2012/365 - Day 18

another Experimental Art Night

I got this note from Shaqe Kalaj regarding the upcoming Experimental Art Night class at Art & Ideas Gallery in Plymouth, MI:

I am excited to offer the 3D class that I have been waiting to offer. I just received the supplies for this Tuesday. We will be using assemblage in order to make a 3 dimensional object. I have a vision for this project is to do a group installation with these works. Come and experience it. You will use a particular kind of creativity that I will explain on Tuesday. The class is from 7-8:30pm and is $17. Please let me know by 7pm tomorrow night (Monday) to reserve your spot.

I thought, "well...I haven't participated in the last few Experimental Art Nights and I like 3D and assemblage so I think this sounds pretty cool." My friend Ruth and I both decided to take the class.

Although it turned out to be not quite how I would define assemblage, it was kind of entertaining. Mine turned into an exercise in forced patience.

We were given the words "build" and "gravity" and all we could use were popsicle sticks and Elmer's glue. Then we were directed to defy gravity and build whatever we wanted to while trying solve the problem of making the structure get as vertical as possible. Shaqe is planning on making some sort of installation with all of the pieces done by students of her classes.






Shaqe with an example while explaining the process.
















Shaqe with another of her younger student pieces (she is listening to Kate talk about cantilever.)














the materials














I decided to try to get mine to grow vertically with as little visible support as possible. The glue works pretty quickly and I was surprised that the walls would stand up as they did.

I glued four sticks together side by side and added one more on top of the flat section in a diagonal so that it touched each piece in one small spot.




The forced patience came in the waiting for the glue to set up. It will dry clear(er).

I had to use a palette knife to slide underneath the flat glued sections to keep them from sticking to the paper on the surface of the table. Sometimes that would loosen all of the pieces and I would be forced to wait it out until the glue set up enough to move the section.




I wanted my piece to be three walls and have it be open on the fourth side so that you'd be able to walk around the walls and come inside on the open end (provided you were tiny enough to see this as a tall wall). It isn't a fort, it isn't a barricade or corral, it is just a sort of wall/structure that is open ended.

Everyone had such a different approach to working with the materials and concept:



Kate's piece


















Nancy's piece
















Sandra's piece













Ruth's piece














Another view of Ruth's piece -- she was going for a sort of house you might see in California with lots of decks and windows.













Another view of Kate's piece, with Nancy's in the background. Both of their structures cast really great shadows.












My completed piece. I don't think I need/want to make it any taller than it is. I accomplished what I set out to do and I am happy with it.

If I tried it again, I would go even slower and try not to use as much glue. The class session was from 7 - 8:30 -- I think we all got an impressive amount of work done in a short amount of time.










Yep -- that is plenty tall enough (for my liking) for materials of that size.

365 Day 277

Yay -- I think I've got it

This month in the ATC Exchange group our themes are Fall/Halloween. At the last meeting when it was announced I thought, "Cool -- that sounds pretty easy...I love Fall...I love Halloween. It will be relatively simple to choose something to do!"

Ha! It turns out that for me, having a way wide open choice is pretty difficult. Fall means so many things to me. Halloween images go on forever. How do you choose one main idea???

So many iconic Halloween images have been swirling around in my head the last few days while I was thinking about this...candy corn, ghosts, black cats, witches. I switched gears and tried to think of Fall...leaves, Indian corn, corn stalks, apples...nope, too many again. I had to narrow it down to an absolutely Halloween image with a capital H...and it had to be something I could execute and repeat over several cards, yet make each one individual. Hmmm...what is the very FIRST thing that comes to me when I think of Halloween/Fall? Carving pumpkins!


One of the things that I learned in that linocut class with Shaqe Kalaj at Art & Ideas Gallery was to trust my own drawings. I feel a bit more confident with that now.

So -- here goes...draw a carve-able pumpkin.








My trusty "Black Warrior" pencil helped me make a simple transfer of my drawing onto the carving block.












It's fuzzy, but I can see enough of it.


















Darken the lines with a medium Sharpie marker and get carving.

I love the carving part!













Hey...not too bad.
















Now to make a test card and try out my idea.













I guess I will be carving Jack o' lanterns this season!












This is just the test card, but I am happy with the idea.

I need to get some more orange-y inks and some more vivid yellow paper. I think this will work!












I need to practice my X-ACTO knife skills with carving out the faces on the pumpkins. No doubt it will go smoother with new blades and maybe a swivel-y style knife with a self-healing pad underneath. That's the plan, anyway! Then some embellishments, perhaps...

NOW -- back to work on the sewing on the buttons for eyes on the second 50 Tookies finger puppets for my current batch of 100 for Art-o-mat. Then later tonight I can hopefully make a Tooklet or two. Heh...and sometimes people say to me, "You don't work...what do you DO all day long?"

365 Day 263

another Experimental Art Night with Shaqe Kalaj

Whoa -- that was a F*U*N Experimental Art Night at Art & Ideas Gallery in Plymouth with Shaqe Kalaj.

If you know me, you know how much I dislike ANYthing to do with acrylic paint and painting.
This was pretty cool, though, and I am sure a lot of it will carry over to other projects.

We had to choose one of the shapes on the table that Shaqe made for us, then mix six little pots of paint for ourselves only using red, white and blue.




These are the shapes we had to choose from.

There were four of us tonight and I wanted the others to pick first. You know I wanted that black arrow one.






Yay -- it was one of the two that were left!

Shaqe said she had me in mind when she was making it.

At first glance it looked to me like a weather vane, then an ornate hand of a clock...then what it turned out to be.





It was cool -- the paint was in big pump bottles like ketchup and mustard at a serve yourself place.
















These are the colors I mixed up...I couldn't figure out how to make the paint get darker...I really wanted a dark, dark, blackish purple color.


We were also allowed to use plain white that was on the table and we were allowed to use the paint we mixed and mix new colors on the little palette/tray.









With the shapes, we were to draw whatever we felt like, using as much or as little of the shape as we wanted. We could freehand draw, use a part of the shape, expand the shape, trace the shape -- do whatever we were inspired to do.


I traced my shape's outline first.




Then I added parts to it, repeated parts, etc. I freehanded the bird's head and the ball.












Then we had to paint the picture.

I needed more colors, so I mixed tiny amounts with the brush and kept trying to get it darker, but it wouldn't. It just changed the purple-ness.














One of the last purples I mixed up on the tray.














Taa-daa...my finished piece.

It is a long-legged bird with a colorful tail balancing on a ball. He's got a circus act and he is just coming offstage by rolling the ball forward. That is a set of sheer curtains he is rolling through. I think this guy is probably really, really tall.












detail of the face










detail of the tail --

I was trying to make each section a slightly different color, hoping it would look a little like the feathers were in front of each other.

I would've outlined each one with the dark dark purple if I'd had it. I could probably still do that or use black at home.





detail of the body











Shaqe showing one of the other pictures and the shape...the shape is dark green underneath the picture.











Here is another one...the shape is dark blue.













Here is another one and her shape.










And there is mine with the black shape.










You KNOW I would never ever try and mix colors at home on my own, let alone sit down and play with paint...but I will do it at Experimental Art Night with Shaqe Kalaj! And now I feel just a little bit more confident about trying it on my own. I am sure this will come in handy somewhere down the road...

365 Day 228

another experimental art night at Art & Ideas Gallery!

This is the message we got from Shaqe Kalaj about the theme for tonight's Experimental Night:

"This Experimental night is one where I will ask you to probe your seeing. You will be given initial drawings that will be incomplete. Your task is to see something in them and then create. This experience will develop your seeing and problem solving ability, while bringing out your inner images. I often do this work in my surrealism classes."

Yeah. I was "in" -- no question about it!

We started out by Shaqe showing us a partial drawing...just a few lines...and she asked us what we thought it could be. Then she drew in a little more, based on what we were saying. Pretty much everyone said it looked like a horse...or a person. Then she drew a little more and I thought it was looking like a mailbox. She added more lines to suggest a mailbox. We went back and forth a few more times and the drawing ended up like in the photo.

mailbox horse






Shaqe added a couple more lines without looking at what she was doing.







Then Shaqe showed us her sketchbook. The drawing looked quite similar to something she was working on.


























Next Shaqe explained that she took us through that exercise because we were all going to collaborate with her. She had a stack of partially started images and we were to choose one and without knowing what it was or what it was supposed to be, we were to finish the drawing.







I was grabby and snatched this one right away because I could see a guy with a crown in it.
















I don't know WHERE the rabbit came from...you already know I'm afraid of rabbits. Well, okay wait...the rabbit came from the pointy line off to the left of the guy.

When/if we got stuck or thought we were "done" we had the option to scribble/draw without looking...so I did that at the top left of my drawing. I started to get some sort of horned spirit creature from the random lines.

Then we went around the table and talked about our drawings and people said what else they could see in the various drawings. Then we had a few more minutes to go back in and add more details and "finish" the piece. Then we discussed all of the drawings.





Here is a scan of my drawing from tonight. It looks like the guy's ear fell off and now there is a hole into his head. So I added a loose ear behind him that is just sort of flying around. The flying horned creature reminds me of a goat-ish version of a kirin from Magic: the Gathering.

I think I might want to take one of Shaqe's suggestions for a work-around to give the guy his ear back...maybe...I don't know yet.




Then I got up to go get a glass of water. Much to my dismay when I returned to the table what do you think was there?


duh duh duh duuuuuuh...the dreaded paints!

Actually, I don't hate painting at Experimental Night as much as I hate painting in my studio. Like painting my plaster cloth guys.

It is like I have no self-imposed pressure on what I am expecting of myself, so I just go with the flow of the class. At home with the plaster cloth guys I have a vision in mind of what I want them to look like and I just do NOT have the skills set to achieve it.

There were also some colored pencils and twistable crayons available.

Next we were given a choice of mostly completed images. There was a bird, a guitar, a dog-like guy that I was immediately drawn to -- he kinda looked like he could be from that animated Yellow Submarine movie. There were a few other images, but also this eye. (I forgot to shoot it before I started to color it.)

It is funny...I love it when synchronicity happens. Earlier today I was wrestling with the "what the heck is a landscape and when does a picture of say, a horse in a field, stop being a landscape of a field with a horse in it and become a picture of a horse...in a field"? And I tried to imagine something else more specific. And I was thinking of those tall grasses I photographed earlier this morning (in day 227's blog entry) and I was thinking how about if there was a tiger in tall grasses in the moonlight. Would that be a landscape or would that be a picture of a tiger in the grass? And then I drifted to thinking of just a tiger's eye in the dark sky over tall grasses.

Okay. I saw the eye picture was one of the choices. And I was trying very hard not to be grabby on the second round of choosing images to work with. Plus...you know I wanted that dog creature. But I was thinking "don't go for something you would normally do" -- which would be the dog creature. We were down to the last two of us to choose and the dog creature and the eye were still available. Man! The other participant told me to choose and I was still wrestling with the "do no take the dog...do the eye...how weird is it that it is even there" thing...so I chose the eye. Then it turned out she was going to choose the eye but she ended up with the dog creature and made a really cool picture of the dog creature in an outfit and a clown and they are both like racing toward the clown's rainbow wig/hat that was on the ground and you can't tell who is going to get to it first. MUCH cooler than what I would have done with it. I felt badly about the eye, though. But it all worked out I guess.


So then Shaqe was taking pictures of us working at the end of the session. I think I was done already. And I like taking photos of people taking photos...so there you go.












And here is my synchronicity piece...AND it is done in paint. Except for the very inner eye part. I started it with colored pencil, but went back over it with paint...but the pupil looked good with the "lemon yellow" colored pencil...which looked like it should have been chartreuse by the color of the pencil, but it turned out to actually be lemon yellow. (Obviously that little bit threw me for a minute or two when I was first starting...LOL)

So what we have here is a moon with a tiger eye in it shining over tall grasses -- that I am calling "tiger grass" because of the markings. Kind of like zebra grass, but this is tiger grass. And now to answer my own question...no, I don't think this is a landscape.

Synchronicity is pretty cool -- sometimes a little alarming -- but for the most part really great. And I wouldn't have tried making a picture about it and for sure I wouldn't have drawn the eye that well.


SO -- Another great Experimental Art Night with Shaqe Kalaj at Art & Ideas Gallery in Plymouth. I can't wait for the next one!

365 Day 214 -- Another Experimental Night!

exploring pattern through floral and positive shapes

This Experimental Night led by Shaqe Kalaj at Art & Ideas Contemporary Gallery in Plymouth, MI was another pretty cool experience for me.

In her note to us, Shaqe said about this class: "This class to me is an experience that focuses on process and opening to new possibilities and ways of thinking and experiencing through our senses. I have many ideas to really bring out the best in you all. So last night I had everyone choose a sheet of newspaper. Then we drew silhouettes of flowers. The big idea behind the class is layering and thinking of this as collage. I like to isolate techniques so that you can think of using it in new ways and in your own work. Sometimes we work in certain habits and I like to open up new possibilities with it."


We started out with a bunch of silhouettes of floral shapes.












Then we chose a newspaper page from a pile that we would be using as the paper to work on.













Next we chose some of the floral images and drew our interpretations of them by hand -- just concentrating on the overall shape of the image.












Then we started to paint over the drawings...layering color over the words in the newsprint and building up the colors of the flowers.

While we were all working, Shaqe talked to us individually about our styles and what else we could bring to the piece to make it our own.

Shaqe suggested (strongly...LOL) to me that I could add one of my newly-discovered creatures. The page could be turned in any direction, etc.

If you know me, you know I choked...I didn't have my sketch book or tracing paper. Yikes...I was going to have to use the technique we were working with and add in a creature I made in my head on the spot by making a silhouette of the shape of the creature and then layering on the features.

Basically, I was not in the head space to "argue" with Shaqe or put up much resistance, so I complied and gave it a shot. And I am really glad that I did!

I started making a shape with a dark blue paint. I was trying to see it completed, and then work backwards. I over-think things too much. When I gave in to the process and just allowed the shape to happen it started to feel better. When I wasn't trying to force a finished product I was able to just allow the thing to make itself...adding triangles of color, a tail, tummy, and ears. I kept adding to the bottom of its legs. I dipped the brush into some really thick paint and dabbed it onto the creature and the brush made little dots that were really cool...it happened accidentally and I really liked it.






I like those dots a lot.








I am in no way trying to suggest that this is a masterpiece or that it is in any way even close to Lynda Barry's work...but when I was painting in my creature it was reminding me of something. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was something familiar.

When I got home it hit me...I looked straight through the kitchen to the Lynda Barry "Bird" that was given to me by Francine Rossi. And it is funny, I was looking at this piece several days ago when I was looking at some of my collection in that area of my house.




I LOVE this piece so much.

It is such a joyous, happy, FUN piece of art! And I love crows so much...and a crow with a crown, bonus!















"Bird" is painted on a page from a book that was turned upside down.

I love the layering and that you can see the words through the paint.

I love everything about this wonderful work by Lynda Barry.



Find out more about Lynda Barry in this article from the New York Times. Watch the slide show -- it is really great.

I have one of Lynda Barry's workbooks, too...I need to pull it out and maybe combine the in person experience from Shaqe Kalaj's Experimental Night with Lynda Barry's teaching methods and see what happens!