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P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell

Creating my artwork, work in progress & new work.

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Three Small Prayer Pieces

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on May 6, 2025 by SMay 6, 2025

My first Small Prayer Piece has multiplied; there are now three small prayer pieces in this series of small collage works! This was a fast, furious, and fun project.

These three small prayer pieces are a series, but not a matching set. These arrived one after the other, and incorporate some related scraps from around my studio. The formality of the shapes and balance connect them in spirit.

I made the left piece with the small kneeling figure first. Although I am not religious in any normal sense, this is certainly a praying figure. I rescued her from an old deteriorated artwork left outside as yard art. The collage is on a thin square of door skin plywood that is mounted on a 6.5″ wide by 7″ tall piece of edge wrapped plywood. The piece is nearly 1.5″ in relief with the 1/2″ thick figure. This collage incorporates the now timeworn figure, a circle of metal roofing (from some forgotten project), a fragment of birch bark, and selected pieces of older collagraph prints.

The middle image is Small Prayer Piece #2. This one is made from paper, feather quills, a low relief hot glue drip, and a circular adhesive felt furniture pad accented with metallic paint. It is 6″ by 7.5″ by .75″ deep with the relief.

The final small collage, Small Prayer Piece #3, is on a heavy scrap of dense wood. In addition to painted paper, there are scraps of feather, a rectangle of green linoleum, and delicate scrap of peeled enamel paint from another artwork. This third piece is 5.25″ by 5.1″ by 1″ deep to include the relief items.

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A Small Prayer

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on April 30, 2025 by SApril 30, 2025

This new collage, A Small Prayer, came about from my studio cleanup, during an interval in my remodeling intensive. I am delighted to make any new artwork at this time, no matter how small! A Small Prayer is approximately 7″x7″ (not quite square) and it consists of quite a few different pieces from older art, along with a couple of found objects.

I started with the one remaining remnant of another much older artwork. This was a rather unsuccessful work that slowly decayed to nothing outside, leaving only the small figure below. I evicted the original low relief artwork from my studio, along with several other early pieces! Yard art!

I rescued the small kneeling figure from the grass while tidying up the yard, and made it the focus in my new work. I probably made this much older and now weathered figure from polymer clay, and added layers of paint.

In addition to the figure, A Small Prayer consists of a construction byproduct circle of metal roofing, a lovely scrap of birch bark, and several pieces of my collograph prints. I mounted these to a square of door skin plywood. Then I mounted that to 3/4 plywood, so it is painted, edged, and ready to hang.

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More Wrapped

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on March 12, 2025 by SMarch 12, 2025

I have few more wrapped items to show off: I have wrapped three nested wooden boxes in art! I used three monotype prints that I completed with paint, ink, and/or colored pencil. The box lids are also topped with parts of these prints, but the lid sides are painted, with all sealed with clear gloss acrylic medium.

Art or craft? Surely a bit of both, when I use my own original artwork. I am very happy with these, although the surface will remain a bit fragile and susceptible to scratches. There is a skeleton leaf and a feather applied to the largest box. Perhaps the warning on the box label should read: “Use with Care”.

Of course I did not make the boxes; I do not have that skill! These are very neatly made.

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Bound and Wrapped

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on February 19, 2025 by SFebruary 19, 2025

These bound and wrapped mummies are a chine colle photo etched print with string, mounted on honeycomb cardboard packing material.

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Fire on the Mountain

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on February 11, 2025 by SFebruary 11, 2025

I have reworked/completed three more older prints: “Fire on the Mountain”, “Fire on the Beach”, and “Fire at Sea”.

All three started out as hand pulled prints, originally printed at Corvidae Press in Ft. Worden State Park. The first is a monoprint using stencils. Fire on the Beach was printed using two plates: a linocut and a solar plate. I think that Fire at Sea is a linocut printed twice, flipped!

I suppose that wildfire and chaos are very much on my mind!

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Adding Collage Elements

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on January 29, 2025 by SJanuary 29, 2025

Here is another artwork that I started long ago, now completed by adding collage elements. The images left to right: the early version, the new version, and then the final mounting:

I am afraid that the earlier version was already sufficient. It consisted of the watercolor window with cutout trees superimposed, with the tracing of purple shadow painted in.

I may well have cluttered and spoiled it by adding the newest elements: a leaf, a bird, and a crescent moon. But it is done, and now the work is mounted on a chipboard panel eady to hang.

I am currently very discouraged about most of my artwork, so I will put this away and hope that I will like it again later! Wouldn’t it be lovely if someone wanted this. But really that is not very likely. I am doing no marketing here. Although I did sign up for the August studio tour, so maybe I will sell a few pieces then.

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A Response to Wildfires

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on January 23, 2025 by SJanuary 24, 2025

Most of the time I start work without much of a plan, and this mixed media painting is no exception! I started work using watercolors over a found background on a 16″x20″ canvas board. The four images below are progressive stages/drafts of this piece. The fiery end result evolved from the simplistic ghostly dead trees you see below to a chaotic inferno in red and gold with floating embers, leaves, and feathers. I took a couple of days to determine that this piece would be a response to wildfires in & around Los Angeles this January.

I can’t say that I like the painting, but perhaps it was a necessary exercise. The increasing number of unmanageable wildfires large neighborhoods and small towns is not something any of us should be able to ignore.

As usual with larger artwork that I photograph rather than scanning, the pictures are all taken with different lighting. Dark edges and grey background are actually the same color in all four drafts above, although there is less and of the original grey visible. I think some photos were taken in natural daylight, some with a mix artificial and daylight at various times of day… of course this makes the colors look quite different.

“When Water isn’t Enough” has difficult subject matter, and the result is a very dark piece of work. It is most certainly a response to wildfires that are an increasing threat to us all.

How can the tiny fragments of greenery survive the fires? What about the animals and the birds? The moon will shine on regardless.

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Mounting for Presentation

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on January 20, 2025 by SJanuary 20, 2025

I have been taught about the value of presentation. A fabulous painting or lovely drawing will be better “seen” by others if it well presented. This may mean framing, or I may choose mounting for presentation. Mounting an artwork to a board or panel may be more appropriate. I don’t want my work behind glass, and framing is a lot of overhead for an artist. Professional framing is expensive, and do it yourself framing requires skill, time, and tools.

With some drawings and paintings I mount the original work directly on a board or a panel. If it is on paper, I will seal it with acrylic medium or wax. This is not archival, but I am not making great art for posterity. The surface will be delicate/fragile, but so what? Art will be hung up for viewing, not handled daily like a toy or a tool! It will be up to the owners to care for it as they see fit.

When I mount archival prints of my work, I may not resist the urge to enhance them. Even a very good print will not have the impact of the original work if the original has dimensional impasto or collage elements. So when I mount an archival print, I may do a bit more to improve the presentation. Here is one example:

Print mounted and enhanced with paint

You can see on the left the archival print, just positioned on the painted canvas board prior to mounting. At right is the mounted print with enhancements. Note that I took the photos in different lighting so the colors appear different. Really the overall colors are much the same.

What is different: I added a tiny hint of dimension to the print, using acrylic medium & translucent color. I added to the leaves and another spot where the original work has dimension. The main change was is on the mounting panel: I extended a hint of the branches out beyond the print. This felt necessary because I mounted the print on a larger panel, so the background distracted me from the actual print. I like it better with this additional level of presentation. It is not just a weaker copy of the original, but something a bit different and new.

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Collage Fun

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on January 15, 2025 by SJanuary 15, 2025

It is time for a bit more collage fun with some older elements retrieved from my flat files! I found some drawings already cut out, then stashed away. Note also one more mummy print now updated with watercolors. And of course I have to scan these and tryout some digital variations, so the right hand images have digital enhancement.

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Using Ghost Prints

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on January 5, 2025 by SJanuary 5, 2025

I like using ghost prints. I often made a ghost print back in my printmaking days, unless I was printing an edition. And that was infrequent as I preferred the variety of unique prints.

A ghost print is the second or even third image pulled from the plate without re-inking. Sometimes, very occasionally, a ghost print will be spectacular; better than the first, intentional print. But more often the ghost print will be pale and a bit lackluster, but still with some value.

Ghost prints can be excellent backgrounds for additional work. An intricate ghost print provides a fine start for abstract doodling with colored pencil, pen, or even paint. I cleaned out some flat file drawers and found a few ghost prints to work on. The blue ghost print at left has colored pencil, a bit of marker pen, and an added circle applied. It may be something of an aerial view.

I transformed the orange ghost print on the right using watercolor paint. It now an abstracted landscape to my eyes, and I rather like it. These two pieces are fun examples of using ghost prints.

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  • Three Small Prayer Pieces
  • A Small Prayer
  • More Wrapped
  • Bound and Wrapped
  • Fire on the Mountain

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