Photos from the Residency

One of the most valuable things about the VSC residency was meeting all the other artists and seeing their work.  I took pictures of their work at Open Studio on our last day, but won't post here.  Instead, here are a few of the artists who were there:

Galen Cheney, Molly Bosley, Kit Donnelly, Lyal Michel, Janet Fredericks, Kathleen Fiske, Lily Hinrichsen, Irene Cole, Warren Kimble, and of course there were many more (fifty-six of us altogether).

Here are a few more pix of my work in progress, maybe some are finished:

 

 

This is just some of what I worked on.  The verticals are 11"x30".  

Another valuable experience from the residency was coming to terms with my own limitations - my attention span, my stamina.  Not just how-long-can-I-stay-in-the-studio, but How Long Can I Sustain An Idea?  Do my ideas only go so far and then peter out?  What happens when I try to push an idea further than my usual attention span and studio time allow?  I tend to work in short series, and often feel like I flit from one thing to another, and yet I know that common themes and aesthetic issues surface across various series and bodies of work.  Should I be more intentional?  Should I try to push my ideas further? Should, should, should.

What I discovered is that my brain peters out before my physical stamina for staying in the studio.  I want to be working longer, but the paintings come to a point where they need to be left alone for a bit, even if I work on several at once.  My work is pretty decision-intensive, even though the decisions are intuitive.  There is very little "busy work" that I can do on my paintings when my brain is tired.  So maybe this is a good time to make patterned collage papers, do cut-outs of shapes that I am now painting, make repetitious marks, or go back to my 4"x4" collage-paintings (of which I did NONE last week), or push paper around.  Thanks for listening!

Residency at Vermont Studio Center

Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, offers a Vermont Artists Week, in which I am SO lucky to be participating this year!  A whole week of just me and my Inner Resources, plus fifty-five other Vermont painters, print makers, sculptors, and writers doing same.  We are housed, fed, and generally taken care of, so that we can focus on our work.  So this is my only post this week, with just a few pix.  No videos, no tutorials, no Brilliant Insights or Pearls of Wisdom ; )

Selfie in Studio, first night.  Work behind me is new, in progress, warm-ups.

First morning I did twenty studies, 9"x12"

Stuck a few on the wall and began work on 10"x30" verticals.

In Process, ELEMENTS in the fog

Ditto the above.

More Big Fat Art and a few more Verticals

Just thought I would show you a few things that I'm working on now.  As you can see, I've limited the color and vocabulary, and seem to be working out a few ideas over the course of lots and lots of pieces. This is just a sampling.  These are all either 18"x24" or 19.5"x25.5". 

The 18"x24" are on my all-purpose Cheap Drawing Paper, and the slightly larger ones are on Canson drawing paper, which I've just discovered.  It holds up to a lot, but is still pretty light weight.  For the "keepers", I coat the back with matte medium.  Then the paper lies a bit flatter.  For paint, I am using Blick Matte Acrylics for black, white, and neutrals, and bits of Golden Fluid Acrylics for some colors. 

Here are a few more of the vertical pieces, all of which are 7"x22" on printmaking paper:

Drawing materials on all of the above include Pitt pens, Caran d'Ache NeoColor II crayons, and a few graphite sticks and pencils.  Nothing too fancy. 

My online classes Unlocking the Secrets of Color and Exploring the Self-Portrait are both beginning next week, and are filling up fast.  I'll open the blogs later today so people can start posting their introductions.  I love this part of online workshops!  My Extreme Composition class got so much enthusiasm that we've begun Extreme Composition 2, open only to those who took the first class.  It is more like a group discussion forum where everyone sets her own goals and everyone supports each other.  It is off to a fabulous start!  Extreme Composition will be offered again starting in April.

A Couple More Verticals

I've been preparing work for Gander Gallery in Manchester, VT, which will be showing my work now.  YAY!  I will get pictures and post more about that soon, but since I haven't posted in a while I thought I'd share a couple more of my vertical experiments.  These two are done, and will go in the gallery.

These are both 7" x 22".  Fun fun FUN working in this format.  More later.

Vertical Experiments

I've been taking it a bit easy the last few weeks after months of an intense teaching schedule.   Time to recharge the batteries, then get in some real studio time.  I have been exploring a vertical format.  Over the years I've done loads of sketches of vertical pieces, but on paper I never seem to actually do them.  So I gave myself (and my Extreme Composition students) a challenge to work in exaggerated proportions.  Here are a few of my efforts.  All of these are 22" high.

This is one piece in three parts. 

It's fun to try a new format! Vertical, extreme horizontal, way bigger than you are comfortable with, way smaller, modular.... give it a try!