Author: lauramchugh

I heard Tony Scherman speak at the IEA retreat yesterday. His talk was a mixture of mathematical concepts, philosophy, painting techniques, and autobiographical references interwoven with a backdrop of images of his paintings. I first saw his work when Stumbling I think. I don’t remember finding it in connection with anything specific I was doing or looking for. When I saw the work I just thought it was beautiful – so ephemeral and painterly all at the same time. It didn’t hurt that the splash image was of a work he did of Kurt Cobain in a series called “The Junkies.”

He talked about how it felt when he first mixed pigment with the wax and saw it spread and melt. He explained how the first paintings he did, of Napolean, didn’t feel complete until them staring back at him felt like when you look in the mirror and really “see” yourself for the first time. He talked about how important it is for artists to sell their work so that they feel the love flowing back into them for doing the work.

I’m still processing everything he talked about. I know it will have a profound impact on my work – I just don’t know how yet.

Tomorrow morning I’m headed to the IEA annual retreat in Carmel Valley. The venue is so lovely – quiet and relaxed. The program always includes an amazing collection of very successful artists who are so generous with their information. The community of encaustic artists is heart warming to be with and the food and lodging is also good.

If you are an encaustic artist I highly recommend IEA and the annual retreat.

More will be posted throughout the weekend. Stay tuned.

I started this blog as a way to make sure I did some art everyday. I love my computer and the connected-ness of the internet and I know myself well enough that if I link being on the computer with art, I’ll do the art.

I haven’t always done art every day and I haven’t always posted the art I do end up making. Now that I’m retired, I do have a lot more time to do art and I still have days where none gets made.

I also have more time for art classes and have been fortunate to be in a master printing class at Aurobora Press in San Francisco. I also took a really really great print transfer class from Julia Nelson-Gal at the Pacific Art League (PAL).

Julia encouraged me to submit some work for the upcoming Mostly Black & White show at PAL. I submitted my triptych Escuchen y Repiten and was thrilled to find out today that two of the three pieces were accepted for the show which opens this Friday (10/1). Wow!

The point of doing art (for me) is personal but also professional. The personal side of me is soothed by creating the art. The professional side of me wants to get more of my art out there in the world. The blog is to help me self-manage all of this.

SO – I’M SO EXCITED THAT WITH THIS ENTRY, my 400th, I am going to have two large pieces in a great show. That’s really what it’s all about.

I was noodling around on the Palo Alto Pacific Art League website to get the info to do my 400th post on this blog when I found the link to their on-line exhibitions. It reminded me that I had a piece in that show which is still available on-line.

Cool.

Today I had a little time after taking the daughter over the hill for makeup, gym memberships and a nice lunch at the Vietnamese place on El Camino Real (Mama’s).

The sun is on the front of the studio because it faces west. It is a beautiful, warm day with no wind, and I have the quiet time to think through the steps of this chine colle thing. I did two tries before I got the third one right.

The two in blue were successful in that the chine colle part worked, but on the first one I used a cardboard plate instead of metal or plexiglass so the transfer of the photo wasn’t what I hoped and I was working on a paper that already had been chine colle’d (is that a word?) underneath. I was going for a look with the tissue on top of the print with the two color bands.

Try #2 was much more successful but I put the wheat paste down over too much of the tissue so when I printed it, it adhered to the newsprint. Also I didn’t create a distinct (sharp) line with the color.

Try #3 is a keeper. I did a good print of the photo squarely on the paper. Then I taped off the plate to ink up the red on either side. That created a nice sharp line. Finally, I put wheat paste only on the first 2-3 inches of the tissue so that it is loose near the edges of the paper where it then extends off. It’s hard to see the beautiful details in a photo.

Very happy!