Goodbyes

Above: From the 1,000 “Faces I’ve Seen” Series, 2002

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Such sad news: Carol Parks passed away on Sunday.

I met Carol briefly in 2006 at Artfest, and we “traded” artwork and zines the following fall during Art & Soul. We kept in touch by email the following year. In early 2008 I was going through a particularly difficult time financially; Carol found out about it and suddenly “needed” several hundred dollars worth of art and journals from my etsy shop… she wrote in the message to seller: “I’ve been in your position several times in my life. We can’t have that.”

In 2009 I taught a three-day workshop in her home… what fun that was, in so many ways!

This generous and talented woman will be missed. Goodbye, Carol.

Excavations

I have been working on a huge studio clean-up the past few days in preparation for (a) my husband moving into my storage office (temporarily), and (b) I needed to find all of my teaching stuff for Journalfest next week!

In one of the boxes I found my sketchbook from my trip to Philadelphia almost a year ago… I had filled it using markers purchased at the airport that “erase” and change colors… over the past year they have faded into an even cooler look! (click to enlarge)

I might make a t-shirt out of this one.

Or a font!

Journal Meet at the Artfest Annex

On Friday evening I sent to Teesha and Tracy Moore’s Journal Meet at the Artfest Annex (their wonderful loft space in Pioneer Square).

These are a couple of the animals I made while chit-chatting with friends… made with Panpastels, colored pencil, marker and ballpoint pen.

Stories were told, which prompted this drawing of Teesha’s dog…. good times!

Do you live in Seattle or nearby? If so, plan to come to the next one, scheduled for Friday, November 12th!

Back in the Saddle, Sort of

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Long day in the office today, and so I took the time to see what would happen if I took the PanPastels to portraiture… I have a stack of vintage photos on my desk to take to some high-schoolers on Friday, so I picked one out and went at it.

Basically I rubbed into the paper 5-8 colors (pretty randomly in the beginning, though with the reference in front of me, guiding my “randomness”). I used my fingers, rather than the make-up applicators that they come with. Then I went back in and “shaped” it with erasers (in this case, both a kneaded rubber eraser and a regular pencil eraser). Then I added back in color as needed (with my fingers!), and erased as needed, until I was satisfied.*

The PanPastels are supposed to erase completely but I haven’t found that to be true… there are some colors that just won’t go away! But that’s okay… usually it adds to the personality of the piece in some way.

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* Regarding being “satisfied”: I am never completely satisfied! But there comes a point when I feel that any more working on it would over-work it, and so then I stop (in a way, cutting my losses). Sometimes I’ll push myself and go beyond that moment, and sometimes I’ll like the result better, but usually I don’t!

My Mother Was Here!

My mother was in town from California this past weekend, and she joined me for two workshops. Friday night’s class was small enough that I could sit down and do some of the exercises with her… above are the “wrong-handed portraits” we did of each other!

My mother made this cute thing using PanPastels. The “assignment” was then to go in and add linework and shading with ballpoint pen, but I stopped her. When a piece works beautifully as-is, why touch it?

At 73, my mom was a really good sport I thought. Here she drew some antique portraits using a limited color palette and the “cheater blind” technique (partial blind contours).

Yay, Kay!

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Friday, October 15th is the last day to sign up for the Silly2 workshop. At this point you would do the worksheets at your own pace, but if you’d like to join in, see here for the signup info. The worksheets will be up and available until December 15th!

Elephant #1,468

Bees are Busy, Too.

This is my busy season. I’m definitely in dog-paddle mode, trying to keep my head above water!  Bullet points help me think:

• I picked my my mother from the airport last night, and she is joining us for this weekend’s workshops… in preparation for the classes, she read Drawing Lab cover-to-cover on the airplane trip… cute!

• The Silliness class winds up a week from today… it’s been so fun… what will I do without all the Silly???

• My husband and I are going to move in together! (More on that soon!)

• Top of my list the next two weeks: class prep for Journalfest and The Artist’s Nook.

• Then, Liesel Lund and I are having a Holiday Open House together the weekend of December 4-5 at her home studio in Seattle… details forthcoming!

• Then… 2011!!!

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Wishing you a very happy weekend!

Shape-Shifter Download

Go here to download and print!

Exquisite Corpse Book

This is a page from a “book” I started some months ago that got abandoned.

The first spread consists of six “cards,” which were to be bound together in the middle on the vertical axis. There would be six more cards after this… the pages would be illustrated front and back and would flip back and forth and “work” whichever way the pages were turned… an exquisite corpse book!

I just love puzzles like this… it keeps me challenged!

(Now the challenge is to get back to it.)

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And… for some DL NEWS…

Join a “Drawing Lab” Challenge!
“Gumnut” is hosting a challenge on her blog… check out the details here!

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Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Intestines… are you KIDDING me?

This is my painting table today… front and center is the start of a collaborative piece between myself and the people in the Silliness class… they are offering up suggestions and every two days or so I add another element that is picked randomly… so far random.org has picked “newspaper” and “intestines.”

Intestines!!!!!???

But I tried to have a positive attitude. I really did. So I “googled” photos of intestines.

Um, don’t do this.

Not if you have a weak stomach.

Which I do.

Wes says the Silly People are obviously trying to challenge me. “And they’re succeeding,” he added.

Wes is 15. He never cracks a smile when he talks to me about ANYTHING. Except he did let a little one escape from the very farthest corner of his newly braced mouth, which means he was “busting a gut” on the inside.

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!