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Monthly Archives: January 2019

Cookies

29 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by carlasonheim in Uncategorized

≈ 9 Comments

cookies

Steve and I have gotten into the dubious habit of eating chocolate chip cookies for dessert at least four times a week (a box of six lasts two days, and we average two boxes each week).

A trip to the doctor not long ago (and the accompanying weigh-in) has gotten me to thinking that perhaps I need to knock off the cookies a little.

So I asked Steve not to buy the cookies anymore, or at least hide them really well, because if I know they’re in the house, I will eat them.

I found them IMMEDIATELY.

Do you see them? He hid them in the VEGETABLE drawer, thinking I would never find them there.

This reminds me of my “Muffin Rules” that I might have shared here before, but bear repeating as they apply to Cookies as well:

  1. Eating a muffin is always justified if you want one. 
  2. A second muffin is only justified if you really want it.
  3. A third is never justified, unless you REALLY want it.

😉

Have a great day!

Animation Class begins Tomorrow!

28 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by carlasonheim in Uncategorized

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Hi everyone!

I just wanted to remind you that Kara Kramer’s next class, Make it Move: A Low-Tech Intro into Animation, begins tomorrow!

Here are a few of Kara’s fun videos:

2am

spool

And see more samples at the Make it Move page HERE!

makeitmovewebslide2

And here is an animation I made a few weeks ago, inspired by Kara’s class:

carlaani

It was so fun to make!

Have a great day!

Collage-Draw-Collage-Draw-Repeat

20 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by carlasonheim in Uncategorized

≈ 19 Comments

Hi!

We have our three grandchildren staying with us this week and today I called them up to my studio to do a little collage project. Similar to one of the assignments I gave in Lesson 1 of Year of the Collage, I had them glue a piece down, then draw something in relation to that piece, then glue, then draw, etc. Here are their three collages:

Liam’s, age 7:

liam

Ethan’s, age 5 1/2:

ethan

Ellie’s, age 4:

ellie

Masterpieces, each one.

We hope you are having a wonderful day!

Two Things

15 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by carlasonheim in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

 

podcastscreen

Hi everyone! Two things:

1. I did a podcast this past week with mother-daughter team LeAura Alderson and Devani Anjali of iCreateDaily. I enjoyed the 50-minute conversation about creativity, business and life! You can watch or listen to it HERE.

crescendo

2. Registration has just opened for an in-person workshop that I am doing with Studio Crescendoh in California in May! We’ll be making animal artist books with the Gelli® Plate as our main tool… it’s a two-day workshop (May 11-12) and costs $285. See details HERE, and I look forward to meeting some of you!

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Registration OPEN for “Make it Move” with Kara Kramer

11 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by carlasonheim in Uncategorized

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Make it Move!
A Low-Tech Intro into Animation
6 Lessons – $85
Class Dates: January 29 – February 8, 2019

Have you ever wanted to animate your artwork? Make a character wink or walk across the screen?

This class is for anyone who wants to play with movement in their art. It’s for all ages and skills — anyone who can draw a line or a dot can make an animation. There are no mistakes, it’s easy to do and the best parts are the surprises!

We will learn how to use a simple animation app, but will also be spending a lot of time with our artwork. We’ll be thinking about actions, design and character. We’ll do fun drawing exercises, brainstorming, and collage play. You will come away from this class with at least 10 short animations.

SPECIAL FEATURE! At the end of this workshop, you will can (optionally) submit your animations for a class-end “reel” which will be featured on our blog, website and social media platforms.

Some sample animations!

Class Itinerary

Lesson 1: Set Up and Spiral Animation
We will begin by creating our at-home animation set-up station, downloading the app and making a simple “spiral” animation.

Lesson 2: Line, Dot, Scribble!
We will be making three “cell” animations using a line, a dot, and a scribble as our starting points. You will need a pile of paper and your drawing tools ready as we jump right in. We will continue to explore more helpful features of the app.

Lesson 3: Collage Bits
In this lesson, we will start by using pieces of collage paper to create several “stop-motion” animations. Experiment with the timing of each frame… speeding up, slowing down, and adding pauses to create a better story.

Lesson 4: Faces
More collage animations! Our focus will be on faces. Continue to work with timing, deleting, and copying and pasting a frame, and we’ll add — SOUND!

Lesson 5: Ideas and Storyboards
Today we will put away our cameras and focus on searching for new imagery and ideas. We’ll start with a quick drawing exercise to generate tons of ideas, then pick two of those doodles and create storyboards for your final animations.

Lesson 6: From Storyboard to Animation
A big day! Today we will take our storyboards and bring them to life! You’ll start by creating the drawings for your cell animations, then animate! Upload your animations to be featured in the class reel!

We hope you can join us! Please click HERE for more information and to sign up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seattle Artist Michael Alm – Interview

08 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by carlasonheim in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Hi!

An artist we interviewed for our 365 class last year, Michael Alm, was featured at the Colossal blog this week! This is a big deal! And so well deserved.

Steve and I have been planning to release some of the 365 interviews over this next year, so this is a perfect time to share Michael’s inspiring interview.

Learn more about Michael at his website: https://www.michaelalm.com.

Free Video Tutorial

07 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by carlasonheim in Uncategorized

≈ 13 Comments

Collage Bits from Decorative Punches

 

Hi everyone!

How are you today?

Here is a quick free video tutorial… I’ve been making these lacy, bug-like abstract shapes with decorative punches that I recently found at a thrift store… they have really added interest to these collages that I’ve been working on recently:

bugcollage5

bugcollage4

bugcollage7

bugcollage2

bugcollage1

And…

Our year-long collage class begins TOMORROW!

Please join us for 2019: Year of the Collage!

collagewebslide

Have a wonderful day!

Carla

#2019yearofthecollage

 

 

 

Bits & Pieces

05 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by carlasonheim in Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

collage (34)

Hi Everyone!

Thank you so much for all of your thoughtful comments on the last post. I’m so glad it resonated, and appreciate all of the words of wisdom and humanity shared. Thank you!

Above is a page from the collage sketchbook I’ve been working in. I am a packrat — it’s hereditary — and I can’t even throw away the smallest pieces sometimes. I recently spent some excellent t.v. time whittling my “trash stash” down to these two paper mosaics.

collage (35)

During those two hours gluing, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was okay.

But then I posted a photo over at instagram, and it was well-received (better received than almost anything I have ever posted!), and I realized that at least I’m a little obsessive in good company.

You can make a Trashy Page, too. Get a glue stick and your scraps, and just start. Wedge in the next little piece of paper and the next little piece of paper until you fill the page. Towards the end you might need to grab your scissors and cut things to size and shape, but mostly, it’s just the glue stick and you.

Post a link to your Trashy Pages in the comments section, or upload a photo at instagram! I’m at @carlasonheim… I look forward to seeing them!

And here is a quick video Steve made about the Year of the Collage class that starts TUESDAY!!

Have a great weekend!

A Question, Answered (Long)

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by carlasonheim in Uncategorized

≈ 64 Comments

IMG_2497

I received the following question from Kerstin during last year’s 365 class. I wanted to share it with you now as it is a question we all probably struggle with! She wrote:

I want to ask you if you know these dogmas and how do you deal with the accompanying feelings: “My art isn’t important” and “what the hell my art is good for?”

________________________

Dear Kerstin,

I really appreciate your question because it’s such a huge one and dear to my heart, and I hope I can answer sufficiently in this email. And if not, I will try to improve it later and will share it then, too! But I will do my best here.

I will answer for myself as that is the only way I really can answer it. 😀 My answer has three parts:

  1. The short answer, I think, is that the artwork I create isn’t really good for anything much at all. A few people might like it and enjoy it, but in the grand scheme of things, the artwork I make doesn’t matter all that much. Most of the time it just goes in drawers!
  2. On the other hand, it is ALL that matters.
  3. Or somewhere, anywhere, in between, depending on the moment and my mood.

* * *

Chinese writer and artist Gao Xingjian wrote (and this is from memory, so I might get it wrong): “An artist never changed the world; self-fulfillment is the best he can hope for.”

I think this quote speaks to the first part of the above answer, where I feel that artwork I make — the actual drawings and paintings —  really aren’t that important.

It’s very likely that my work is never going to be collected by art galleries or museums, and most of the artwork I make is never going to be seen by more than a few people. So why do it?

I don’t know.

But I DO know that it is something that I have a passion for, that I enjoy doing, and that it does seem to encourage a few people to try it for themselves, which continues the cycle, possibly, of more people using more paper to make things that get put into drawers. 😉

BUT! We’re forgetting the PROCESS if we think that way. 😀

The actual making of artwork provides me with three things:

1. When I draw or paint, I feel better. I feel calmer, happier. I’m doing something I like to do, which makes me a happier person, which makes my husband and the rest of my family, happier people.

2. When I draw or paint, I am solving problems and challenging myself, and there is satisfaction in that… humans love to learn!! A side benefit… these problem-solving skills I can take into the rest of my world, such as running the business or navigating a friendship.

3. When I draw or paint, I either have something I like at the end of it that I can share or something that goes into the scrap drawer to be painted over later… a physical piece of work.

You can see that the artwork itself is just one of the three things above, just 1/3 of the benefits! The other two things are arguably ways that you would encourage anyone to spend their time doing — doing something they love and learning new things.

* * *

So that is what I mean when I say that making art is “ALL” that matters. It is something I love and it is the thing with which I choose to spend the bulk of my “learning” time. In other words, making artwork is my way of being in this world, interpreting it, trying to make sense of it.

Other people do it through sports or exercise, science, business, homemaking, cooking… we all have our things that we do that seem both frivolous at times (even cooking, does it matter in the grand scheme of things whether to use regular salt or sea salt?), but serve as the conduit through which we live our lives.

Therefore, it is “everything.”

I learn from drawing and painting that life is full of paradox. There is duality in everything… we both love and hate, we both must be gentle and firm, etc.

For example, when I draw, I have to hold two seemingly contradictory things at the same time: I have to try and be gentle with myself and at the same time try and improve/get better (which means that at some level I know there is room for improvement, which is where the gentleness comes in).

* * *

Finally, even though I know the above is true in my head, I get off track on a regular basis and feel dumb about all of the hundreds (thousands?) of drawings I have in drawers and what have I done with my life?!!

I find life wonderful, but I also find life very hard.

I do have clinical depression and, though it is mostly managed, it kicks my butt some days.  So sometimes I don’t do well at all with the feeling; I cast about.

Other days, when I’m feeling better, I can reach out to a friend and they can help remind me that I am okay just as I am, whatever I do with my time is my own business (as long as I’m not hurting people) and that taking an hour to draw a silly animal today is really okay.

Sometimes I read books by other creatives on the “why of creativity”… “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield and “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron are two that have helped me…

Mostly I try to remember that the feeling that I suck, my artwork sucks, life sucks… will pass. It always does (with the help of medicine and people around me… and drawing and painting).

And I’m pretty sure that the fact that I feel bad about all the art sitting in drawers is just a substitute for feeling bad about myself IN GENERAL, and that if I can continue to work on that (paradoxically, THROUGH making my artwork), the rest will take care of itself.

* * *

I hope this helps in some way, Kerstin!

xoxo

Carla

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Hello! I A Seattle-based artist who works with drawing, watercolor, and mixed-media. Hosts online art classes with 15 talented teachers through Carla Sonheim Presents: carlasonheim.com. Author of three instructional art books. Grateful grandma. Read more here.

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