Friday Fun at John's

My friend John invited me for lunch and art time at his home last Friday.  It was a spectacularly fun day.  John suggested that we play the "prompt game" that he has used before with other art journal friends.  John would give us each a prompt to do in our journal and set a time limit for working.  Then I would come up with something and a time limit.  Back and forth we went.  By the end I was using a list of prompts that John has compiled as I ran out of ideas.  It was great fun and very freeing to work that way and with a time limit.  I felt free to try things I would not ordinarily do.  John, as always, did a wonderful spread, which he didn't think he'd finished when we finally decided to stop.

It was surprisingly tiring, this having all this fun!  By 4 PM I was done in (and I'm sure John was more than ready to get rid of me!).  I like what I've done in my journal.  I think it's finished....but maybe not.

Partial List of Prompts:

1. add gesso and use a roller with a design carved into it to make texture on the page (I used black gesso) on a page I had previously preprinted yellow
2. write in black Sharpie on your spread---either just words of a haiku (5/7/5)
3. stencil a border around the spread
4. use metal tape (the sort used in heating ducts---I have no idea what it's called but it is adhesive backed and you can get it at your local hardware store)---and tear out shapes to use on your page, then use black paint to antique them
5. use a credit card to spread two colors on your spread
6. use fiber paste on one side in three places, then fold your spread in half so the fiber paste spreads onto both sides of the spread---when dry, sand and then color with a spray ink
7. find three photos or three words, or a combination of both, from a magazine and paste onto your spread
8. stamp a repetitive design with a stamp or your fingers onto your spread
9. use an image of an animal
10. tear shapes from wallpaper and use
11. thin gesso and then pour onto the spread, turn the spread and allow the gesso to drip---do this in more than one place
12. use graphite pencil 
13. use a white pen to follow shapes
14. use a postage stamp
15. add something to be the focal point(s) to the spread

I highly recommend trying this to free yourself to trying new methods in your journal or sketchbook. I learned a lot by doing this (and watching John work!).  

Thanks, John!  I had a wonderful time.

An Artful Journey Retreat

The Presentation Center

 I was lucky enough to attend the 2014 An Artful Journey retreat at the Presentation Center in the mountains near Los Gatos, California.  This is the second time I have been able to attend and it was, again, a wonderful weekend.  Lots of familiar faces, great teachers, beautifully organized by Cindy Woods, this retreat is among  my most favorite art workshop experiences.

my little, light-filled cozy room in Lower Saint Anthony

 Once again I took a journal class from one of my favorite instructors, D.J. Pettitt.  D.J. is one of those incredible people who can take something quite complicated and time consuming and teach you how to accomplish it in short time, with wonderful results!  How does she do it?

D. J. Pettitt explaining how she paints nests for our projects

She had wonderful photos of birds for us to use for our covers, but I had to use my own photos (of course....never pick the easier way, oh, no!  Not me!!!).  Besides being a truly talented painter, D. J. is also an amazing photographer.  The photos of the raven and the hummingbird that she generously shared with us were beautiful.

front cover, Indian fish eagle

Back cover, African wader of some ilk

I managed to create this journal in three days.  I finished at 3:54 PM on the last day, just six minutes short of the end of the class.  Of course, I had returned after dinner the night before and did several more hours of work on day two to make it possible for me to meet that deadline.

There is quite a lot of sewing involved in the construction of a journal ala D. J.'s style.  You sew your pages to a fabric hinge and then build the signature with these fabric hinged double pages.  You can wrap your signatures in what D. J. calls a "signature wrap", which is just added fabric pages that you collage together and then wrap around one signature or all of them.  You could make signature wraps for each signature, if that was your choice.  I also made fabric collages for the inside of both my covers.

Some pages have added fabric detail, some just have stitching to add texture.

All my pages were gessoed and then were washed with thinned acrylic paint, textured, combed, distressed....all sorts of various techniques were used to make the pages more interesting.

The spine of the journal is made of fabric and the signatures are sewn onto it and secured with buttons.  These are Victorian brass buttons I found on eBay or etsy.

detail of the front inside signature "wrap" and the first page of the journal

detail of the inside front cover and the outside of the front signature "wrap," which is cut from a piece of vintage quilt

D. J. Pettitt photograph, filched from her blog

Here I am in a photo from D. J.'s post on her class at An Artful Journey.  You can read her entire post here.

hallway in lower Saint Anthony cabin

 I loved every minute I spent in class, but to be totally honest, it was the camaraderie with friends old and new that made my weekend at the Presentation Center so remarkable.  My "roomies" in lower Saint Anthony, Jenny Messerle and Glenda Hoagland are women I already knew and loved.  Being assigned to the same cabin with them was the extra special frosting on the cake.  Both are delightful souls---kind, generous, open, wise and beautiful.  Besides, they are both amazing artists and I find being around them and their art truly inspiring.

Tres amigas

It was a magical weekend, from start to finish.

Results from Encaustic Printing Class

I took another printing class today at the Schack Art Center in Everett.  The instructor this time was Deborah Kapoor, who regularly teaches at Bellevue College.  It was a great class and I had a great time experimenting with encaustics and mark making on paper.  I have only done a very little work with encaustics and what little experience I have was with cold wax encaustic.  Working with hot wax today was a totally new thing for me and lots of fun.

I am not sure how I feel about any of the pieces I did today.  The one thing I am sure of is that it was fun!  I expect I will be trying encaustics with print making again soon.

Houseboating in the Backwaters of Kerala

our houseboat

We spent two days on a houseboat in the "backwaters" of the State of Kerala while we were on our South Indian tour.  It was the most relaxing time we had on the trip, and it was just magical.

fish eagle

The bird life along the lakes, rivers and canals was more than abundant and the word teeming seems to be just the right choice.  We saw bee eaters (very difficult to get photographed clearly) and horn bills, eagles, hawks, ducks of all sorts, cranes, herons and the list went on and on.  I am no bird expert, but I do love to watch them.  And try to photograph them.  I didn't have  much luck while on the houseboat as most of them were either very small or very far off and the engine vibrations were enough to make most of my shots either downright blurry or not quite in focus, at best.  Too bad, but, hey!  I got to see them!

local fishermen

Life along the lake, canals and rivers looks exotic and lovely.  There are long dikes with a single line of houses built on them, all strung out like beads on a string.  On one side, river (or lake or canal) and huge rice fields on the others, protected by the levees and dikes.  Some of the canals are narrow and you have to use one of the local canoe-like boats to get through, but others are wide and many houseboats are busy going in all directions.  It bustles.

The local people just ignore all the houseboats and the curious tourists who travel on them.  They have real things to do and can't be looking back at the lounging visitors.

It was so beautiful I just sat out on our front lounge and watched it all pass by.  Boats, birds, children swimming, women washing clothiers, ferries going from one side to the other, power lines stretched across the canals, temples, churches (there are lots of Christians in Kerala), little shops, bigger shops....the list of things to gape at was long and varied.

I will always think of Kerala as a technicolor place!  The greens were vivid, the oranges striking, the browns were deep and rich.  There was color everywhere.  It was truly beautiful.

waiting for the ferry

Even the locals were decked out in technicolor clothing.  Everything was bright and pretty.

Our houseboat was extremely comfortable.  While it was hot and humid outside, all the cabins were air conditioned, so sleeping was very nice.  Each cabin had either twin or double beds, depending on what was required, and each had its own bathroom with a very nice shower.  Big windows looked out on the passing scenery, should you wish to lie about in AC comfort and just laze away a hot, sticky afternoon.  The food was prepared by the chef on board and it was excellent.  We brought out own beer, which was served to us ice cold.

It was some good time we had on the houseboats!

I am off to California for about two weeks in the morning, so there will be an interruption in my posting.  As one of my favorite bloggers, Mary Ann Moss, likes to say...."Talk among yourselves."

Lino Block Printing Class

I took a wonderfully fun and surprisingly productive lino print class over the weekend at the Schack Art Center in Everett.  I have taken several printing classes there since the first of the year and I've learned a lot.

This plate is the original plate I carved and the one I did all the black ink only prints with.

The teacher for this two day class was Betsy Best-Spadaro.  I have taken one other class from Betsy.  You can find my blog post on that class here and here.  I always learn so much and have a great, fun time in her classes.

This is the plate that I carved away everything except where I wanted to print red.  

This is the design I came up with.  As my friend pointed out, it came from an old sweater I wear all the time, right down to the checker board detail.  And I hadn't noticed.....oh, dear.

elephant only plate, printed in gray

Of course, once I got into the design it became apparent that I was going to have to carve three blocks to get the print I wanted.  (In color, that is.)  Betsy was gentle when she confirmed that, yes, I had to cut away my elephant.  It hurt me but I did it.

Here is the red ink only plate after carving away every thing that was not to be reel

 I printed a few times using only black ink, before I reduced (cut away) the plate.  I do like it in just black and white.

Black prints drying on the drying rack.

A print all in black on the drying rack

 Here is the print in black and white.

And here it is printed in gray, red and black.

All the prints drying on my dining room table.

 I absolutely LOVED this class.  I'm taking another two day class from Betsy next month.  Stay tuned....

South India Continued

saris for sale

 One of my favorite things to do when I travel to new places is to walk through the local markets.  South India had wonderful markets, where everything was for sale.  Soup to nuts, as my grandma would have said.

The man is carrying sugar cane.  The sugar cane harvest was in full swing when I was there in January and sugar cane is used in the Pongal Festival (a harvest,/new year festival/Thanksgiving celebration).

turmeric root

I love all the terracotta pottery that is for sale.  Small dishes, cooking pots, vessels, puja plates, bird houses, water containers and on and on.  All functional, all beautiful, all showing the hand of the potter.  Unfortunately it's very hard to pack, heavy and doesn't travel all that well....

rice, grains, dal for sale

Oh, how I love the bananas!

All the wonderful, fresh and sometimes exotic vegetables made me wish for a kitchen so I could try my hand at cooking up some wonderful Indian vegetarian fare.

These are some of the colorful powders that are for sale to use in making the wonderful designs you see everywhere outside doorways during Pongal.

Fancier water vessels than the terracotta ones,metal cooking pots, mesh baskets....

....garlands....

....and strainers and shawls.  Anything you might need can be found at the markets.  They are colorful, noisy, energetic and fascinating!