Big Fat Art Weekend in Stowe

Last weekend we made a big fat mess at the Helen Day Art Center in Stowe, Vermont. This time I approached the workshop a little differently than in the past, based on recent work in my own studio. First we made big fat lines and marks using paint and drawing materials. Then we created some collage fodder in color, including line and and pattern. The Big Fat Art pieces began with either collage (using said fodder) or paint, but ultimately made use of both.

Helen Day Art Center furnishes us with portable walls so that we each have a 4'x8' vertical surface on which to hang work.

 

A lot of the collage material was painted on gessoed newspaper.

We did some Drips, Drops, and Spatters using Golden High Flow paint.

Big Fat Art in Process (student work)

Here are a few of my own pieces done mostly in the workshop. They are 19"x24" on Bristol.

I don't have a Big Fat Art Weekend scheduled for 2020 yet, but look for it in 2021. Meanwhile, take out your big fat cheap drawing paper and make big marks.

Studio Walls

It is really FUN to pin up works-in-progress and big fat lines to use as  collage paper right on the studio wall. Check this out:

A rearrangement of my Wall from the other day, which you can see in the previous post.

Another view of the above. I included some Big Fat Art in process, to which I've added some collage papers from my Big Fat Lines.

Four works in process, each 19"x24", which include some of the Big Fat Lines as collage elements.

Big Fat Lines

This has been SO FUN! I'm making big fat lines on big fat paper. 18x24" cheap drawing paper, as well as full sheets of Chinese newspaper sent by a friend. On the newspaper, I am first painting it with slightly watered down white and off-white acrylic using a cheap hardware store bristle brush. LOVE the texture that makes! For the lines I am mostly using a mop brush and high-flow paint.

This is the view from my office/yoga space, in the loft of my studio.

See that spiral piece lower center? That is on deli paper, painted first with the white.

Here are a couple of collage-paintings I've made from big fat line work. These are both on 19"x24" bristol. The Blick Bristol is super smooth and durable, perfect for this kind of thing.

This one includes some cut-up Big Fat Art

The pink and green on the lower left are house paint scribbles.

2019! Happy New Year

As the days begin to get longer here in the northern hemisphere, many of us take the time to consider what we might like to accomplish in the new year. Do you have plans or goals for your art practice?

Thanks to all of you who have taken my workshops, read my books, and shown up to my blog posts, videos, or newsletters, I feel an overwhelming sense of support for my own work.

Here are a few things on my list for 2019:

1. Spend some time with oil and cold wax. I keep "dabbling" in oil media, but haven't spent concentrated time on it. Here is a post about pigment sticks and oil media. Here are some of the pieces that came out of that exploration; they are 10x10":

2. This is always on my list: work larger. By the end of 2019 I would love to have some idea of what it is like to work on a piece that is 6'x8' (72"x 96"), or somewhere on that scale. I don't aim to finish a piece that size, (if I make that a goal, it will not happen), but to work on pieces of that magnitude.

Here is a mock-up I did a few years ago that allows me to imagine myself working at a much larger scale. Thanks to Photoshop.

3. I want to do a project I'm calling "Art on a Roll": painting/drawing on a continuous roll of paper or canvas. This is inspired by Mayako Nakamuro. Check out her Emaki Study here.

This is a gallery shot of one of Nakamuro's continuous scrolls.

If you have tried this, let me know. It seems as if it would lend itself to a communal project, but I'm not quite sure how that would work. Any ideas?

4. Anther thought that has been kicking around awhile is: incorporating referential (representational) imagery into my abstract paintings. I don't know how I will approach this, but I've been dancing around the idea for a while and it's time to plunge in. Maybe I'll take a workshop, or work from photographs, or make cartoon doodles of chickens or trees or bicycle tires. I just have no idea where this idea would/could lead. Any suggestions are welcome!

In my teaching practice I have a few plans too:
I plan to offer more small mentoring workshops in my schedule. I love painting with people, and also love talking to people about their work, outside of any assignments or content that I might "teach". At the other end of the spectrum, I am adding some beginner workshops and resources to my offerings. THANK YOU for all the feedback and suggestions you gave me in this post about workshop suggestions.

I would love to hear from you, either in a comment on this post or in an e-mail, about your plans for 2019 in terms of your art practice. What is new for you in 2019?

Big Fat Art Weekend Opening

Due to a cancellation, there is one spot open in my Big Fat Art Weekend in Stowe, VT, coming up November 9 - 11.  What is Big Fat Art?

Big Fat Art is a state of mind rather than a specific kind of art.  It is all about loosening up and getting past the thinking/evaluating zone and into the creative spontaneous one, where you can be freely expressive.  Ditch the inhibitions, relax, and have fun playing with paint! Read more here.

Disclaimer: it is easier said than done, getting out of the stuck place and into a freedom of expression.  In Big Fat Art we do specific exercises - such as speed-painting, five-minute painting, painting to a recipe or formula (six of these, one of those type of thing) - that keep us moving forward, and give us tools for getting, and staying, un-stuck.

Call Helen Day Art Center at 802-253-8358

Or e-mail Danielle at education@helenday.com

The following video shows clips from a previous Big Fat Art workshop.

Another Weekend of Big Fat Art

This Big Fat Art Weekend was in Stowe, Vermont, at the Helen Day Art Center. We laid down masses of color using various techniques, then made lines, shapes, and patterns, painted over previous layers, kept adding stuff and painting over stuff... we flung house paint and High Flow paint, scribbled and dripped, made marks, and made a mess.  Here are some of the students' results (all to be considered works in process) and all around 18"x24" - 22"-30" except where noted.

This one is much larger, maybe 36"x48"

Next year at Helen Day, I will be offering another Big Fat Art Weekend, November 9 - 11.  I will also be teaching a workshop with Suzanne Seigel the week of October 15 - 19.  She will teach techniques for preparing collage papers; then I will teach a collage class.

More Pictures from Big Fat Art

A few more pix from my Big Fat Art workshop at Port Townsend School of the Arts. Check out their other offerings.  It was fabulous to be on such a vibrant, creative campus. After my workshop I participated in the Port Townsend Ukulele Festival, right there at Fort Worden, presented by Centrum.

One of my demo pieces in process

One of my demo pieces in process

One of my demo pieces in process

student work in progress

student work in progress

student work in progress

student work in progress

student work in progress

student work in progress

student work in progress

student work in progress

Big Fat Art in Port Townsend

Last weekend I had the pleasure of teachiIt was my Big Fat Art Weekend workshop, and I had an absolutely awesome group, making Big Fat Art! PTSA is in its third season of offering classes and workshops in all types of media, on the campus of Fort Worden State Park, which is home to a number of creative non-profits.  Centrum, Copper Canyon Press, and Madrona Mind Body Institute are just a few.  It is SO COOL that all events from various organizations are coordinated on this calendar, so you can design your own experience. It is inspiring to see so many creative organizations fostering a spirit of cross-pollination and working together.

Detail shots from a few of my demo pieces.

I sometimes play my ukulele in class, to give students a break from my talking and breathing down their necks. 

I will post more pictures of student work in a later post, once I get them organized.

My next gig is teaching at the Vermont Ukulele Harvest, on October 14.  Check it out here.  And see a few videos on our FB page.

Helen Day Art Center

I just discovered that Helen Day Art Center has an image of my work on their website home page!  THANK YOU Helen Day.

Here is the piece, in its entirety.  Train Wreck #3, 25.5"x19.5", acrylic and collage on paper.

I am teaching two workshops at Helen Day in 2017.  The first is coming up soon:

April 18 -21, Abstract Painting and Composition for Textile Artists. 

The next one will be held in the fall:

October 20 - 22, Big Fat Art

Scroll down on the Adult Education page to see full descriptions and to sign up.