"Ebullience", acrylic inks, gesso, collage, 10"X11"
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| Imagine With Art Newsletter |
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I welcome your comments!
susan@imaginewithart.com
707-824-8163
Table of Contents:
Workshops
Prime the Creative Pump
Art Play
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 Dear Friend,
The image above, painted in the last Muse Group, is all about the crazy ebullience of the Spring season, but also the abundance of activity in my own life the past month.
As the apple blossoms popped, I was dismantling my studio for the biggest reorganization of the past ten years. I wanted space to paint bigger paintings and store them easily for the frequent transitions from painting studio to workshop setting and back again. This involved hiring a carpenter and building new storage and going through all my materials and tools and getting rid of a variety of "space eaters" that I haven't used for years.
And as I was busy with this ultimately gratifying but rather tiring work, I felt the need to take a few minutes each day to sit in the garden and sketch each new species of bud as it bloomed. So I announced on my blog a challenge to sketch a bud or bloom a day for a month and made a small accordian fold sketchbook to fill with Spring. And that has been my saving grace! Looking deeply into the eyes of tiny flowers and losing myself there for a few moments while the bees buzzed and the hens clucked. . .
I hope you'll join me next month for some Nature Sketchbooking in my garden in a day long workshop May 14. The Nature and Art day quest in May was cancelled but if you are interested in a day quest, check the offerings at Earthways.
Last week I installed a show of my paintings at Auberge on the Vineyard which will be running through the month of June. This is one of the preview shows for Art at the Source open studios which is coming up June 4, 5, 11, 12. I hope you will put those dates on your calendar and come to my studio and see my latest paintings and journals as well as the "new" studio arrangement, garden, chickens, and well, me.
Cheers,
Susan
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Nature Sketchbooking
Capture your impressions of the natural world in a color sketchbook. Using pen and watercolors which fit in a purse or pack, you will create your own captivating sketchbook for this heady season of buds and blooms. As you discover a new way to relate to visual experience and record it with your own personal reactions, you may find yourself accepting the challenge to sketch a bloom a day!
When: Saturday, May 14, 2011
Time: 10am-4:30pm
Cost: $80
Location: The Studio in the Orchard, North Sebastopol, CA
Inks and Textures Galore!
Free yourself from the rules of traditional art instruction and learn to express your inner voice in this playful mixed media workshop Your imagination will take flight as you paint, draw, stamp, comb, and splash colorful inks onto collage textured papers.
This workshop may be taken either as an introduction to the Muse Group art journaling process or as an abstract painting class.
When: July 16, 17
Time: 10am-4:30 pm
Cost: $160
Location: The Studio in the Orchard, North Sebastopol
Barnyard Sketching
Put on your straw hat and pack your sketchbook and watercolors for a day of sketching the chickens and goats in a magical garden sanctuary. Instruction in quick capture sketching with pen and loose watercolor applications will embolden your sketches and bring freshness and movement to the page!
When: August 27
Time: 10am-4:30pm
Cost: $85
Where: The Rose and Thorn Gift shop/garden, 10050 Bodega Hwy., Sebastopol
Art Journaling in the Muse Groups
The above techniques and more will be explored in the upcoming Muse Groups, which are laboratories to spark creative expression and treat yourself to a regular infusion of art play in a supportive group setting.
You may come on a drop-in basis as space allows.
Saturday Muses meets monthly on a Saturday
April 2, May 7, June 18, July 9, Aug 13, Sept. 3, 2011
Time: 10am-2:30pm
Cost: $45/drop in session
Sunday Muses meets monthly on a Sunday
April 3, May 8, June 19, July 10, Aug 14, Sept. 4, 2011
Time: 10am-2:30pm
Cost: $45/drop in session
Location for all the above: The Studio in the Orchard, North Sebastopol
To register for workshops and Muse Groups contact Susan, susan@imaginewithart.com
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Prime the Creative Pump
I've promised to share with you any books, websites, events, etc. which give me goose bumps of the "I wanna do art right now!" sort.
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell is another book that my husband brought into the house and I quickly filched. It's about the first two seconds of looking, the decisive glance that knows in an instant. This "adaptive unconscious" can provide us with instant and sophisticated information of great use to us in numerous life situations. . .one of those being the Muse Group, where we tap into the power of the unconscious mind and practice apprehending its messages that come to us through image and word or just a feeling. Blink is not a book about the creative process exactly, but its insights are applicable to most situations in life where we can benefit from a better understanding of how we process and access information.
Usually while I'm painting I'm listening to the "slow music for fast times" through my subscription to Hearts of Space online.
However I also listen to free interviews with great teachers, lately in the Sacred Awakenings Series. Some of my favorite diaglogues recently have been with Alice Walker, Jack Kornfield and Adyashanti. This is an unbelievable opportunity to hear many of the great spiritual teachers of our time from various traditions and feel uplifted.
And lastly, I invite you to attend the next figure drawing marathon with the Bay Area Models Guild in Oakland, CA. with a May day theme on May 1st. I will not be able to attend this one as I'll be returning from Sedona where I'm headed next week to take a workshop with Robert Burridge. |
Art Play: Just Blink
You start by playing with inks on wet paper, letting them drip and and blend. Your mind is empty, just enjoying the movement. For a while you seem to know what to do next - drag a line of color off to the edge, paint around an interesting shape, sprinkle some salt on the wet dark color to get that lacy look. Then suddenly all the knowing what to do next stops and doubt sets in. You think you've run out of ideas and your intuition has run out of gas. Or maybe you think whatever has happened so far is a fluke and there's no such thing as creative intuition, in your case at least. So get up and walk away, take a deep breath, maybe get a cup of tea, and when you're ready, come back. Blink once and look at your piece, listening, feeling and seeing whatever comes to you spontaneously on your inner screen in the next five seconds. Pay attention to it, because that's it. That's the wise and resourceful and endlessly creative unconscious startled into sudden awareness. You might see a familiar shape, hear the beginning of a story, or feel unbalanced. This is all information about what this piece needs from you next. That's all you'll get from the blink - just one more little piece of the puzzle. But there's always the next blink of an eye! |
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I love hearing from you and knowing you're "out there" in my Muse universe, taking up the challenge to do some art each day, or even dreaming about it. Thanks for sending me any of your own creative pump primers, which I will try to pass on. Come see me in my blog or Facebook page throughout the month.
Cheers,
Susan
Susan Cornelis
Visit me on my new Imagine With Art Facebook page  .
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