i really struggled with this piece, but am happy with the outcome. i find it useful to look back through the steps, hopefully you will too.

i started in my usual way, putting paper down & seeing where it takes me. the bees were something i had stamped on some rice paper & they just sort of landed. green/blue were colors coming out of the studio at the time, and the coneflower photo with the bee on top contrasted nicely. a good start.

my mind went to “to be or not to be?”, and i added the 2 & b in the middle, as well as letters near the original bees. if you enlarge the finished piece you’ll see the words. i added 3 bees via high solid gloss gel through a stencil just for fun. a few layers of my fave glaze (either by watering down or using glazing medium) quincedrone nickel azo to give it that nice golden glow.

but then i added a few more bees & a bird, stamped on tissue paper that was supposed to fade into the background. but it didn’t (note to self, always make sure that the edges are tolerable, jic the fade thing doesn’t work). and every time i looked at it all i could see were the unsightly white blobs around the bird & bees.

i tried sanding, painting over and blending in edges. nothing worked. i hated it. my friends didn’t think it looked as bad as i did, but all i could see were white blobs. i brought it to class as an example of what not to do. i finally used a combination of alcohol & sandpaper to remove the worst offenders.

my next problem was no focal point and too much the same tone- no light lights, no dark darks. i added the orange spirals to move the eye through the painting & provide interest. i scrubbed paint off of the bee on the flower, creating a focal point. lastly, i spattered titan buff & pthalo blue paint to unite the piece, add more energy & create lights and darks.

i actually like it now (almost 2 months later- some babies take longer than others!)- what do you think?

i was lucky enough to teach a mixed media class at wingtip press for the last 3 mondays. amy, the proprietress, asked me if i wanted to teach last winter. i thought about it, and though i was scared it sounded like fun and i have some friends who teach workshops who i knew would help if i needed it, so i said yes.

i met amy for lunch, and while waiting for her sketched out ideas for the class on a napkin. because the way i work is so free form it was kind of hard for me to reduce things to a structure. there are, after all, endless possibilities with mixed media.

we put together a class and put it out there. one person signed up. i got nervous, sent another email. my friend (a very experienced artist) signed up. i got more nervous, wondering what i could possibly teach her. by opening night, the class was nearly full. every student was an artist in one medium or another, which was really nice for me, because all i had to teach was products & application.

so we started playing. i threw so much out there that sometimes i saw the deer in the headlights look (time to stop mk!). but it was so great to watch experimentation and see things begin to make sense. it was wonderful to watch confidence grow, skills transferred from a familiar art form to a new one and to get to know the students. great creativity and conversation. i felt like i was cheating, because the students were so great!

good reminder to me to go into my fear and try those scary things. it’s not always about mastering something right away (or maybe not even at all), it’s about being open and learning and taking something away. even the women in the class who struggled learned and had fun and said they’d do it again. what a great attitude! much better than being frustrated because something isn’t coming quickly & easily (been there!).

i can’t wait to do it again!

monday was my first ever experience teaching a class. i have done demos and taken workshops, so this was my chance to put it together. i had a lot of fun, and learned from the students as they learned from me. as it should be! 2 more mondays of that- looking forward to it.

tuesday was studio night. i have a few pieces that i am struggling with- can’t see my way to done, though they need to be finished to hang in may. the good thing about studio night (one of the good things, i should say) is that having other artists whose opinion i respect give feedback helps me see things differently. it also helps me not dwell on the awfulness confronting me. (well, it feels that way sometimes!)

wednesday i went to see the heartless bastards at a bar with pam & bill. i love good live music- the energy & interaction between the band & the crowd. this was a great show, the type of show that makes me hope that my art will connect with someone the way the music does with me. live music & 2d art are inherently different due to the immediate and fleeting nature of a live show, but they are similar in the ability to make an emotional connection, and that’s what i hope my art can do.

up early thursday to go to phoenix for work. packed the sony nex 5n- my evil camera- with me. i love this camera. i am able to get good shots with it, but it is much lighter and easier to pack than my nikon d300 dslr. i can pack it in my purse with the 18-55 lens, and even with the 18-200 it’s easy to hike with due to the much smaller lightweight body. it’s nice to be able to go walk around & shoot photos before/after work when i’m traveling. i was able to go to the desert botanical gardens & enjoy blooming cacti & wildlife (and 70 degree weather!) before hopping on the plane home.

this weekend we headed for the hills to check out spring on camas prairie. the sandhill cranes are always exciting to see, and the light up there in general makes it a photographer’s dream. we also checked out silver creek preserve and discovered (to my delight) that there are moose very close to our home on the range. we couldn’t stay long, but will be back to explore. we did get to see lots of cranes, antelope and various assorted other fauna & birds.

although i didn’t get actual art made, all of this will inform future (and hopefully current) pieces. i am coming to understand that there is an ebb and flow to my creative process. sometimes i am so full of ideas that i can’t spend enough time in the studio. sometimes i am so stuck that i can’t spend enough time in the studio. sometimes when i’m stuck i need to walk away. that’s hard to do, but i am beginning to trust that walking away is part of the process.

other people’s creativity (music, art shows, classes) feeds me. nature feeds me. time in the studio with friends feeds me. i need to trust my process, take care to nourish myself and not get worried if things take a while to gestate. recognizing my process helps me relax & enjoy it. i’m looking forward to seeing what comes next.

we had our meeting on the traffic boxes last week. it was great- we got to see what the current boxes look like, who was selected for this group, along with commentary on the art and why the boxes were selected for specific spots.

we were given a template of the scale of the box so we can plan our art accordingly.this immediately freaked me out as math is not me, and i am not good spatially. translating from the template down to a canvas the size i am comfortable working on and figuring out where what matters need to go will be a challenge for me. a good one, and i’m excited about it, but a challenge nonetheless.

we were also given timelines. i was luckily put into the second group, with my concept design (or finished submission) due on june 17. since i work intuitively and don’t really do mock ups, i will be submitting a finished pieces (or two) and hoping that one is acceptable. my plan is to do 2 12×24 canvasses ( the template works to approximately 12×20, but this was the closest standard canvas) and create a template to lay over the top so that i can place things where i want them in relation to the box itself.

it seems important to me to have each side be able to stand alone, but have the whole piece be one. the hotel in the background is the idanha, once the finest hotel in boise, with distinguished guests such as theodore roosevelt, benjamin harrison and william howard taft. roger miller supposedly wrote king of the road in the idanha. The music for king of the road will definitely be part of the finished piece. i may also incorporate some of the graffiti/signs currently on the box.

this will be fun, because i can do lots of layers and include all sorts of things for people to find while they’re waiting for the light to change.

once my canvasses arrive, and after i have my new art ready for may at the gallery i will be getting to work- stay tuned to follow my progress.