Hankies and Flags!

PrintAustin has an upcoming print exchange which was inspired by these flags, which were once part of an installation by Women & Their Work titled THIRST. They had 14,000 or something flags strung up around Townlake during the installation and at one point were selling the flags--possibly still are. 2 bucks a flag I think.... Anyway, I own some and they make me happy every time I walk inside my door.

Now, regarding PrintAustin's print exchange. You can find more info about it here with two other calls. The deadline is Dec.15 to enter and you don't need to turn in the prints until January, so you have time. Basically the prints are supposed to be on handkerchiefs so they can be displayed Tibetan prayer flag style. LOVE IT! I'm buying some of this ink this weekend so I can try printing a hankie with a linocut.



Luckily I'm in charge of PrintAustin's hankie inventory (insert evil laugh here) so I have plenty of test subjects.

Update on this Tree piece
I've posted on this thing a few times (suppressing yawn). Basically I'm redoing a recent collage as a drawing/watercolor. A drawing fits more into the budget of the individual who commissioned the piece. Plus she wanted to tweak the color palette--something more subtle. Here's what I have going on in the drawing so far. Tomorrow I will finish it. Without a doubt. Done-zo. I'm ready to work on some new prints that I dreamt up today, so I really need to move this piece off my desk.

But still good news because I found a buyer for the original collage, Yay!

And now completely off topic
I'm considering rethinking how I check email. I've become somewhat hooked on my phone that can grab emails when I walk into WiFi zones, but they still manage to pile up. And then my inbox gets nuts and I miss dates and it all goes to hell. One art marketing coach I follow, Alyson Stanfield, checks email only at certain times of the day so she can focus on reading and responding at the same time. She downloads her emails when she's ready to handle new email vs. having them arrive automatically. Food for thought anyway. Here's a link to her blog post on managing email.

Awwww Snap!

I've had fun working on this piece.

I ended up adding 4 fat layers of Golden Heavy Gel (Matte) on a 20 x 20" panel. In fact, I used up almost the entire 32 oz. tub--nearly $30 worth of gel. The piece looks a little encaustic-like with all the layering with gel in between. Think of it like a lasagna. I had layers of tinted tissue glued on with liquid medium, then after my tissue layer was down, I slapped a fat layer of Golden Heavy Gel on top, then waited at least 24 hours to do more tissue. As my last layer brushed on an acrylic wash in places, but also added charcoal and regular pencil, so I'll need to spray some acrylic varnish on top to seal. In the end, I was pleased with the result.

So.... I've been waiting on text from the person who commissioned this work, and she likes the direction, but has asked me to make a few changes. I like this piece the way it is, so will be starting fresh. Yes, I shall begin anew!

While staining my tissue I used newsprint to catch seepage. I'm wishing I used a sheet of Rives BFK or something that isn't as degradable as newsprint. Look how much potential this sheet has for collage material or background, but instead it's heading to the recycle bin. Next time...

Straßenreinigungssatzung

German towns have a street cleaning statute called the “Straßenreinigungssatzung.” Basically this means homeowners and landlords in German-speaking Europe are required to remove debris, snow and ice from walkways on their property or in front of their property. If you've ever been to a German town, you know they take this seriously. I'm doing this with my house and studio--getting rid o' crap, setting a new work schedule, and getting back to living, loving, and sweeping. This is my Spring Cleaning time of the year and it feels great! My schedule, including studio hours, is getting an overhaul too. Website? Yep. I just updated it after years of ignoring it. Take a look!

I've been working on this piece in the studio and am finally at a stopping point. It's a commission piece and I'm waiting on text that is going to be provided, plus I need to know if I even went in the direction they were hoping. Fingers crossed!

Back in the Saddle

We were on an epic road trip this summer. Seriously. We drove from Austin to Glacier National Park, Montana and back again, camping along with way with some hotel stays along the route. If Mama Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy. Then as if that wasn't enough, we left town 19 hours after our camping trip for a week in upstate NY. We're finally back and I've left unpacking for another day so I could sneak off to the studio. I started working on a piece for a collector's wedding covenant. What is that you ask? It comes from the Jewish and Quaker traditions. The couple writes a covenant and in the case of this piece, the words will be incorporated in the work and wedding guests will sign the work the day of the ceremony.

Today applied two coats of gesso to the substrate (20 x 20 x .5" art board), sanding in between/after. While waiting for the gesso to dry I tinted tissue paper with acrylic washes--both blue and a brown--and gave them a hit with the hair dryer because NOW is better than LATER.

I sketched a tree directly on the gessoed board

and then added the tissue with medium. Voila! Background!

Next up, the actual tree with straight up graphite pencil (HB)and water colored pencils and maybe more of that tissue. We'll see....

Collagraphs from recent workshop

I was lucky enough to turn 4 more people on to collagraphs. Well, maybe 3. It's not for everyone. But the 3 that were turned on really seemed to love them. Here are some prints that came out of the class. I teach this workshop now and again at Flatbed Press and I'm waiting to get on the workshop schedule for WPA, so it'll happen again. I'm terrible about sending info out to my mailing list, but you are welcome to inquire and I'll hopefully give you a heads up for future dates. I am better about posting this kind of stuff on my Facebook page, so you can always "like" me there and hopefully get updated.

What Happens When You Chill

I was in the studio this week and let the time unfold. I'm never like that. It was a really, really, great way to work.

I started by cutting up two prints and gluing them onto a support.

Then when I got bored with that, I took this piece

and painted on top of it with black acrylic, then used baby wipes, then some alcohol dipped paper towels for some deconstruction (piece on top--on bottom I have No. 5, a 22 x 30" framed collage)

Yes, I think I'll order up some more chill. 

Slap some Medium on It

That's what I did. I'm trying for an encaustic-y look. This is where I started.

Here's after a thick layer of gel. This is still wet, mind you. It'll clear up.

Well, I've been back to the studio since starting this post and this is what it looks like after one coat.

OH NO! I used the wrong gel. Goes to show you I should have referred to this post. I was hoping for the effect I reached on this piece. Oh well. I will go on and finish the above piece and embrace the accident.

Long story short, to avoid the opaque, don't use Golden Extra Heavy Gel/Molding Paste, use Golden Extra Heavy Gel (Matte). 

Being Receptive

I just learned about Grace Hopper. I'm curious if I heard of her before when I wasn't interested in math and science and just shrugged it off. Luckily there's such a thing as Google Doodles--and Hopper was profiled today--so I did some investigating today on this pioneer of the computer age.

I've had folks ask how I get ideas. Well, this is it! Just a little spark of interest that gets lit from somewhere--just enough to get me to dig a little deeper. God Bless the Google Doodle! I get plenty of ideas from their little ditties. There are other avenues for ideas too. Nova and Nature are both great resources. On the way home from my studio the other night I was listening to NPR and they had a story on Alan Turing. Sure, I've watched movies about breaking the enigma code and the like, but I have to be in the right place at the right time, and be receptive. It just so happens I've been wanting to do something with an old art project from college. Yes, from 1987. I cut it up and now it's the background for something about breaking code. At least it'll be that eventually. But here's the start of it:

Golden Heavy Gel is my glue of choice for this project. 

Silver Leaf--I'm no longer afraid

It's pretty easy to apply this stuff. When I first tried it I made a nose out of cut paper and applied the leaf to it--afraid I was going to mess up my original--but it looked stuck on and very uninspiring. So I ripped it off and tried again.

Brahe's uninspired nose job. Time for more surgery. 

Here's the nose before. You can see how chewed up the paper is where I ripped off the other one. The special glue has been applied. After it dries for 5-10 mins, you just burnish the silver leaf with a bone folder.

Help me! I need a nose!

Here it is after.

Hi! Do you like my silver nose? I lost it in a dual!

I have renewed energy on this piece since I signed up to show 15 new pieces in January. That's one way to move the 90% finished work to the Done column. 

Curly Hair--might as well go with it

I was asked a few questions for a brochure that's being printed for an upcoming show and I thought I'd pass them along.

• Why did you become an artist? 

It's something that has always been part of who I am, just like my curly hair. I've just decided to go with it verses straightening it. 

• What is your inspiration for your artwork?

I'm fascinated by people that have made amazing discoveries, especially in the math and sciences, and that's probably due to the fact that my brain doesn't operate that way. I've never had a head for numbers but I love learning about Big Thinkers and the things that make them tick. 

• What are the materials that you use?

I'm been working on collages lately due to summer schedules and my need to be at home with my school-aged kids. I have a huge arsenal of paper scraps that I've collected over the years. Most of them are my hand-pulled prints that don't make it into the edition, but I'm also drawn to the ordinary receipt as well as decorative wrapping papers. I have them sorted by color in my studio! 

• What is the process for creating your art?

Typically I have an image in my mind and I start plugging away until I feel as though I've gotten there. Some pieces evolve, though I'd say most become what I thought they were going to become. (Turns out I'm not very spontaneous.)

• Do you have a favorite piece and why?

I do have a favorite piece. I have a collage made from an old print of a childhood memory of my family driving across the country in our Ford LTD station wagon pulling a camper trailer. The background is an actual map that I painted with the black and white print of the car and trailer on top, mixing a little modern (colorful) with traditional (black and white). It's whimsical I guess, but for me it evokes some happy memories of those days when being a kid seemed to take forever. Those memories of listening to John Denver on the 8-track tape, maybe playing the alphabet game with my sister, and sitting in the way back of the wagon (no seat belts of course), always make me smile. 

This is it! Favorite piece!
© 2009 Cathy Savage, Country Roads Revisited, 15 x 21", mixed media

Circles Galore

I bought this contraption to make circles. It's pretty cool. I can go from 1" to 5.5" circles. The nobby-like thing has a rotating blade in it and I just put the blade in the sized circle I'm wanting, hold the nob perpendicular to guide, and the guide thing swivels around giving me a nice cut circle. Who do I thank for this? Martha Stewart.

(Speaking of convicts, I just finished reading Orange is The New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison by Piper Kerman and I thought it was really good.)

Here's my finished Doodles in Math Class, the reason for taking the cutter out of it's packaging.

© 2013 Cathy Savage, Doodles in Math Class, collage and acrylic on panel, 22 x 30"

Yay! I wish I had a bottle of champagne in the fridge because finishing this thing is cause for celebration. It's been in my studio way past its expiration date. 

Getting Down to Brass Tacks

I've been on vacation for weeks
We arrived back home last night. It was great! I managed to vacation in the mountains and the shores of North Carolina, and I enjoyed every second. I admit the three day drive back home was a little trying--especially with one pre-teen. This morning, in effort to regroup, I wrote down my list of things to do this week before I'm off on another adventure.

1. Get house back in order. Top priority. Buy groceries, do laundry, mow lawn, etc. Manage email also in this list. (Today is basically over and I made a major dent in these items.)

Yum. Just back from my favorite grocery store, Wheatsville Co-op!

2. Finish painting that is supposed to be dropped off for a show in a matter of days. Arrgh! I've really had problems with this one. The pic below isn't the latest version, but you get the drift.

3. Work on PrintAustin. It's coming up--Mid-Jan to Mid-Feb 2014!

PRINTAUSTIN will be a month long event sharing and educating about original prints by artists who create them, those who collect them and those who want to uphold the traditions of printmaking while celebrating the innovations and contemporary approaches.

Mission

Our mission to the Austin Art Community & Galleries is to share our enthusiasm of printmaking by helping galleries curate, exhibit & promote works on paper and by having in-house artist talks, signings and panels, printmaking demonstrations, and print focused art happenings to engage audiences.

Screen Printing Tea Towels

My studio mate has a cool line of tea towels and today we met up to print some for our art-of-the-month clubbers.

© 2013 Carolyn Kimball

Carolyn prints at ASPCO, which is a co-operative shop in Austin for those of you looking for a place to get your screen printing on.

Carolyn Kimball hard at work

The tea towels required a trip through the drying conveyor about three times and it was a riot trying to keep up with them before they dropped in the bucket at the end.

Most stress I've had in weeks!

Carolyn compared the action to that one I Love Lucy episode where Lucy was eating the chocolates just to keep up with the conveyor. At least this was calorie-free!



Sometimes I Get Stuck
Luckily I have friends that can help me along with projects when I get stuck. I'm bringing this piece over to my friend's house tonight for some much needed objective criticism. I have a general sense of where I need some action but I've been paralyzed with how to implement. Hopefully I can get moving on this thing. I'm ready to have it leave my studio. Like now.

Grackles have Flown the Coop!

Our first art of the month subscription has been signed, sealed and delivered. I've heard news from several people saying they like them, which makes me grin from ear to ear. All I keep thinking is I live a charmed life.

I've even received a couple of pics from happy campers:

Today I mailed in our July studio rent check and the best thing about the subscription is it is almost fully covered by our subscribers!!! Thank you to all, subscribers and fans alike that help us keep going!

Well, technically we have one more grackle to send out since last night we had another subscriber sign up. I'm looking forward to having one of these guys show up in another household. :)

Look Ma, I'm Ironing!

I'm at the stage where I'm putting my painting on panel. It's easier moving a work on paper around when one is in the middle of it, but dang, the affixing the thing to panel afterward is a challenge. I have a both the panel and back of the paper coated with Liquitex varnish and medium, which was applied weeks ago. Then I have a fresh thick layer of Golden soft gel sandwiched in between. All my brayers are at my studio and since I'm working at home during the summer so I can monitor my offspring, I thought if I used my hand to smooth out the painting I'd been fine and wouldn't get too many bubbles. Not so. Now that's it's dry I'm trying to reactivate the gel and flatten out the bubbles using an iron. It seems to be working. On the bright side, my iron was able to feel useful. The paper thingy under the iron is a piece of Silicone Release Paper. You can by a pack of 10 sheets for about $10. The bazillion layers of paint on the paper don't seem to be phased at all by the hot iron, so I guess it's working.

Grackles are out! I'm packaging the last of the Art-of-the-Month club grackles.

 Grackles in Ohio? Maybe. 

 Wrapped up and ready to go. 

Home Studio is Back!

It's only Wednesday but it feels like a Friday. I'm ready to kick off my shoes and do a dance after several action packed days. Focus, Cathy, focus. 

Home Studio Revived

My kids are in half day camps this week so I've been working at home, which has really been great. I took up shop in my old studio and I've been working with Carolyn Kimball on getting our Art-of-the-Month-Club subscription out the door, though here she is pictured at our kitchen table (my husband's biggest complaint since "home studio" really means "entire house"). This installment was time consuming but we wanted to kick off the series in a significant way--besides, working with Carolyn is fun.

Carolyn and I have the next 2 months sketched out and have discussed a collaborative print down the road that may somehow use this established matrix. The gears were cut by the laser at MAKEatx. I just glued them onto a prepared piece of mat board, inked, wiped, and printed on damp paper. More on this if/when it develops.





Getting Busy
I have two deadlines coming up so I may have to skip my daily dose of Dr. Who for today and the rest of the week. (The kids and I are watching an episode a day when we can fit it in...) I brought two floundering pieces home to work on this week and today is the day that I make serious progress. I hope anyway.

Thing One (camera had a hard time focusing due to the massive amounts of gel medium layered on top)

and Thing Two

Check back later in the week or weekend for some progress!

Heavy Gel Results

After 3 layers of heavy gel, I have a background. I have a detail shot and you can see that that gel has made the collage a lot softer. This piece is evolving as I go along and it's been fun since I don't typically work this way.

Now, on with the foreground. I'm thinking of drawing a tree based on graph theory (wiki link here). I have a hazy image in my noggin' and hopefully I can turn it into something. (The curator of this invitational tree-themed show wanted an image by the end of May, so I'm a little behind schedule.)

Summer camp(s)
I've had lots of stuff happen in the last 7 days--all of it good. I'll be teaching a workshop at Griffin School this summer and I'm so excited! I get 2 groups of rotating campers and I'll get to spend 1.5 hours with them 3 days in a row! During the school year I teach a printmaking workshop one day a week and there is so much re-teaching that happens when there's a week gap in between lessons, so this is going to be wonderful. We're going to be focusing on collagraphs since they are my favorite printmaking technique, and since I'm creating the lesson plan, I have the power to make that happen. :) I do have a picture from Griffin's art show, which showcased work from the spring printmaking workshop I led there, and here it is:

I'm also co-teaching 2 workshops in Georgetown this summer through Georgetown Art Works. A gelatin printmaking workshop and a relief workshop (linoleum). Contact me if you'd like more info.

Another good thing
One of my prints has been chosen for a city-wide ad campaign. What's really funny about this is it all happened very organically. At the beginning of the year, my friend's mom came over to pick her child up from a playdate and I had all my framed work propped up against my wall after a show--just dreading making it all fit back into my home studio.

Due to my laziness, she saw the work and like it, which eventually formed into this opportunity. I swear, I didn't know she was in PR when I left all my work out, but how wonderful that it all came together. I'll let you know more about the campaign when it comes together, but if you're curious, this was the artwork chosen.

Lasering going well
I'm still into the lasering thing. It ends this week and then I'll be picking up printmaking where I left it. I have several things in the queue, and this one I'm excited to proof.