Category Archives: My Art

Studio Tour was Lovely

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I really worked to get ready, and Studio Tour was lovely. With some 50-55 visitors during the one day event, I stayed busy. And most were enthusiastic and ready to engage with me about my work and my process.

I received many compliments on my studio, which is very much a display space as well as being my working studio. In addition to displaying my own work, I surround myself with favorite found objects. There are arrangements and displays of shells, fine beach pebbles, old souvenirs & jewelry, odd mangled and stained scraps and interesting broken things. I arrange these to amuse myself, and to have them available for use in my artwork someday. Visitors generally enjoy my habit of arranging these into displays… 🙂 Or at least they are amazed by it!

I had a few works in progress during the tour, but no quiet time to work on them. I was busy greeting and talking with visitors. However I have managed to complete three of these over the past week. I even put together some parts already at hand for a small commissioned light fixture. Two works are simple collages of pressed autumn leaves, one is an assemblage in a drawer, and the commissioned lit piece uses translucent beach stones in resin.

Studio tour did not result in any major sales. I did sell a book, a few scarab beetle people, and one or two small works. I failed to prepare a price list for various standalone artworks although I know that many people hesitate to ask the price. Another marketing mistake was no sign-in book. Unfortunately I was to busy to collect the names of a few visitors who expressed an interest in a particular artwork.

Marketing is really NOT my strong suit! And I stayed busy enough to be distracted…

However sales are not my primary motives for making art or opening my studio. I love doing the work, and I love showing my work in my studio. In an open studio I can talk to people face to face, more or less one on one. It was a wonderful day for me: Studio Tour was lovely.

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Getting Art Done

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

Sometimes life gets in the way of getting art done. Summer, puppies, family, vacation and sheer inertia can deter me from making new art. But Studio Tour approaches, and some new artwork seems desirable, and cleaning up the studio is mandatory. I love to use older images, pieces and parts to create new finished work, or to enhance existing but unsatisfactory works.

At left is “There Were Roses”. For this collage I used a older photo that I added to digitally for the background. It is mounted and has delicate dimensional pieces attached.

On the right, I finally abandoned my earlier fondness for a fairly drab brown print. I added brilliant color and metallic gold paint. It is framed, and now you can actually see it through the glass! I still liked the earlier monochrome print, but it really was dark and almost hidden.

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Port Townsend Studio Tour 2024

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

Now is the time to add the Port Townsend Studio Tour 2024 to your calendar, if you haven’t already done so! This self-guided tour of 60 artists’ studios in Port Townsend or nearby is one day only, Saturday August 24th from 10am to 6pm. Participating artists open their studios, and let’s hope for lovely weather for some outdoor art viewing also!

I hope to see you here in my own studio; you will be welcomed! I will have newer artworks to show, and you will find a selection of older artwork that very few people have seen.

If you cannot make the Studio Tour August date, and would like to see my studio on another day, please do contact me to schedule a visit. I am often available and enjoy art visits. Your visit will make my day!

So plan ahead now! Check out the flyer and the map now available on the Raw Art Collective website! You will also find brief bios from participating artists along with a larger images of the works below. Enjoy the sample works from all 60 artists online up until the tour date, and follow links to their Instagram accounts to see more. Use this to choose which studios you will locate on the map provided, to prepare for the tour date.

Port Townsend Studio Tour 2024 will be the first Artist Tour here since 2019, and we are all excited to welcome visitors.

Artwork thumbnails for tour artists

Here is the quick link to the tour map.

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Light and Color

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

Sometimes you get a lot done when you procrastinate: you can accomplish many small tasks while putting off the big difficult task! So recently I had fun with light and color, with more to come. Small bases with LEDs offer the opportunity to light small translucent artwork or found objects. The result may be mood lighting or night lights, or just some color for winter evenings.

I have so much work to procrastinate about, so there will be more eye candy and small artworks coming soon! And a now here is bit more of my play with light and color.

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Take Gift Wrap to a New Level

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

Artist are makers, and artists are human; they procrastinate when the art work gets difficult. And then there are family obligations to take care of. So this month the opportunity arose to take gift wrap to a new level!

On a recent visit, the youngest granddaughter and I made a very rudimentary cardboard castle for some last minute creative fun. It was a great project that went home with Summer Elise, and now takes up too much space in her playroom. This activity inspired my latest maker project: another cardboard castle to contain a few of her birthday gifts!

I spent a happy couple of days in my studio “building” a more elaborate castle! This one is fit for a princess about to be seven years old! So much fun!

This cardboard castle has color, decorative elements, and various non-cardboard embellishments. There are shells, feathers, and some shiny bits of this & that! There is plastic film “glass” in some windows, the doors open and close, and there is even a sort of landscaping about the base!

I enclosed three small presents and tied the front closed with a lovely ribbon. What is more, the castle made it safely to its destination. We parked in Bainbridge to walk on to the Seattle ferry, to be met for our ride to Kent. I am so glad that cardboard is lightweight!

So in order to take gift wrap to a new level, I made this fancy cardboard castle “box” for a few small birthday gifts for our seven year old granddaughter! So much more fun than yard work, or resolving difficulties with more ambitious art projects…

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Procrastination is Over for Persephone

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

This version of Persephone & Hades has been only an arrangement in my studio for months now. But my procrastination is over for Persephone at long last; I mounted the drawing and all the elements on to the prepared birch panel! And now that I have added the hanging hardware, perhaps I can stop fussing and tweaking this multimedia piece that is overdue to be finished!

photo of artwork featuring two paper clay figures mounted to a birch panel
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Metallic Flowers on Copper

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I have mounted eight small retired printing plates for a finished artwork, and my Metallic Flowers on Copper is ready to hang. I made the small plates from mat board and shellac years ago at Corvidae Press. They are slightly ink stained, and now embellished with acrylic paint. I loved the idea of mounting them to yet another printing plate. The base is a copper sheet was also a printing plate, but now has the photo sensitive etching material removed. I researched glues for copper, and chose one that should be adequate for this job, fingers crossed!

See the previous post for a photo of the original arrangement, which I liked also. I have mounted a glossy print of the first arrangement onto a painted birch panel, and that piece has already found a new home. I enjoy the amazing variations in the natural world daily on my walks. My metallic flowers on copper allude to the pleasure I find in spring and summer flowers. What a fabulous spring we are enjoying this year!

As usual, I did not plan ahead for how this piece could be hung. I don’t want to frame it, and anyway it is not a standard size so would require a custom frame. But in cleaning out my studio I found three sets of Moore Gallery Clips. These are designed to hold matted art behind glass without a frame. The thin stiff metal pieces fit around the corners of the work, and are held by waxed cord on the back. I added a backer piece of foam core behind the thin copper sheet, in order to use these discreet clips with my piece; now it is ready to hang. I am so glad that I kept these (for years!).

Of course I played with the photo, and tried out some variations of my favorite digital effect. I created several layers in order to adjust the colors and intensity independently. Really I much prefer the original over the foils for this, which is a good thing! But I hope you enjoy these three colorful versions using the digital foil effect. I manipulated all of them for far to long in order to get these results ;-).

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Incorporate the Past in my Present

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

UPDATE: I have rearranged and mounted these plates!

I do like to use up older are pieces, unfinished work, small parts, and retired printing plates to make new work. I may keep these stashed in my studio for years, but sometimes it is time to empty a drawer or box. It is time to incorporate the past in my present, to make this sound a bit more important!

I have a small collection of shellac and mat board plates made long ago in & after a workshop on making printing plates from affordable materials. We made etching and collograph plates using mat board, shellac, and found materials. These small plates, colored by amber shellac, and stained with printing ink, are very pleasing, so I have kept them all these years.

Now it is time to incorporate them in a new work, and I (almost) have a plan. In the process I do have this new digital work:

Mat board print plates arranged on copper

My goal is to permanently mount this set of small mat board plates to this sanded copper plate to create my finished work. I think a two part epoxy may be the best adhesive to use. This will be my technique to incorporate the past in my present!

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Surprisingly Artistic Potholes of Port Townsend Vol II

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

After today you can buy a hardbound copy of my second photo book! Contact me now if for your own copy of The Surprisingly Artistic Potholes of Port Townsend Vol II. The initial copy of Volume II from VistaPrint looks good, and five copies for resale arrive today.

UPDATE:

I have just donated & delivered a copy of each volume of the The Surprisingly Artistic Potholes of Port Townsend to the Jefferson County Historical Museum! The JCHS Museum has a small art collection and displays art exhibits by local artists in addition to historic artifacts and information of local interest. I was quite pleased to have this donation welcomed into the collection. I don’t know how anyone finds out about books in their collection, but I assume these can be viewed on request. And perhaps will even be on display at some point if the time is deemed right…

And I have four copies of Volume I of The Surprisingly Artistic Potholes of Port Townsend available, so perhaps you would enjoy having the set?

Photo of the photo books: The Surprisingly Artistic Potholes of Port Townsend Vol II

How this self-publishing thing works with Vista Print

I assemble a collection of images in a designated folder for the VistaPrint desktop application. In the application I can then build my photo book, choosing photos from this folder. I can resize the photos, add text, design the cover, and choose colors for backgrounds. The application provides easy ways to choose colors from a palette or to set custom colors. While this is mostly WYSIWYG, some issues are not clearly shown but there are warnings when images or text stray beyond margins, etc. so may not print fully.

There is a base number of pages for book size & style, then additional pages add cost. If you want blank left pages, you will pay a lot more, as blank pages cost the same as printed pages. So I try to find photos that work well together.

After I have a first draft on all pages, I preview the book in the application, viewing two pages at time. Here you can more readily see how it will look. I check that text boxes & images line up and balance well across the two pages that will be viewed together. This becomes a review & correct cycle. It is fairly easy to move pages around, and of course to insert or add pages. Do use the warnings button when reviewing after every change you make. It all too easy to accidentally move full page images off center!

Once everything is satisfactory, the application will upload your book to the VistaPrint website so you can order your book. Purchase five to get a small discount, or more for a bit better discount. Photo books are a bit pricey: you can pay a lot for really great quality paper and binding. But VistaPrint seems to be the best budget option, with quite nice quality. There can be problems, and the “glossy” paper option I chose for Volume II is more of a satin sheen than a photo glossy. But The Surprisingly Artistic Potholes of Port Townsend Vol II looks pretty good in my judgement.

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