done, dry and delivered the middle of the week prior.  Another deadline met!  The exhibition is at Northbank Gallery, 1005 Main St., Vancouver, WA and will be up through Feb. 23.  The year was off to a very good start.  Except.

Except that last Oct. First it seemed very reasonable to sign up for a print exchange requiring 31 prints on Feb. 1.  I must have been in some alternate universe for this to seem like a good idea, but it did and I did and now the prints were due and all I had was a drawing on a block of wood.  Oh dear.  The woodblock print from hell will be the next installment.

The Last of the Sketchbook

When we left off I was still amidst the Sketchbook - stuck on that high spot in the road, not knowing whether I should just send it off and get to the next project or put a few more (numerous) hours into the works.  If it could have been sent off anonymously I might have done it.  But, it has my name on it.  So,  I couldn't.  More work went into it right up until the moment it had to be winging its way to the East coast.  The cover took on a number of changes:

As did all of the pages.  Additions of a variety of decorative papers, some gouache, some acrylic, some of this and some of that.  Here are a few more examples:

Those of us with printmaking skills are the luckiest people in the world.  How would I ever had made it through the sketchbook project without monotype and etching?  It was so great to be able to put both to use.  A little woodblock would have made it into this, too, had there been time and had someone  handled what time she did have a bit better. 

The next project on the docket is Exchange 55 for the Barenforum.  Starting a new project is always a shot in the arm, and this was no exception - it started off swimmingly, or maybe cravingly.  I happily carved for days, but more about that in the next installment.

Sketchbook Project

Talk about being behind the eight ball, I am not only behind, I've been flattened.  Suddenly a bunch of February deadlines are taunting and cajoling and acting like great big bullies.  But the first of the Big Bullies is the Brooklyn Art Library Sketchbook Project.  When I signed up for this last Fall and it said due next January for some unexplainable reason that meant January 2014 to me.  Imagine my shock when it suddenly dawned about Dec. 18 that these people meant January 2013.

As soon as we returned home from Holiday travel to visit daughter and family I leapt into action in the studio barely taking time to turn up the heat and turn on the lights.  I ripped the sketchbook apart (it was stapled in two places, so not a difficult job) and proceeded to ink an 18" x 24" plexi plate, add some textures and throw down pages 4 at a whack and run them through the press - turn them over and run them back through, add more ink, 4 more pages, etc. until I had all the pages hanging on a drying line.  I used AKUA monotype inks and fortunately they were dry in two or three days. As soon as they were dry they progressed to the sewing machine and were put back together almost as they had arrived. (Next time I will number them  - it would be much easier!) Next came images with technical pens, gouache, color pencils, basically anything able to make a mark was employed.

Somewhere. at some time, in my Goodwill, and the like, visits I had picked up a rather well beaten copy of Great Expectations.  Pages and parts of pages were missing, so it was ripe for becoming art material.  The category of my Sketchbook Project is "mystery".  These categories are only meant to be jumping off points and are widely interpreted.  The books will eventually all be digitized and when that happens I will blog a link, but in the meantime, here are some pages to lure you in...

                                     

First we have the cover.  Not terribly eye catching, but the title is there: Expectations, Great  and an
implied "maybe".    
                                     
A little more interest and a hint of what's to come - could it be a rabbit in a hat?  Wouldn't you think a so-called creative person could come with something original? sigh  It turned out that the creative part came from finding somewhat appropriate text to aid my visual story...

A couple of sample pages

and a couple more...

• Stay tuned to the link for the whole book - or better yet! Watch for the exhibition to come to your locality where you can check it out - literally.  The exhibitions are interactive and treated as a library.  You  can "check out" 3 to 5 books and sit at a table and take your time looking through them.  The last time they came to Portland they were in the Ace Hotel across the street from Powell's Bookstore. 
• 
  
• So, I am fairly reeling at the fact that I have actually finished this early and it will arrive on time.  But, I can't reel too long because next up is a portrait for a show opening Feb. 1.  Today a small canvas and some oil paints actually came out and were smeared around a bit.  Onward and Upward!