hmmm... so is it time to start a new project?

I guess I am pretty useless at keeping up a blog, about the same as I ever was with a diary. Ah well, I am who I am.

Last Winter I taught an introduction class to printmaking. It was fun and I made some good friends along the way. My biggest news was to move out of the community art studio and moved into my OWN studio! I am still not organized in there yet, mostly because I moved in and through myself into making a large body of work for an exhibition at NadaDada, Reno. I ended up living in my studio for nearly 3 months painting day and night. Great for the work production, lousy for family relations.

NadaDada 2011 was held in June and my venue was in Wildflower Art Village, Reno. Maybe I will write about it sometime and post up a few photos. The project was based upon the disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Straight after I flew out to England where I spent the Summer with my family and saw as much as I could of my old homeland.

On my return, I was finishing up my painting project for Burning Man 2011. Once again, day and night painting until the work was completed. My painting was part of a huge clock devised and organized by Colfax artist; Jim Bowers. The clock was a big success and smashed the Guiness World record for the biggest working clock. Maybe I will write about that too!

Now I have both of these big items out of the way and the kids are back in school. I am wondering what direction to go in. Maybe I will set up a new project or just make some stress-free images. The holidays are just around the corner, so maybe I will kick back and make something simple like cards.

Funny how I am posting when I have no work going on and I posted nothing at all about the busiest art time I have had since leaving art school. It is nice to have this little break, going to Burning Man, seeing my art on the Playa (and partying my face off), gave me a feeling of an end of year celebration. I know I want to participate in Burning Man next year, so now is a good time to make my plans for the next 12 months and work out the direction I intend to go.

I have left out the emotional strain the last year had on me. When I make my tentative plans, I will be looking to try and make art that will not be so emotionally draining, nor will I paint day and night for 2 months straight again if I can help it. Is that that possible? Yes, but will the art be as good? I don't know. I just don't want to go on that rollercoaster this year, a nicely planned, evenly paced sort of year will suit me just fine :)

Encaustic Monoprint Technique

Today I visited a printmaking friend's studio. Amy is experimenting with encaustic monoprints. I have never heard of this before so I was excited to have a demo. Here is the basic process: 1. Heat up the homemade heat box. 2. Rub the beeswax pigment sticks on the metal surface of the heat plate to melt them. Create a design on the plate with one or more colors. Step 3. Lay a piece of rice or rag paper face down on the painted design and cover with newsprint. Burnish. Step 4. Carefully pull the paper away from the heat plate. Steps 5-6. Clean the heat plate with paper towels. Add more color to the heat plate and repeat the process to add patterns or more color to the print. The smell of the wax is yummy and the pigments are really thick and rich to work with. I had a little play to get a feel for what the print is like (image below). Now I want to build a heat box and play!!

A Sort of Artist's Statement

This is a sort of artist's statement, but far more boring and long-winded. My current form of blogging is to limit the text to as little as possible. I am lazy when it comes to writing and the blog tends to trickle off when I feel the pressure of having to add words to the pictures. I hung my exhibition yesterday, so today I will ramble a little about the reasoning behind it (and to help me get over the guilt for hardly writing anything in the last couple of months). Please feel free to skip the words and look at the pictures! For a long time after moving to America, I found it difficult to process who I had become and the new meaning of home. I was English, yet found the American "English" language a challenge. This culture that in many ways was similar to my own, is in other ways completely opposite and confusing. I still often experience a shock by a sudden feeling of otherness and a perhaps a reminiscence for the past, yet I relish the possibility of ne...

Longest day

I spent the day at the studio sorting out some piles of mess and racing outside to see if the water to the pond was flowing. The sorting was hard to focus on and the water never arrived. The anticlimax was excruciating! Hopefully the water will arrive tomorrow! This is all that is left from last years fill, the fish and I are very miffed!

Cricketts Inky Art Blot

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