ArtFest 2012



Orly Acineri and I



Susan Lenart Kazmer (Ika, Amish Girl)



Ahhh, with great pleasure this post is a recap of Artfest 2012, at Fort Worden. Artfest is my idea of alternative arts heaven. This retreat combines a vast array of art workshops. Besides top quality instruction, the compradre linking is over the edge fantastic. I love the evening events: bon fire journaling at the beach, live band celebrations, and most of all show and tell. Wait...I almost forgot all of the dazed sharing in the evenings in the community rooms (or sit-downs in hallways) of our barracks. 

It was great to connect in person with my on-line art tribe. Artists I admire so much, who are so very real, and whose creative gifts inspire me. How can they look just like ordinary folks when they have bedazzled souls? Both Andrea Matus and Michael de Meng have extra-ordinary art gifts, yet we agreed to look for each other at Costco (a US/Canada joke). Carla Sonheim and Jill Berry sharing on rickety chairs in the corner of our dorm hallway was deep and personal. I added another soul sista, bird observer extra-ordinarier, Traci Lyn Huskamp.  I found new Bellingham friends, hugged many a creative soul, and grew artistically through their energy.

 

Saturday night all these creative artists shared through a show-n-tell what they had made during their workshops. I love this time of sharing. Below you will see some of my eye ticklers:

Stay inspired!!!

Crusade 53 - Color Mixing

GPP Street Team's challenge for the month of July is "Mad Scientist". I love it when you are painting and one color on your brush crashes into another blop of paint and I end up with an unexpected hue. For July's Art Crusade I intentionally blended four preselected colors to produce three new experimental colors. On my palette I set out black cherry, pumpkin, moon yellow, and coastal blue. These colors have a similarity to primary colors with a twist. As I mixed I was careful not to make my colors dirty. I was trying to create muted vibrancy. My combinations are the top three. It was really fun to name them. God must have had a rip-roaring time naming everything, because I had a giggle just naming three colors. Ta-da...introducing fig, french pear, and anise.

From my new palette I created two pages for an altered book collaboration. Currently I am creating in Maryann Ready's book. Her book theme is cut-up. I found that a cut-out window toward the back pages revealed part of an abstract clown. Here is the base page:

I then created two cut-ups that have peak through images to the clown base page. Both characters are layerings of painted papers. A variety of painted papers were made from the fig, french pear, and anise colors. Accents were texturized through glazing from the more vibrant coastal blue and pumpkin.

Face 2 Face

How do I lose control enough to simply paint an abstract version of myself? Picasso inspires me to paint with my paintbrush leading. To do this I tell myself, “Loosen your hand and relax”.  Now, simply paint your face.  The trick is to balance realism and abstraction. What areas of my face are expressive and unique? How do I do this with a few pen strokes?

Since I don’t have an obvious Frida Kahlo uni-brow or a monkey on my shoulder I decided to try and feature my hair and mouth. I ask a lot of questions (always have since I could barely mutter a word). This characteristic is highlighted by adding an inquisitive brow and the word, “Why”. Further elaboration was done with a small sized brush and phthalo blue paint. Keeping my hand loose I tried to imagine what it would feel like to add a stroke of blue here or there. Then I just freely made the stroke of phthalo. I let my intuition lead.

For “Owl Girl” I used a Teesha Moore style prompt. Two eyes were cut from magazines and glued to a basic profile of myself. Then I used a tutorial prompt from Milliande to paint the wings. My concentration is much more focused In this piece.   As all of the detail of the mask built up I seemed to start painting with a loose hand again. I just completed a small journal featuring Proverbs. There is much wisdom in Proverbs. Could that be why I can now portray myself as a semblance of an owl?