More Old Work Renewed

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

If you read my previous post “Making Old Work New” you will already have the drift. I am studio clearing, finishing, renewing, and discarding. Here I have added color to two older works: a pencil drawing and a photo etching.

I am quite charmed by beetles, but this insect seems to be more of a fantasy fly, enjoying a flower. Once only a delicate pencil drawing, now in watercolor and as digital foiled versions of each.

The print is a variation of my strider/running woman that may represent my own flight from the “big city” and from my 9-5 (well 9-5:30 with a 30 minute lunch…) job at Boeing Computer Services. . We left Seattle for Port Townsend in 1998 and were more or less self employed one way or another for another 10 years before settling into art for me, and real retirement with fruit trees, motorcycles, and old RVs to work on (M)J.

This small print is just black ink and the figure alone. So each print has seen very different additions over time. Here I added a landscape in watercolor with a bit of colored pencil used in the buildings.

So I continue with more old work renewed.

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Making Old Work New

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

You may well ask how am I making old work new? Old is old! But it is not so when I have turned my attention to unfinished or somehow unsatisfactory older drawings or prints. My Autumn project is to clean, reduce, and reuse in my studio. After more than 25 years of making art this work will last weeks or months. So I continue to plug away.

Currently I am working my way through my huge flat file cabinet, which has several drawers absolutely stuffed with drawings and prints of all sizes. Work on paper is not improved by my haphazard careless storage system.

I file the best of these in recently purchase folios where they will be better protected. So far I have no system, other than size. But I will know my art will be better protected from damage.

Not a few will get new life under my circle cutters. I have two crunching circle cutters: a two inch and a 2.5 inch cutter. Interesting and intricate work that is nonetheless unsatisfactory will become many fine small circles. I have used some of these circles in other art works, and some have been glued together over tiny LED bulbs on wire strings. These LEDs are available with small batteries (needing fairly frequent replacement), or now with USB plugs that can be used with plug in adapters (aka plug in phone chargers). This is a game changer for those of us unwilling to deal with batteries! Eventually I will have so many circles to use in new projects!

In this process I have found quite a few drawings and prints that I deem worthy but unfinished 😉 . Now I make this another opportunity to make old work new! Generally I add color with colored pencil, pen, watercolor, pastel or even ink via my computer and archival printer. Sometimes the work is transformed more radically using digital manipulation.

Here are a few examples of adding color and digital transformation I use to make my old work new:

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Not So Much New

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I have not so much new work to show from recent weeks. But I am working! Please note that I will have work on exhibit at the Art Farm Gallery on Saturday 10/12! Every art lover is welcome to this most excellent party event; just come with interest in fine art, stay to visit, to taste a few great snacks, and to enjoy some fine music!

I am slow doing anything these days, and have many things to keep me busy. It took me several days to prepare for this fine art event. In doing so, I started some significant “housekeeping” in my studio. The time has finally come to clean out some detritus, complete unfinished work or destroy it, and gift away anything I no longer use.

So I embellished & enhanced several older incomplete artworks, especially pieces from my printmaking days at Corvidae Press. Some have even been mounted and made ready to hang. Others may be combined to create finished works.

Sometimes bigger changes are needed! My work area was no longer serving me well, with changes in use and changes in my life. So I tackled this by relocating my primary work table, along with carts of tools & materials. Thank goodness for wheeled storage! Another part of the other work is cleaning out some older materials that I don’t seem to use; there is so much great stuff to pass on to others!

I am also trying to shrink my “office” storage that surrounds my computer! Perhaps I can discard bank & card statements that are 10 years old??? Well, my own ambition just amazes me!

Here are some of the newly finished/reworked prints, along with one new piece that I have not posted previously, called “Memories with Fork”:

So not so much new is relative: some things are renewed!

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Dark Night of the *Artist’s* Soul

P.T. Artist Sandra Stowell Posted on by

I have received a recent delightful request that I make a few selections of my art work for an upcoming exhibit. This had an unexpected consequence, as it actually plunged me into the dark night of the artist’s soul! The request: I was asked to choose from two short lists of artworks that I display in my online gallery.

This gallery is very large, and spans many years of work. I grouped the images into albums with somewhat loose & overlapping categories. And this organization does NOT match up with the groupings of higher resolution images that I store locally. Then there are the original artworks, which are not at all organized.

Do I have a data base of my artworks? Do I carefully track which pieces have sold, or been gifted away? Of course not! Instead I have incomplete “note” files here and there on my computer. And my faulty memory!

So what caused me to enter this place or mood that am calling the dark night of the *artist’s* soul? First the painful task of locating the works of interest, matching up the images & titles to identify and locate the original artworks! Second the sheer number of unwanted and forgotten artworks in my studio! So much work to be sold, gifted, retained or destroyed.

I found them all, but not without being too exhausted to finish the communication for the exhibit. One drawing was in one of four forgotten folios of drawings & prints from the previous decade. Another mixed media work was sold some years ago, a more recent piece has been gifted to a family member. The others are available and hang on the wall in my house. You may see a few of the pieces shown here in a fun exhibit soon, TBD.

Now I need to complete the job. I will document the sizes, any framing or changes to the works, add prices, and share the list of the available works. Tomorrow I must emerge from this dark night of the artist’s soul, and get to work if I want to show a few art works at an upcoming one day event.

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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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