Some art journal pages, and Art and Soul!

It's been a very busy few weeks in my corner of the world - I've been taking Sarah Whitmire's Advanced Soul Journaling online course, which was a delight, and I highly recommend it. As part of the course, you get weekly 18 - 25 page fully illustrated sets of instruction, learning multiple new techniques. They are all very do-able, and really don't require any odd or funky materials, so no need to run off to your nearest art supply store. Of course, you know you'll want to ;-). Sarah also has a Yahoo group especially for the class that runs from a few weeks before, until three weeks after the five-week class finishes, and there are weekly online chats on Sunday nights where you can interact with the other class members, talk to Sarah, and just enjoy a sense of community.

Here are a few pages from the early parts of the lessons. I note this because, well, I'm rather behind. I actually considered that I was doing fairly well with attending most of the online chats , but I am definitely rather a late finisher (actually, nowhere near finished) on the class instructions! Ah well, art is not a race to the finish. I am going to finish up the project upon my return from Art and Soul Virginia - which is (yikes!!) starting four days from now.

Art and Soul has been one of my "must-see's" for a few years now, but I didn't really have any plans to attend. Then, I sort of got a wild hair, realized (no doubt due to the economy) that there were still lots of classes available even two weeks before the event, and just decided to jump in with both feet and go. I'm not attending the entire event, just three days, should be more than enough art to keep me inspired for months to come. I'm very excited to be taking classes on drawing, color theory and mixing, assemblage with lighting, and metal patina work. These are all areas that I definitely can use some expert advice in, and with Claudine, Jane Wynn, Leighana Light, and Juliana Coles at the helm, I think I'm going to learn a LOT!

Wishing you an artful spring weekend!

GPP Crusade #29 - Brush Effects

Michelle's Crusade #29 was all about the use of "painterly effects" to make lovely backgrounds for your journal pages - or use them around your altered photos - or use them on top of your journaling - or as well, anything you want really. I had a lot of fun with this, and definitely want to use these techniques again. I used my trusty Golden brand Quin Magenta, my cheapie JoAnn's teal and leaf green, made stencils, a bit of my hand carved stamps. Now I just need to art journal on top of it! Do I dare? Not sure....hmmm....

Mandalas - Soul Journal #21

Mandala is Sanskrit for essence, and for containing - they come from Buddhist and Hindu spiritual practices and operate as a spiritual teaching tool inducing a trance state. In the modern world they were also studied by Carl Jung as a means for creating a window into the inner dialogue of the soul.

This all makes mandalas sound rather hard and unreachable, but in fact anyone can make them, and after practicing with a few, I think perhaps everyone should. Wouldn't we be happier at work if we spent a few minutes each day drawing these wonderful shapes and then just coloring them in? If I ever run the world, that's just what we'll be doing!

Mandalas are also the feature of this month's Soul Journaling prompt - so I thought I'd show you a couple of mine, and then encourage you to visit the Soul Journaling homepage, maybe even join the group - and start this addicting and enlightening art form for yourself.

I think that mine both have an "under the sea" sort of theme, which is not surprising as (and I wouldn't have ever noticed this before keeping all my art in the same journal) I have a water theme going on in pretty much all my art. I think it's because my moon sign is Scorpio (the crazy water sign!) which is representative of your inner self - the one you don't reveal to the outer world.

What does your art reveal about your inner world? I find it to be a dialogue with the page, and the muse to reveal things that are sometimes even hidden in your conscious mind. I'd love to be an art therapist one day.

The long promised Nick Bantock story

I've mentioned a couple of times in my blog that I would tell the story of how I met my artistic inspiration - Nick Bantock - but never quite got around to it. So six months have gone by, in some ways feels like longer as my life has been very busy with my paying job these days and all, but here you go. Yes, it's a bit of a long story, nothing goes boom, no dreadfully exciting payoff - no impossibly cute vampires named Edward, despite Pacific Northwest setting of story...

I was on vacation in Washington state last August for a wedding. We spent a few days in Vancouver, BC, Canada and then took the ferry to Victoria which is on Vancouver Island. Now anyone who has visited Vancouver Island will ask, "Did you see Butchart Gardens?" (It's kind of the main attraction to see.) Answer is, well, no. I really do like gardens, but we only had a day, and about three miles from Vancouver Island is Salt Spring Island - where, you guessed it, Nick's studio "The Forgetting Room" is located. Well this just seemed to be too good to miss, so after having arrived at expensive B&B in Victoria, I promptly asked the husband if we could maybe not spend the next day in Victoria at all, but instead could we rent a car ($50+fuel), buy ferry tickets ($60), get up early to get on the ferry (vacation?) and spend the entire day trying to find an artist's studio? If we got done early enough, perhaps we could see the gardens...

Happily I am married to a very supportive husband; besides, he's had to trek across muddy and cow-pat laden fields all over southern England for me to see some prehistoric rock or another before, so he's used to these things. This was comparatively mild by comparison. So, he rents the car, we get up early, we drive 25 miles to the ferry terminal, and find out we JUST missed the ferry. Next one didn't leave for another 2 hours. So much for up early. Not wanting to waste vacation time (when time truly does equal money) we visited the quaint little town of Sidney, whose motto could probably be "We're here when you miss the ferry..." A pleasant tea and croissant sitting in the sunshine watching people walk their dogs isn't a bad way to spend a morning either. As a bonus, I found the Saltspring Lavender store and we had a lovely and purpley-scented visit (even though I grow lavender myself, I always want more). The store owner suggested we should really come back that night for the summer festival and street faire. I'm not one to let a street faire or farmers market go unvisited, so events were entirely conspiring at this point to never allow me to see the Butchart gardens.

Back to the ferry terminal. I really enjoyed the car ferry, as you can stand out on the deck and watch all these gorgeous islands pop up out of the blue green sparkly sea, plus work on your tan. (Over the course of several ferry rides during the week, my arm hairs bleached blonde! I'm viewing this as practically a BOGO - buy one car transport, get blond hair free. My head remained brown however).

We pull into the tiny town of Ganges - only town on the whole island - and pull out trusty GPS to find the studio. A few wonderful winding miles through tall trees with occasional glimpses of the sparkling sea later, yep, there it was! Just off the road in a little community of artist's cottages. I was so excited I was photographing the door, the window, the "closed for lunch" sign.
Well, nothing for it but back to town, and a bit of lunch ourselves. But first, a visit to Sabine's Bookstore and the Nick Bantock room! Yes, my first glimpse of a real NB painting, in the flesh (well, paint) and first editions of his books, and editions in Japanese, and signed copies, oh my! More money flies out window. I feel at this point that if I actually did get to meet him it would be practically a bonus, and really, what would I say anyway that wouldn't totally embarrass me in a fangirl sort of way. Lunch was delicious - local crab and white wine on the shaded patio of a cafe next to the town yoga studio, with a view of the marina. You can do worse.

Back in the car, winding roads, tall trees, yep, there it is again. And the door was open! In we stepped, to be greeted by a very friendly British woman "Hi, I'm Joyce" (much later turns out she's Nick's wife), who encourages us to look around and make ourselves at home. We chatted for a while, me babbling no doubt incoherently about how much I love the great man's work. She then says, "Do you think you can stick around for a little while? What's your name?" Me, "Oh yes" She then picks up the phone and calls him! Apparently he was off that afternoon with his son visiting from college, but not 10 minutes later this red Mini Cooper pulls up in front of the studio and out pops, well....Nick Bantock! He comes in, all smiles, and says, "Hi, you must be Jane!" to which I can think of nothing else than "You must be Nick?!" Son parked out on the back porch, he then spent the next hour walking my husband and I around the studio telling us about all the paintings, asking me about my art, just really took a lot of personal interest and time. It was like something out of a dream. To top it all off, he even gave me a set of his personal Griffin and Sabine faux poste artistamps and autographed them for me! I couldn't believe it. It's not so often you get to meet your heroes. Much less get to just hang out with them. Such a nice, funny, charming guy. Even my non-art husband was discussing art with him, and told him about how now that he had seen Nick's work, he sees the inspiration in mine and proceeded to inform Nick about my art! (blushing fiercely magenta here - but he got MASSIVE husband points for all this).


After we left, me dancing on cloud nine, we drove back to the ferry, crossed back to Vancouver Island, went to a gorgeous beach and sat on the rocks with our feet in the water, then went to Sidney's street faire, and finally got back to Victoria in time for a late dinner. It was truly one of the best days of my life.

If you're still awake by now, thank you for reading my story and clicking the links (you know you were tempted just to see what they were) :-)

Completely self-indulgent ramble on how I got started in art

I intended this post to tell you all about how I met Nick Bantock (my personal artistic hero - nay, deity, though he would no doubt be very amused to be deified) but I decided that first I'd have a self-indulgent ramble about me and art and how I wound up with the most absorbing and second-most expensive hobby (after horses but really, who has time or money for that in middle age with a full time job) of my life. If you're reading this, you're probably a like minded sort of person...and I love hearing how people found their art niche, or if they haven't trying to talk them into mine, so here goes. Sort of setting the stage as it were...

I'm a kid - I draw everything, all the time. I love drawing and coloring. Whether drawn well or poorly I don't know, but my cousin (a real professional artist) encourages me with very fancy Caran D'Ache art supplies, my grandmother's next door neighbor gives me her set of antique Reeves watercolors that she took with her to Egypt in the 1920's....I draw horses in the margins of my textbooks.

I get to junior high - I am convinced I'll be either an artist, and archaeologist, or a flight attendant when I grow up. (Stewardesses were much more glam back in the 1960's and 70's when I was young). I take art class. I am completely shattered as I don't really draw apples and their shading very well. The art teacher pays no attention to me whatsoever. I give up.

I take a crafts class in college - yes, as a liberal arts major I really did take Basketweaving. I loved it. I learned how to carve stamps from linoleum and make monoprints, but somehow didn't really pick things back up. Do suspect that there may be a bigger world than fine arts.

1991 - start to hear about a literary phenomenon. See a cool book at a little independent bookstore in town (no longer around, sigh) and lo and behold - it's this phenomenon book. Griffin and Sabine - it's an artful correspondence between two people separated by space, and depending on your theory (it's rather a mysterious story) time. Or maybe they aren't really two people at all (Sabine may just live in Griffin's mind) but they have an enigmatic correspondence in postcards and letters. Their story unfolds via one of the most intriguing ways - opening their letters (incredibly artful and highly illustrated) and reading their mail. It's like spying on someone else's life, and trying to decipher their art along the way. It's just surreal and mysterious and romantic and it totally captured my imagination. It was like the view from the inside of my head had been mapped out, not the one that was there formerly, but the one that wanted to be and the one that felt completely right.

Skip forward through the 1990's and I would occasionally see books and cards and random things whose artwork and sensibilities just drew me in and fired my imagination. Merchant of Marvels, and Paris Out of Hand, and random stuff that just appeared in offbeat gift shops and would call out to me (it called "buy!" incase you're wondering). I didn't know why I liked this strange and exotic look with a dash of humor - sort of a combo of Monty Python cartoons and sensibility, 17th century woodcuts, North African dancers, and the curtains of Marie Antoinette's salon in a kaleidoscopic haze of color. I just knew it when I saw it and wanted more.

Forward again to Spring 2003 - I see Legacy magazine at my local Borders and am intrigued. I saw all these amazing art projects that seemed somehow do-able, had no idea how to do them though. I am fascinated, and at this point....I still had money ;-)

Summer 2005 - after a few forays into jewelry making, the purchase of an occasional rubber stamp at Joann's (no real idea what to do with it though) I happen upon an entire rubber stamp show - I go thinking I'll spend an hour or so. Two hundred dollars and the rest of the day later - I'm hooked. And Nick Bantock appears in my world again (bet you wondered when I was getting back to him) - as one of the many tools in his art arsenal is - yep, mundane rubber stamps. (Sadly, Limited Edition Rubber Stamps who sold his personal line of stamps is no longer in business) Not cutesy bears that say "I heart you beary much" and remind you of the sappy stuff people wrote in your high school yearbook "2 sweet 2 B 4 gotten" etc. No, there were art stamps out there - Stamp Camp, and Lost Coast and Stampers Anonymous and well, a lot of other cool and surreal stuff that would probably scare your grandma. Not mine, she was rather progressive, but somebody's grandma.

I was off and reading every book and magazine I could get my hands on on this wonderful world of mixed media art - with its rabbit holes of all sorts of stuff to do - paper and paint, assemblage, rusty metal, fairy dolls, postage stamps on top of old photos of silly Victorians in paper hats, polymer clay and those stamps - well, it's all a bit endless and if you want to see more - try Somerset Studio magazine...expensive, but worth it.

And I kept buying art technique books, and going to classes and educating myself - and learning to solder, and carve, and emboss, and paint, and journal - and well, as you read in my last post, I'm getting some art published in the aforementioned magazine. Forty years, and I'm finally feeling like an artist. And all because I found out there was a wide world of art out there that didn't rely on being able to draw a good apple. And if I hadn't seen that book, all those years back, by Nick Bantock, then I wonder if I would have discovered this world at all.

So, what's your story? Who is your inspiration? and incase you're wondering - did you ever get to meet yours? Well, that's a story for next week (yes, I know I told you that last August, but didn't somehow get to writing it. Sometimes it takes a while...)Wishing you artful dreams...

Somerset Studio is going to publish my art!

Hear ye, hear ye! Queen Isabella of Dachsonia has made a rare visit to the frost fair on the frozen Thames river in London. As you may know, London has received more snow this year than it usually does, and the good citizens of that city have decided to raise spirits and glasses by holding a frost fair! Queen Isabella has caused a royal pavilion to be established and is currently dancing and enjoying the plays of the great playwrite William Shakesdachshund. The Queen's much younger sister, Lili the Infanta, has been indulging in throwing snowballs behind the tent and inquiring about frozen lizard pops...

In rather wonderful news, Somerset Studio, the journal of the world of mixed media art, is actually going to be featuring this momentous occasion in their upcoming (Nov. 09) special magazine "Somerset Black and White."

And now a note from the scribe of Dachsonia: I'm so excited about this! I've never submitted any of my art to Somerset Studio before, much less actually get published. As you can imagine, my mind is quite filled with all sorts of other pieces that I could make.... Truly, publication in Somerset Studio is one of my artistic dreams come true. Between this and meeting Nick Bantock last summer, I feel very blessed to have found a hobby that continues to inspire and intrigue. Now I think I had better start to dream a little more, maybe a whole article next? I hope this inspires you, fellow artists and readers, to try sending in something - you never know!!

PS - can't wait to see how they photograph it also - this isn't the greatest photo as there is a lot more detail to be seen.

Repurposed ink and paint holders, or how to make ugly household items quite fun

These are actually some projects I did last year ("That is sooooo 2008...") but since I never did get around to posting it here, I'm going to claim it's part of my "simplify" campaign of 2009. Self-deception is getting me everywhere - tee hee!

I had been coveting our wall-mounted spice rack for ages and ages (at least six months) because I'd realized it would the perfect thing for keeping all my cheapie acrylic paints where I can see them. And presumably, use them. I have my Golden paints (hardly cheapies) in there as well, for a bit of class, but as you can see, it's mostly the 50c jars from JoAnn's. I love em actually. Being a visual person (and what artist isn't) it definitely helps to have your stuff out where you can remember you have it. It took a bit of convincing the husband that I could put the spice rack to better use than he could, and the purchase of an expensive new spice rack (they don't make this design anymore that I could find, which is sad. Now you have to go much more expensive.) When he finally relented and said I could have it, I whipped it off the wall in the kitchen (there are still bare nail holes) and screwed it into place (it's a bit heavy) before he changed his mind. He marvelled that I had actually hung it myself. I marvelled that I had hung it straight.

Along the same lines I also went to a local thrift store (now sadly going out of business - not sure what it says for the economy when even the grungiest thrift store is closing - does that mean nobody's buying cheap? or that nobody's even spending for junk?) to find the above item. What is it, you say? I can't take credit for this idea, but I had read a few years ago that a great way to store your inkpads (for rubber stamping) is to keep them in an old cassette tape holder. A few of you may remember these ;-) They're generally made from pressboard, you probably threw yours out in a "simplify" campaign of your own at least a decade ago. I did - which is why I had to go to a thrift store to buy another one! Thankfully I found one, classed it up with my favorite Basic Grey Motifica paper and some artful applications of "aging" dark brown chalk ink and paint. Et voila - an inkpad holder!

The paintbrush holder is the bottom of a cannister that held a whisky bottle - sawed in half, covered in paper, rubber stamped on (stamp is fro m Stampers Anonymous Michael de Meng collection), painted on, doodled on. I am quite fond of it!

So, we're reusing, reducing, recycling and simplifying here. Now if only I could think of something to hold all my little tiny "cats eye" shaped inkpads...the quest continues.

Weaving our Dreams

Dreamweaver...la da da...something..morning liiihhhtt...
Well, actually this post has nothing to do with a song from the 70's that I can only remember part of the chorus of (it just amused me) - it has instead to do with this week's exercise from the Soul Journal group on weaving our dreams.

Rather than intentions, and resolutions, and all that stuff that falls by the wayside two weeks after new year, this is about focusing on our dreams. Maybe they'll happen, maybe they won't, maybe you wouldn't really want to do them but the idea is lovely. This little project gives all of them a place of honor.

Also, I felt this went well with the "use what you got" part of the whole simplify thing - my word for the new year. So, I cut 16 strips of paper (you can make yours whatever size and however many strips of paper you want) from my scrapbook paper stash, my leftover bits of art journal backgrounds, etc then wrote some dreams of mine on them. The writing uses my almost-never-used group of letter rubber stamps (oh goodie-using my stuff!) , different colors of ink, and some are just handwritten.

My favorite strip of paper is the green and orange one (my own handmade background - it's cool) - it says "Study art with Nick Bantock", and then there's "Go to Art and Soul retreat" and "Raise lavender on a herb farm in North Carolina" and "Travel to Turkey, Morocco, Thailand, and Indonesia..." - actually I have no idea where Indonesia came from...I want to see the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, not Indonesia. Huh..what am I supposed to see in Indonesia?

Oh yeah, then there's the big one - be an artist!

What are your dreams, maybe for this year, maybe for sometime, maybe just for silly but fun? Write them down!

Soul Journaling homepage art!

Just a quick post to say thank you to Christy and my Soul Journaling companions for selecting the posting below (the picture with the lavender in gesso) for the group's homepage! I am very thrilled to be a part of this fine group, and I thank you all very sincerely for the honor :-)

I am also truly touched to be the recipient of a remarkable piece of assemblage art (and a Teesha Moore print) from the inspired and genius hands of my friend the truly talented BNA (big name artist) Cindy. Seriously readers, you need to go look at her blog and see this awesome piece! Go check it out :-) You'll want to have one yourself, I promise. She is now accepting commisions...

Soul Journal #13 - Textured Background

I live in a place that hasn't received snow since 1977, which of course renders the idea of snow in a romantic, peaceful, and worth-a-12-hour-drive to experience it kind of way.

My Soul Journaling sisters had a prompt on textured backgrounds I decided to stay with the theme and keep mine in the winter whites. The idea is to use gesso to coat and glue down items on your journal page. This creates textures that appear almost fossil-like in the background of your page. The plaster element of gesso kind of binds it all together, and it actually comes out quite beautiful.

The picture below is of my grandmother taken back in the early 1980's, with lavender from last summer now encased in a blanket of snow and ice (courtesy of gesso). In my grandmother's letters, she would always enclose a few sprigs of lavender from her garden and smell being what it is, it would transport me back to the summer before. When I was drying the gesso, the heat tool brought up the sweet and slightly spicy smell of the lavender as though it had time travelled me back 30 years...

I hope that you have an art-filled New Year full of possibilities and joyous flights of delicious fancy!

Gesso Resist Challenge #25 - GPP Street Team

I completely missed the deadline for posting to Michelle Ward's Green Pepper Press Street Team - November challenge (11/30/08) but it's never too late to show your results - definitely some interesting backgrounds that are great for my favorite artistic endeavor - visual journaling! For instructions on how these were made (if you're interested) please click the hyperlink above and look for "Crusade 25."

The point of the exercise was to use gesso (normally used to prep paper and canvas to hold paint) for "resists" meaning that you create a background with gesso, then paint over it. The gesso remains somewhat visible in the background and creates special effects. This is definitely a mixed media approach - I don't think that a classical painter would ever quite venture that far out of the box with gesso.

This page was done by stamping with black gesso (not the usual color, but Golden paints makes it) on the left onto pages torn from an old book, and using the same stamp, with white gesso. I then used cheapie acrylics over the gesso, and made all the blue swirlies by painting with blue interference paint (Lumiere HiLite Blue) over the stamped lines. I sat with this page for weeks until I needed something to journal on, and well, this page came in handy. After all, backgrounds are just that - backgrounds.

You can also use gesso on rubber stamps as I used above (note: wash the gesso off the rubber quickly, or the plaster that is part of the gesso's makeup will stick like glue. I wish some of my glues held this well.)

The best example of the resist with gesso is now my new banner for my blog (see above.) Cool, huh? I definitely got some Teesha Moore inspiration on that one too.

My favorite use for gesso though is still for clearing my mind and warming up for art. I love to just paint a coat of it on everything I do from canvas to paper to assemblage. I'd say thats what I use it for most. Just slapping it on paper and clearing my head.

Thank you Michelle for another inspirational crusade - sorry I missed it!

After an almost two month hiatus, Sepia and Glitter is back

Hello readers,
I've been a crap blogger. It's true. I was fortunate enough to win an award, and I haven't posted anything since then. I have been creating some artwork, not enough, but I've just been so busy with "real life" that I haven't been keeping up much with actually documenting it (i.e. here.)

I had one of those waking up things that you get at 4:30 in the morning the other night - the kind where you wake up obsessed with some idea, and it just won't let you get back to sleep until you've processed it. The word "Simplify." I'm not sure what this means (in relationship to me, I mean), and what I'm supposed to do with it. Was it about my art? My life? My ongoing addiction to buying every mixed media book that's printed (am running out of shelf space)? Maybe I'm supposed to use my wads of expensive scrapbooking paper (not used, but impeccably sorted.) My bead stash (not used, but also impeccably sorted.) Maybe I'm supposed to concentrate on one type of media at a time and learn more about it instead of making things harder on myself by dabbling in so many art forms. I don't know.

Or maybe it just means "post to your blog more often, they don't have to be highly complex posts with eight hours of art behind each of them...."

I'll be the first to let you know when I do...