Finding joy during studio sabbatical

 My back is still being cranky so I am mostly doing not much of anything but read and watch the hummingbirds through the window.  This is annoying as I was really enjoying working with the alcohol ink but I will get back to it in a few weeks, I'm sure.  And when I do, I will use some of my bird photos as a starting point.  So today, I'm sharing some of the ones I'm considering.  I'm mostly looking for a good silhouette altho if it's a stunning bird shot, I may just interpret it in ink.

First up, my favorite Steller's Jay photo.  Part of what I'm doing while not in the studio is learning my new photo software (Affinity) and I'll be creating a layer off this photo with lines that can be used as a silkscreen.  

And of course I have to have a Great Blue Heron shot.  So many choices.  Here's a flying heron that I love because of the water background.  I think the alcohol ink will be great for doing that background.  If I use this one, I'll probably crop it in but that will be a balancing act between focusing on the heron and keeping enough of the water to give that spacious feeling.

The other candidate is one taken at Tennant Lake in April so we joked about the heron keeping social distance from us on the boardwalk.

This one is more of a classic standing pose and that's always a popular choice.

Female fiber artist who influenced me: Robbi Eklow

It's March again and that means women's history month.  I'm solidly in the fiber art field now, growing from the art quilt field, so I'm focusing on artists who have influenced me.  This year, I'm picking Robbi Eklow, in part because I'm starting my own Bellingham School of Digital Collage (with a nod of acknowledgement to the Chicago School of Fusing) and in part because she's been posting on FB about her latest major life transition and I can definitely relate to that magnitude of change.

So, who is Robbi?  Her webpage gives this succinct bio.  "Robbi Joy Eklow has an Engineering degree from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. In college she married her husband Brian, they have two children. Robbi lectures and teaches internationally, and has shown quilts and won ribbons in major quilt shows across the United States. She wrote a bi-monthly column "Goddess of the Last Minute" for Quilting Arts Magazine. She has designed quilts and written articles for many quilting publications and written two books about quilting."  See her quilt gallery here.

Her column in Quilting Arts magazine helped me free myself from all the rules of the quilt police.   The quilting shows originally started out of state fairs and the judging of quilts was primarily based on technique and how well that technique stuck to the traditions of the field.  Robbi's writing was a wonderful breath of humor and she introduced me to the concept of fusibles.  Since I now do collage rather than piecing, it's clear that fusibles opened a doorway for me to a brand new world.

On of her earlier quilts showed how to use the fusing with hand dyed fabric with her signature repetition of shape within the quilt (The picture above is a newer version of that).  I was still doing traditional pieced quilts when her work (among others) inspired me to step outside traditional patterns, cut those shapes however I wanted and fuse away.  I'm still doing that now, a couple of decades later, but mixing in paper and paint too. 

Fiber Artist #5: Hollis Chatelain

In keeping with my focus on persistence and finishing, here's my fifth and final female fiber artist.  Hollis Chatelain came to my attention (in the 90's?) when one of her fabulous pieces sold for mid 5 figures, setting new goals for many fellow art quilters about possible income.  I've continued to be aware of and admire her work since as an influential artist in my field.

Blue Men by Hollis Chatelain

As you can see above, her work is realistic and detailed, striking in composition and content.  For a fiber artist, the way she works is inspiring.  She starts with a large piece of white fabric, sketches the design and then dye paints.  If she was working on a stretched canvas, this would be the total effort to create a painting.  But then, she stitches to add detail and texture to the surface.  Amazing work and I highly recommend checking out her webpage, https://www.hollisart.com/

I'm looking at her work with a new perspective as I try to simplify my processes so that I can still be productive with my lower energy level.  One thing I'm looking at is working whole cloth rather than doing fabric collage.  One of my challenges for this next several months is how do I do this and looking at her process is very helpful in giving me ideas.

Baby stepping to success

I'm spending some of my down time right now thinking about what do I do if this eye thing is permanent.  And the fatigue thing.  How do I manage to be happy & creative within these limitations?  And one of the things that is helping me right now is a blogger/writer named James Clear.  More about him in a few paragraphs. 

One of the other things that is resonating in my head is this quote:

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, 

Your thoughts become your words, 

Your words become your actions, 

Your actions become your habits, 

Your habits become your values, 

Your values become your destiny.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

And then there was the movie "What about Bob?" which introduced the phrase "baby steps" into our family.  

What about Bob?

I've long found the baby steps approach to work.  Just keep plugging and you'll get there.  And certainly, both my career as a software developer and my years as a quilter have shown that persistence pays off.

How do I apply these now is my current question.  And James Clear's most recent blog post has some excellent information and ideas about how to create change and keep it.  Identity Based Habits discusses how to make sure the changes stick by starting with changing how you view yourself.  And do it in a small way so that it's easier to be successful.  See how the quote above and the movie connect in?    I think I'm heading in the right direction as I am changing my definition of myself as an artist from one who creates lots of work and exhibits it often to someone who regularly creates work that matters.  But it's going to take time to see how this plays out.  In the meantime, I'll just keep on baby stepping...

Fiber artist #3: Carol Bryer Fallert(-Gentry)

Yes, I know, the #FiveFemaleArtists thing was for March but life happens, no?  I'm going to finish anyway.

Carol Bryer Fallert came to my attention in the late 90's when she started her feather studies series.  I share her love of color & curves,  and appreciated the change in perception of zooming in on a familiar object.   Here's the first in that particular series.

But it wasn't until she did a large dancer piece at the same time I was beginning my dancer series that I decided to keep an eye on her.  Her work dealt with similar concepts as mine while differing in treatment enough to generate interesting ideas for me.

She not only has an extensive body of work which can be seen  at http://www.bryerpatch.com/ but has reached the point in her life/career where she is mentoring the rest of us with her free articles and tutorials.

I'm spending part of this week exploring what she offers at http://www.bryerpatch.com/faq/faq.htm.  I appreciate her offerings not only because of her decades of experience creating and teaching but also because this is a wonderful collection of articles relevant to my work in one convenient place.

Norwescon: my spring art show

I'm starting a new group of dancer pieces using the phrase "Dancing with the Stars" as my theme.  While I'll be talking about them and some of the pieces will have silkscreen prints in my etsy store as I make them, the new work will debut at Norwescon at the end of March.  Norwescon is a volunteer run Science Fiction & Fantasy convention that's held on Easter weekend every year in SeaTac.  It's very popular with artists so I was only able to get one panel this year so I'll have a 4ft by 4ft panel of new art to show.   I'm basing the new work on older pieces and doing variations on these pieces shown below. 

Original 'Space Dancers'

This piece was my first combination with the dancers and astronomy photos.  That worked somewhat but I'd like to simplify the composition by reducing the elements and not have as many textures and colors going at once.  One of my other pieces that sold almost immediately has that simpler color palette.

Infinity & beyond

The problem with this piece was the funny size.  This was 20" wide and 10" high and was a pain to frame.  I'm going to try this piece with a more square finished size and we'll see how that goes.

And finally, the piece that got lost in transit while I had 2 studios, one public and one at home. 

'Grounded'

I really like the central figure with the marbled fabric streamers swirling around the globe, the dancer and then off into space.  I was so sad about losing this piece that it's been hard to do another one but it's definitely on my list for this year's work.

Things I want to combine in these new pieces:  glow in the dark paint, some new celestial fabrics I just ordered this morning,  and using paper to work out the compositions before doing the textile pieces.   I'm excited about the ideas I'm getting as well as finally having the studio set up so I can work easily.  I got in some studio time every day this week which is also a good thing. 

I'll be posting as I make progress on these and I look forward to sharing them with you all. 

Inspirations for developing new series

I was out most of the last week with a multi-day migraine so I had lots of time to think.  And since I'm really, really close to having the whole studio unpacked and set up, I started thinking about what kind of bird series I want to do this year.

My initial thought was to use my photos but since I just got a new camera there are some issues with setting up the process of sorting, moving and keywording the new pics so that they fit in with the old pics.  And I'm only partway moving all my photos into the cloud so big gnarly issue there.

I went back through my ideas & inspiration notebook and checked my wishlist on Amazon.  On my wishlist was a very expensive book about extinct birds which is now 2/3rds of the price it was originally. Excellent!  Put that into my cart.

Next, I thought about researching endangered species of birds so the googling began.  There are at least 1200 (out of the 10,000 species of birds) that are endangered and most of the top 100 were not very colorful.  With the notable exception of the Juan Fernandez Firecrown.  The males are orange with a fiery crown but the females are teal which originally led people to believe they were 2 different species.   Isn't she a beauty?

 Photo by Fabrice Schmitt, from abcbirds.org

Further googling led to this list of endangered hummingbirds.  There are 30some endangered hummingbirds which could be a series all by itself.  I also found the Washington State list here.  That is also possibly a whole series of its own.  So I'm narrowing it down and I'm excited by the idea.  I just need to wait for my book order to arrive and make a decision.  I like all of these ideas so I think I might end up listing 6 ideas so I can just roll a die to pick one.  Or I could do a poll.  Which idea do you like best?

Dragons and more dragons AKA vacation prep

Today we're packing for a week out of town.  I got a new book, Dragonvale Art, visible at the left edge toward the front of the picture below, and it has inspired me to do some dragon sketching while on vacation.  I also wanted to play with my watercolor paints on actual watercolor paper rather than fabric so those got added to the supplies stack.

I am bringing along watercolor bars, Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils, the Dragonvale book, 2 small ceramic 4 compartment plates, sketching pencils and black markers, two plastic tubs of watercolor paints, lots of brushes, 2 different size sketchpads, 6 pads of watercolor paper of different types and sizes, my current dragon silkscreen and the black ink and the tools to screen with, 2 pieces of fabric with the laughing dragon screened on them, a piece of acrylic that I use to paint the fabric on and the blue tape to hold the fabric to the acrylic. And the fabric medium to add to the watercolor paints so they don't wash out.

In a recent Facebook post, I mentioned going for 50 dragon sketches this week.  Since the 50 collages week in my Fiber Arts program, I have gotten very comfortable setting myself impossible goals and seeing how close I get.  I assume I'll fail to make it but set the goal so my reach exceeds my grasp.  The 50 collages in one week assignment taught me that I can do more than I think I can if I just get going and see how far I go.

Speaking of reach, grasp, and the power of just continuing to make progress, I'm 35 page views away from 30,000 unique page views on this blog.   I started this blog in February of 2008 so it's almost 9 years of blogging.   A big thank you to those who have followed along and here's to another adventurous almost decade coming up.

Spring inspiration at Larsen Lake

I've been down this last week or so due to a root canal.  I was very low energy but still had enough for walks on the greenbelt when the weather was good.  And I am happy to confirm that spring is really here.  I get some of my best inspiration from these walks and here are a few of the photos I got using my phone.

tree budding out

Spring is my favorite time to go birding since the trees don't have leaves yet and the birds are not only in breeding plumage, but being more social and active.  I also appreciate it as the gray of winter fades away and the colors pop in the landscape.  Great example below...

blueberry field starting to bud

I only got a decent photo of one bird.  Such is the splendor of spring that I even get fond of mallards in this season.  

grazing in the grass

I hope everyone else is able to enjoy their local spring as it pops forth.

25% Taking in inspiration

One of the books I've read by working artists talking about how to have a sustainable creative process said 25% of an artist's time should be spent taking in things that can be used as inspiration.  Today turned out to be one of those days.  It started out well with a great workout at the gym where I took a dozen shots of some crows being spooky in a tree in the fog, and me feeling all pumped up about a whole day dedicated to painting.

Then I came home, did my stretches for the first time since Thanksgiving, checked out the studio for air quality, and tried the recipe for a pomegranate smoothie.  After drinking the smoothie, I started feeling woozy.  Long story short, I was soon felled by a severe allergy attack with at least 3 possible causes.  *sigh*  Productive work today:  watching some more of the online class on inking, reading some dragon drawing materials and contemplating the crow photos.  The one above is the only one that caught any of the crows in flight.

While the iPhone camera failed to capture the spooky fog, it did well enough at giving me a good dark image on a light background which is what I need to make a good screen.  I have shots of a couple of other leafless trees and have spent part of the day contemplating how to combine these into an interesting collage.  Or use them as screens in vivid colors with birds.   Tomorrow, I swear, I will paint dragonflies.

Dragonflies have amazing colors

Today's task for my 30 days of art experiments was to find some dragonfly reference photos on the web.  Research is one of my favorite things and a great way to procrastinate when I'm getting tired of decluttering the studio.  Not to mention Sunday is my day off.  But I digress...

Tyson ecology research

I particularly wanted to get some variations in the wing colors but wasn't sure if that actually happened in real life.  Well, I was very surprised to find the amazing variety of patterning on both the wings and the bodies of dragonflies.  The one above was the best of the variegated wing ones.

This one is the variegated body patterning that caught my eye.

And this one caught my eye for the multiple colors and the body patterns.

Tomorrow, assuming I get a clear surface to work on, I start playing with the paints.  

Fabulous example of an artist's process (ZenPencils' Gavin Aung Than)

Today's email brought a missive from ZenPencils which is currently tied with xkcd as my favorite online comic.  As part of a promotion for Gav's upcoming book, he's having a drawing for some of his original ink art.  The catch?  You have to preorder the new book to be eligible.  Fortunately, my husband has already taken care of that petty detail so we're good.

While I was thrilled to have the chance to get some great free art, I was also so pleased that in the blog post about it, Gav showed the development of one piece from a conceptual sketch through refined pencil and ink drawings to the final color piece.  I find it validating to know that other artists start with the same rough idea and then do it again and again, refining as they go.  So thanks, Gav!

See the promotion and the art process here.  And let me just say, I love his work so if these images look interesting to you, you might check it out further.  And I find his story of developing his business inspirational as well.  Also, he's here in Seattle on Monday, October 19 at Third Place Books at 7pm.  RSVP at the FB page.

Here are his in  process pictures: