This gallery contains 7 photos.
Like many artists, some of my time is donated to help create journals for caregivers. This we do lovingly, and generously for the Southern Caregivers Resource Center in San Diego. The profiles are emailed to us without any names, just minimal information, and the “art elves” set about creating journal covers and pages for the […]
On October 3, I received an email from Cloth Paper Scissors with an article about, ” What Makes A Mixed Media Artist.” As I read through the first page it came to me! How true, and dead on those words were! It described me to a tee! What do you think makes up a mixed media artist, and how many of you consider yourselves that kind of artist? I always describe myself as a mixed media/abstract artist. Sometimes they are entirely two different things, and sometimes they clearly intertwine. I’m never sure exactly what to call myself, so mixed media seems to pretty much cover it. A friend of mine once said, “If you don’t call yourself a Mixed Media artist, you won’t have to save all that stuff!” Well that’s probably true, but what would I do if I didn’t have my stash to pull from in the name of creating art?
Here are the five things that describe a Mixed Media Artist from the email I received from Cloth Paper Scissors:
1. A love of variety. Most mixed-media artists I know find it almost impossible to stick with two or three tried-and-true media or techniques exclusively. A shiny new technique or product always catches their attention and if you ask them to name one medium that’s their favorite, they’ll say, “All of them.”
2. A willingness to get messy. It’s not that they don’t clean their paintbrushes or organize their stamp pads. It’s just that mixed-media artists on the whole don’t create art at arm’s length. They often use their fingertips to apply paint and gel medium, and you can tell what colors they’ve been using by looking at their sleeves.
3. As Dumbledore once said of Harry Potter, a certain disregard for the rules. You know the little voice inside most people’s heads that whispers, “You’re not supposed to do that”? Mixed-media artists don’t have one.
4. A passion for the sensory. Mixed-media artists love to touch, smell, and practically eat with their eyes. Even artwork that looks monochromatic on the surface, will, when scratched, usually reveal layers of paint, papers, and applied textures that work together to achieve a visual serenity.
5. An open mind. Mixed-media artists take all comers. No one is going to close the circle and say, “You’re not like us. You don’t make art the way we do.” Instead, mixed-media artists are more likely to throw open the studio doors and say, “Come join the party! Let’s teach each other.”
I’ve seen members of the mixed-media community reach out and help each other in many ways, from bucking up an artist whose muse has taken a powder to supporting a cause they feel passionate about.
What do you think? Does this pretty much describe you? I think it describes me to a tee!
Frequently I create journal pages that eventually work their way into a piece of art. Sometimes, they turn out exactly like envisioned, sometimes not! Pre-sketches don’t work for me, I always think of ideas, and the minute I start, whatever I’m working on takes on a life of its own, doing its own thing, dragging me along in astonishment! It starts with intention, & from there I haven’t any idea where it’s going, nor do I have a clue as to what it will become!
This piece started with a few scraps of a torn painting, we can’t be throwing that away! Once I started the weaving of trees, how could there not be a bird house, with a funky bird on top? This is another example of something that took on a life of its own! I don’t think I’ve ever sketched a funky bird in anything!
This gallery contains 2 photos.
Over the weekend some of my art girlfriends, and I got together for our once a month meeting. We never miss a month , and we always leave energized! Saturday as we gathered together you would think we hadn’t seen each other in years. The chitter chatter, the voice overs, and ideas are almost too […]
This gallery contains 4 photos.
Next weekend my husband Les, and I are taking a short trip to Dallas, Texas. We have family there, and one of Les’ Great Nephews is having a Bar Mitzvah. Neither Les, or myself have ever been to Texas, and I’m wondering just what kind of galleries and attractions the city may hold for us? […]
Wednesday morning is trash day around our neighborhood, and we try to walk before the trucks get really active around here. The noise, and fumes, not to mention the smell of the trash make it unpleasant to walk if they are in the immediate vicinity. As we walk around block after block, we start to look at the trash bins, and wonder if they hold anything good? Back in the day when you could put all your trash out curbside there was a much larger variety of goodies. Now all that has changed! They have big mechanical arms picking up the containers, and dumping them into the top of the truck, making it impossible to leave a table, chair or other large items out to be picked up. It wasn’t too long ago that we’d put things out to the curb knowing someone would be by about 10:30 at night to rummage through everything in hopes of finding a treasure, only to put it in a garage sale somewhere a mile away! Years ago, my mother brought home a set of four bent wood chairs she found, thinking they would be perfect with my dining room table. They did look great, and we used them for many years. Someone was just tired of the look, and left them for someone else to love, and enjoy. That would be me!
Today as I walked around eyeing all the trash bins, I don’t get the feeling that inside a bin is a treasure waiting to be found. Rarely are they stuffed to the point of being unable to close the top. Occasionally, as today there were a few with cardboard sticking out, but I’m not looking for cardboard, and digging through someones trash bin isn’t quite what makes me happy these days! Maybe all the real treasures are now in thrift shops, garage sales, consignment shops, or even swap meets if they still have those! I long for a genuine treasure that just pops out in front of me on a walk, or even a super fabulous “thing-a-ma-bob” at a garage sale that I could use in my artwork! “Thing-a-ma-bobs” are more difficult to find these days, and I wonder how many garage sales one needs to go to just to find them? Is there a better area to go to, ’cause this one isn’t cutting it!
Once upon a time we use to talk of going to the wealthier neighborhoods for the treasures no one else would find, but that was back in the day when people would put things of value out on the sidewalk so people like us, the pickers, could discover them! Where are your favorite places to find treasures? Do you have a treasure trove right in your own back yard, or do you have to drive long distances to treasure hunt?
Every time I buy new furniture, or a new lamp, I’m never happy with it! They don’t have any character, and definitely no energy from a previous lifetime to bring with it into their new home. So now my motto is to rescue things from wherever I find them !
When looking for something to sketch, so many things entered my mind. Today, I went to an Escondido Art Talk meeting at the Escondido Municipal Gallery on Grand in Escondido. We meet on the first Tuesday of each month, and the artists that attend usually bring whatever they’re working on to share. Today we had a wonderful mix of artwork, all different kinds of mixed media! For a mixed media artist, this is heaven! We are able to see art created with a different flair, all the while getting to know people we may not have met before. New ideas, and creative energy is abundantly flowing! Now that’s what I like, the sharing and mingling of creative minds!
Today we had an artist there from Africa, who brought some wonderful artwork with him. We were all in awe as he showed off what he was working on. Not one of us had ever thought of anything like this, and he was so incredibly talented, and humble! As I drove home there were so many thoughts, and ideas in my head I probably wont sleep tonight! That wouldn’t be good! In my studio there are many pieces of unfinished artwork just sitting there patiently waiting their turn to speak to me, but I just can’t get into them. My guess is, they have nothing to say to me at the moment, and I’ll just have to wait for them to speak up. Rather than beat my head against the wall, another piece will be started, and older ones will just have to wait tin line!
Part of the technique I’m doing today is from this gentleman, and part is my spin on it. We’ll see what happens…..
Meanwhile starting this collage, it came to me that nothing was as easy as it looks! This is ever so evident when you stand in front of an abstract painting, and exclaim, “What’s the big deal, my three-year old could do that? All you have to do is slap some paint on a canvas!” Sure you could, just try it! I’m here to tell you, it is monumentally more complicated than that. Sure it’s easy to slap, drip, and spatter paint around, just look at the work of Jackson Pollock! But to make it work, is so much more complex than one can imagine. Even Mr. Pollock had a plan, and if you take the time to read about him, it will become evident that he wasn’t just dripping paint, he really did know what he was doing!
Me, I’m a mixed media artist – everything is an experiment. Sometimes I repeat the experiment, sometimes I’m over it in a flash! We mixed media artists are a strange bunch of crazies, and most of us agree on this! Digging through the shredder is oh so much fun!!! You look for just the right piece of trash to create a one of a kind artwork! This is exactly what I did, I went digging. Shredding paper to collage is extremely labor intense, this of course would be common sense, but apparently when I’m in my right brain, there isn’t any common sense available! Once my collage dried, the sketch began, but it wasn’t as simple as I’d expected.! Since the medium was slick, the graphite pencils wouldn’t show up very well. This leaves the sketch rather bland, and mid to light range. It becomes very difficult to lay any darks into this…...lesson learned! I probably should have tried some Derwent Inktense Pencils. These are great water-soluble pencils by the way, that dry permanent. The colors are intense, and if they aren’t in your studio my suggestion is to get a small pack. In my opinion, there aren’t any mistakes, only opportunities to be more creative, or at the very least, learn from the experiment!
Today is a college of Daisy’s friend Chesley. He and Daisy are both mutskies (new word), and they have fun running, and playing together in the yard. I apologise to Chesley’s Mom because this really isn’t a very good render of her baby, however it’s been a great learning experience, and I may even use the collage of shredded paper again.
By the way, if anyone is interested in reading of the life of Jackson Pollock, this is a really interesting book!
Tom And Jack: The Intertwined Lives Of Thomas Hart Benton And Jackson Pollock By Henry Adams
The drip paintings of Jackson Pollock trailblazing the Abstract Expressionist movement appear to be the polar opposite of Thomas Hart Benton’s highly figurative Americana.
Old as Dirt and Proud of it! 
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