Art at Stone Lake

Abstract Explosion

I've had a wonderful couple of months taking painting workshops at the Art Center in Sarasota. Art Center Sarasota classes & workshops.  Thanks to my two wonderful teachers:  Fernando Madridejos and Gale Fulton Ross. They provided guidance but allowed me to explore and deepen my understanding of my unique style and artistic vision.  Most of these are 18 x 24 inches or smaller.   I've learned so much this year --now I want to paint even BIGGER canvases!!

Check these out.  Some will be for sale -- please check my gallery site in early Arpil!  Gallery Website

 

 

New Work--2012 Launches!

I completed a new small collage--continuing to wrk the Secrets and alphabets theme.  Here it is.  collaged found papers.  acrylic paint.  oil pastels.

 

Completed a Commitment

I just wanted to post to the world that I FINISHED both of my Sketchbooks and sent them off today to the Sketchbook Project!!

I liked this project because it pushed me to do tiny experiments with different techniques.  The paper wasn't the best for wet media but I made do....

No photos--I didn't want to pause --I just needed to get them into the mail today to make sure I actually completed them in this calendar year. 

They have new projects coming up for 2012.  Here's the link to find out more!  You can also go to this site and see the digitized version of my journals when they are posted.

ArtHouse Coop Sketchbook Project

 

Happy New Year to Everyone.  Peace, Love and Blessings.

Carole

 

 

Affirmations

In my 'other life', I am a consultant on leadership development. I often include art based/right brain activities in these programs. 

Recently, a colleague and I completed a 9 month program with a wonderful group of people at a government agency.  In our closing, I designed an art-based activity.  I painted canvases and collaged a piece of hand painted watercolor paper to each one.  I used a wide range of colors.  Each participant then selected a canvas, and drew their own hand in outline, and added affriming words that described their strengths.  The participants then added an affirmation to everyone' else's canvas--it becomes sort of a word portrait.  Here's mine--and the wonderful words that these great people wrote for me.  Thanks Everyone!!

Sketchbook Project

I've recommitted to do a LOT more visual journaling.  This is one of the projects I've taken on to keep me limber!   I signed up for the Arthouse Coop Sketchbook project a couple of months ago.  My theme is "The View From Up Here'.  I have to say that I almost backed out because the themes didn't initially call to me.  However, I decided that the challenge was to STRETCH my Imagination, so I jumped into it. 

Link to the site:  Sketchbook Project

The finished sketchbooks will be housed at the Brooklyn Library in New York City, and will travel to other venues.  Quite exciting!

I started out in this sketchbook by turning to my dictionary and playing with each word in the theme.  I collaged in copies of dictionary pages, wrote comments about the theme and even wrote a short poem.

On the left, you can see a piece of fabric that I just liked...nothing to do with the theme.  I just needed to start out with some texture.

This next spread includes shots from a moving train.  On the right hand page, I have a comment that reads: "From the train window, the horizon is clear, sharp.  It's only the near distance that passes in a blur."
 

 

Next spread--I collaged in a monoprint --acrylic paint on glass and then monoprinted onto watercolor paper.  One of the prints looked like mountains and forests from an airplane (left hand page). I made a note that this is an 'interior landscape'--one visible only in my/your imagination.   I love this type of monoprinting. The right hand page is also a monoprint, but the paper was crinkled quite a bit.  More texture.

 

 

I'll post more in a couple of weeks. 

 

 

New Collages -- May 19, 2010

More new work!  Playing with painted papers, found text, purchased scrappy stuff and my own photos & poetry.

This one is a self portrait titled "Joy in the Music 5-16-10"

This one is titled "Doorway Dreaming 5-19-10".  It's a spiritual journaling page.  I love doorways....

My MiniStudio is Launched!

Well, I had an epiphany on Sunday.  Although we are in small, temporary quarters, I realized that I COULD make art!  I would simply have to focus on certain types of materials and techniques that would be easy to clean up, compact to store, etc.

I decided that using watercolors, pencils,  and the like would be safe enough in the apartment.  So, off I went to buy a few supplies, and a work table.  A couple of hours later, I was up and running.  I decided to focus on making collages using watercolor, found and purchased papers, other materials and my digital art.

Here's one of the first pieces:

Title of this one is simply #101.  I painted tissue and watercolor papers, collaged them and added snippets from an old book of Japanese poetry.

Here's another experiment that went rather well:

TRANSFORMATIONS: 102 AND 103

These two pieces are siblings.  I created 2 collages on watercolor paper.  Then placed one on top of the other, cut them into 4 pieces and reassembled them by using 2 parts from one with 2 parts of the other.  You can't see the cuts in this photo.  I like them both and plan to continue to transform them.

I am building my stash of painted papers and this weekend, I'll start working on photos that I will print on various papers to be used in collages.  I also plan to scan some of the painted papers to use in digital collages.  Wonderful!!!

Sometimes a limitation can lead to greater freedom.

Stay tuned as I continue on this Journey. 

Long Time, No See!

Hello Everyone,I should explain the very, very long silence on this blog (in case you're wondering...).  In the past 6 months, I have been in a long process of selling my house.  That's all done now, but we're living in temporary quarters and I am without an art studio space.  The withdrawal has been difficult....and I may not be back in my art space until this fall. 

In the meantime, I am reading, thinking and dreaming about all the wonderful times to come in my new studio space.  And, I plan to jump back into taking photographs.  I'm shopping for a good, new lightweight digital camera.  I also plan to upgrade to the new Adobe Creative Suite.  It can do magical things and tinkering with software is fun! 

All the best to everyone out there,

Regards,

Carole

Shrines and Memory Boxes

I'm back....and I want to give a Shout Out to The Queen's Ink--a wonderful local shop here in Savage Maryland. If you live inteh Baltimore Washington Pennsylvania area, please check out their website of upcoming classes.  Every class that I've taken there has been absolutely full of useful information.  The Queens Ink Website--click here!

 I had a 'breakthrough' weekend at the shop, taking part in a Tim Holtz workshop where we learned at least 1,000 techniques....Just Kidding!  We only learned about 150! 

Anyway, it was a breakthrough for me because I really learned a lot about completing my assemblages.  Here's an image of my first completed work, and I plan to make many more of these using all kinds of personal and found memorabilia and objects.

I've decided to call these my   Shrines to Past and Future Memories (a name I have copyrighted, by the way).
because some of these works are about dreams of a past that may not have happened yet. 

Here's the first completed Shrine in a Shadow Box. It's called Secret Dream.  You may not be able to tell, but the key says "Secret".   It's spoken for but I will be posting more that are for sale on my website in the coming weeks. 

Artomatic Exhibit Photos

Hi Everyone,

Well we put up the show yesterday--all fiber art!  Here are a few photos to help you locate my space.  I'm on the 7th FLOOR, my space is on an end of a row along the walkway (not on the end near windows).  Can't miss me--you'll see all the bright colors!

Be sure to check the Artomatic site for the fabulous entertainment schedule and hours. And, it's all FREE!!  

 The Venue is located at 55 M Street SE, Washington, DC 20003 and opens May 29.  Hours: 

Open W-TH Noon-10 pm       F-Sat: Noon-1 am             Sun: Noon-10 pm

GETTING THERE:  Take Metro! Located directly above the Green Line Navy Yard Metro Stop, West Entrance.  IT VERY, VERY EASY TO GET THERE BY METRO AND PARKING IS VERY EXPENSIVE, especially when there's a ball game.  You exit Metro right outside the Artomatic building.  The building is wheelchair accessible.

OK--here's a shot of my wall......sorry that it's a bit dark...

HERE'S A CLOSE UP:  I am finally working on my doorways series in fabric after collecting photos of doors for about a year....You can see an early in progress photo in an earlier blog. 

Here's the second doorway piece in this show.