self portrait 1

 
Self Portrait
, acrylic and collage on w/c paper, 10 X 10"

Imagine With Art Newsletter

Issue No.27

 
February, 2012   
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Table of Contents:
  Art Play
  Four Hands Collaboration
  Art Exhibitions
  Workshops
  Artist Date
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Sebastopol, California 95472

 

707-824-8163

 

As you can see I've been having some self portrait fun.  Not the kind where you stare in a mirror and draw, just various experiments with the aim of coming up with a workshop idea that is playful and doesn't send "mature" women into resistence mode, if you know what I mean.

Seems like I've painted a great many Drip Creatures this month in painting demonstrations for three different Muse Groups, Rileystreet Art Supply in San Rafael and WASCO (Watercolor Artists of Sonoma County). So that will be the Art Play project this month!

In the news, I started a painting project with fellow artist Suzanne Edminster, which we have named The Four Hands Painting Collaboration.  It will be debuting already in March in an exhibition at the Phantom IV Gallery in Windsor, CA. What happens when you set four hands loose to paint a painting? More on that in this issue.

There is still space in the February 25th Paint + Collage + Word workshop, and new sessions of the Muse Groups starting in March and April where I'll be teaching some of my latest mixed media techniques.

Look for some artist date ideas as well as other exhibitions I'll be showing in this month.

Cheers,

Susan  

Art Play:  Drip Creatures  
Chickhound    
 

"Chickhound", Higgins black ink, Daler Rowney irridescent acrylic ink,  

and gesso on w/c paper, 10 X 11"   


The first time a Drip Creature appeared on my paper I was amazed and delighted that such a strange creature would come to visit, when I had no plans for it to happen. Since that time, this is the most playful beginning I can think of for an art journal piece. I love the different viscosity of inks and gesso, which never fail to create surprising new textures.

Wet an abstract shape on the paper, and into it dropper on some inks (two colors and a black is plenty), squirt a blob of gesso in the middle where the inks are wet, comb through the gesso and inks or roll your roller through it.  Then tip it so the pools of ink drip downward, suggesting legs. Maybe add an eye, when your visitor comes into focus for you.

If you want a complementary background color instead of white you can mix your inks with some gesso to get just the perfect soft neutral color to paint around your creature's body.

And you're pretty much done, except for naming him/her/it and asking your new visitor for some advise.  You'd be amazed what these creatures come up with sometimes  
Four Hands:  A Painting Collaboration 

What happens when you set four hands loose to paint a painting?  Four hands, two painters, two esthetics, two complex assortments of styles, personal painting rules, techniques, materials, painting themes, personal histories and educational backgrounds.  For years I've thought that maybe as an experiment such a collaboration would be a fun challenge.

Artists are typically driven to solitary expression as a means to strive for their own uniquely identifiable style. Purposefully blending that style with another is therefore almost counter logical. 

On the other hand, art is ideally to be pursued in community and is satisfying in the context of shared creative interaction.

Painter and fellow art teacher Suzanne Edminster and I decided last month to jump in with all four hands to an ongoing project to explore the process of painting a series in tandem, sharing our personal visions as our paintings, starting at pure abstraction, took on emerging themes and patterns.  Passing the canvases back and forth while painting together, we have been annotating, recording, discussing, and reconfiguring the paintings at each turn.  The finished paintings suggest archetypal places and beings through dreamlike passages of layered acrylic glazes.

What we are finding with this incomparable blending is that we get, not a blender drink, but a lightly stirred mixture where the individual ingredients are discernable to the taste - a woodsy flavor with a touch of cinnamon and sundown?

To give you a personal taste, here's what I wrote in my journal after the first collaborative painting session with Suzanne.
A mad hatters party, a case of mirror neurons bombarding synapses, of ideas skipping over previously imagined boundaries.  What boundaries?  There was only excitement, faith in the process, and the bungie jump of brush in hand, clock ticking and no plan of where to put the next brushload so as not to ruin the other person's fresh beginning.  Gulp.  Jump. Weeeeee!

As the Four Hands series develops please join us on Suzanne's blog and
my blog for some peeks at developing paintings. The first series will be exhibited at the Phantom IV Gallery, 9077 Windsor Road, in Windsor, CA from March 2-April 1 with an opening celebration March 10, 5-8pm.

Well, here's just a peek at part of a four hands painting in process. . .
irispeek
 

 
Art Exhibitions


I hope you'll come by to see my paintings at some of the following venues where I'll be showing this coming month:

The Four Hands Painting Collaboration, a show featuring the acrylic paintings by myself and Suzanne Edminster, including collaborative paintings by both of us, at the Phantom IV Gallery, 9077 WIndsor Rd., Windsor, CA, March 2-Feb 2.  Please join us at the opening March 10, 5-8pm.

The LOVE show at the visitors center gallery at the Santa Rosa Convention and Visitors Bureau at the Depot in Railroad Square, February 6 - April 6.

In honor of Women's History Month 6th Street Playhouse in Santa Rosa will be hosting The Women of Tennessee Williams Art Show,
March 18-April 8 with an artist's reception on Sunday March 18, 5-7pm, 52 W 6th St., Santa Rosa, CA


I am honored to be one of three artists showing my art journal pieces at Dominican University's exhibition in celebration of National Poetry Month,The Art of a Thousand Words: The Integration of Text and Visual Images, March 21 - May 12 on the campus in San Rafael, CA.


   

Come paint with me!

Whether you're a beginner or advanced painter, Imagine With Art workshops inspire and connect you with your playful expressive art self.  

 

There's still space in the painting workshop February 25!  This would be a good way to check out the approach we use in the Muse Groups, combining painting with collage and word.   

 

Although the Image Transfer workshop in March has a wait list at this point, we will be covering image transfer as one of the lessons in the next round of Muse Groups, along with incorporating dry media into wet paint applications, pushing the boundaries of acrylic painting, and more fun with inks and gesso! 

     

Precipice     

  

Paint + Collage + Word  

 

Learn to animate your paintings and add visual interest, intrigue and personal meaning by incorporating words and collage.  Unpack the metaphors embedded in language and image by playfully combining them in this mixed media approach using inks, acrylic paints, collaged papers and a variety of application methods.

When: Feb 25, 2012
Time: 10am-4:30pm
Cost: $80


Image Transfer with Nature's Patterns

Wait list! 

 

Incorporate the exquisite patterns of nature in your mixed media paintings with digital image and copy transfers. Learn how to capture nature patterns to use in transfers and practice two methods of transfer:  using an ink jet print on transparency film and a laser/toner print on paper.  And all this in playful interaction with paint and collage!  

 

When:  March 17, 2012

Time:  10am-4:30pm

Cost:  $80

 

onceupon a time 

 

Art Journaling in the Muse Groups

 

Learn to paint intuitively, capturing thoughts, feelings and intuitions in the playful format of art journaling.  Each session features a differnet mixed media painting technique which you can add to your repertoire - from textured collage to painting techniques with inks and acrylics.  Meditation and writing are added to the mix to evoke that powerful Muse energy!

  

New Saturday and Sunday Muse Groups start in April: 
 
Saturday Muse Group (meets monthly for 6 months) 
When: April 14, May 19, June 9, July 14, Aug 4, Sept 8, 2012 
Time:  10am-2:30pm 
Cost:  $240 for 6 months, $45 for drop in session if space allows 
 
Sunday Muse Group (meets monthly for 6 months) 
When: April 15, May 20, June 10, July 15, Aug 5, Sept 9, 2012 
Time:  10am-2:30pm 
Cost:  $240 for 6 months, $45 for drop in session if space allows


Next Tuesday Muse Group Starts in March

Tuesday Muses (meets weekly for 8 weeks)
When:  March 20-May 8, 2012
Time:  1:30-4:30pm
Cost: $240 for 8 weeks, $35 for drop in session if space allows


  

 

Location for the workshops:  The Studio in the Orchard, North Sebastopol

To register for the above workshops contact Susan.   

 

    

For Your Next Artist Date

Whether or not you've ever painted a mandala you will enjoy the visual feast of this book: The Mandala Book: Patterns of the Universe by Lori Bailey Cunningham.  "a visual symphony, filled with 500 stunning mandalic images from nature and civilization. Drawing from history, science, religion, and art, the author leads a journey that spans from prehistoric petroglyphs to Carl Jung, from tiny particles of matter to entire galaxies.  She explains the concepts of mandalas, showing how they are at the root of life itself."

The next Bay Area Models Guild figure drawing Marathon will be February 26 at Merritt College in Oakland, CA.  Many models posing at once:  males, females, nude costumed, short and long poses. . .I plan to be there!  

Strathmore's (the paper maker) online workshops series has some ideas for your art making. The workshops are free and include video demos.
If you enjoyed this newsletter, did you know that you can subscribe to my blog, where I post all my latest art and share my process 3 times a week?  Also if you have a particular interest, such as "sketchbooking" or "art journaling", you can go to the right hand column of the blog and click on that category to access 5 years worth of posts on that subject.  Way too much, I know, but we all like to get ideas for our own projects from other artists online, so please take advantage.

If you're more of a Facebook user and you haven't already, please join me on my Imagine With Art Facebook page, which is where I post all my latest paintings, videos, workshops, shows, blog postings, discounts on art supplies, and other news of relevance to art lovers. Help me get the word out by signing in to "Like" me on my Imagine With Art Facebook page Find us on Facebook.

 

See you next month if not sooner! 

  

Cheers,

 

-Susan Cornelis

 

 

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