She Tribe Paintings

Two of my closest friends have birthdays in June (one day apart from each other). I wanted to do something special for them so I watched Tracy Verdugo's Stories of a She Tribe video and tried it out. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of the process. 

First I started by writing down a short poem for each person and wrote those poems on the canvas with ink and a bamboo skewer. I didn't have the same ink that Tracy uses so I made due. She smears some of the words which didn't really work with the ink I used. She then used paper napkins for collage elements. I didn't have any of those either, so I used some Tim Holtz collage paper which is basically stamped vellum. This meant that I had to lay down some color too because those papers are see through. Then you turn the canvas around looking for images of people that pop out from the lines and elements that have been put on the canvas. This was really absorbing and fun to do. Here are the results.

Throwback Thursday: Word of the Year 2019

For the past several Januarys, I've done a word/intention for the year. Actually, I started in 2017 and my sister has been instrumental in keeping the tradition going. Here was my canvas for 2019. These are about 2'x2'. My word was "release" spelled out in Scrabble tiles. I love that the word "ease" can be found in "release."

The MRI skull/brain in the upper right corner is a blockprint I made from an MRI of my own brain (done for research purposes, not for medical). 

Life with an open heart

Here's the painting I did with the prompt "life with an open heart" in mind.   I have a few photos of the beginning, but again got to caught up in the process to remember to stop and take pictures.   I started by just writing some words that came to mind when I thought of the prompt.

 Circles were calling to me.

Some swooshes got added and I made some marks with plastic from a soy bottle and white paint.

At this point, I rotated the canvas and things really started moving.  Here's the end product:

It's interesting to me how very little of the first layers remain in the finished product.

Another Intuitive painting attempt

This time I was trying some therapeutic painting-- trying to work through some complicated emotions regarding a family member.  I love how this turned out actually.

Kind of bummed that I didn't use heavier paper so it got warped from the wet paint.  But this paper was free and I imagine I'll be doing a lot more art therapy with it.

Life with a closed heart

I'm trying out some intuitive painting techniques.  I am finding myself drawn to it, but still unsure of how to go about the process.  I've been wanting to try it out for a while, but was too scared.  Finally I gave myself the prompt to paint "living with a closed heart."  Here's a blow by blow of what happened:

 I think part of me felt that living with a closed heart was also an angry,violent place to be.

 I love how this step turned out-- I painted on some black and then put a stencil over it and pulled off some of the black paint.

 Lots of steps in between, but at this point I was too into the process to stop and take photos.  Here's the end product:

Kind of funny that I couldn't just keep it to painting-- had to add in a handcarved self-portrait (stamped on separate paper and adhered with matte medium).

I actually had another canvas going at the same time that was "living life with an open heart." I was trying to switch back and forth to let the paint dry on each before adding new paint.  But this one took over for me and I haven't finished the other one yet.  Soon!