Roz Wound Up

Going with the Flow: More on Mixing Sketches with Collage

Above: yet another spread from my “weirdo” journal. I discuss this below. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

In an on-going attempt to show you what is going on in this journal, and give you a sense of the working method in the hopes that you will experiment and discover a working method that suits you, I thought the above image would provide a useful example. Here’s the breakdown of what happened, with a little bit of editorializing:

Sketching and Collage—just 'cause

Above: a page spread from my "weirdo journal" which I've been posting about the past few weeks. Read more about the sketching and collage below. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

If you viewed my short video of this journal when I was just starting it, you will have seen this page partially completed. Here's what happened in the building of this page:

Gift-giving: An Ethical Dilemma

Left: The Squirrel lamp that would make the perfect gift. The shop manager was kind enough to let me take a photo of it so I could consult with Dick. I pasted the two views together in Photoshop. You can see there is lovely detail. It glows. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

OK, after I thought about yesterday's post some more I realized I had to come clean about the Squirrel Lamp Dilemma. You see I found this lamp at a local store, Corazon, across from MCBA.

The lamp is made of porcelain. It glows when you turn it on. It manages to be both cheesy but elegant, not cheap (in the way that plastic glowing lamps can't manage). It also has a hefty price tag: $130.00—and worth every penny I can tell, but you see I would be buying the present as a joke.

The problem is, you can buy a lot of animals for folks who need them for the same amount as that joke. And why do I want to buy this lamp? Because C.R. loves squirrels (I hate them; where we live they are like rats with fuzzy tails). Every year for the holidays and on his birthday I find something squirrel-related to give him. Typically it is the latest "How to Rid Your Yard of Squirrels" book because I know he'll never read them and I take perverse pleasure in his reaction, which he takes perverse pleasure in generating. Past gifts have included a fabo squirrel-shaped nutcracker on a leaf (all cast iron, found in a "collectibles" arcade for $25!), small squirrel figurines, salt shakers, etc.

Will C.R. receive the Squirrel lamp this holiday season? Nope. Part of his being would be offended at the expenditure for something so frivolous. I have to reign myself in. So this year maybe Dick and I will buy a water buffalo for a family in the Philippines, from our family here. And CR will get a small package to open: squirrel, acorn, and oak leaf cookie cutters with a shortbread recipe.

Someone will give this lamp a good home (perhaps you!), I'm sure of that. And it will glow all the brighter because the intensions weren't perverse!

Holiday Shopping Ideas

Left: “KJE Felties” make a fun gift. See information below. ©2009 Karen Engelbretson. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

It’s time again, in this culture, to think about gift-giving. There are boutiques and bazaars and specialty shops galore, and I’m sure there will be more coming up I haven’t heard about yet. In the meantime here are some suggestions to keep in mind for unusual items to give friends and family.

Karen Engelbretson is making more of her delightful bird “KJE Felties.” (Visit that link to find a short profile of Karen and her primer on felting!)

Please Remember to Vote Today

While this isn't a presidential election year voting still matters. Please remember to vote today. Consider why you vote. (I discussed this last year.)

And because you took time to stop by even on a busy election day here's another image from my Weirdo Journal…

Above: Page spread from the "weirdo" journal I've been discussing lately. This spread was made in stages. The sketch of the man (Pentel Pocket Brush Pen on graph paper) was placed here first. Then I added strips of decorative paper I made for covering my journals (see top and sides—purple/rust/gold strips). A fortune from dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant was added over the man's lapel. I came home on another night, late from the colored pencil class I'm teaching. I set up one of my squash and fiddled around with my Faber-Castel Pitt Artist brush pens in purple, yellow, orange, and green—making a color thumbnail of the squash and deciding on how to crop it. I decided it should get stuck in my journal along with the 3 colored pencil thumbnails I did quickly in class to show the students how I moved from one thumbnail orientation to spotting an entire series of different squash tops I wanted to do. (Sadly when I placed wax paper on top of these and burnished them a lot of the pigment lifted off so you can't see them well except in person.) Finally I did some writing about the events of the day and started to get into a doodling mode, filling the space with purple outlining and vertical lines.

Journaling Superstitions #11: You Must Keep Your Watercolor Palette Clean

Above: a closeup of my Schmincke pan watercolor palette (these pans are factory filled with Schmincke paints). This is one of several watercolor and gouache palettes that I use at various times depending on the paints I want to use. I selected this palette for the today because I think it clearly shows how individual pans are getting “contaminated” from my brush while working, shows the spatter of colors in the channels between the pans, from quick working, and shows a fun mix of “turkey” brown (blue and orange) with individual pigments still visible. (The palette working space is something I typically clean off at the end of a working session.)

I’m not saying that everyone who has a pristine palette doesn’t use it, but in several decades of teaching I will tell you that every student who comes through one of my classes with a clean palette is more hung up on doing things “perfectly,” or not messing up his paints, or not contaminating his colors, than he is concerned with painting, with creating. It becomes something those students have to work through if they are actually going to spend more time painting than worrying about rules, or perfect palettes, or a myriad of non-painting things.

One More Link while We're at It

I received a note from Lyn over at Moleskiners: Notebooking as a Lifestyle, and she wanted to post a link to my Weirdo Journal video. I didn't know about this site before. I don't use Moleskines (and yes Lyn knew that my video wasn't about working in a Moleskine), and I don't search around for Moleskine related sites—though that would be a good plan since many folks use them for visual journaling.

I've only poked around the site for a short while, but if you use Moleskines you probably want to go there and check out whether joining the group blogs and forums is of interest to you. There are also albums posted. You'll find also sorts of styles represented, including some users who journal as writers. There are also links to sellers of related products. Even visual journal keepers who don't work in Moleskines will find much to intrigue them. And of course there is a blog roll with even more blogs to check out! (And you thought the weekend was for resting and chores!)

What My Blog Readers Are Reading

Above: two more faces and some more collaged text fun from my current journal. Pentel Pocket Brush Pen sketches with Holbein gouache (whatever happened to be out on the plate, hence the "odd" choices?) on Magnani Annigoni Designo paper in a book handbound by me. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

On July 12 I posted the winners of the 9-months of Daily Posting What Other Blogs Do You Read Contest.But the response was so good that I haven't been able to post all the suggestions that people sent in. It has been one of the "unfinished business" pieces I meant to address in the first few weeks of year two of the blog and if I don't get to it right now the lists are going to be buried even deeper in the growing pile of "give me attention" papers!

Ideas on how to organize these blog recommendations from my readers has really stumped me. There doesn't really seem, even after months of looking at it every so often, a clear way to do it even now. So in the interest of getting you something to look at over the weekend (should I decide not to post—it could happen—it will happen) I've gone for the straightforward "lumping" approach.

Entertain Yourself: Your Journal Shouldn't Be a Chore

Above: a recent journal spread from the "weirdo journal." This is just me playing with the brush pen and gouache, on a spread where white paper had previously been attached. I added the collaged text when I finished the sketch. (Text reads: She was an amusing companion in a hard, brittle way.) That dot of blue paint is just something that fell off the brush while I was painting the background—don't sweat it. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Seems to me people who start keeping visual journals sometimes get so caught up in "I should do this," "I should do that," that they forget the bottom line: the journal shouldn't be a chore. (Normally I try to avoid the word "should" which reinforces the idea of "chores" but hey, the journal really shouldn't be a chore!)

Entertain yourself when you work in your journal. This is your time to find out more about what makes you tick! Make a page that means something only to you. Make a page that's full of your favorite things—full of fun.

Your journal isn't for someone else—it's for YOU. Entertain yourself. (And remember, entertaining yourself is going to look different for each person too: someone might fill a journal full of practice sketches of some difficult to grasp object and while that might look like work to another person that "work" was entertaining to the artist.)

Your journal is going to look different from everyone else's because you're different. What entertains you isn't going to do it for someone else. What looks like a great composition or use of line or use of negative space or inclusion of a humorous line or whatever…isn't going to do it for someone else. (Self-explanatory isn't it?)

That's the joy!

"The Louvre and the Masterpiece" at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Left: Ingres' portrait of the Duke d'Orleans. From Europedia.com. This is an incredible painting that must be seen to be believed. The blending of the paint is perfection. The tension in the thumb of his glove-holding hand is intense. The reflected light on the gloved hand is incredibly delicate and substantial. The epaulets sparkle with volume and substantiality. And the pants—I can't even tell you about the pants. Ingres paints the weight; the drape is perfect. And don't get me started about the skintones and the hair. Stand in front of this painting and you will feel the breath of Ingres on your neck as you view this painting, telling you, "See what I see; see what is."

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is hosting a portion of the LouvreAtlanta show: The Louvre and the Masterpiece. The show runs through Januay 10, 2010. Tickets are required and available on line.

The good news is that this Ingres painting is in the exhibit. Also included is a student work of Leonardo da Vinci's—an incredible, in-your-face-of-course-I-can-do-that-exercise that will bring tears to your eyes (drapery!). An incredible, closely cropped (and modern in aspect) Christ Carrying the Cross by Lorenzo Lotto (circa 1480-1556) will make you stop and stare (there are two perfect tears and the you can smell the wood sap from the freshly cut cross).

Sadly there are horrible omissions from the complete show. The Dürer prints, two gouache paintings by Alexandre-Isidore Leroy de Barde (one of a shell collection and one of a rock collection, both equisite examples of artistic control in this medium) are among many other gorgeous pieces omitted from this installation—you will have to make due, again with seeing them in print, in the catalog (which is lovely and only about $35, hardcover).

Be appeased by the presence of Vermeer's The Astronomer, every inch a glowing testament to the role of light in our lives. Go plan your visit now.