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.
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…
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!
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 ;-).
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:
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!
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?
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.
Sometimes it is necessary to clear & clean, especially in the Spring. In the studio that can translate to clearing, finishing, and fumbling while cleaning. I sort through saved “stuff” and try to organize or discard. But everything is art material to a me as a mixed media artist, so this is a major challenge!
And I come across unfinished projects and parts that were never incorporated into a finished artwork. This may be a resin cast figure, an assembly never fully attached, or a set of prints intended as backgrounds for a finished work. The fumbling happens as I move, sort, tidy, and then have to search for that very item that I had in my hands just moments ago!
Please enjoy a view of these two recent efforts from my efforts at clearing, finishing, and fumbling.
I completed both of the above assemblage pieces in the past month. Both feature casts of my “golden boy”: an original carving made many years ago now. It took me some years to decide to cast this little partial figure. I carved golden boy from a large bar of Mexican laundry soap. These are the last two of three cast so far.
I am pleased enough with these two pieces, but not so delighted with my lack of progress clearing out the studio!
All sales are pleasing, but some more than others. Yesterday an excited enthusiastic buyer made me so happy! A buyer who loves one of my favorite pieces reinforces my own love of making art, and tells me that I am communicating with my work. This is delightful, but I also feel some regret.
This sale evoked mixed emotions: pleasure and regret. Already I miss my small drawer work: Jump Rope with the Moon. It is a favorite, very dear to me, and now I can only visit it occasionally! Ah well, I do know that it is truly appreciated. That is a joy.
Here is the piece in question.
While some sales are just a little painful, other sales are more mundane: sales of prints and photos are very pleasing, and without the regret. And sales of other original works are very satisfying, without evoking mixed feelings. My recent open studio weekend generated several modest sales, and I gloating just a little bit!
I do not really miss every work sold, rather I am simply happy to sell perfectly satisfactory works that were labors of love. But there are a few pieces I continue to hold close to my heart, even when I decide I must sell them. Jump Rope with the Moon is definitely one of these pieces.
And after the weekend:
It seems I have made another significant sale following the open studio! I had a follow up visit that may have resulted in a nice sale.
I made a set of three large abstract monoprints some years ago, when a member of Corvidae Press. I was very pleased with these prints, and framed them carefully. All three are often on display in my home or in my studio. These three prints were made on the same day, using ivory ink on a rich black paper. I used some of the same masks & stencils in different arrangements to create three prints with very different feels.
I worked into two of them with some colored pencils, the third is a bold ivory on black. These have been shown and admired, but never sold. However one of them was chosen by friend’s granddaughter as one she would like, and it is to be a birthday present from her grandparents, now confirmed. It does feel easier to let go of this piece, as it is one I have enjoyed for several years.
In the aftermath of my enjoyable and energizing Open Studio weekend, I won’t do the math! I did make quite a few sales: all small works or photo books; no larger sales. It is very encouraging when people want my work enough to take it home with them. We all love to have our work appreciated, even loved! And the engagement with visitors was really rewarding. But it is so good that I am NOT making art for the money; in the aftermath let there be no math…
Of course I have counted the money! And it does pay for the party and for some art materials. So that is excellent. However in no way would my sales over the years begin to cover my full materials costs, let alone pay anything for my working time
Five copies of The Surprisingly Artistic Potholes of Port Townsend Volume I sold slightly above cost, but that was only because the printing errors resulted in getting a free set on my last order from VistaPrint. And both sets came with the same annoying printing error for the cover, although all the photo pages are fine.
Here my studio is ready for visitors, with artworks dragged out of storage, and propped up everywhere:
And the good news is that in the aftermath the studio is still much cleaner than usual!
I have impulsively scheduled an artist Open Studio soon: on the weekend of February 17th! It will be a casual meet the artist, see the art, and that’s all folks!
Meet the Artist and Enjoy the Art in her Studio / Gallery
I may try for a bit of an after event party on the Sunday, with some food & drink, but I am not sure yet. I might need a bit of help with that idea!
A new friend, Carolyn Lewis, does interviews with artists for the Port Townsend Leader, and she visited my studio recently for an interview. If all goes well this will be published in the paper on February 14th, and my Open Studio will take place the following weekend. Fingers crossed though, as Valentine’s Day fillers may fill the paper and crowd out the interview. That would be very disappointing!
But I had to make a commitment, so I posted the event to the community calendar, and will announce it on Facebook, etc. in the next day or two. So like it or not, I will hold an open studio soon!
