Mixed Media (as in a computer and paint)

I like Illustrator. I like Photoshop. I like paint and collage. I have no idea what to do to combine them. Here's attempt one. My response? A grand old, "eh." But like so many things one must start some place. I think I need a goal, like, "Do a poster on X, and use both real and computer art." Ha! If it were just that simple.

Card for Peter and Danielle

Spray Bottle Boxes

This concludes the Week of Gifts for Theater Productions. I leave you with the poster board squirt bottle. We had a crew of some 22 people and each of them we wanted to thank. Squirt bottles became a symbol for us due to the shirt design so I thought this was apt. The body is cut out of a single sheet of poster board, painted, folded up, filled with candy and then topped with the cap. We made sure to give everyone a feather duster as well. I think our crew was pleasantly surprised overall. I'm excited about this design b/c it involved a wee bit of engineering. Also, folded poster board opens up many a possibilities for future holiday-themed gifts.

Bottle Clothes

This isn't the best image but these are tiny tequila bottles with Wal Mart vests on them. (Side note: How I love my hot glue gun.) The play follows a woman as she works minimum wage jobs. One of the places she works is "MallMart." I made these for my castmates as part of the closing night gifts. So a great group of people!

Taking a break from crew gifts, this is a piece I made some time ago. I'm still figuring out if I even like it. I have such mixed feelings about polymer clay. I marvel at what people do with it (I'm looking at you Dayle Doroshow) but everything I do I feel looks odd. I wore it this week and liked it but the jury is still out.

Etched Glass

We were having trouble coming up with ideas for our running crew (the crew that is with you during the actual performances. They include the people running lights, sound, costumes, and the stage manager.) Someone suggested a shot glass for our stage manager, and I suddenly remembered that people etch glass. It's a terrible idea to try and learn a new skill on a strict time deadline but glass etching is really straight forward. The most important thing is to make sure your stencil is good and securely fastened to the glass surface. I used reusable letters and found that if I allowed them to fully dry between etchings, everything turned out well. I made 8 candle holders for our crew. Glass etching is an excellent idea for gifts that surround a very specific theme like a theater production. There will be more of this in my future.

Spray Bottle Magnets

There's a theme here.

These are magnets I made for my castmates of Nickel and Dimed.

I made over 20 of them, which isn't bad in that they are pretty straight forward. What takes the most time is cutting out the little pieces.

Meet Daily

I am going to be out of the office tomorrow. More posting on Monday. This weekend is the close of my play, and I am still trying to get through all the crew/cast gifts finished. Tomorrow I think I might try etching glass. Fingers crossed.

Reunion

This is just a random graphic I wanted to try this morning. I envision it as the invite to my 10 year. I want the theme to be "Come as you are."

Magnets

Tonight I am crafting until my fingers fall off. (But only in the non literal sense.) I'm bad at delegating and I've taken off more than I can chew, but I think if I work hard and stay focused I *might* (might?) be able to get through a huge set of crew gifts before Wednesday.

The image to the left is the design I did for our cast/crew t-shirts. Now I'm taking the design and making magnets. I printed a sheet of them and then color copied a bunch. Tonight I will be sticking them to magnet sheets with the help of matte medium. Hopefully the bubbles stay to a minimum and everything is easy. This is never how it works but one can hope, right?

Add to all of this that I'm house sitting. I keep realizing I've forgotten some necessary supply. Thankfully they have a good work table and two awesome dogs to keep me company.

Paper Engineering

This is the prototype for a gift for the crew of the show I'm working on. We had our opening weekend this past weekend. We have one more weekend and then life resumes to normal. (Whatever normal means.)

These will be made out of poster board and will be filled with candy. Also, hopefully they will have cuter designs although I'm not yet sure what that will be. We have to make 20 plus of them.

Andrew Pate

We have a program here on our local public broadcasting called Oregon Art Beat. My mom just passed along a segment on painter Andrew Pate. It's about a 7 minute clip and worth the watch. It's not about technique it's about hearing what's going on inside the mind of a painter. I like how he talks about it being difficult to interact with people about his work and how openings exhaust him.

Also it makes me itch to get out my watercolors and do some wet into wet. Beautiful.

Watch here.

John Salminen's Palette

John and Kathy Salminen left today, and we (including the cat Katie) were all sad to see them go. I'm running off to opening night of our play so I'll include the link to John's work tomorrow. You can find it off of our website ccpvideos.com or Google him. Pretty amazing stuff.

Here are some close ups of his palette after his workshop. I love abstract palettes.

(Update: This is the paint John used for his DVD workshop, "Urban Landscape in Watercolor.")

More Pattern Stamping

More pattern stamping. I want to try this next with paint so that the colors are stronger.

Nickel and Dimed Flier

Here's a flier I did for the play I'm in. Note the date. That's 2 days away (AAAAAAHHHH!) I had all these grand designs for crafty gifts for my castmates and, well, you know how it goes.

It's been fun to learn about the craft of acting through these last few months. Like painting or pottery it all takes work. I feel like you have to be half way in to realize how much work it'll take you to travel the distance and be at all good. Again, true with all the art forms.

Stencils and Stamps

I've always liked buying rubber stamps more than I like using rubber stamps. I see the designs in the store ("oh what a cute goldfish!") but when I get them home to my inks, I don't like the outcome ("How the heck am I going to use a goldfish?!") So I have all these stamps. And yes I kind of keep buying them. If you're like me, this technique is for you. Take all those stamps and use them not for the individual image but for the texture the image can make.

Decorative Ribbon Candies Tutorial

Shirt Design #2

T-Shirt Design

I'm designing our cast t-shirt (I'm in a play at our local theater.) I'm hoping to design 5 and let the cast vote on which they like best. Here's option #1.

Great Quote

I browse a fair amount. I like to see what CCP artists are up to and how people are really benefiting from their amazing workshops. In doing so today I came across Matchatank Deb, and on her blog she had a quote from Albert Einstein. She's using it in a piece she started in Lisa Engelbrecht's workshops. I love love (love) the quote:

"You cannot solve a problem on the same level you created it."

Something to live by. Thanks Matchatank Deb!

Virginia Cobb's, "Acrylic Abstract Image" on Sale

Abstract Acrylic Painting: The Evolving Image with Virginia Cobb from Creative Catalyst on Vimeo.


This week's sale is Virginia Cobb's art instructional workshop, "Acrylic Abstract Image: The Evolving Image."

Virginia Cobb's DVD is a bit different from most of Creative Catalyst's workshops. Instead of focusing on technique, it explores the discovery process that goes on inside our heads. Virginia creates three paintings from the same inspiration but emphasizes a different element of design in each painting: shape, line and texture. The results are amazingly different. She layers, covers, and re-discovers shapes and colors. Her process creates a sense of history and permanence. Watch as she adds layers but, more importantly, listen to how she thinks about what she is doing.

Virginia's artistic process relies on problem solving. She challenges herself by constantly creating problems, which forces her to discover solutions. It keeps her art fresh and original.

I had never really thought about this approach. Normally I look at problems in my work and think, "$%&! Oh look. Another failure." But Virginia actually propels off of problems to keep her paintings fresh and original. That is SUCH a better way to look at it. (Also more kid friendly.)

Carla O'Connor Visit

Zach and I pulled our bikes into work this morning and had the pleasant surprise of finding Washington plates on an unfamiliar car. Carla O'Connor and her husband, Mike, were visiting. We love when artists film with us and even while we have a lot of fun we still have to concentrate. Filming leaves the artists tired and the week burns people out. When artists just arrive at our door and can hang out, it's a whole new ball game. It was great to just sit and talk with both Carla and Mike. We swapped pet stories and painting stories and had a really nice time. This job has a lot of perks (like there is a cat sleeping next to me in my office at this very moment) but meeting the people we get to meet is really one of the best.

(Artwork by Carla O'Connor.) See more at Carla's gallery.

Purple Background Collage

Napkin Paper

I'm currently experimenting with napkin collage. Napkins come in so many cool colors and designs I'm trying to see if I can use the patterns to make background textures. Here's my first. It needs more paint (and then of course something on top.)

I used a ton of Mod Podge and napkins. Most napkins have a few layers and only the top one actually has a pattern. Peel the other ones off before you go to glue anything down. They will only get in the way. I used a tiny bit of water to get my strips of napkin to stick to the paper. Then I covered everything with a ton of Mod Podge. Finally I began with my layers of paint.

Happy Father's Day (yesterday)

simple card

Polly Hammett says find three things you like because it pushes you to think about your work in a different way than just saying all the things you don't like.

1. The vertical division of purple space (with the lighter purple at the top)
2. The swirl thing in the right corner.
3. The texture on the love.

Dislike
1. Placement of love
2. Values are too similar between the wording and the background.

I like the second one better from a balance standpoint.

Flyer for Nickel and Dimed

Question

What does a steamroller, skateboard and break dancing all have in common? Monoprinting, obviously!

Read article:
That's a big print you have there! (That's not the official name.)

Composition Article Download

Artist Janie Gildow wrote an article on composition for the Creative Catalyst newsletter. It breaks everything down and is really quite helpful. You can download it here (copy paste the link):

www.ccpvideos.com/docs/Gildow_Comp_Article.pdf

Janie is hoping to start teaching online classes specifically on composition within the next year so check in occasionally with her website (http://janiegildow.com) for more information. There isn't anything up quite yet, but it's still worth looking around at her amazing work.

To see a preview of Janie's Creative Catalyst DVD workshop go here.

Thanks Janie!

CCP Web Promo 2008

I'm getting a little conscious that this is becoming a blog more of video than words and images. This is in large part because my visual creative outlet right now *is* work. I divide my free time into mostly one big pile called, "Nickel and Dimed." Whatever is left (and there isn't much) goes into the "Forage for Food" pile or the "Make a Path Through The Debris in My Apartment" pile. At some point in August I will come back full force with actual non-moving 2D work.

Conversations with Nicholas Simmons Part 3

Here's another clip from Conversations with Nicholas Simmons. In this segment he talks about why it's good for beginning artists to use their imagination as their source material.

Love

You can get some cool effects when you use cheap paper and cheap paint. You can also get your arms covered in purple and have to do a quick but thorough interrogation of your kitchen and make sure you're not leaving droplets of purple water behind with your never-to-be-seen-again deposit.

Weekend Play

This project was going really well until the very end. It was suppose to be a congratulations card for some friends in a local play, but now we'll see. I got lazy with Claudine Hellmuth's Petroleum Jelly technique and didn't get it wiped up enough. I kept thinking if I just covered it with enough gel medium it would be OK. Nope. Bad instinct there.

I am excited about a few new techniques I'm trying. More on that later. In the mean time, if you don't have Claudine's books or DVDs they are certainly all INCREDIBLY helpful. (If you follow the instructions...ahem.) If I could find the rubbing alcohol I bought 2 days ago my night will be set.

Paper Flower Magnet Tutorial

I now understand a bit better what our artists must go through when they come here to film a DVD workshop. I've heard the hardest part is when we send them the check disc and they see themselves on the screen for the first time. Yeah....I get that now. The above is me (sans camera A :)

Dayle Doroshow in France (lucky!)

If you look really closely you can see Dayle Doroshow taking pictures!

OK, maybe half of that isn't true, but Dayle is currently in France to teach a workshop. She went early to soak France up a bit before beginning her classes.

See what she's up to by checking out her blog.

Have a great time Dayle!

Conversations with Nicholas Simmons Part 1

Nicholas Simmon's DVD workshop "Innovative Watermedia" is still a few weeks out (which means people can still pre-order and save $5 :) but we have a few goodies for people while they wait. Nick talked about a bunch of interesting issues that we had to cut from his DVD due to time restraints so we will be posting them over the next few weeks. It's audio only so sit back, relax, and take a listen.

Three Day Weekend

This has been a crazy week here at work. I've been coming in really early so that I have time to exercise and eat before 6PM play practice. This always seems like such a good idea at the start of the week, but by the end of it I'm dragging my half conscious body toward the finish line. So the best three words a person could hear at this point? Three Day Weekend. OK, so really, "You! giant raise!" wouldn't be bad either but well, in that that's not happening, Three Day Weekend is wonderful.

My brain has also been going a million miles a minute on craft projects I want to try. When I'm in a play the crafts get pushed to the back burner. I just build up ideas on random pieces of paper I hopefully can find later. The three day weekend means that I will have some time to play around in my paint and glue. I think this will be good for my soul.

Enjoy and see you Tuesday!

Summer

Buttons

Nicholas Simmons Countdown Begins!

We have begun the countdown for Nicholas Simmons's DVD workshop, "Innovative Water Media." We just approved the check disc, which means the DVDs will arrive in our warehouse in about 3 weeks!

"Innovative Water Media" is going to be a great learning tool for water media artists of all stripes. Nick takes aspects of the medium that people usually try to avoid and incorporates them into his own style. Water media artists usually think of blooms, crawl-backs and puddling as signs of a ruined painting but Nick takes them and makes incredible textures.

We are also working on some Nick web extras so more info to come soon.

Little Less Confusion

I had a couple of friends ask me why I had chickens on everything. (I have 2 more web spaces beyond this blog, and I had chickens on those too.) So for less confusion, here are some houses. Nothing fancy but every pattern in it is mine. Very very simple so far, but a girl has to start somewhere. I'm really looking forward to the day I have a large library of my own patterns to choose from. Until then I suppose it takes a little every day.

Carl Dalio Sale

Ready for a quick brush up on your perspective and composition? Watercolorist Carl Dalio, NWS, AWS, presents eight complete lessons on perspective and composition his watercolor DVD workshop, "Sketching in Perspective - Drawing and Composition."

Check out Carl's watercolor DVD workshop, "Carl Dalio on Color Power."

Sherri Haab

Sherri Haab, artist of many-genres extraordinaire, answered a question put to her by a blog carnival. The question was: If you suddenly became wealthy and didn't have to sell your jewelry anymore for income, would you still sell it? Would you still make it? and why?

So interesting!

Here's how Sherri answered:
If I was wealthy and didn't have to sell my jewelry I would still make and sell it because I do it for enjoyment. However, I would approach jewelry making from a different perspective....

(read more)

Vintage Photos

Cora from Paper Flowers found some great old photos at a flea market and is kindly posting them every Saturday to use. She only asks that you link back to her blog so that everyone can enjoy the art.

Thanks Cora!

I'm trying to slowly start using only my own pattern designs in my vector work. I've more or less got polka dots and lines down, but I still don't have a selection of even those to browse through. I don't have any patterns I really like that use damask or paisley.

Anthony on a Train is getting closer (although still a far cry.) I moved the door left and I gave him a seat. (Originally he was floating.) Way too busy.

The one part I'm really happy with seems so insignificant but it's the first time I've used color theory in my work. The book is two colors. The page that is farther away is actually a slightly bluer (cooler) turquoise. If you put a warm color and a cool color next to each other, the cooler color recedes.

I was cast in a local play and I'm trying to make little vectors of the various characters. I'm finding it really hard. I took a picture of myself from the shoulders up and vectored it. Then I tried to put that head on a cartoon-like body. So did not work. Next I made the eyes a little less realistic. I want these to be cute cartoons, but as my friend pointed out I look like a man. I've never been mistaken in real life as a man so I think it's fair to say I shouldn't as a cartoon either. What works in 3-D (Oh look, it's Kelly, a *woman*) sometimes doesn't work in 2-D. The one on the far right is the final attempt for the time being. This is going to take a few tries.

Lesley Riley Sale!

Bring your family and your art together with Lesley Riley's "Exploring Fabric Collage." In this DVD workshop you will discover the wonders of creating a fabric altered book. Combine easy to find materials with your favorite family photos to make great gifts for Mom and Grandma. Lesley shows you the entire process, from selecting your fabrics to transferring images. This project is great with kids, and you will be able to finally use that scrap cloth you've been holding onto for ages.

Keeping Up with Lesley Riley

Mixed media artist Lesley Riley has a lot going on these days. She did an interview with ZNE BlogTalk Radio and recently announced that she will have a piece in Cate Prato's book, "Mixed-Media Self-Portraits: Inspiration & Techniques."

Keep up to date with all things Lesley by bookmarking her blog. (Of course you can also check back here as well :)

Venti no foam skinny vanilla latte

It seems like such a simple affect but not so to the novice coffee-stain-creator. So here is my first attempt at coffee-stain-dom. Usually when I see this mark in real life it's followed by a groan. Or, "I'm sure the IRS won't mind too horribly."

I need to remove some globs at either end of the spiral, but I think I'm on the right track.

**A friend just saw this post and emailed me to comment that his coffee stains normally don't swirl. As soon as I read it I realized how obvious his observation was, but I would have never gotten there without his email. Thanks George!

Redesigns

A few Fridays back we had a long meeting about how to make aspects of our company better. I love this about small businesses; Individuals' opinions matter. (Including our customers'. I think it would surprise people how we all read almost every comment that comes through email or comment boxes on our site.)

One of the improvements from that meeting is our Artist Pages. Every DVD we produce has a page dedicated to the amazing instructors who come through Creative Catalyst Productions. We are trying to make those pages nicer in both layout and maneuverability. If you check the site, you might see even more changes. Let us know what works and what doesn't work. We really do take what people say into consideration.