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Imagine With Art Newsletter
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Issue No. 3
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October, 2009
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I welcome your comments!
susan@imaginewithart.com
707-824-8163
Table of Contents:
Workshops
Etymological Inspirations
Sketchbook/figure draw
Art Play Technique
Hot Blog
Upcoming Events
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Dear Friends,
Now that our first storm of the season has blown through the air feels almost tropical, warm and heavy with moisture. From semi-arid to well soaked in one very rainy day! My feeling is that rainy days are particularly good for two things - napping and painting.
Except if it rains next weekend (hopefully it won't!), which is the second weekend of ARTrails Open Studios. If you weren't able to come last weekend, please stop by this Saturday or Sunday. The hours and map are here and the 50% off everything sale continues for one more weekend.
I love the part of meeting new people and greeting old friends and watching people stare long and hard at one of my paintings. Their face lights up with some kind of comprehension or recognition and they excitedly point it out to their companion. I'm so curious about what story they see in it. And when they take a painting home with them, it is like they've made a new friend for keeps.
I always put out my personal sketchbooks and art journals for the public to peruse. One time a man was reading my entries and looked up at me a bit sheepishly and said, "This is really personal stuff." (translation, isn't it too personal for me to be reading it?) He was obviously fascinated. I have realized over time that it is the most personal offerings in art which are the most universal and my journals are where I am most free and unabashed.
Happy Autumn,
Susan
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Imagine With Art Workshops
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Layering with Acrylic Textures
Do
you want to charge your paintings with a fresh expressiveness? In
this workshop you will learn how to paint, comb, slather and scrape acrylic textures to create rich painting surfaces. . . then let the flow of acrylic paints lead you into some
surprising new creative territories. We'll be working with paint,
textures and collage, combined with meditation and written word to make
uniquely personal art expressions. Each day features a different technique.
When: November 14, 15
Time: 10am-4:30pm
Where: The Studio in the Orchard, North Sebastopol
Cost: $160
Limited to 7 participants. If you can only take one day of the workshop, please ask, and I may be able to pair you with someone taking the other day.
A new six-week session of the Tuesday Evening Muse Group
starts October 20. The Muse group is a laboratory to
spark creative
expression, an opportunity to treat yourself to a regular infusion of
art play in a supportive group setting. Each session features a
different painting or art technique which you can add to your
repertoire - from textured collage to a variety of wet media painting
techniques.
When: October 20-November 24, 6:30-9:30pm
Cost: $180
And if you liked to be in a Muse Group and you prefer the once a month group, I'll be starting a new 6-month Sunday Muse Group in January!
When: Jan 3, Feb 7, Mar 7, Apr 11, May 2, Jun 6 2010 (6 monthly sessions)
Time: 10:00am-2pm
Cost: $240
To register for a workshop contact me at susan@imaginewithart.com
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Etymological Inspiration
I love words so much that sometimes I cut up text and collage it into my paintings, discovering in the process various phrases that seem to illuminate the theme. So I was thrilled when a friend recommended They Have a Word for It by Howard Rheingold, "a lighthearted lexicon of untranslatable words and phrases" from languages around the world.
Here's one: Wundersucht, VOON-dur-susht - German - meaning a passion for miracles
It is the hunger we have for mystical
union. In religion it is the core of Mysticism. Most of us have it,
because we figure there must be some solution to the dilemna of our
existence, somewhere, sometime, somehow! For my recent blog entry on this, click on the image below:
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Sketchbooking/Figure drawing
A friend and I spent an entire day sketching at the Sebastopol Celtic Festival last month. I was in heaven getting to sketch performing musicians. What could be more fun. . .honestly? If you want to do some figure drawing, regardless of your experience, you are welcome to come to the Thursday night drawing group in Santa Rosa, 6-9pm. A great group of people, in a new spot, in a studio in a small alleyway
to
the right of A Street Gallery, 312 A Street, Santa Rosa. Someone is sure to be around to direct you if you can't find it!
The
next Bay Area Models Guild's drawing marathon is November 8
at Merritt College in Oakland
This is the
absolute coolest setting for figure drawing/painting!
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Art Play Technique
Try
playing with this. . .coffee or tea. They both work to tone the paper to a lovely sepia which mimics the appearance of aged paper and antique photos. There are lots of ways to experiment with this. Here's one: Make up some really strong coffee with those instant coffee crystals. Pour it out into a shallow baking pan and soak your watercolor paper in it. Sprinkle some more crystals on it for more random staining of the paper. Then pour the coffee out and bake the paper in the pan in a 200 degree oven until the paper is dry (about 15 minutes?) It's really lovely to paint watercolor on this paper and get the mysterious appearance of a turn of the century painting. When people ask how you did it, you may just answer "I painted it with my morning coffee!"
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I learned of the Don't Wiggle Photo Project from my husband, who is a photographer. These two friends in different cities took the dictionary.com word of the day and let it influence their daily taking of a photo. Then they posted those photos with the word, side by side. There are so many daily or weekly themes posted on the internet for people to interact with by painting or sketching or writing. This one just tickled my creative fancy. I mean, how would you illustrate "crapulous"? Do you even know what it means?
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ARTrails Open Studios One weekend left! October 17-18
Plan
your route to visit the artists' studios and make sure the
Cornelis studios are on it! We are #96 and #97 on the map this year and offering a 50% off everything sale . Lots more information about ARTrails and downloadable maps is available here. And if you're on Facebook you can preview new work by the artists.
In February 2010 I will have a solo exhibition on art journaling in Gallery II of the Sebastopol Art Center titled "The Personal Image Revealed".
And in June 2010 I will be teaching a Travel Sketchbooking workshop at Gualala Arts.
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That's it for now. You can visit me on my Art and Sketchbook blog for my latest images and art/life ramblings, and now you can subscribe and get it in email (there's a new link for this on the blog).
Thanks for your visits and inspiring comments, and for sending lots of resources to me so I can share them with others here.
Hope to see you at ARTrails this weekend!
Cheers,
Susan Cornelis
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