Susie's Muse

Release

This is a finished 9" by 12" inch canvas I started way back in February. I applied gesso with an old credit card and then used a heavily watered down wash of acylic to begin the background.

It looked like this for awhile.

Then it looked like this.

 

And this is finished. A wash of gesso pulled through and over the text and image gave it the slightly soft  and muted look I wanted it to have.

Background Experiments

I signed up to take an on line art journaling class with Dina Wakley called Masterful Art Journaling. I love her work and am enjoying playing. Here is a background inspired by Van Gogh. Shades of blue seems to be my 'palette' at the moment. I began a new journal for this class so I am looking forward to seeing how it grows and evolves. It's not that I needed another  'art' journal to work in but I find if I dedicate a specific journal to a theme I am much more likely to actually work in it. I seem to need a jumping off point to keep me centered. To date, I have one art journal that is completely full and about a half dozen in various stages of production.

Work In Progress

These are pages in Lori's 'In The Studio' RR journal. They are still 'works' in progress.

Our Circus, dance, and some props.

 It's not very often I can share video of my daughters dancing, however this year one of the girl's (Kelsey) uploaded a few videos to YouTube. You can see our studio's (Kay Marie & Carol's Dance Studio; Robbinsdale) opening number Here.  Brittney and Meg both perform in opening as show unit members. Brittney is in the front row in the very beginning; ring master costume and just off center to the left. Meg is one of the cats but she's not easily found. She is front center stage and crawls through Kelsey's hoop in the acrobat section. She is a grey kitty. Routine choreographed by Shannon S.

And if you are so inclined you can see Brittney's lyrical class perform "When Dove's Cry" Here. Brittney is in the front on the right side and does the full body role in her splits. I helped with the design of the 'wings' on the costume and another mom (sweet Kim C.) painstakingly made them all. We decided to go with light weight interfacing and Kim glued the feathers to them so the girls could still move freely. Routine choreographed by Kelli H. Video's were taken at rehearsal so if you want to see what keeps me, Brittney and Meg busy most of the year, now is your chance.

Props. And if you want to see some of my prop work you can find our Disturbia back drop and set painted by Britt, Meg and I; built and designed by Tom W. The back drop fabric was sewn by me;13 feet in length and then some. You can find it. Here  And last but not least Brittney and I designed  and made the fire sticks used in the routine Let It Rock Here. They are hard to fully see and appreciate but we spent hours and hours making those, Brittney made more than half of them. It is wonderful to have a willing helper and the extra hands. Both of these routine's were choreographed by Shannon S.

New Blog Banner and Lots of New Art

So do you like my new blog banner? I am pretty pleased with it. I have been working on it for awhile and given I am not knowledgable or savvy when it comes to web publishing but I did get it to work. Yeah.

So new artwork. Lots to share.

This piece was a gift to Brittney's dance instructor, Shannon S. They did a jazz dance to the creepiest clown song I have ever heard ( the theme this year was circus ) and I used some of the lyrics for the text. The dance itself was amazing and bizarre and the girls loved performing it. I found a great creepy clown image that seems as tho it was made for the music and was perfect for this piece.

I created a layer of several different washes, allowing each of the colors to dry before adding the next layer and how it all came together as background was purely serendipity. As creepy as it looks I totally loved playing with this canvas and watching it evolve. The colors were inspired by their purple costumes.

I made a large reprint of the canvas which is 9 by 12 and had all the girls sign the print and then put the canvas in the bottom of a very large box with a big, red balloon anchored to it so that when she opened the box the balloon came popping out. It was pretty cool if I do say so myself.

I'm Back

It feels as if it's been ages since I have been able to post anything. We had some major line problems with our DSL service (found out the actual lines that provided service to our home was the problem) we've since switched over to a fiber optic connection and at long last I can post again. It was pretty bad for awhile. I couldn't always get or send email and uploading was nearly impossible and most of the time web pages would load half way and then simply quit loading. I had no idea how 'internet' dependant I had become until it had been pretty much taken away. I am very pleased to be back and fully functional on-line again.

Life has been a bit chaotic. My daughter's and I had been in an auto accident on June 12. The girls didn't get hurt but I sufferered a pretty banged up shoulder and have a few weeks of physical therapy ahead of me but I am doing ok. Our insurance 'totaled' out our car so we had to find another car. Not really in the budget but what are ya gonna do. Life rolls on and sometimes all I can do is hang on.

I do have some art to share so stay tuned.

In The Studio Art Journal Pages

In The Studio round robin artwork in Terrie's journal.

 

Born With a Broken Heart

As you can see I am drawn to this young girl and she has appeared in various pieces of my art work. She has a look that feels to me as though she has seen much more of life than her years would imply. Her face is haunting and reflective and I have to wonder about when the photograph was taken and by whom. I have the original photograph and there are no notations of any kind so it will always remain a mystery.

Bloom, Bloom, Fly, Let Go

 

 

 

 

 

Living Into Art

 A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by Lindsay Whiting; author of LIving Into Art; Journeys Through Collage and asked me if I might be interested in her book and by chance I had seen it on Amazon and it was among books I hoped to own one day. I was very pleased when she sent me a copy. It is a beautiful book about a group of people who each share thier life experiences using the art of collage as their voice and how the experience touched each of their lives. This is a book to read. It is not a technique book, or a how to; it's a personal look into the artists souls and their hearts as they explore their lives through the art form so many of us use to express ourselves.