Quick update...

Wanted to share a quick shot of the piece I featured but hadn't finished in the post from last week: using tissue paper in mixed media tutorial...

"...And the Song was wordless"
16"x16"x2"
Acrylic, watercolor, ink, colored pencil and tissue paper
on wood panel/
2010

This piece is to be shown in the upcoming show at One Mile Gallery in Kingston, NY this August.

Happy Friday ! 

A Simple Thank You

For every limb you've gone out on,

every dream you've given root,

every encouraging word that

will someday bear fruit....

Thank you

(c) 2007 Terah Cox & Gittel Price

     A handful of years ago I was in a favorite town where I like to go when I need to tap back into myself and gain strength from what ever it is that makes me keep putting one foot in front of the other. While I was poking around in the shops and galleries I came across a small print with the above saying printed under a black and white photographic image. I was going through an especially challenging time back then and was feeling very much alone and scared. I saw these words and I immediately felt it as a thank you note to my wrung out soul. 

     I keep it on the wall of my studio as a reminder on those shaky days when I begin to question the direction of my work. I am reminded that there is a tiny seed still growing in this creative spirit of mine and it needs to be nurtured and gently nudged in order to "bear fruit". 

    I am beginning several new and exciting ventures - new arms to my business that I am confident will be more  aligned with the motivations behind why I make art. These new projects are inherently intensely personal and therefore highly vulnerable. I have all the mixed feelings normal to new things: excitement, fear of the unknown and pride in the idea that I am bringing something into the light that has never before been done...not by me anyway. 

   

 I think it's important for all of us to pause occasionally to thank the tiny seed of our souls that pushes us out into an unknown world every day. It takes bravery to push our visions out and say, "well, here goes nothin" ...  

Tutorial: using tissue paper in mixed media

It's been a while since I shared my techniques of using white tissue paper in my mixed media work. I have changed my technique slightly over the last six months. 

I started using tissue paper about seven years ago when a friend asked me to recreate Eric Carle's  caterpillar from his Very Hungry Caterpillar book on a large canvas for her daughter's room. For that application I used the tissue just as Carle had: altering colored, non-bleeding tissue with paint, oil stick, etc... I then cut the paper in shapes to make the caterpillar. 

As I became comfortable with the medium I began to use it as a layer of additional interest in my mixed media pieces. I was taking encaustic workshop classes back in 2006, 2008 and loved the way the layers of wax lent a milky, translucent layer to a piece. I wanted to use the tissue paper to create a similar experience. I now use it to varying degrees, depending on where I want to go with a given piece. 

Recently I became inspired to work some birds into my compositions as symbols of the human spirit. I have been doing a lot of seed pods and bursting blooms in various stages of 'becoming' to stand as the inner most expression of who we think we are in relation to the relationships in our lives. I came across a sketch I had done in my journal some time ago which served as a perfect jumping off image to go with. I want to push some boundaries in this piece in terms of varying detail and texture. Using tissue paper in between layers of paint allows me to build visual interest slowly. The surface changes with the addition of the tissue and it forces me to make decisions about what to keep and bring forth and what to leave more subtle. 

sketched-in acrylic layer

The first step is the acrylic layer on the wood panel. I lay in the basic composition and color balance. In the past I did pretty detailed sketches before starting a piece. I am now working more loosely and forcing myself to make more spontaneous decisions. 

I go in with colored pencils to enforce lines that I don't want lose and to add subtle color that may or may not be seen clearly when I cover it with medium and tissue paper. This creates happy accidents that I can in later steps choose to enhance or leave as is. I think it creates a richer surface and therefor more interest in the final piece.

The colored pencils can also serve as tools to remove the wet acrylic layer - as in the circles in this lime green seed pod, revealing the red base layer.

I use white tissue for a few reasons:

     I can make marks on it with colored pencil, oil stick and or acrylic before applying it to a piece. If I apply gel medium on the dry acrylic layer and then a second application over the tissue once it is smoothed down over the medium, the tissue essentially disappears, leaving any marks I made on the tissue as a floating layer on the acrylic. 

•      I can make surface bubbles on the piece - mimicking the effect of wax - by leaving the acrylic layer dry (no gel medium) and simply laying the dry tissue on the piece and brushing slightly watered-down gel medium over the dry tissue. The gel medium will soak through the paper, adhering it the the surface of the painting but will create many random air bubbles underneath. 

Once this layer of tissue dries I then apply a second layer of Acrylic Ground for Pastels - watered down slightly so that it is not so thick. When this layer dries it allows you to add watercolor, colored pencil, graphite and of course, pastel. 

From this point I can begin to really carve out the piece in terms of varying the detail, introducing the dominant color palette and adding subtly with watercolor. Detail can be added with the finer points on the colored pencil or ink pen. At this point it becomes more of a give and take between me and where this piece will take me. It's when the fun begins! 

This piece is destined to be part of a group show I will be a part of this August at the One Mile Gallery in Kingston, NY. I may share a sneak peak when I complete it so stay tuned! 

Happy creating - please share your experience with this medium !

Launching the Ark

Joan Parker Thompson Moore
1/25/1931 - 3/4/1996

Tomorrow marks the sixteenth anniversary of my mother's death.

 Today marks the launching of a new arm of my commission practice. 

I would like to share how this idea for these unique commissions was born. 

    My mother lay in her bed in my childhood home in Trenton, New Jersey in the final stages of a battle that never really gave her a chance. The brain tumor was diagnosed on November 20th of 1995. She died three and a half months later. My mother was one of those souls on this earth that you meet once or twice, if you're lucky and leave those who were touched by her dumbfounded at a force that would take such a positive spirit from this planet. 
    Mom had been accepting visitors from close friends and family all this particular week. She had asked my brother, sister, father and I all in her own way if we would be okay. If we were happy. She even imagined lives for us that she knew she would never witness: a yellow house for me, a new partner for my father, children for my brother...She consulted with her pastor and made peace with a God she had loved dearly all her life even through the tragic death of my older brother, Jeff twenty years earlier. 
    I entered her room on one of the days after she had been talking with her pastor. She seemed agitated and I asked her what was wrong. She answered that she was angry at God. "I have told Him I am ready, I am ready to die and he won't take me...I want this pain to end, I am ready to go." Somewhere I got the courage to say to this woman who I could not imagine my life without, "Mom, maybe you could think of your life like an ark (my mother was a passionate collector of Noah's Arks)...that you have worked all your life building this ark to be strong and sea worthy through loves, losses, friendships, lessons and so many, many happy memories. It's time for you to trust that you have helped Sally, Tommy and I begin to build our own arks and that we will be safe, we will be comforted by your lessons, our memories. It's time to trust your own ark and push away from the shore, knowing that we will be okay." 
    Later that night I found my mother laying on her side, struggling to remove the photos I had taped to the wall next to her bed. I had chosen pictures of her friends and the many hilarious times they had cooked up together, I included sun rises and of course her grandchildren and family. She was so weak as she grabbed the photos and pushed them under the covers of her bed. When I asked what she was doing she said, "I want to put these in my ark...I want to take them all with me." My mother slipped into a coma the next day and died by the end of that week.  

"Grace"
12"x12"x2"
acrylic, ink, watercolor and tissue paper
on gesso board

To honor the memories and lessons that our loved ones leave us when they die I am launching

"Fill the Ark"

Memorial Commissions

This new arm of my commission practice will utilize my unique methods of creating original pieces of art born from respectful collaborations with bereft families. My background in grief facilitation with children and families will guide me to shape a timeless piece of art for the grieving family. The result will seek to celebrate the life of the loved one while serving as a deeply personal, timeless and visible reminder to all that share time in the home. 

I have much work to do to bring this new venture into the forefront of my business mission. I put it out there now as an intention. I can not wait to meet the new challenges this will bring!

*Please see related past blog entries: Love and Loss and Reverberation. 

Also - please refer to the section on my website that features my commission practice. Brochures are available.

Reverberation

Reverberation: 

" is the persistence of sound in a particular space after the original sound is removed."^[1]

I've been working a new series of works for an upcoming show. It features bits of cello music from books formerly owned by my late cousin, Polly. We lost Polly several years ago to breast cancer - a disease that has taken and or afflicted my family by heart strings (not blood lines) more often then seems fair. 

As I was cleaning out various music books from Polly's piano bench I came across her cello music. A memory hit me so hard it made me sit down as I burst into tears. Back when I was in about the fifth grade I was asked to choose an instrument to learn. I had watched my cousin Polly (about five years older then me) play the cello and thought it was the most beautiful sounding instrument. Plus, we all looked up to Polly as a bright, focused and gifted young woman. I wanted to emulate a bit of that in her and I guess I felt playing the cello would help. I played the cello badly for twelve years. To this day the sound of the cello grounds me more than any other instrument. I was brought back to the memory of how I looked up to her at that time in my life and how choosing the cello as my instrument changed my life even if I never really was a natural musician. 

My prayer is that by using bits of the music she no longer needs her spirit will live on in the viewers who see these pieces. 

"Adagio"
6"x6"x2"
Acrylic, watercolor and ink
on gesso board

Research in the Field

pen and ink sketch - from my journal 12/2011

  In the name of nurturing my inspiration I took a field trip to the local Audubon Sanctuary today. I was hunting milk weed pods to photograph that I knew I could find in these fields in Central Massachusetts. My children have been to this sanctuary often as home schooled kids back in the day and as day campers when they were very young. I believe the sanctuary staff keep fields of milk weed in order to attract monarchs and other butterflies that feed on the plant. I was a little disappointed to discover that the fields had been mowed earlier in the year - perhaps so that the plant does not become invasive. I did find a few pods left behind. 

There were lots of other goodies to find in these fields besides milk weed! 

Meanwhile back in the studio...

...seed chambers and pods in various stages of becoming are emerging as well! 

I am reading about a little-known naturalist woman in the book Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis by Kim Todd. Ms. Merian was a young German woman living in Amsterdam who insisted on making detailed drawings of the stages of metamorphosis in the insects' natural habitat. She discovered some of her specimens that were shipped over from America ("The New World") on ships that landed in the ports of Amsterdam. This was unique in an era (17th Century Europe) of male scientist studying insects mainly by observing dead specimens pinned to cotton in dusty cabinets. She was an obsessive observer of nature from a very young age, a trait I can relate to and admire in a person. 

Elevator Music

I've been working away on jobs I have to keep somewhat private for the time being. This state is a little frustrating because I am so energized by these opportunities and want to share but alas, cannot ... yet. So, for the next while I will have to provide my loyal followers and fellow creative fellows with the equivalent of elevator music. I hope it will entertain, beguile and bring you back not put you to sleep! 

Here's a look through a small keyhole into what's on my watercolor desk at the moment: 

detail - secret project
watercolor and ink
2012

This is what the other side of my studio looks like in preparation for  a few group shows I will be a part of this summer:

 I have made considerable progress in the area of my New Years Resolution: painting 100  5"x5" square 'sketches' by the end of 2012. I can share a few of those efforts: 

Never enough time in the day for an artist! I am looking forward to spending four days in April completely alone and without distraction when my husband takes the kids to Florida to see their grandparents. I will be sad to miss a visit but so looking forward to a retreat in-house!