The Outdoor Studio

I paint around. Alice's Wonderland is, according to Bill, a garden shed (after all, that's what it was sold to us as) but to me it's The Playhouse I didn't have as a child, the one we couldn't afford for our daughters when they were little and the one I await our granddaughters having sleep overs in. When the weather is cooperative, it's an excellent workspace alternative to The Anne Frank Room. I took advantage of a perfect spring day, April 8th, when the thermometer reached a high of 20ºC. The very next day it snowed.

Wonderland is a grand place to be on a sunny, warm day. With the door wide open, letting more sunshine pour in, I have shelter from the wind (which we are famous for in these parts) and yet it feels as though I am outdoors.

Lily Flare in progress

Sometime ago, I made the relief patterns, on the canvas below, using stencils and molding paste.  When it was dry, I employed the cobwebbing technique but it didn't take very well on all that texture.  At this stage this background was rather incipid looking ... 

My favourite combination of Daniel Smith's Duochrome Oceanic mixed with sap green and a splattering of iridescent copper gave it a deep richness ...

  

An orange lily was what I felt was needed, tucked in just a little behind the fern leaf. Oils are what I reach for when I want luminosity and they are what I used to paint the flower.

LILY FLARE acrylic, mixed media and oil   10" x 8"   framed $250.  SOLD

Lily Flare is currently part of the Claresholm Artists and Artisans Club's 6th Annual Spring Show on display, from April 16th to May 16th, 2014, at the Claresholm Public Library.

Linderman Law Studio

From the last week of February through mid March the Linderman Law Art Studio got a healthy workout. Judy Dahl and I resurrected tandem paintings that had, for a couple of years, sat in the acrylic underpainting stage. 

February 24th, Judy and I get the first layer of oil down

In order to get back working in the oils while they were still wet, I insisted that we return to the studio the very next day ...

February 25th, Judy defines tree branches

This was when we had a visit from Rob Vogt, reporter, writer, and photographer for the Claresholm Local Press, who kindly saw to it that the following was in the newspaper's March 5th issue ...   

February 27th, young Tess was back for the Van Gogh Lesson. As a reference, we used a painting of mine (from a few years back) to begin a sunflower in acrylic. 

Tess, with her sunflower at the acrylic underpainting stage

It's awfully easy to go into overtime during these painting lessons ...

Helping Tess paint the sides of her canvas while her mom waits!

On March 14th, the paint was really flying around the studio as we covered the acrylic sunflower with a thick layer of luscious, oil paint!

Tess loved working in oil!

Tess was especially happy when it was time to carve out, using a rubber tipped tool, Van Gogh-like swirls, into the blue sky. 

On March 3rd, the Linderman boys took the winter watercolour painting lesson ...

Dan and Tom got right into splattering on the blizzard snow

Tom and Dan with their finished watercolours

March 10th was the day Judy Dahl brought her granddaughter, Jackie, to the studio. With my friend in town it was a given that we'd enjoy an afternoon of mixed media which Meg Nicks is so incredibly adept at it. Generous in sharing her knowledge and materials, you'll always learn something new when Meg is in the room!

Judy with Meg ... a master of mixed media with no fear when it comes to paint, colour and texture!

Judy, Jackie and yours truly. As is often the case, there were a lot of pieces started that afternoon!

Things have been a bit quiet in the studio these past couple of weeks, but it's about to rev up here in a few days!

Myself and anyone who enjoys time at the Linderman Law Studio have art patron Karen Linderman to thank for making it all possible! 

   

Bill's Altered Cigar Box

Bill's attraction to cigar boxes isn't new, but his thought to alter them is. Some ideas arrive with a big bang, while others come gradually. Such was his concept to alter a cigar box as a gift for Denise's recent birthday.

Bill's finished "Denise" cigar box lid

He utilized images of cigar box labels which appealed to him and then added personal touches.  As a master of Photoshop, Bill cleverly replaced the faces of the artist's renderings below with those of our daughter and her husband ... 

It's tedious work, masking out areas of existing images, adjusting suitable photos to fit and then seamlessly blending the edges of both.

Larry is on the inside, cover flap while their daughter, Avery, adorns the inside of lid

Those of you who have met Larry know just how well this character (a pirate as he calls it) suits him!

Avery who is five years old

Bill's gift to Denise was completely unexpected. The sheer joy and delight is easily seen in her facial expressions ...

The gifting was an enormous hit, everyone loved seeing themselves altered!

More joy and downright happy, gut laughter ...

Checking out The Pirate!

What a thrill is was to see Bill's efforts so well rewarded!

Tree of Life

TREE OF LIFE, acrylic mixed media 12" x 12" on a 2" deep, cradled panel 

Last year, our daughter commented on how her five-year-old daughter already has quite the collection of my mixed media paintings. As well, wasn't my gift of The Eye of Ra (for their wedding anniversary) really for her husband? Point taken. For Denise's birthday, I knew what I had to do.

Concepts alluded me until Bill's suggestion of something Celtic ignited a spark. Finding the tree of life (on the Internet) resonated with me. Slowly, gradually, further ideas percolated and other elements came to mind.

I cut, pasted, further drew on and adapted the Internet image on the left until it became the tree on the right

Satisfied with the altered black and white tree, I had a laser photocopy made of it. This was used as a direct transfer by securing the image, face down with Golden gel gloss medium, onto my painted green panel. It had to dry, weighted, overnight. In the morning, using a spray bottle of water, I spritzed the back of the page and began the slow process of carefully scrubbing away the paper so as to leave only the black ink ...

Being too heavy handed with the scrubbie, the ink - as well as the paper - will come away!

Almost done!

My friend, Win, was visiting and she coached me though this tedious procedure ...

From my last post, you may remember this image, of Win and me in The Anne Frank Room

STONEHENGE  1992 watercolour 14" x 21" 

Above is a painting I had the foresight to keep. For this project, I took it out of its frame (pre-digital) to photograph it, reduced it to a miniature size and had it photocopied onto vellum paper. I cut away the sky before securing it to the painting ...

Sometimes, I get the call to start painting even before getting dressed in the morning! 

To balance Stonehenge, I painted on some ivy and brought back a little light to the left side of the tree trunk ...

Here I have laid the earring, where it will go, over the "underground knot"

The underworld in progress

I wanted to show the roots, in the underworld, as alive and pulsating, but at the stage above they looked to be on fire, so worked the area further, toning it down.

Into some heavy plastic, I hand cut a stencil for the Celtic knots in the upper corners and used molding paste so they would be in relief. When they dried, I painted over them using the background colour, a mix of Sap Green and Duochrome Oceania - a Daniel Smith Luminescent acrylic.

Finished TREE OF LIFE

The brass and copper embellishment is one of a pair of earrings I purchased years ago, long before I knew what they represented. (The remaining one will become a pendant.) On a trip to England, in 2004, we visited, Glastonbury. There, I found my earring motif on a postcard announcing it as the lid to the Chalice Well. We sought out and found the little park which houses the well ... but to my dismay the lid was off and away for restoration!

     

Chalice Well, Glastonbury

Gifting the Tree of Life, March 7th

Last weekend, to celebrate Denise's 39th birthday, we joined her, Larry and Avery at their Canmore condo for a couple of days.

I'm especially proud of Bill for creating his superlative gift to Denise. I'm delighted to report that it outshone my own. There it is on the mantle below. It deserves, and will have, a post of it's own ... 

Company in The Anne Frank Room

For and in this photo I've smudged my painting because it's a surprise birthday present!

 

 

Today marks six weeks since surgery. Recovering from my hip replacement involves a regime of strengthening exercises for my body. But, it's the generosity of family and friends who check in, help me (and especially Bill) by visiting that repairs my soul. Win, and John's, stay advanced the healing of my art spirit when she and I stole away to The Anne Frank Room.

 

Over last weekend, Win and I didn't work at our usual frenzied rate but rather we took it slow and easy. With neither of us firing on all cylinders, the energy this time was gentle. Whenever we share my small counter we work side by side in easy harmony. Nobody ever crosses the imaginary centre line!

Win is checking out commercially made stencils with a mind to experiment with textures

Opting to use black paper, Win created a subtle layer using black gesso and a store bought stencil. If you look closely you can see it at the top of her work. Over another piece of textured, tinted white paper, which was adhered to the black sheet, she stenciled with pastel, iridescent colours ...

Win hand cut the stencil she is using here

 

 

When stencilling, how can you know what it will look like if you don't try it? Well, after removing the stencil, Win didn't like the way it looked. I, consumed as I was in my own project, didn't get a photo of it before she painted over the entire experiment with black gesso ...

 

 

It's not easy to see the subtle texture of the blacked out layers, but they are there!

 

 

To create the long, organic shapes Win used metallic silver paint through select parts of the stencil (seen above on the left). Above is where she left off. It will be interesting to see how she chooses to further develop this piece. 

With the mixed guru in the house (and after a trip downtown for a laser photo copy) I was coached through making a direct transfer. Having it turn out perfectly meant having to wait overnight. The copy and the cradled panel were weighted (under my oil paint box) to secure that the gel gloss medium had worked it's magic securing the image.

 

Removing the paper is time consuming and can render your finger tips raw!

Transfers are not my favourite thing but for this project employing one was the perfect solution. I promise there'll be a post about this painting once it has been gifted.

 

There was time spent with our spouses. While the fellows followed the Sochi Olympics closely, Win and I randomly caught a few events. With all four of us are addicted to Downton Abbey, in the evenings we'd position ourselves in front of the television to watch multiple episodes.

As you might expect, all this was interspersed with fine dining and good wine ...

  

 

Yes, in spite of the fact that he is awaiting a bridge for that missing tooth, John still gives his warmest smiles!

I'm Teaching!

A strange thing happened at the end of last year. I went into a vacated room in a downtown Claresholm building, felt wildly attracted to it and suddenly out of my mouth flew the words "I want it!"  My good friend, Karen (The Lawyer) owns the one storey building next to the post office. Once a doctor's office, the cute building has many small rooms. The room in question looks out onto 2nd Street. It has a great awing over the huge west facing window to diffuse the powerful light entering the room.  Parton of the Arts, Karen Linderman, didn't hesitate in making the space available to me. 

February 13th, Bill moved me in. Yesterday we fine tuned The Art Studio at Linderman Law and I taught my first painting lesson to a delightfully keen little artist, Tess, Lelek ...   

Tess with her watercolour.  I hope the splattered snow on her shirt comes out in the wash!

To promote a sense of accomplishment, it was important to do an exercise that could be completed in our one and a half hour session. I dug out a watercolour lesson which I had given, in an afternoon workshop, years ago.

Adding foreground rocks

Tess has taken a number of art classes and works independently at art, at home. With ease, she grasped the concepts of the steps in the exercise, often adding valid ideas on how to proceed. She is an absolute pleasure to teach.

 My painted example on the easel, my demo on the left and Tess happily working on her painting

The fun, messy part, splattering white gouache "snow" all over the watercolour!

 The snow is the finishing touch which effectively softens any harshness of the cold scene.

Momma arrived at the end of the lesson in time to help remove the masking tape from around Tess' painting



And this would be the happy instructor making ready the Art Studio at Linderman Law prior to the first lesson

For information on private or semi-private painting instruction please call me at home 403 625-3006. Cell 402 625-9480. Or you may email me at alice@artbysaltiel.com

Healing Takes Time

The upper half of this painting was created with heavy gel medium and a gear stencil. When this dried I washed and manipulated sap green over it. With Daniel Smith's Aztec Gold I coloured in some of the recessed gear shapes. I cut paintable wall paper to tuck under the bottom gear shapes, flooded it with water, dioxazine purple and small amounts of sap green and the gold. The way the paint pools and collects in the depressions is excitingly rich. Using the same colours, I lightly tinted wooden clock faces. I adhered these, the metal gears and clock hands to finish the piece.  

TIME PASSAGES
2013 acrylic mixed media, unframed on a cradled wooden panel 12" x 9" $175.
Available at Willowtree Designs in Claresholm, Alberta

This painting (my last of 2013) is a good one for me to reflect on as I struggle with patience and cabin fever. I must remind myself that Rome wasn't built in a day ... it's only been two weeks since my total hip replacement.

January 19th, 2014

The surgeon explaining the procedure was enough.  I opted not to view a You-Tube video. No wonder I can't walk without aid. Many muscles were cut through. While looking up these muscle groups online I happened upon an image that made me gag. This visual is not for the faint of heart.

Bill and I were at the Lethbridge Regional Hospital (January 17th) before 6:30am because I was my surgeon's first case of the day - no wise cracks please. In pre-op, still undecided about general anesthetic v/s a spinal, I went with what the anesthetist would have chosen for himself. A spinal, but I did not want to be conscious.  

Sitting with my legs over the edge of the operating table, I was instructed to lean way forward and relax. Relax? Remarkably, I was calm! The needle hurt like hell. Its effect immediate. Heat instantly traveled down my legs followed quickly by immobility. The sedative had to have been in the injection as well for I don't remember being laid down. Nor, thankfully, having a catheter put in! I'm thinking the team was happier once I was asleep. I'd asked to see the apparatus that was going in and complained about its weight. My new hip is stainless as opposed to titanium.

The operation took less than 1.5 hours! I awoke in the OR to the sharp sound of tape being removed and a vision of blue tarps (sheeting) in front of my face. I was chatty in the recovery room; staff there were likely happy to see me taken to my room. Before lights out that night, I was out of bed (barely) taking two shaky steps to one side and then to the other.  

I didn't have nausea and vomiting until the following morning when I was installed in front of the bathroom sink for ablutions. It happened again after lunch. I was given enough drugs to sedate an elephant.  With both morphine and oxycontin coursing through me, I could barely keep my eyes open. I felt robbed of a vision quest or at the very least a nice high. They don't administer morphine after day two and I declined any more oxycontin.  

With my ambulatory progress and acing the required four steps, I was discharged (as expected) on the fourth morning.  

The staples on my 9" incision come out on February 4th. That's when I'll be asking the surgeon if the back pain I experience (especially standing) is because the repaired leg is a half inch longer than the other? Will I be evened out when the left hip is replaced? Yes, that one has to be done as well.

I read somewhere that the price tag for a hip replacement is $30,000! Happy that I live in Canada! I'm grateful for my most excellent nurse, Bill. His and the love of my family and friends. Your support, prayers, cards, flowers, gifts, food, wine, phone calls, messages and visits are invaluable. With all my heart, thank you!