Mix It Up!

 One of the very creative artists in the St. Michaels Art League (SMAL) loves 'mixed media' and has chaired a show during the month of January called 'Mix it Up!'  January is a tough time to do a show because everyone is just 'recovering' from the holidays...and it takes a while to create something new.

Somehow she manages to get enough people to jump on board with this and we turn out amazing, creative pieces. Nancy works hard to make this all work and I wanted to support her efforts so I rummaged through a pile of old art pieces to see if I could mix something up.

I found an old small canvas that I had worked on in a class a few years ago. I don't remember the class assignment, but I do remember that I had had fun working on it. The finished piece had been sitting on an easel in my shop one day when I was doing some woodworking and, as I remember, something slipped and a piece of wood went flying toward the canvas and tore a hole in it. 

It was still hanging around, so picked it up and thought I would work on it for the show. Originally, I had begun by painting the canvas... thinking of an underwater scene. 

A few weeks before I had been on a 'field trip' with my art group. We had gone with cameras in hand to a harbor. I was more fascinated with the 'stuff' lying around than with the boats.  Here are just a few of the photos I took that day.

I cut and pasted... and ended up with this scene! 

I love it that I could find a fish and fish eye in all that tangle!

But, now I had a gash in the canvas. I needed to repair and update...  I found the old photographs on my computer (how I love the search button!), and tried a few things. I was able to cover the ripped canvas with some chains. And then, just for fun, I cut out some bubbles and glued them on, too.

"Environmental Concerns"

More catching up...

 Looking back at last year for artwork that never got posted... one of the things I found was the 'house drawing' for Christmas in St. Michaels, an annual event in our small town. It is a fundraiser for local non profits, held the second weekend in December. There is a parade, breakfast with Santa, a concert and more. A special part of the event is a house tour. All the events are published in a booklet that is given out when tickets are purchased, 

In the 30+ years of this weekend event, members of the St. Michaels Art League (SMAL) have done drawings of the houses on the tour. The drawings are printed in the event booklet and the originals are framed and given to the homeowner as a thank you for opening their home.  

I was given an address and drove into town to take a look. The house had been recently renovated. It seemed that the most used entrance was no longer the 'front door'. I walked down the driveway to find the backyard which had a lovely view of the harbor! There was a large back porch which invited a visitor to just 'be there'.  I took lots of photos and went back home to draw. I debated about adding all the trees. In the end I thought that the house needed to be 'embraced' by foliage.  

It's a fun project but always tests my discipline/need to add color. It's a black and white booklet - I have to restrain myself!

So, on to the other December project - the annual Christmas card. I have a friend who doesn't send Christmas cards, she sends Solstice cards. We had worked on a card for her and her theme of the 'return of the light.' I had also been thinking about the 'light' with another group as we planned a community vigil. I began to explore ideas about that light... and began to paint candles.

I ended up with three images, one on the cover and two inside. 

Front cover

I usually only put a painting on the front of the card. These extra images needed to be painted this year.  I hope your 2025 Christmas was filled with light.

More to come as I continue to catch up...

 

Where have I been???

It's like I just woke up and said, "Where have I been?"  For whatever reason, maybe because I have been looking and snow and ice and single degree wind chill temperatures!) I 'came to' this afternoon. I have been off-line with this blog for a year.  It hasn't been bad weather all that time, but it's just been a year of dropping out of 'stuff'. 

Hopefully, I can rejoin 'life' and catch up with 2025...2026.

I looked back at artwork I did last year - nothing very exciting. I did enter a couple of exhibits. So I'll start there:

For the past few years the St. Michaels Art League has had a show in October themed "Capturing Autumn".  One year I was feeling sort of 'sassy' and had worked on this one. I finished it this year and entered it.  I called it "Autumn Captured"...subtle and sassy...  It started out with a jail cell bars, added a large key hole ...

If you look closely, you can see the key hole next to the double bars 

where the jail door would be...

The next show was the annual Martha Hudson Excellence in Watercolor. One of the paintings I entered a Christmas card from a prior year ...  It's a watercolor on Yupo painting. Yupo is a plastic paper that I have written about before. It doesn't absorb watercolor paint so you can paint on it and then lift the color off.  There are several layers of thick paint which added interesting depth. Such fun to use!

Then I found this painting that I had done a few years ago. It is also done on Yupo paper. I did a little tweaking on it and turned it upside down!  When I first did it, it looked like this.

I had just been playing with color. Dropping paint and probably spraying it with water. As I recall, I picked it up and kept turning it around. I thought it was fun but a little weird and decided to turn it over and paint something on the other side.  I laid it upside down on my board and played with the back of the paper. (My board is a piece of luan plywood that I polyurethaned several years ago.) The next day when I picked it up ...I found all these interesting marks from the board! 

I showed this to my art group (a small group of friends with whom I zoom each week. We support each other and critique our artwork) They suggested turning it upside down...

It's now a completely different painting! And someone suggested calling it "Creation". I like the light from above calling forth a life form beneath. 

Look for more in the next couple of weeks... will explore Christmas card and more... (yeah, I'm really behind!)

Ahoy!

 Each year (since 2010) the St Michaels Art League (SMAL) has had a banner program. Artists are invited to present artwork that will be scanned, then printed onto 'weather proof' material. The banners hang on the telephone poles along Talbot Street - which is our 'Main Street'.

I have blogged about my banners for many years. You may remember "Mikey" my St. Michaels crab who tries to "Celebrate St. Michaels", our annual theme, in all sorts of ways. 

I wasn't sure what I wanted Mikey to do this year so I went back to my file and began to look at all the banners from past years. I found the sketch below...It had been an idea that I never followed through on.  Maybe this year...

I began with a rough sketch...capturing some of what I had done before and adding a line to the life ring.

It progressed from there...to this. This was all done on drawing paper - not watercolor paper -so the watercolor paint just wrinkled up everything. I was trying to get an idea of color and balance.

I really like the simplicity of this. It should look great at 30 feet up on a pole. Not too detailed as you drive or walk by. 

So, I switched to my watercolor paper. Almost all my previous Mikeys have had some sort of hat and I wanted to fill the space between Mikey's 'head/shell' and the life preserver ring. 

Now I had this...

I showed it to my artist critic friends and we had a discussion about adding any kind of light wash background to make sure the hat and ring would stand out from the white paper. Several of us just like the crispness of the primary colors and the white. 

After putting it aside for several days and looking at it from across the room (no way could I get it 30 feet high!), I decided not to do a wash.  

Instead, I added more shading and a bit more ink drawing around the hat, ring, and line. Mikey is ready to be scanned!

"Ahoy!"

It's takes time for everything to be scanned, printed, sewn and readied to hang. Lots of behind-the-scene activity on this project! Look for the banners to appear in mid-April. 

All the original banner art will be on view in April at the St. Michaels Community Center. Stop by for a preview before they go 30 feet in the air!  They will also be on the art league website around that time smartleague.org

"Things that Warm the Heart"

Horrible fires in California, snow in some unusual places across the South, minus zero temperatures in the north,...14+ inches of snow here 10 days ago. It's hard to process all this and it's just the first month of the year!  At least when I am snowed in I can get a lot of things done inside! (and, yes, I did go out and build a snowman.)

Blue Heron Coffee, a small coffee shop in my village, offers gallery space to the St. Michaels Art League. The theme of the upcoming show in February is 'Things that Warm the Heart'. I wanted to participate so tried a couple of paintings. 

For many years I made valentines for my husband in sort of a 'zentangle' manner. As I thought about the February exhibit I wondered whether one of those valentines would work. I couldn't find the original one, but I did have an image in my photo file. I sort of copied it and made some upgrades...

As I understand zentangle, it's free form object with formulated 'designs' within. I think 'true' zentangle is also black and white. But, being more of a color person, I break the rules. This is what I reconstructed. I love the hearts connected.

While I love this image, I wanted to try another idea. My thought was warming hearts centered around a fire...and a chance to really get into color! I got out my pastels. I love the variety and depth of color. No 'hearts' shown here, just implied. 

If you are in town during the month of February, stop in to Blue Heron Coffee and take a look at this and all the other artists' ideas.

Coming soon...whatever it is I decide to do for the 2025 Banner program... ???

2024 is ending!

 As I look at my calendar and see December 31...I find it hard to believe that this year is ending! Then I look and see that my last post was in October and am forgiving myself for neglecting this blog. I have never been into New Year's resolutions so won't even pretend, but ... maybe I'll post more in 2025.

Since October... I have exhibited in three different places:

The Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD offers its members an opportunity to hang our own artwork for a month each year. This year there were space considerations so it was a show of 'small works.' I entered this piece titled "White Flame" It is an acrylic pour. I like the drama of it and apparently someone else did - it sold!

I also had an opportunity to put a painting in another 'small works' exhibit so I entered this one. I love the swirl of colors, but it never had a title, I called it "What do you see?"

Then it was time for the annual art league watercolor exhibit - this happens each December. I thought I would try something entirely different. This is watercolor paint on Yupo paper. It is a simple procedure but gives a dramatic effect. This is an 11x14 piece of Yupo. I took three long pieces of string. First green, then red and then yellow. I dipped each in watercolor paint and then laid it in an irregular pattern on the paper with the end near the bottom of the paper in the center. I pulled the string and it painted itself...one string at a time. As you can see, I did the red one twice and the other two colors three times. Ta da! Fun to do! 

And lastly...it was time to design this year's Christmas card. Many of us have been in a funk since November - yes, I will say it. The election results were disappointing... I was trying to find a way to be hopeful. I do find hope sitting outside... so I worked on this idea. The Christmas star in the sky - a figure sitting and looking at night. 

I began by painting the dark background (this is hard for me because I am usually so into color!) I knew it would be difficult to paint a figure there so I began by drawing the figure separately and then painting it.

I cut it out. I was practicing painting the image. I liked what I saw so I decided to use the cutout and make a collage! I placed it on the dark background. I also cut out a star and put in into the dark sky. I added a few more stars by lightly touching the sky with a white pen.

I lightened the front of the figure to show the light shining from the star.

                                                            The inside of the card reads,

The star...

a light in the darkness...

HOPE

May you each find the light in 2025.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Catching up!

When I began this blog in 2011 (how can that be?), I pledged to myself that I would write at least twice a month... Obviously, that pledge has totally 'fallen by the wayside' this year! 

I haven't done that much artwork, still adjusting to my new life, but the work I have done just didn't ever get posted.  Today is an amazing Fall day with nothing on my calendar. Maybe I can catch up a little.  So, I went back and looked at a few images that I had worked on...

Last June, my youngest granddaughter graduated from high school. She was getting ready to write some thank you notes for her graduation gifts. Her mother had bought her some nice (but unremarkable) cards to use for her notes. We were joking around about how to make them more fun... the next day I sketched out some ideas that eventually became this:

Gator Meets Hokie

Her high school mascot was the Gator. She would be on her way to Virginia Tech whose mascot is the Hokie! 

Then...there was a joint graduation party to be given by her and one of her friends who would be going to Clemson...  so we then had to have the Clemson Tiger!

Moving on...into June... I volunteered to do a house drawing for the Christmas in St. Michaels house tour booklet. It's deadline to get to the printer (even though the event in not until December) was the end June.  This was the June project. The event is December 13-15. This year they are celebrating the 35th anniversary of this project which supports non-profits in our area.

Now into July... two projects! My daughter sent me a knitting project... She wanted me to knit a Hokie! It is a strange turkey-like creature. After looking at various patterns... this is what I came up with for granddaughter's birthday in August before she left for college.

The Virginia Tech colors are maroon and orange! Apparently, when VT began looking for colors, a committee made a list of all the colleges then in existence and found that maroon and orange were the only colors that had not been put together anywhere!

At the same time I was knitting at night I was also working on a pastel of a photo of my great grandson. When his parents had posted it, I knew I had to paint it! I finished it in time to give it to them when they came for a visit in August. It was on their wedding anniversary - a special time together. I wanted to put it in a show in September so I gave it to them and then took it back! It will make its way to their house soon.  I titled it "Reflecting"

One more and I'll be caught up... The art league is currently exhibiting artwork at the library in Easton. This exhibit is called "Capturing Autumn".  This is a painting of one of my granddaughters who is now 25! I love so much about this... her curiosity with the leaf, the colors, the timeless quality of sitting in a pile of leaves...  It is a pastel titled "Her First Pile of Leaves."

One of the things that I know is that when I see a photo of one of these 'little people' I am captured by it and it often then 'paints itself.' 

This current show will be at the library through the month of October.