Big Fat Art Weekend

I've posted a few times about Big Fat Art, and thought it's time I offered a Big Fat Art workshop.  First, here are a few pix of my latest Big Fat Art pieces, some in process, some finished.

22"x30"

18"x24"

19"x25"

19"x25"

19"x25"

18"x24"

19"x25"

19"x25"

What IS Big Fat Art anyway?  Here is a description:

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 the full description or register for the workshop here.  
Interested in a shorter Big Fat Art workshop?  I'm teaching a one-day version at AVA Gallery in Lebanon, NH on March 7.  A longer one?  Come for a four-day Big Fat Art workshop at Pacific Northwest Art School in Coupeville, Washington on beautiful Whidbey Island, September 8 - 11, 2014.  

Come on over to The Sketchbook Challenge blog to see a video of me working on the above Big Fat Art, with a little explanation of how it fits into this month's theme, Houses and Hideaways.  This is part of a Sketchbook Challenge blog hop, so be sure to check out the other posts!

Summer Camp in Winter

I am teaching a weekend of painting and collage at The Rowe Center, in Rowe, MA this coming January 3rd - 5th.  Since Rowe is not too far away from where I live in Vermont, I thought I'd take a trip there to see what it's like.  WOW!  It is an absolutely magical place, with a cozy, rustic, and totally peaceful atmosphere.  The campus is gorgeous, with hiking trails and a lake nearby; the accommodations are comfortable and welcoming; the food is great (we had lunch there by the lake); and the community is warm and generous.  I took some video while I was there, and will share that once I get it put together.  Meanwhile, take a look at a few pix.

I took these ones:

A cairn in the woods

I wonder what this meeting place looks like in winter.

An example of the housing

 And here are a few that I took from the Rowe web site:

In summer

In winter

The building where my workshop will be held

The lake

Register for my workshop here.  BOOK EARLY to get the best choice of housing.  Even though Rowe is "out in the sticks", the roads leading there are well maintained, so getting there should be no problem in the winter.

Colors of Autumn

Color is one of the most immediate and emotionally affecting elements in visual art, packed with symbolic and cultural associations, personal meaning, and expressive potential.  Here in Vermont the leaves are just beginning to turn into their fall colors, so I thought it would be an appropriate time to post a little video on COLOR.

My online workshop, Unlocking the Secrets of Color, begins on September 4.  Learn to use color with confidence, and make the most of its visual impact.

Collage Journeys in Vermont, 2013

We had our Collage Journeys in Vermont workshop last week, with twelve creative and enthusiastic participants.  Janet, from Ohio, blogged about it here.  Take a look at her fabulous photos, including a good one of my post-office-with-chickens.

Here is a little video of the workshop, to give you a taste:

I took the opportunity to show off my Nova Scotia roots in the video by featuring James Hill on the ukulele with a very maritime-sounding uke-and-fiddle tune.

And a few pictures:

Big Fat Art on the Floor

More Big Fat Art on the Floor

One of Bette's collages

Marilyn's table

This is a piece I did as a demo.

As you can see, we did both collage and Big Fat Art.  For the collage, we spent the first afternoon painting papers and printing with the gel plate from GelliArts.   Then we did collage-paintings focusing on various compositional parameters. On the third day we started exploring Big Fat Art, which is REALLY fun to do in a group!

Big Fat Art it a state of mind rather than a particular type of art.  It is process-oriented, and part of the process is making a LOT of it.  Then you use your "starts" to explore and play, develop different concepts, go out on a limb, and, most importantly, keep the process going, moving forward.  

Next year's Collage Journeys in Vermont will be posted in the next couple of weeks, and open for registration.  The dates are August 12 - 16.  I will send out an e-mail when it is up on my site, so if you are interested, and not on my mailing list, please join it (in the right margin of this blog "join our mailing list" in a yellow-green box).  

I'm considering adding a Big Fat Art retreat in the spring, here in Vermont.  This may be a five day event or something shorter.  If that interests you, please comment with your ideas and suggestions.

Thanks for visiting!

More Big Fat Art

My Collage Journeys in Vermont starts today, so I'll be taking pix and video clips to show you next week.  I am very excited to see students I've worked with before and meet the ones I haven't.  LOVE this workshop!  More on that next week.

Meanwhile, I've been working on my Shapes pieces and 4"x4"'s, and also trying some new things with the Big Fat Art.  In perusing Pinterest, I've noticed that I really gravitate towards pieces with what I'm calling "expressive mark making": very free-looking scribbles.  So I did a bunch of Big Fat Art in which I explored scribbles and marks in a new way.  All are 19.5"x25" on Canson paper.

All of these are unfinished pieces; some of them will come to resolution and some will not.  It is about the process, the exploration.  I'm seeing that the shapes are emerging in these pieces, which is exciting - could I combine my shapes stuff with the expressive marks?  I'm trying different materials: pastel, Inktense pencils, graphite, India ink in an oiler boiler, airbrush colors (the drips), and crayons.

Back from the Pacific Northwest

I just had a fantastic experience teaching Abstract Painting at the Pacific Northwest Art School on Whidbey Island in Washington. Here are a few video clips of the event:

And a few pictures:

A walk before the workshop

The workshop in Progress

Watching a Demo

We will be doing some of the same activities in Expressive Collage at Omega in September.  I will also be returning to Pacific Northwest Art School in May (4 - 10), teaching Abstract Painting (a different version), as well as a two-day workshop on Monoprint Collage using the gel plate.

Music in the video is by Podington Bear (I think I misspelled it in the credit - sorry, Podington with one d).

Pictures from the Exhibition

I want to share with you some images of the show, "Journey Into Process", of which I am a part.  It is on view at Vermont Institute of Contemporary Art (VTica) through September 8.  You can see my portion of the exhibition on my web site though I did not post the 4"x4" pieces individually.

Part of my wall, before the opening

VTica serves REALLY good hors d'oeuvres at openings!

Part of my 4"x4" exhibition, in the hallway

"Edge Location" series

One of two groupings of my Shape Series

Enjoy!  I've recently updated my Workshop Calendar, so take a peek and see what's coming up this fall and in 2014.

Blue Canvas

Here is the sequel to the last post, a video of me working on this blue painting. What I love about video is that it makes the process look so straightforward, as if there is no hesitation, no uncertainty about What To Do Next.  This painting was challenging and, at times, frustrating.  You will see a big difference between the finished piece and the version in the video.  At one point I just had to turn off the camera and work it out without being "watched". 

Blue

I've been fascinated by more-or-less-monochrome paintings, and started a Pinterest board to collect images.  How do you make a painting interesting when you are using predominantly one color?  I thought I'd investigate this issue by making a series of paintings, or collage-paintings, dominated by a single color.  This one is 12"x12" on canvas.  I did shoot some video of the process, but will edit and post at a later date.

This was meant to be predominantly blue, but I can see I got very green in some places.  The collage pieces, using the paper demonstrated below, are on the middle left, and lower left just below the orange.  They get sucked right into the painting.

In the meantime, I made a video of a painting technique I use to make collage papers:
This is one of the many techniques I'll be sharing in Expressive Collage and Painting at Omega in September, as well as Scribble Paint and Unbinding the Visual Journal at Art and Soul in Portland in October.

Back to the Postcards!

Some of you have asked if I ever sleep, implying that I am doing a lot of work lately.  I have had some productive studio time, for sure, and am gearing up for summer and fall workshops.  I do sleep.  What I haven't been doing is scanning and posting all the fabulously creative postcards I've received for The Postcard Project!  I read every single one, and LOVE them all, but the volume has been overwhelming, and other obligations have taken priority.  I am keeping them safe while I figure out how and where to display them...

Here are a few recent ones; it was hard to choose just enough for a blog post, so I decided to highlight the fabric pieces:

All postcards that reach our post office in 2013 COUNT towards keeping it open in 2014.  Rather than scanning and posting every single one on the online galleries, I think at this point it will be more realistic for me to do an occasional post on the blog with select images.  We are well over the 2000 mark now!  THANKS SO MUCH to all of you who have sent and are sending cards.