Art at Stone Lake

Paint, Paint and More Paint!

I spent the past few days watching blog videos and studying abstract painting.  The more I paint, the more I realize how much I love it!  I'm learning a lot and I've created a few very nice abstract paintings and collages as the lessons are starting to come together in my mind.   Mostly, I approach each session in my studio as a chance to learn, experiment and play.  If something successful happens, so much the better!

Anyway, I'm posting some of the recent ones here.

This is a detail of a study in blue, magenta, red and white.  The image is actually better than the original painting.  What I've learned from this is the importance of light/brights in a piece.  In the original, the whites are not nearly as bright.  I may go back and tinker with it at some point...or not!

 

 

Detail of a study in grey, white, magenta and red.  I love this section of this study.  First time EVER that I used grey extensively in a painting.  Love it!!

 

Collage--papers that I monoprinted, tore up and collaged onto canvas.

 

I will post others later this week.

 

 

 

Sketchbook OnLine

I've been contributing sketchbooks to the ArtHouse Coop Project. My latest sketchbook, "Remember",  is now online. Here's a link to view my sketchbooks and all the hundreds of others.  Warning:  You can spend HOURS looking at all the wonderful work that's available here. 

Go to the Digital Library Page, type in my name "Carole Lyles Shaw" and have fun!!

Sketchbook Digital Library

 

The Sketchbook Project 2012 World Tour

The Sketchbook Project is a constantly evolving library of artists sketchbooks from across the globe.  This year thousands of sketchbooks will be exhibited at art spaces in 14 cities. After the tour, they will join the collection of the Brooklyn Art Library and be made available to the public seven days a week.  Here's the link to their main site:

ArtHouse Coop

And, here are some images from this sketchbook:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cleaning Eco Friendly in the Studio

Well, as a person who works a lot with paints, inks, dyes and glues of all kinds, I've been looking for an eco-friendly way to clean my hands, tools and work area.  While I was shopping for gloves at Home Depot the other day, one of the very friendly saleswomen in the Paint area suggested I try Krud Kutter.  I bought a bottle and I have to say that this stuff works amazingly well!  

It's gentle and has a light pleasant odor.  Personally, I don't like the strong odor of the citrus based cleaners  (although Krud Kutter does come in that version as well).  I was sooooo tired of scrubbing paint and other stuff off my hands -- leaving behind so much residue in the my nails.  I know I could wear gloves, and sometimes I do remember to do that.  Most of the time, I'm working so fast that I hate taking the gloves off and on, off and on.

I use it to clean all kinds of tools, brushes and work surfaces.  It  even takes off most dried paint and inks.

So Krud Kutter Original to the rescue!!  Website has lots of information about the eco-friendly properties.  You can buy it lots of places, but you'll probably find it in the paint aisle or where other industrial cleaners might be found.   (Disclaimer0--I have NO affiliation with this company!)

Here's their website:

Krud Kutter

And, here's an image:

New Work--2012 Launches!

I completed a new small collage--continuing to wrk the Secrets and alphabets theme.  Here it is.  collaged found papers.  acrylic paint.  oil pastels.

 

Completed a Commitment

I just wanted to post to the world that I FINISHED both of my Sketchbooks and sent them off today to the Sketchbook Project!!

I liked this project because it pushed me to do tiny experiments with different techniques.  The paper wasn't the best for wet media but I made do....

No photos--I didn't want to pause --I just needed to get them into the mail today to make sure I actually completed them in this calendar year. 

They have new projects coming up for 2012.  Here's the link to find out more!  You can also go to this site and see the digitized version of my journals when they are posted.

ArtHouse Coop Sketchbook Project

 

Happy New Year to Everyone.  Peace, Love and Blessings.

Carole

 

 

Working in Series: Scale

For the next assignment, we were challenged to work wth variations in scale.  I chose to dramatically increase the size of the letters in the first pieces. 

First, here are the two Journal exercises--I am so pleased that I slowed down enough to make 2!  Both are done using spray paints--one of my favorite mediums.  I used a limited palette that echoed some of the colors from the foundation piece.  The large letter stencils were created by me using Word and cut out by hand.

Here's number 1:

I only used a tiny bit of fancy stenciling in the upper right corner.

Then, here's number 2:

 I played wth Large scale letters (R, X), and then used the commercial stencil in the background to create smale scale letters and symbols. 

 

Finally, I made an artquilt working with scale and color.  Big letters--I find that I am intrigued by the effect.  I also painted some of the letters in colors as well as in black.  Acrylic paints and Spray paints.

TWO CLOSEUPS:

 

 

Working in Series: Color and Value

During this workshop, I decided to do studies each week in my journal. This is a sharp contrast to the way I usually work, which is to think a bit, maybe sketch out a general idea and then go straight to the design wall or the paint palette.

In this Assignment, I am exploring color.  I realized that in my Letters series, I usually default to creating the letters in black paint.  In my sketchbook, I used watercolors and experimented wth differnt pairings.  I deliberately chose not to pull out the color wheel.  I wanted to see what my eye would find through experiment.

I also played with the fact that letters create words by creating 3 new English words.  I don't thnk they exist...smile....

 

 

COLOR AND VARIATION:  Also, I did a Journaling page. First I floated watercolors and allowed them to blend by spraying the paper. (Wet on wet technique).  Then I wrote some thoughts about words and created stencil letters by hand.  Usually in my earlier work, I used commercial stencils.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Mixed Media

Although I have been silent for a few months, I have managed to do some work.  Here is one of the 12 x 12 inch canvases that I created in April.  I used spray paint and stencils, along with some text from poetry by my nephew.

 

 

   More to come later!

 

 

Affirmations

In my 'other life', I am a consultant on leadership development. I often include art based/right brain activities in these programs. 

Recently, a colleague and I completed a 9 month program with a wonderful group of people at a government agency.  In our closing, I designed an art-based activity.  I painted canvases and collaged a piece of hand painted watercolor paper to each one.  I used a wide range of colors.  Each participant then selected a canvas, and drew their own hand in outline, and added affriming words that described their strengths.  The participants then added an affirmation to everyone' else's canvas--it becomes sort of a word portrait.  Here's mine--and the wonderful words that these great people wrote for me.  Thanks Everyone!!

Sketchbook Project

I've recommitted to do a LOT more visual journaling.  This is one of the projects I've taken on to keep me limber!   I signed up for the Arthouse Coop Sketchbook project a couple of months ago.  My theme is "The View From Up Here'.  I have to say that I almost backed out because the themes didn't initially call to me.  However, I decided that the challenge was to STRETCH my Imagination, so I jumped into it. 

Link to the site:  Sketchbook Project

The finished sketchbooks will be housed at the Brooklyn Library in New York City, and will travel to other venues.  Quite exciting!

I started out in this sketchbook by turning to my dictionary and playing with each word in the theme.  I collaged in copies of dictionary pages, wrote comments about the theme and even wrote a short poem.

On the left, you can see a piece of fabric that I just liked...nothing to do with the theme.  I just needed to start out with some texture.

This next spread includes shots from a moving train.  On the right hand page, I have a comment that reads: "From the train window, the horizon is clear, sharp.  It's only the near distance that passes in a blur."
 

 

Next spread--I collaged in a monoprint --acrylic paint on glass and then monoprinted onto watercolor paper.  One of the prints looked like mountains and forests from an airplane (left hand page). I made a note that this is an 'interior landscape'--one visible only in my/your imagination.   I love this type of monoprinting. The right hand page is also a monoprint, but the paper was crinkled quite a bit.  More texture.

 

 

I'll post more in a couple of weeks.