New work

A sneak peek at a new canvas I'm working on. Eventually it'll be a whale w/ someone sitting inside its stomach, waves, & some text. :) oooo!

(again please excuse the crappy iphone pics-you'd think as a photographer I could find something better to photograph with. :) I promise for the finished piece I'll use my SLR!)

Bicycle by the Sea

As my last post mentioned, over the holiday weekend I was fortunate enough to be able to follow any inspiration I had at any moment I had it! I loved being able to work on my art whenever I feel motivated, which is quite different than what I'm used to-sitting at work wanting to work on a project & having my hands tied until I get out at 5. Not that I'm complaining though-there'd be no artwork if I didn't have my 8-5 to pay for it :) Anywho-about a month back I made a quick sketch on my trusty standby-the sticky note- at work. I was inspired, by goodness knows what, to create a canvas with a girl, riding a bike by the sea, with the text that I quickly scratched out on another sticky note. Here's a pic of how the idea began. When I got home I put the sticky notes in my journal, & thus began rolling the idea around for about a month, letting teh concept kind of sink in until I figured out how I actually wanted to create it.

I knew what the girl should look like more or less. I thought about scanning in images of myself when I was little-thinking perhaps I'd use my own likeness for her face. But I knew I'd illustrate her body & clothes-maybe collage it from another source like an old pattern for girls clothing. I also wasn't sure if I wanted to use real sand for a base, or use a photograph for the entire background. On top of that I had no idea how I was going to incorporate the text! Should I print it out with a specific font & then transfer it to the surface? Should I write it out w/ a Sharpie? Should I print the text out w/ the font & just use that print? All these decisions!

When I finally took stock in how much I was questioning my process I came to the conclusion I was overanalyzing, & really paralyzing any progress I was going to make. I went into my office, sat at my table, took the canvas in hand, & started experimenting. I began painting the figure for the girl, going directly from my sketch, thinking once I had that going I'd be able to figure out the rest- I was right! From then on everything pretty much fell into place.

(the text reads: "and she rode and rode and rode until the sand and the wind and the misty spray filled her hair and ears and heart with the the joy of knowing her freedom")

I used paper from an old pattern I picked up from the thrift store as a base for the canvas, as well as a surface for the text. I used stamps w/ a broken down font to print the text, & glued them to the "sand" with acid free rubber cement. I used small brads as joints for the girl (not sure if you can see them in the pics). I spray painted the girls bike, outlined it in sharpie, & stiched spokes onto the wheels with gray thread.

To create the lower half of the canvas, I enhanced the creased & uneven texture of the paper pattern with chalk, used a light wash of cream colored paint to beef up the chalk, & dusted more chalk over the wash to create a sandy look by scraping a pallette knife over the surface of my pastel. For the sky, I washed it with a grayish blue paint, again enhancing the creases in the pattern, but also allowing the pattern itself to shine through. For the clouds, I referenced some grade school science booklets I'd picked up at the thrift store as well. These booklets had all the primary groups of biology sectioned out, with pictures of animals & plants, as well as tests at the end of each section so the students could review all the information. There were clouds in one of images exeplifying conservation & I thought the design would work perfectly for my iamge of the girl with her bike by the sea. Of course I added my own touch to them & my canvas was complete! I LOVE the look & feel of the image-I couldn't be happier with the results :)

Thanksgiving Weekend

Hallelujah for 4 day holiday vacations! Not only were the Krampe & Ripka turkey days full of well spent time with the family, fantastic food, sleeping in past 8 in the morning, & basically relaxing as much as possible, but I also had a lot of time to dedicate to art! You know it's been a good weekend when your table looks like this:

Pics to come of the canvas I finished over the weekend!

Little Miss B

A couple weekends ago I got to photograph my new neice! We got some great pics-here's one of my favs :)

$4.59 for new wood screws, price of building a new laundry folding station w/o having to buy a TON of other supplies? Priceless :)

So my dryer has been dying a slow death since the day I moved into my house a little over a year & a half ago. I've been able to squeak by not buying a new one for quite a while, & over the summer I just hung my clothes out on the line to dry. I kept telling myself I was conserving energy & being kind to the planet by using the clothes line instead of the ailing dryer, but in the back of my head I knew Fall of 09 would be new dryer time. :D

I bought the new dryer last Tues, it was delivered Friday, & the weekend was a laundry extravaganza! Yes...very exciting...but being able to dry an entire batch of towels, sheets, & a comforter in 45min was fanastic! Yes I know it's sad to be so excited about a dryer but what are you gonna do? :) This brings me to the new laundry folding station.

Since I had all this dry laundry :) I needed somewhere to fold it. The previous owners had replaced the kitchen cupboards at some point & left the old ones down in the basement, so I had a good base to start from. I had also been given some large chuncks of countertop from my parents, when they redesigned their computer room, so I already had a good work surface! Using some 2x4's which came from some shelving I took apart in the old pantry, I built a base for the cupboards, attached them to the base, & then attached the counter top to the cupboards, & anchored it all to the wall. All I have to do now is buy some end caps to cover the gap's between the cupboards & the walls, & then cap off the raw 2x4 w/ some type of moulding & it'll be done! An entirely new work area for around $15 when it's all said & done. Can't beat reuse & repurpose! :)

Another new tree...sort of :)

A couple months ago my friend Christie forwarded an image from a blog she was reading. The image featured a bedroom wall painted w/ trees-a design the home owner sketched out, projected onto the wall, traced, & then painted. I LOVED the look, & decided it was just what my bedroom wall needed. I referenced some sketches I made in Colorado & free hand painted some birch trees onto one of the walls. The result was great! Just what I was looking for :)

Now fast forward a couple weeks. I had a small tree out in my backyard which at one point had been hit by lightning. It was cracking up the side, was half dead, & basically just needed to be taken down before part of it fell into the house, or I had to call in the professionals to take it down. I figured I could take some of the branches, cut them into small rounds w/ different thickness, & create an arrangement on the adjacent wall.

Here's what to do:
1. Take different width branches & cut them into rounds. Vary the size & thicknesses of each round. I used my miter saw, but whatever saw you can cut a 90 degree angle with will do the trick
2. Lay each piece out to dry, mine took two weeks
3. Making sure each piece is dry & clear of sawdust, use heavy duty mounting squares to adhere each round to the wall. The qty of squares for each piece depends on the size of the round. The largest ones I had used 4 & the smallest 1
4. Here comes the easy part-arrange them however you like & you're done!

The final result ended up looking better than I could've imagined! Modern, whimsical, & a great paraody between the painted trees on the wall & the sections of real tree on the wall. Plus, & this is the best part, it was practically free! Only $3.62 for the mounting squares-can't beat that :)

Latest Project (sorry about the crappy iphone pics)

The other day I was looking through some fashion photography websites & got inspired by the dark humor vibe I was getting from the images, along with the fashion. I whipped out my trusty yellow lined paper I have sitting on my desk & sketched out a quick idea for a triptych!

My basic idea was a play on little red riding hood & her wolfy nemisis. I wanted the triptych to have a lot of childlike qualities-the reference to little red riding hood, the cartoon-ish look of the characters-but also posses adult themed topics.

I wanted 3 panels: the first with her hiding, the 2nd with her reprimanding the wolf, & the 3rd with them walking away together. Although I had an idea of what I wanted the images to look

like, I didn't know what I wanted to use, other than canvas as the base, for materials.

At first I thought to use a collage of squares cut directly from the original inspiration-fashion magazines! Using the magazines would lend themselves to questions for the viewer: What do these magazines speak to? How do women shape themselves in reference to these pages of colorful images? Are these magazines used to build some type of confidence or is it fiction? While the layers of the collages lend themselves to interpretation as well. Detailed, precise, densely placed details ask to be paid more attention than the largely cut & open pieces.

So I bought a couple magazines & used others that I had & created the first canvas background & characters using entirely magazine clippings. The look ended up being too dense & busy to really distinguish the characters from the bkgrd. Although I really liked the look of the characters, I the background just wasn't giving me the look & feel that I wanted. I also felt like I'd strayed a little too far away from my original idea of childlike imagery.

The technique I came up with, was a more illustrative look with pastels, water color, & water. I sketched the shape of the tree's with pastels, & thinking I'd fill in the difference with water color, the water mixed with the chalk & became almost paint-like. A result I wasn't expecting, but it ended up looking great!! I took the characters I'd created with magazine clippings & made them look a little more sketchy by drawing on them with oil pastels, which I feel incorporated each character into the background technique a little better.

I really like how the glozzy magazine finish plays off the pastel, matte finish of the duotone background. One down, three more to go!!

While I LOVE the look of the first canvas, I'm playing around with adding slightly more color to the bkgrd as the panels progress. On the second canvas bkgrd I added a small amount of slate blue to the sky & a small amount of olive green to the grass, perhaps to lighten the mood slightly, but I haven't yet determined if that's how I'm going to leave it. I might remove the color & replace it with the same colors of the first canvas to emphasize the characters more, rather than the background.

I'm also playing around with illustrating the characters for this panel. The only real reason being this may give the panels another layer of visual appeal.

I also typed up some text to go along with the imagery, another aspect I've yet to come to terms with how I'm going to execute it. I'm not sure if I'm going to use a handwritten font & transfer it onto the canvas somehow, or hand write it myself. I also haven't decided whether I'm going to write it on the canvases themselves, create panels to go under them, or perhaps matte the images & put the text on the matt, I'm not sure, but each canvas will have text to go with it.

The text for the first panel is:

he looked at her and growled...
a deep seated fear began to crawl from the dark hollow within her

damp clammy & blurry

The 2nd panel text will be:

her mind recoiled but her heart refused

scorching light coursed through the darkness
broke through the rattling

The 3rd panel will be:

there’s no need she said

and he acquiesced

The language offers another aspect of adult reference. I think we all have some type of history or fear within us, although most of us learn to hide & keep secret whatever that may be. The child in my images shares the common thread of doubt & dread, as well as the determination not to succumb to the fear, either real or imagined. I enjoy playing around with these themes because I feel like they're universal. Everyone knows doubt, everyone knows a sense or need to stand up for themselves & be heard, & I feel like everyone has felt some kind of success or triumph over dark times or feelings.

Anyways-this is the project I'm playing around with right now, who knows what it'll look like by the end but here it is at the moment!

Oh yeah-btw!!

btw I found this site the other day featuring a TON of artist's & their interpretations of Where the Wild Things Are (the movie is coming out next week!!! I can't wait! obvisously :) heheh) Take a peek-there's so many cool pieces!

http://www.terribleyelloweyes.com/

Some inspiring images from Etsy

So my current project is a conglomerate of magazine clippings, montage/collage, oil pastels, graphite, & text all displayed on canvas....whew! All that sounds like a lot & the 3 cavases look great in my head but so far haven't come to life completely. :) More images to come though as I work!

In the meantime, here are a few pics I've found on Etsy that totally have me inspired:

The first few are from theGorgonist's-Monstrously Charming site:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6261343

I love the look & feel of a lot of the work in this site-some smooth some almost with a metallic textural feel. Love the storytelling aspects, even though I admit a few creep me out, but they also draw me in somehow. VERY cool!!

Love love LOVE the images on this next site- Corid http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5132530

I adore the combination of pen, graphite (with the artists handwriting combined into the piece), paper, & illustration. Again, there are so many stories to build when you view these images!

Champignons is another favorite Etsy site that I like to visit http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5653857

Yet again another awesome example of how art can tell a story! hmmm must be a theme here :) Of course the following image has already been sold b/c it's so fabulous, but I pulled the image from my favorites to show it off anyways. :) Another

aspect of this shop that I like is that she has a mixture of mediums she likes to work with. Photographic images, illustrations, screen printing, & watercolor paintings w/ ink can all be found at this one stop shop! :) I think the reason I like seeing all of these mediums on one site is because I tend to be a little A.D.D. with the supplies I use for my own work. Sometimes I get the feeling that if you're trying to sell your work you should only show one medium at a time, so it doesn't look like you're trying to be amazing at everything under the sun. But at the same time I want a huge array of textural elements, mediums, sizes & shapes in my own artwork, so why not display it all?? Who knows what the best tactic is, I just create work b/c I must, not because I'm trying to appeal to the masses...but it is nice to see a successful shop doing what they do & being lucrative! Woohoo!!

Labor Day Extravaganza!

Ok so I didn't do this ALL on Labor Day, but the weekend was definitly full of finishing up projects on the yard. The first project I finished was the fountain by my garage. The area began as a flower bed that I couldn't get anything to thrive in b/c my dogs used it as a part of their "run when full of the devil" path...those with dogs will understand...those without just picture two small dogs running at turbo speed through the garden. Needless to say this does not help the garden grow! So my friend Joy & I were pondering the calamity & she suggested a raised bed, which got me to thinking about the water feature I've always wanted to put there, & wallah! Fountain from bricks, w/ slate, w/ plants, & a bubbler to make calming watery noises while I'm out on the patio. :) Here are a few before, during, & after pics!

The second project, which I thought would be fairly easy & turned into a 1 1/2 hr dig for a single hole, was digging up my lilac, moving it to another corner of the yard, & replacing it with a peach tree!

As you can see from the before image, when I moved into my house there was a "sandbox" that was really filled w/ dirt & other things I don't want to mention. So one of the first things I did when I started working on the yard, was clean the area up, plant a lilac bush, & throw some mulch down. Well for some reason this summer, my lilac started getting brown leaves & looking like it was going to die. I moved it to a shadier part of the yard w/ better dirt, in hopes that it'll come back & bloom in the spring! That done I was left w/ a big hole & nothing to put there. That's when I got the bright idea to dig the area out, really clean it up, & plant a peach tree. As previously mentioned it turned into quite a task-2 full pickle buckets of rock, a thick layer of weird compressed oily black dirt, some sand that was almost stone by the time I got to it, & wallah! An hour & a half later I had a 3' x 3' hole....WAY too much work! :) But I filled it in w/ high quality soil, planted the tree, a couple of perennials & it's really looking nice. Hopefully next summer (or the summer after) I'll going be swimming in peaches! :D

Sweet Holga Action

Since the horrible halt of the production of Polaroid film, & the fact that I burned through my top secret hoard of 600 Polaroid film, I've decided to start using my Holga as I would my Polaroid camera. All summer I've been shooting w/ the Holga, & at the end (I'm thinking Sept 1st will be the cut off & then I'll start fall!) I'm going to make a Blurb book w/ the images. The whole concept has become a really fun way to capture little snippets, through a vantage point only a Holga can muster, of my summer & the things I've seen & experienced.

For those who don't know what a Holga is, it's basically a plastic toy camera that takes medium format film. Its settings are extremely easy to use: flip the little slider to the picture of the sun if it's sunny out, flip it back to the little cloud if it's darker, rotate the "aperture" to the single figure for up close stuff, rotate it the group if your subject is farther away-very rudimentary & very fun to play with. You never know if there's going to be a light leak, or image blur, or crazy colors which you know weren't in the scene when you photographed it. But sometimes, only every once it a while, you'll get a pretty clear image in which it's very obvious & easy to discern what you've made an image from-go figure. :) I purchased a 35mm film adaptor for the camera, so I've been able to have the film processed locally. I then scan the film in & make digital copies of each frame. The whole process is fairly quick & allows me to touch up images as needed.

I'm excited to get my 'Summer 09' book published & then start working on my Fall 09 book. I'll upload the link on the side bar of this blog, so if anyone's interesting in seeing the final result you can follow the link to Blurb's virtual sneek peak of the book. I really love how these images are turning out-the aesthetic feel, how I'm relating my memories from the summer to each image, etc. So I may continue this Holga quest indefinitly-sounds like a good time to me!

ok ok I know..

I know my last post was about journaling...but I can't help it! :) A site I really like to frequent is called Book By It's Cover http://www.book-by-its-cover.com/ They have a whole section dedicated to sketchbooks & journals. I always love to see the inner workings of fellow artist's creative processes, & BBIC sketchbook series lets me do that! Like I mentioned in my previous post, journals all have a very different feel & style, very specific to their owners. Take a look at a few of these entries:

This image is taken from Chris Kyung's sketchbook-tons of layers, graphite, & the book itself is bound by the lovely red metal spiral at the top.(http://www.book-by-its-cover.com/sketchbooks/sketchbook-series-chris-kyungcover.com/sketchbooks/sketchbook-series-chris-kyung)

















While these images-from Karen Klassen- are full of bold color, multiple supplies are used, & each book has it's own look. (http://www.book-by-its-cover.com/sketchbooks/sketchbook-series-karen-klassen)



I absolutley love how, just by taking a book full of blank paper, so many different outcomes can be created. I also appreciate how each of the artist's featured in the series is allowing anyone with access to the net, to take a peek into their work. Which, through my experience, sometimes leaves you feeling a little exposed & open for judgement. But all in all the series is exciting to read through & look at & appreciate for all the work that went into these little worlds called journals. Hopefully you can find a little inspiration in them as well. :)

Oh journals how I love thee-let me count the ways

When I sit back and think about why journaling is so important to me, I think about how easy it is for me to fill a page with whatever is on my mind at that moment. Whatever spills onto the page can be used for inspiration, or act as a log for my travels. It can stay, folded amongst the pages, all by itself-waiting to be revisited when I flip through later. Whatever the pages act as, the results are an un-judged, private (but can be made public), outlet for any and all ideas that need to be expelled.

I think a journal can be intimidating too though. I know when I get a new one, all those blank pages waiting to be filled, the crisp clean cover, and the anticipation of filling it with something "important", can be daunting. Actually, the last journal I bought I sanded down the edges & front w/ a piece of sandpaper. I thought it looked more like something I'd work in, and a little less pompous. Yeah I know, sounds weird that I'm intimidated by a journal, but being comfortable with the way your journal looks, and feels in your hands, is very important. I've tried working in journals that didn't have the right vibe & for some reason my work seems more stunted, with a feeling of trying to create something good enough to record on the bright white pages.

Being comfortable with your journal is right up there with realizing that you can put whatever you want onto the pages, & no one will tell you it's right or wrong. That decision is up to you! The act of creating is sometimes hard to do without having in the back of your head, "What are people going to think about this? How are people going to
see me after they see my artwork? Is my work good enough to be shown to the people in my life?" With journaling, the only person judging your work is you, & yes sometimes you can be your own worst critic, but after working for a while in journals, you begin to realize that these are for you & no one else. You can doodle, write, paint, sketch, glue in stuff you pick up from a hike, & make MISTAKES, but no one will judge you for any of it, because your journal is there to absorb whatever you have to give it. Don't you just love that? :)

Like I said, I use my journals to record just about everything: sketches made on post it notes at work, ideas jotted down on reciepts, grocery lists, sticks & flowers I pick up on hikes, polaroids & entries from my travels, new techniques with new art supplies, I'm talking everything goes into these journals! Nothing is safe once it's on the page-I go back to pages & add & substract what ever I want. It's taken me a while to calm that critcal voice-the "this isn't good enough" voice-but now that I've gotten better at ignoring the negative thinking, I've taken my journaling to a whole new level. Journaling is so important to my creative process I can't imagine stopping. I think journaling is for everyone, maybe not my kind of journaling, but finding your own style is one of the best parts! Keep lists in your journal, glue in pics of your friends, family & pets, write mathmatical equations, make a lot of entries, don't enter something for a week, a month, or a year! Don't hold yourself to any standards, or feel obligated to wait until you're "good" at a technique, or writing, or whatever. Just do it! & hopefully you'll build that outlet that's worth using whenever you need.

Design Sponge!

So one of my design obsessions definitely stems around the frequent checking of Design Sponge a "daily website dedicated to home and product design" (http://www.designspongeonline.com/) created by & run by Grace Bonney . I generally check the website at least 4 times a day to take a look at any recent postings-which change throughout the day. My favorite sections of the site are the sneak peeks-a look into peoples awesomely design homes- & the before & after sections which feature clever projects submitted by the everyday reader. Thus begins my story :)

This project started out when I saw a piece of art in a Pottery Barn magazine. It was made from wood, multi leveled, painted white, & very inspirational to me! One day on my way to work I found these old crates from a local business, they were giving them away free, and I talked one of my friends w/ a truck into helping me pick them up & drop them off at my house. I had tons of ideas to re-purpose these crates, but I finally settled on cutting them up into random pieces & laying them out for wall art!

The whole project probably cost around $11. The wood was free, I had the miter saw, the wood glue was $3, the back board that I glued the pieces to was about $8, & the hanging rig was made from wood & screws I already had. I thought about giving the piece a white wash like the intial inspiration piece I saw in Pottery Barn, but I loved the texture of the wood & the color of the spray paint against my bright studio walls!

Months later Christie emailed me a link to Pottery Barn-they're selling a similar version of what I made for $400! Go figure :)


So back to Design Sponge, I thought I'd tempt fate & send Grace some of my before & after pics. She sent me an email back very quickly saying they'd consider it for the site. At this point I was pretty pumped they even responded to me, but I wasn't holding out to see a post w/ my work. Next thing I know Christie is calling me freaking out saying my before & after had been posted on Design Sponge! How crazy is that!?! Long story short (well maybe not that short) I freaked out too, immediately hopped onto the computer to check it out, freaked out even more when I saw it, & now I'm sharing the story & the link on my blog. Go here to check out the story, with pics, and tons of lovely comments from other Design Sponge-a holics!http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/07/before-after-jenns-pottery-barn-crate-artwork.html

There are such thing as happy endings :) Enjoy!

First post on a new start!

Hey all, So I've blogged before but not on my own. My very good friend Christie & I started blogging & because we are both a little too a.d.d. for our own good when it comes to art, design, projects, & lets just say it-LIFE!-our blog updates didn't last long. So I started my own blog, under my business name 'Chickadee Studios' as a place for me to upload new project images, talk about art, photos, design, gardening, & really anything that tickles my fancy. So here goes :)

Anyone who really knows me knows full well that I'm always working on creating something. Whether it's journaling, photographing, painting, sketching, gardening, working on my house, or day dreaming, I'm always always figuring out how to fulfill my own creative drive.

My newest project is figuring out how to photograph artwork. I'd love to get involved working with students & artists photographing their work so they could sell reproductions, create a portfolio, submit work to galleries or shows, and overall just promote themselves. I definitly have the camera & the set up under control, & I'm fine tuning everything to get as sharp of an image as possible. I know I have extremely high expectations for any reproductions of my own artwork, & I know other artists do too, so I'm working hard on figuring the process out. Here's my first attempt-not too bad! (image named Untitled Blue #1) Now that I've seen the image & done some more testing in Photoshop, I'm going to try out a few more techniques to see if I can get it any sharper. In the mean time keep checking in-I'd like to get something posted at least every other day & believe you me I've got A LOT going on in my head I'd like to share. :)