These cards didn't make it into the recent newsletter, so I am posting here until next week. These cards will be in the Artful Journey, with Patti, on Thursday, June 10,. This class is $15 and runs from 11-2 pm (Bring your lunch.) Patti has used a great layering technique with "inchies."

The winner of the set of Tim Holtz embossing plates is #6, randomly chosen, so that is Catherine, who wrote in the comment area, "Is this similar to the clay you mold and then bake to harden. I have done that in the past to make miniature seals." Thanks for reading and responding, Catherine. Please come in and choose your prize.

Also, here is the answer to your question...This is not at all like the molded clay. This "Mold-n-Pour" product from Ranger is a 2-part substance ...you mix equal parts of the white and the purple together, until there are no more striations, then you push your piece (that you want to make the mold out of) down into this mixture...let it sit for about seven minutes, until a fingernail will no longer leave an impression...pull out the original item, and the mold is ready to go. It can be used for UTEE, which you heat to melting and pour into the mold. It can be used for food, but if you do this you must reserve that particular mold always just for food. If anyone would like to see a demo we are glad to show this at the store.

I am using this Memorial Day to clean my art room..really clean it, though, not just rearrange everything. (which is what my family has been watching me do for years) What I did first was to move every bag/box that was all over the floor into another room. Then I sorted out what was left into what I truly used and what I would sell/give/throw away...so now there is a space in the art room equal to 12 boxes full of stuff, and I am slowly moving all the stuff from the other room back in. I will sort it and determine what goes/stays after it is all back in here, as my family wants the living room back!...but I am feeling much better, lighter, and I am beginning to have my supplies where I want them. ...and to think, this only took 9 years (the length of time we have lived in this house.) Honestly, I couldn't use all this stuff if I retired tomorrow and lived to be one hundred years old...fortunately, my family does not read this blog..I know!...do you believe it?? Looks like I will have to package up lots of my personal stash for the Thanksgiving sale...So, tell me how you are doing with your storage issues...do you have a favorite storage piece?...or how do you keep from amassing too much--or is that just a ridiculous question?

Recently, we had tons of fun when we pulled out our hot pots and the Mold n Pour material. Take a look at some of our art embellishment pieces. I love those crazy little frozen charlotte porcelain dolls from Germany, so I decided that it would be so cool to be able to have them whenever I wanted, in lots of sizes and colors...also, we are now selling anagrams by the letter...so we made duplicates of them, too...I found a whole bunch of white porcelain letters in SF on one of my recent trips, so I will have a class sometime soon, where you can come in and make your own letters!! The "R" and the "O" shown below are both replicas made from UTEE. If I make something out of the platinum UTEE and I want it to look a little more silvery, I will rub a bit of our new Viva Inka Gold rub-on over it...it buffs up beautifully..comes a a few different colors, too. The last photo shows the original, the mold, and the replica. The yellow "V" is the original.,,,the white one is the copy.

The Eyes of the Artist

This will be the final installment in the "Anatomy & Physiology of the Artist" series that I have had going on over the last two months. We are ending on one of the most important systems, the eyes, the organ of sight. As I was out yesterday, I found myself looking at the trees, at the colors and shading, wondering how to differentiate one tree from the next, as if I were trying to put it onto paper, especially when the colors, while different shades, are so close to each other. I was really looking hard, trying to see, really see, the shadows, depths, colors. It isn't always easy.

What the eye sees is not really always acknowledged by the brain. When we do our Zentangles, as we add shading, suddenly, we see a bending, or a rounding, where before, it was flat paper. But we don't always notice this shading, even though our eyes are seeing it. We can become more acutely aware of what we are actually seeing, and, thus, add a dimension to our art work that may have been missing.

The eyes can determine shades, depth, texture, hues, missing elements...we see what is not there,...vapors in the air, shininess/dullness...and so much more. I am quite sure we are only aware of a small part of what really is seen by the eyes. As artists, we can also look at things in a different way. In order to learn perspective, we have to look at the angles, and how they would be drawn on a flat piece of paper. For 3-D elements, we have to see what is in front, and what is behind. Looking at a garden..so many layers, a profusion of colors going into our eyes. Are we aware of what draws our eyes to a certain element?...favorite colors, favorite shapes??

Darkness and light influence what we can see...along with our age...I am pretty sure we lose some of our accuracy in viewing as we age...so let's get it all memorized now!! My favorite time of day, outside, is dusk, when the purple-y colors descend, and everything has a slightly muted look.

Our art materials reflect what we see with our eyes...and how our imagination bumps against that vision. We make new papers look old with all of our distressing. We juxtapose images that don't usually go together, not because we have seen them that way with our eyes, but probably because we have seen them separately and have imagined them together. So, our eyes serve as a tool, for taking in elements in our world, taking them into our internal storage, for later use.

But our eyes see so much more than objects. We see emotion. We read facial expressions, and have emotional reacions back at those expressions. The eyes of the artist are used to take the emotions that we see in the world into our brains, and then our artistic tendencies translate this into our art, and our eyes again assess what we have created, to see if that is what we wanted to say. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but so is everything else...the eyes are the window to the soul, but also the window to everything else. The world, for the most part, enters our consciousness through our eyes . Yes, a lot comes to us through our other senses...but even when we cannot sense an aroma, or hear anything, we can open our eyes and look around. And the EEG waves of our brain show there is a response simply to visual images. Our eyes are always working. As an artist, we may want to train our eyes to see the art in the everyday, to see perspective, to see gradations of color, to see more emotions...to see whatever it is we want to learn about, so that we can include it all in our art.

Here is the prize for this week, which I will give to a randomly chosen winner, picked from everyone who leaves a comment after today's blog. It is an assortment of papers and embellishments from the company called Delish.

AE Newsletter from Sunday, May 2, 2010

The Hands of the Artist

Our hands are one of our most basic tools. We use them, in all areas of our lives, to feel temperature, texture, hardness, wetness, weight...and on & on...so many uses for these little tools. They have a sensitivity to them that is indispensible. They have a dexterity, strength, and ability to be controlled. So, as an artist, we are especially attached, (in more ways than the obvious) to our dear hands. For the most part, our hands do what our brains instruct them to do. We are happy to be able to mold, paint, wipe, smoosh, dab, pick at, scrape...so many tasks we artists give to these little guys.

Sometimes, we are delighted to just let our fingers and palms move over a completed piece, to feel the texture...we are texture lovers, aren't we? How delightful to feel the old lace, the metal keys, the rough sand, the cool smoothness of an embossed surface, the stickiness of drying glue, the warmth of cooling UTEE, the bumps of the brads, the wrinkles of the flowers. All these items hold meaning for us. We perceive where in the process of creating our art we are as we feel over our piece. Sure, we can look at it, but it's when we feel it that we are also assessing it, weighing our decisions to add more, or stop now.

I know that I feel very connected to my artful process when, at the end of a project, I look at my hands and see the assorted stains from alcohol inks, Distress inks, acrylic paints, glitter, assorted glues, and chalks. I want to protect my hands from burns (who hasn't touched the UTEE a bit too early?) and from cuts-craft knives and awls -and especially from super glue! I need these tools to keep safe so I can continue to do what I love.

Hands are also a wonderful iconic image, like hearts, crowns, wings, birds, keys, numbers, and so much more (but I think that covers a lot of my personal favorites.) It is very alluring to see a large hand model, especially one that has had some sort of "art" happen to it. It reminds me of the quote, "A mother holds her child's hand for just a little while, but she holds his heart forever." (Make appropriate gender substitutions as needed.) Which brings me to the final note on the Artist's hands. We hold on to things. All of our art tools and supplies pass through our hands, but we also hold on with our heart to so much of what we love. Hand and heart, together in so many activities..we are so lucky when we can have these two elements working together in our lives. Because of my ability to make my own art, in my own way, at this time in my life, I consider myself incredibly lucky. Leaving a comment?...would love to hear what other iconic images you all like to collect, use, dream about, etc

Here is a photo of this week's free give away to a randomly chosen commenter . Leave me a comment at the end of this post to be entered to win a pink Slice apron from Making Memories, a red rubber unmounted phrase set, and a paper pack which includes stickers, shapes, etc.

Just Like the Butcher who backed into his meat grinder...

...I have gotten a little behind in my work!! I will definitely get the essay on the "Hands of the Artist" going in my next post. Meanwhile, for a free prize chosen randomly, please respond to this post with whatever it is in your life that keeps you from geting things done on time. Prize (with no photo, because does it really need one??) is a set of Tim Hltz' grungeboard alphabets.

Also--update--we have received all the new Memory Box stamps and papers--butterflies--gorgeous--well done, Dave!!

The Artist's Spine

We all have a backbone...some ache more than others...you young folks out there will understand this more later on. Anyway, this backbone is our spine, that set of bones that runs from head to tail, that connects to most of our ribs, that protests our nerves. It is a central part of our anatomy, and anytime there is something wrong there, we feel it immensely, and we can even get immobilized by the pain. For us, as artists, we are going to see the "spine" as defined by the other terms used for it, those being "willpower" and "courage." We say of someone, "they had the spine for that task" or "you need a strong spine to accomplish that task."
As artists, we need willpower and courage to continue on in the face of elements in the world that would slow us down or stop us altogether. We need the courage to take chances with our art, to make it, maybe even show it to other people, and yes, my goodness, even put it out there for sale!! We need willpower to sit at the art table, (Sometimes, I need the willpower to actually find my art table) and let our muses speak to us. Sometimes the voices are very low, or hesitant...Our willpower enables us to sit still and listen...to wait for the inspiration, to practice the new techniques. Maybe when we have learned something, or seen it in a video, and go to try it out, it doesn't come out as we had planned. We need to be able to persist, tweak, adjust, and repeat, and be open to lots of different outcomes.
To really learn about a project, I am discovering that I need to make more than just one sample. I need to try different colors, textures, sizes, materials...just to see what direction I really want to go in. Sometimes, I am not necessarily being creative as much as I am being scientific, experimenting... what happens if I try this?...or that? I need my courage and willpower intact to get to where I want to go. When my "spine" is out of kilter, i.e. my courage is weak or my willpower is taking a nap, things don't progress, I slow down, and I am a bit off of my path. Exercising the back muscles keeps the spine fit. Exercising our courage and willpower muscles keeps our artistic spine strong. OK, everybody, get out there and do 50 sit-ups, artistically speaking, of course!