art day

Most weekends, my friend Carole drives to art vein studio and we have an "art day" together. The table above usually seats 6-8 people when I give workshops, but when Carole and I get together, we spread out and take the entire surface (actually, when I'm working on my own I take the entire space plus every available work surface I can find). Sometimes we try out new techniques together and sometimes we each do our own thing. Sometimes we do both. Here's what we did yesterday:

Inspired by Jo Horswill's wonderful collagraphs, Carole suggested we try some ourselves. We have very little experience doing this but buoyed with Jo's instructions, we started our plates. We used mat board, gluing on our collage elements with gel and matte medium. The heart-shaped design is Carole's and the other two are mine. As this is a multi-step process, we are allowing them to dry before we seal them with gesso and varnish (or would just varnish be sufficient?). We don't have a press so plan to go the rolling pin/brayer route. Or failing that, the drive-over-them-with-a-car method. We will post our experiments when we have printed them....we're keeping our fingers crossed that they won't be complete disasters! Jo, if you have any advice for us, we would welcome it. Thanks!

While our plates were drying, we each worked on some artist trading cards. I printed off some of my glass photos to mount on cards and Carole used a technique found in the book, Artist Trading Card Workshop, by Bernie Berlin. She cut out magazine face photos, applied a thin layer of gesso, and then re-drew the faces, adding funky hair and other details with a marker, Pebeo Touch 3-D paints, and acrylics. Gives a surreal effect and is a great way to get the hang of drawing faces.

It seems that most mixed-media artists know all about Cloth Paper Scissors, and although I had heard of it, I had never actually peeked inside a copy. Carole brought it in and it looks quite interesting. I've borrowed it and plan to peruse it more carefully this week. Of interest to me were the article on creating mini-assemblages with old rusty lightswitch covers and a peek into the creative spaces of other artists...always fascinating!

Another gift! Carole had just returned from a visit with her sister-in-law on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. When her sister-in-law saw my blog and my reliquaries, she gave Carole this wonderful barnacle to give to me. It is one of her beach finds. I absolutely adore it and am so touched that she was inspired to pass this very precious object on to me. I will make it a beautiful home. Thanks Judy!