Let Us All Now Breathe

On Friday I slowed the pace a bit by taking a one-day workshop through the Lifelong Learning Institute in Salem. The class was taught by Portland artist Jef Gunn and was held at the Northwest Viticulture Center in West Salem. The title of the class was Mindfulness and the Creative Process and it was just the break I needed from my crazy, hectic schedule of the past couple of months. Here's a description of the class:

Creativity and the practice of art are the natural way of people, but most of us are trained out of it by high school. We are led to believe that art must respond to and look like the exterior world. Art begins from within, and practices of centering and mindfulness are helpful in finding an inner stance for the creative process.

Join Northwest artist Jef Gunn in this one-day workshop focused on using art practice and processes as a way of discovering mindfulness, trust and courage in ourselves. We will engage in centering practices to learn to draw, and drawing as a means of centering. We will explore color, calligraphy, compositional structure and collage – and self. If you have wanted to return to the creative being you once were, then spend this day learning the way home.

We started our day by just painting lines - any color, any direction - just painting. It was very freeing and relaxing.






After painting for an extended period of time, Jef guided us through a meditation then transitioned us into doing some sumi-e ink calligraphy, teaching us techniques and a little about the characters.

After lunch, Jef talked a bit about the creative process and then sent us outside on a walking meditation in search of our own inspiration.

When we returned, we used our paintings and calligraphy from the morning session to create a collage in response to what we discovered while outside on our walk. I was intrigued by my shadow and used that inspiration to create a collage of my shadow self.



Here I am with Jef (he had just signed his book for me, that's what I'm holding in my hand).

Itty Bitty Pretties

It had been quite some time since I had offered my Itty Bitty Pretties class, but last Thursday I had the privilege to teach it at Stampin' Cat Studio in Salem. This particular class involves schlepping a lot of supplies because we use lots and lots of bits and pieces to embellish the little 1.5 x 1.5 chipboard squares. Here's the work space all set up and ready to receive the eager students.


Let the fun begin!





A sampling of the completed Itty Bitty Pretties:









In case you are interested in making your own Itty Bitty Pretties, here are the basic instructions:

Itty Bitty Pretties are little pieces of art created on 1.5 x 1.5 chipboard squares. I like them because they are small, not very intimidating, and each little square is a finished piece of art. It is also a fun way to practice new techniques and supplies in a safe little space. In order to have consistency, I use repetition in the basic procedure:

Cover the chipboard square with paper; this can be a section of words from a book, a picture from a magazine, or just a bit of pretty paper.

Cut out a head from a photocopied photograph (I make my copies at a place like Kinko’s so I’m getting copies made from a toner copier). I have been making my chips using black and white photos of relatives, again to give some repetition and continuity. Decide on a placement and glue the photo onto the paper.

Add a word from the dictionary that represents the person, i.e., “uncle” or “sweet” or “daughter.” You get the idea.

Cover the entire chipboard square with a coating of matte medium (or gloss if you want them shiny!).

Paint the edges and back with coordinating acrylic paints.

Embellish away with any and all sorts of cutouts, flower petals, whatever . . . this part is unlimited. I like to think about the person I am “working on” add little bits that remind me of that person’s life.

If you need a small, safe project and want instant results, Itty Bitties are a great way to break through and create some miniature pieces of art. Why are you still reading this? Go get your scissors and get started!

The Artist's Way: Discovering a Sense of Possibility

I'm a week behind in posting! Yikes Almighty . . . but I wanted to share about my Artist's Way group from last week before the group meets again tomorrow night. Last week for our creative project I had the ladies make Life Maps, which are basically personal geographies. The idea is to map out a part of your life using visual images such as a weather or topographical map, a game board, a bus route -- any type of visual representation (and using as few words as possible). Because this is sometimes a personal exercise, I'm not showing the finished pieces, just the process.

Collage Up a Storm: A Path To Her Madness

I hosted one of my Collage Up a Storm classes on Wednesday night. I had six people register, but only five were able to attend. Within that five, I had one woman bring her 12-year old granddaughter and Bobbie, a huge supporter and taker of my classes, brought a guy friend! Other than my husband Howard taking one of my classes, Gabe was the first guy I have ever had in class -- and I think he had a great time.

If you recall, I was having camera troubles a couple of weeks ago because I had purchased a new camera and didn't know how to use it. Well, I finally read the manual and have kind of been getting the hang of the touch screen and the many functions and gadgets my new Nikon S70 has to offer. Unfortunately, I must have touched something on the screen unintentionally because when I got home to download my class photos, only six photos had recorded. Damn it. I'm sorry, Sheral, but the photo of your collage did not turn out; if you send me a photo, I'd love to post it.





Thanks, Sheral, for sending me a photo of your beautiful collage!


Because the process we use for this class is random and quickly paced, I like to play along so I can better gauge how much time we have for each step (I pull slips of paper out of a golden vessel with each slip of paper having one word written on it guiding us with what to do next, i.e., paint, smudge, draw, scratch, photo . . . etc.). This technique for doing collage is from Sally Jean Alexander's book, Pretty Little Things. (This is my piece below, done in my visual journal.)

The Artist's Way: Discovering a Sense of Integrity

Last night was the third session of my Artist's Way Creative Cluster and our focus was on integrity. For our warm-up exercise, we did movement inspired by Soul Collage cards created by Deborah Koff-Chapin of the Center for Touch Drawing.


For our creative project, we did some touch drawing ourselves. (I had the good fortune to attend one of Deborah's workshops back in February of 2009.) This is such a relaxing and calm activity and the ladies really enjoyed themselves. We moved and swayed to the drum music of Steve Gordon while we let our hands and fingers (and elbows and knuckles) dance across the paper.