Waiting for the Opportunity

The Artists Co-op that I belong to recently had a show opening at the Kalamazoo Nature Center.  Called Earth:  the Power and Fragility, this show had some super work from about 15 members.  So, in the middle of the basement remodel, my painting class, a trip to NY as well as interviewing for a job and ferrying the kids around, I had a show-quality (shouldn't they all be show-quality?) piece to create. 

I juried into this group as a handmade paper and paper mosaic artist so this is the type of work that I needed to make.  It felt good working with the heavily textured handmade paper again!

My idea on this theme was to highlight the plight of the Great Lakes with regard to the very invasive Asian Carp. These fish are expected to enter the Lakes via the Mississippi River and Illinois Canals.  Currently there are "zappers" in the canals that are supposed to keep the fish from entering Lake Michigan through the Locks but it is inevitable that these fish, with their voracious appetites, will get into the Lakes and alter the ecosystems.  These fish are just Waiting for the Opportunity.

Here's my progression over several days:



Back to working with handmade paper again.  Yeh!  The fish are handmade paper fish glued onto a canvas.  The chair that is supporting the canvas gives you an idea of scale.



A coat of tan paint went over the whole thing then I started to build the colors of the water.

Each fish received it's own color.  My formerly bright and fun fish had to become rather dark and menacing.  Asian Carp are not pretty fish!  The white over the blue on the right is plaster.

Continuing to layer blue on blue on blue on blue.  I used my fingers for about 90% of the water on this piece.  Very little brush work involved.

The fish get a bit of highlighting with copper paint and the Lock is put in.  The lock is more plaster so it is raised.  Lots of dimension on this piece.



The Lock is painted copper as well.



OMG!!  What happened?!?  Stay tuned...

Lorrie

PS. That is what they call a cliff hanger. :)

Art 105 - Fun Little Extras

So we move from the MOMA back to the MOMMA.  :)

In the painting class that I've been taking we use a lot of paint.  Well, we're painting so it shouldn't surprise me that we use up some paint.  However, once a color is mixed on my palette, I absolutely hate just tossing it.  So, I just started putting the leftover paint on a 9 x 12 canvas paper instead.  I didn't think, I just did.  This in itself is a good exercise as I always over think things.

I discovered that these little extras actually work fairly well because the colors are already working together in the original painting and therefore work in an abstract too.



This was made with paint left over from the collage exercise.  Should it be vertical or...



horizontal?



This one is made of leftover paint from a painting that I haven't shared yet.  Some interesting things going on here but it basically is a mess and the black is too bold.  Yet, these quickie experiments are good for this plodding artist.

Lorrie

MOMA

While in NYC each of us got to do one (or more things) that was special to that person. My husband wanted to see the diner that is in Seinfeld, my 16 year old wanted to eat his way through the city, my 13 year old wanted to shop, my 11 year old wanted to buy souvenirs, and I wanted to go to an art museum. Not surprisingly, the art museum idea got a luke-warm reaction from the kids; however, my youngest was quite enthralled afterall. She must have asked me at least five times: "you mean that Picasso (or whoever) really TOUCHED this painting?" She couldn't believe that we could get so close to all the work.


I promised a quick tour of the Museum of Modern Art in NYC in my last post, so here we go...

Pablo Picasso, Spanish, 1881- 1973
It was fun to watch the kids look at this one and try to figure the body parts out.

Wassily Kandinsky, Russian 1886 -1944
There were four in this series in their own room.  They are quite large.  I was taking pictures with a flash at this point and got reprimanded.  Oops.

Paul Cezanne, French, 1839 - 1906
I don't really think of the Impressionists as Modern but in reality I guess they are the ones that started it all.  Wish I knew more about art history.  I loved this one.

Vincent van Gogh, Dutch, 1853 - 1853
This one needs no introduction.  It's not all that impressive from a size standpoint but the brush strokes and color are stunning.



Claude Monet, French, 1840 - 1926
Ah, the water lilies.  Stunning in their size and beauty (although I did like some of his smaller paintings better).



Piet Mondrian, Dutch, 1872- 1944
I think he worked in this style/color palette most of his life.  IMO one or two or ten might be fun but then:  boring!

Andy Warhol, American, 1928 - 1987
Famous for a lot of things, here are his soup cans.  The MOMA also had his cow silk screens and a Marilyn Monroe piece.

Jackson Pollack, American 1912- 1956
I left the person on the left in this picture on purpose.  Look at the size of this!

Someone help me.  Who painted this one?

Also there were other big names like:  Max Ernst, Willem de Kooning, Edouard Manet, Robert Rauschenberg, Salvadore Dali, Paul Klee, Henri Rousseau, Mark Rothko, Joan Miro, and Rene Magritte.  The MOMA has Dali's melting watches piece and Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World, as well as many, many others that you might recognize.  I only noticed the work of one woman, Frida Kahlo.  What a shame that more women aren't big names in world of art. 

A good share of it I "didn't get" but all of it is interesting.  If you ever get the chance to go there, DO.

Lorrie

NYC

For Spring Break 2011 we took the kids to New York. Steve grew up in western NY so we go there often. This time, however, we spent two days with family there and then continued on to NYC for three nights. What a great time!

The kids loved it. The weather was acceptable (although we could have done without the cold rainy afternoon on Tuesday). We walked and walked and walked and walked and then walked some more.

We didn't see any celebrities but ran into neighbors that live about six houses down from us. I find that rather amazing, especially since we weren't really in a touristy place at the time. We did see several TV shows setting up to shoot scenes and an upcoming movie called New Years Eve took up a whole city block with trailers for its cast.

We hit many of the usual tourist places and added some fun, less touristy stuff too like Zabars Grocery Store and Deli on the upper west side. We ate Thai, Italian and American Diner. We tried to go to an Ethiopian place but it was closed. We enjoyed yummy pastries, and even had frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity. We had the deli experience at Katz' Deli and sat next to the spot where Sally made some noise in the movie When Harry Met Sally. We had street vendor hot dogs and quick pizza slices too.

We shopped for the girls and while in Soho we turned the corner and there was a Dick Blick store. I walked in and was so overwhelmed with awe and wonder, I didn't know where to start! I only bought a couple of things to play with.

Here is the family. Notice the Empire State Building growing out of my head.

Next post will be about the MOMA.

Lorrie

Art 105 - Collage Assignment Finished

As I talked about in my last post, for my painting class we had to complete a collage and then paint it. We were required to make a grid on the collage (1 inch squares on a 9 x 12 collage) and then transfer the drawing to a canvas (2 inch squares on an 18 x 24 canvas). I've not used this grid method before. Pretty easy to get a good result. In essence you stop looking at the entire piece, which can often be quite intimidating, and put it under a microscope (not literally). You draw each square as you see it. In the end you have a drawing that is darn close to the original.

We spent one entire class just mixing the colors trying to get close to the colors in the collage. This assignment was really all about mixing the colors rather than painting a cool painting. This color mixing thing is so much more challenging than I ever expected and certainly goes way beyond yellow + blue = green. Many of us were wasting lots of paint just trying to get close to the colors we needed. As a rookie, I found it helpful to use a chart that gave an idea of what colors to use to get to the desired result. If I continue with painting I will probably purchase this type of thing. It's not a color wheel, but a matrix of colors. There are books out there for this purpose too.

So here's the original collage again:



And here's my painting:

Using the two positive/two negative critique process, I think that the collage is copied really well with regard to positioning. I was very nervous about successfully painting the sofa and it turns out that I like that a lot. Most of the colors are pretty accurate. In the picture the smiling orange is quite yellow. The real thing is closer in color to the original.

On the negative side, the lavender is too dark, which is unfortunate because the phone is pretty interesting but you can't really see it because the area behind it is too dark. The teeth make the painting fun but the angle on them isn't steep enough as compared to the collage.

One interesting tidbit, after viewing the work in the class critique, it became apparent that an interesting collage doesn't necessarily make an interesting painting (and vise versa). It didn't seem to be a matter of painting talent. Curious.

Lorrie

Art 105 - Collage Assignment

The latest assignment for my painting class was to make three 9" x 12" collages. One of the collages would then be painted. Of course this meant that I could only choose collage images that I felt I could paint. Quite a limiting factor! :)

Collage #1: I like the curves in this collage: the flamingos necks, the ear, the softness of the butterfly's wings, the small dots in the background. I also like the moodiness of the blue trees. This is why I didn't choose this one. I didn't feel I could capture the trees in a painting. On to the next one...

Collage #2: In contrast to the curves in #1, this one is all lines. Too boring, although probably not too difficult to paint. On to #3...

Collage #3: Yep, this is the one. I like orange/yellow as the key color, the silly mood and the color balance. Hey, I think I can actually paint this one too. Once we picked the collage we intended to paint we had to mark it with a grid pattern. That's why there are lines on it. Wish I had scanned it prior to the grid marking it up.

Next post: Collage turned into Painting.

Lorrie

Art 105 - Still Life Finished, Almost

Here's the follow up from my last post...

I finished the still life piece satisfactorily and handed it in. I got a good grade too. However, after having lived with it for awhile, the black bird house is bothering me. I've drawn in, with vine charcoal, the part on the black birdhouse that I want to fix. But, since I don't anticipate that "fix" being high on my priority list, you get to see it in its handed-in-but-not-finished state.

In the class critique we had to give two positives and two negatives about each students' piece. My two positives are: The red bird house decorative trim is not only painted in (I debated about leaving it off) but shadowed correctly! I really like the little tan bird house and the shadows it throws.

My two negatives are: The black bird house, as I mentioned, needs some additional work. And, The background went from being one of my favorite parts of this effort to just ok.

More to come...

Lorrie

PS. One fellow classmate suggested that it be titled "Nobody's Home". Seems about right.

PSS. I don't plan on doing any other still life paintings anytime soon.

Art 105 - Progression of a Still Life

For those of you following me because of my handmade paper art, my apologies for not having much of that type of thing on the blog lately.  Between general life with three kids, finishing the basement and my painting class the only art getting accomplished around here is for the class.  I hope you'll stick with me though as I continue to explore painting as a way to enhance my handmade paper art. 

In my last post I showed you some initial efforts for the class.  Thankfully, I'm improving.  Or, at least my efforts aren't too embarrassing for public viewing. 

Having never done a still life before I decided to record my progress as a reminder that what comes before doesn't have to remain after. I'm frequently afraid, in a good share of all of my finishing work, that I'll mess up something that is already somewhat successful. One of the biggest lessons coming from this class is that you can just paint over it. Of course, I know that in my brain. But, when you actually do it over and over, it becomes rather freeing in the heart.

This is an 18 x 24 canvas at my kitchen table (I mean easel).  A key to a good still life is the directional lighting.  Since my birdhouses were too big to fit in a box in which I could control the light easily, I found myself painting at night with one directional light to make the shadows.  This was a pretty good trick as I was able to see the shadows on the still life yet barely see what I was painting!

I drew in the objects with vine charcoal.  Great stuff as it is easily wiped off when you don't get a line right.  The perspective of most of this is fairly accurate but it took a lot of wiping off first.

Oh my, this is so brown.  The assignment required that we use only white, black, yellow ochre and magenta.  Hence, the brown.



I'm liking the ripped up wall paperish background.  Check out the shadow being cast from the little white house onto the red one.  I'm getting it, I'm getting it!

I have been trying to post this for days.  Blogger is just not cooperating with the downloads.  So, you'll have to wait til the next post to see the finished piece...


Lorrie

Art 105 - Painting

I want to get better at incorporating my handmade paper into paintings.  So, back in January I began my very first college art class.  Things that I've learned: 

 *  The aspect of my past work that I always felt fell short was shading and shadow.  My painting work is not very dimensional.  I now believe that is because I don't mix colors on a palette I just work straight out of the tube/bottle.

*  Even though my work is almost always extremely colorful I work intuitively.  Learning more about the color wheel, tinting and shading is helpful with that whole dimensional problem.

*  Having said that, I don't really like the mixing colors part of the whole thing. 

*  In this class I'm learning by doing the assignments rather than by what is taught during class time.  Expectations were too high, perhaps?  No, don't think that is it.

*  In summary, painting a decent painting is really, really, really hard.

Here are my first attempts:

Second try at a studio still life.  The first try is too embarrassing for public consumption.  We could only use burnt sienna plus black and white.  Oh no, what have I gotten myself into?



Painting from a photo.  I re-painted the foreground three times trying to make it look like flowers instead of snow.  Guess we'll just go with snow.  This assignment required that we use only black, white, magenta and yellow.  Try making a good blue or green with only those colors.  Impossible!

Here is the original photo on a beautiful, sunny August day on Washington Island, WI.  My painting looks like an overcast day on the prairies just below the mountains of Colorado.  Close enough, I say. 

I'll show you  more as I move though the semester.

Lorrie

Hand Papermaking Magazine and the Handmade Paper Guild

At a recent Handmade Paper Guild meeting we had an opportunity to help out papermaker extraordinaire, Andrea Peterson, and the Hand Papermaking Magazine.  The magazine is publishing a 25th anniversary book that celebrates the art of hand papermaking and the artists that are at the top of their game. 

This book, spearheaded by Andrea from LaPorte, IN, features amazing paper swatches of 25 papermakers.  As Guild members, we touched the swatches, drooled over the swatches :) and then glued the swatches into the books.  This project is monstrous.  With a group of about 12 we only finished 30 and a limited edition of 1,000 is planned for.  Andrea has been assembling these by herself and others in her studio too. 

We were glad to help and it was fun.  In return for our labor, Andrea showed us two of the past Hand Papermaking Magazine portfolios.  These were filled with incredible gems.  One portfolio featured watermark samples and the other was filled with pulp painting samples.  Oh my!

Handmade Paper Guild helpers assembling the books at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center.

One of the finished books.

As you can immediately see just by looking at the type, this book was well designed.

Each page has an entry by the artist as well as a description of the sample.

Another beauty.

At one point I remembered what artist did which swatch.  I'm sorry I can't remember anymore.  Note to self:  write things down!

Can you read the artists featured for each year?  Not household names perhaps, but in the world of paper:  wow!

If you're interested in more information, here is the post on the Hand Papermaking website.  It was written by Andrea:

I chair a committee of Hand Papermaking’s board of directors working on a project called “Hand Papermaking 25” to commemorate our upcoming anniversary. This exciting project will bring together 25 paper artists who previously appeared in Hand Papermaking magazine. Each will represent a particular year in which they were featured, and each will produce a distinctive new paper specimen.

These noteworthy contributors to the advancement of the field will be asked to write a short text reflecting on their magazine article, and the evolution of their work from that year to the present. This statement will appear with a 4x4 sample of the handmade paper they produce for this project, along with a description addressing the materials and techniques they employed. The book will include a preface by Tom Bannister and an introductory essay by Michael Durgin, one spread for each of the 25 artists, and some concluding remarks. Each copy in the edition of 1000 will be uniquely bound into a letterpress printed cover commissioned from one of four distinguished mills.


“Hand Papermaking 25” will be published in October, 2010, and sell for $65 per copy. A special price of $50 each is offered to those who purchase four copies, with unique covers commissioned from four different mills. Postage is $4 in North America and $9 overseas. Please support Hand Papermaking, as we look forward to celebrating our 25th anniversary year in 2011.



If you want to purchase these books you can go here.   This book is beautifully made.


Lorrie

One World One Heart Recap

For this year's One World One Heart blogging event I posted my giveway, visited most of the people that visited me and left a post, then hit some of the blogs on the main list that seemed like they might be interesting.  There are just too many (800+) to hit them all.  If others followed the same strategy it's likely that many missed me.  After all, what's cool about a blog called "Lorrie Grainger Abdo".  I may need to rethink my blog name. 

Anyway, here are some of my favorite blogs from my OWOH journey:

*   Cathy Horner at Cathy Horner Collage Art.  A funky collage artist with a unique style from Tennessee.

*   Nancy Baumiller at Crowabout. A zettiologist, also from Tennessee.

*   Susan Himmel at Living the Dream.  A watercolorist and winner of my OWOH giveaway.  She lives in the beautiful Berkshires of Massachusetts.

*   Lulu at My Pink Turtle. A painter of colorful girls (and other things) from Quebec.

*   Cindy Dubbers at Crimson Heart Studios.  A California mixed-media artist.  Her giveaway was a mosaic heart.  Sound familiar?  Hers however, was not made of paper.  Very cool, colorful stuff in her world.

*   Jennifer Conway at Raven's Rest Studio.  A Vancouver mixed-media artist.  Sure wish I had won one of her giveaways!

*   Diane at Turn Left at the Pigs.  A southern Ohio jewelry artist.  This site caught my eye because of the great name.  Apparently she lives in a very rural area and there is not a street sign en route to her home.  Thus, the direction "turn left at the pigs" was born. 


I didn't win a prize this year.  But, like the lottery, it's hard to win when you don't buy a ticket.  I only entered giveaways for things that I really, really wanted.  It's always fun to receive anything in the mail from a fellow artist but I'm in the purging mode right now and only want things around me that I truly love.

OWOH has had a good five-year run and I participated for three of those five years.  It's done now.  However, it is coming back in a different form next year.  It will be interesting to see where it goes.

Lorrie

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wishing you a Happy Valentine's Day!

Having said that, and meaning it wholeheartedly, I must say that this is kind of a non-event in our lives.  I've been married 20 years.  I've spent Valentine's Day with my husband only once in all those years.  He attends Toy Fair in NYC every year and every year it falls over February 14.  He's out working hard, making money and dining well.  I'm at home working hard, not making much/any money and eating poorly!

Where ever your love may be, I hope that you know it is solid as the milk chocolate heart you enjoy scarfing down.  :)

Lorrie

Altered Photography Workshop - Kalamazoo Book Arts Center

On Sunday, I switched venues and taught at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center.  On a record-setting low temperature degree day (-9 overnight), what better place to be than creating in a creative environment?  Here's the work from the day...

This was Jaclyn's first attempt.  Wow!  Enough said.

I love the harsh, graphic background of this against the softness and color of the flowers.  Jaclyn is a high school student in a rural district.  She told me that she doesn't have much exposure to art at her school.  Her grandparents, on the other hand, are well known artists in the area and certainly provide her with inspiration and the inclination to create.

Jill is an excellent photographer to begin with so she had to work with idea of making an already good photo interesting in another way.  She worked larger (8 x 10, I think).  The flower bloom on the left was stunning in its new bluish, pink color and her background was beautiful.  The scratched in flower to the far left was a try at eliminating a flower that was already there in the photo.  I don't think she likes this part of her work as much.  But, now she can scan the photo and crop that part of it out.  Magic!

Compare this finished photo with the one above when it was still work-in-progress.  She used paint markers to adjust her background because the paper/ink combination wasn't taking the watercolors the way it should.  I like how she made lemons out of lemonade and wound up with a photo that pops.

This is the work of Stephanie (in the middle).  She's a senior in High School and takes some photography classes.  What could be better than hanging out at the beach with your friends?  She used it all here:  scratching, sanding, painting, pasteling, markering.  She knows Photoshop so I'm envisioning a scan of this photo with additional digital manipulation.  Cool.

This was also created by Stephanie.  She highlighted Diesel's eyes by painting the background in similar colors.  It also makes the dog pop.  In the original photo the dog was on a boring tan sofa.  Probably a super nice sofa, but not so interesting in the world of altering photos!  Notice the tiny, little holes that outline the dog. 

This photo was altered by Doreen.  Her color palette is much more peaceful and thoughtful than the loud colors I typically go for.  The background on this butterfly photo continued to evolve as the afternoon went on.  She sanded off almost all the background of the original photo but left just enough to make it interesting.  At first quite flat with only one/two colors, it changed as she slowly layered watercolor, oil pastels, more watercolor and a bit more.  Very nice!

Doreen was experiencing problems with the photos she brought because of the way they were developed with indestructible paper/ink.  So, she tried one of my photos and did a great job with it.

This is the work of Molly.  She has taken another class from me and I've come to know her through other avenues as well.  She is a fun lady with lots of talent.  This is Devil's Tower, Wyoming.  She has worked the entire photo by scratching into the Tower, sanding on a texturing plate for the sky then carefully adding color in the spots she wanted it.  The result is that the photo is more powerful than it's 4" x 6" size would indicate.  It think it's great.

If you've read through all the captions you've probably noticed that there were a couple of glitches with the developing of some of the pictures.  As an instructor, this is so frustrating.  As a student, this is so frustrating.  I feel like I know the techniques I'm teaching pretty well and then a wrench is thrown into the works.  We adjusted.  Jill and Doreen were patient.

If you're interested in altering photos you need to know what's going on in the world of photo developing.  In the past, photos were developed and after time they would fade.  A drop of water could ruin a picture in seconds.  Photos were easily destructed.  Now, like all technology advancing at the speed of light, photo developing has changed.  HP features photo developing that is guaranteed not to fade for 200 years.  Other companies are doing all they can to progress as well.  For 99.9% of the market these are good/great improvements.  For those of us purposely trying to destroy aspects of the photos this becomes a huge problem. 

I think/I hope everyone went home with an understanding of how to alter photos by hand, despite some photo developing issues.  What fun it can be!

Lorrie