A New Venture

Well I"m way behind on my blog entries and I do want to catch you up on my fibre art and encaustic painting, but first I want to tell you about a new venture. Green Thimble Designs is a new business I"m entering into with two friends; Wendy Orr and Bernice Barrett. We are making products from existing materials and are starting off with bags of all shapes, sizes, with a variety of uses. Our goal is to design and make bags to replace plastic or poorley made cloth substitutes. Look back soon to view pictures and other details. We will be setting up a website over the Christmas holidays and you can already find us at greenthimbledesigns.blogspot.com.

 It's such a busy season, I'm busy making a few gifts and  I haven't got to the baking yet. Hopefully this week wil be a productive one.

Have a Happy Holiday where ever you are.

Line of Thought

Well back again, nothing for two months and now twice in a week. "Line of Thought" is the current Gallery 96 show. As I"ve mentioned I am a member. This show was interesting as we did co-operative pieces with other artists. I think some artists had a hard time getting their head around the idea. I found it exciting and a great challenge.

I worked with 2 seperate artists. Lucinda Jones is a printmaker withGallery 96 and we worked on a triptych called "Three Sisters". We worked on one piece jointly and then we each did our own piece to go along.

The first piece is the joint effort, we made a piece of faux felt together and then Lucinda added some light pieces of print and I added the face. The second one is mine and it's all rusted fabric, some paper fabric, stenciling and embroidery. The third piece is Lucindas, all made out of printmaking papers and a hand drawn face

The second artist I worked with , I have never met in person. We did the whole thing long distance and by email. My partner was Cathy Connolley a fabulous artist/ illustrator from England. We met through her blog, "One Pink Goose". I have always liked her drawings and we have alot of common interests in subject matter. It was actually really easy for me to work with Cathy even though it was long distance.

Cathy's book on "The Naming of Hares"

A joint offering , "Under the Canopy"

I started off by sending her some papers and fabric that  I had worked on. She in turn used them and sent them back to me and I put them together. I'll post more later about this work and add more photos.

Where did summer go?

Here in Canada we had a late spring with cool wet weather and winter went on forever, so summer seemed incredibly short this year. Now we are officially into fall. In that short time I have been busy but neglectfull of my blog. We had a few great weeks up at the cottage, a place I love to be and hate to leave. Last weekend was our final trip for this year  and shared with my siblings and spouses (minus one).. It was the only weekend I had free from exhibiting or preparing for a show. I have one more to do in three weeks and then I"m into the teaching.

Last night was the opening of "Line of Thought" which I will write more about in another blog post as I haven't yet downloaded the photos.. Two weeks ago was our encaustic show, "Fusion". Three friends from Gallery 96 and myself took an encaustic course a little over a year ago and were immediately addicted. So we mounted our own show at a friends new gallery overlooking the Avon River, just outside of Stratford. Studio Stratts is the studio and gallery of Nancy Groenestege, built as an addition to her home. It is a great place in  a wonderfull location just two minutes out of town. Nice high ceilings, lots of windows, great lighting and as I said a terrific view. This was the first exhibition Nancy hosted and she was a great host during set up and the exhibition.

The four of us worked independently but it was amazing to see the similarities when we put the work together to hang. The groupings just formed themselves either by colour or subject matter. Here is some of the work.

BIRCH WOOD

This is one of mine and that's not real birch but simulated with the encaustic.

AUTUMN

Another one of mine , also shown above with the other "red" landscapes by Wendy Orr and Michelle Salter.

BARN SWALLOWS and the single one above are inspired by  the 2 swallows that few into the barn and sat chatting quietly on a wire whilst I was working on my encaustic. We no longer farm so the barn is generally empty except for the barn cats and other visiting wildlife. I have used it for an exhibition called Rural Roots that I mounted with other Gallery 96 members and features in an earlier blog. The 2 little one beside the single barn swallow are by Wendy Orr.

THISTLES

                                                                THE STORYTELLER

The lavendar wall with Wendy Orr's Lupins that were inspired by her recent trip to Newfoundland. Growing Lupins in Ontario is hit and miss I've found, but they grow in abundance on "the rock".

GEORGIAN BAY ROCK

The above is all Michelle Salter's work, the texture in this piece is amazing, but I favour the 2 small pieces, they also use charcoal in them.

ESCAPE

Lots of blow torch with this one.

                                                                   COPPER POSIES

                                                                      BARN OWL

Peaking out of an old mold from a Cambridge tool and die factory that closed years ago. I used several of the mold as you will see later.

"Barn Owl" and the top right "Winter Wood" are mine next to the aqua and white work of Michelle and Anna

Anna Koot's wall, the landscape was so delicate. My personal fav is the pears.

This is another one of Anna's but no matter howmany time I rotate it to a verticle is switched back to horizontal.

My Fish and Mexican Daisies.

Yet another barn owl peeking out of a hole in a birch tree, 2 of my favourite subjects.

MEDITATION

                                                               BUTTERFLY LADY

She is done with colour pencil, collage on rice paper with encaustic. She is one of my favourites and I think I will try more using this technique.

A wall of landscapes mostly by Wendy Orr and a few of mine and Michelle's The ones on die molds and the one with gold leaves is mine. Wendy Orr did several amzing ones with sheep she saw in Newfoundland.

"Haliburton", a triptych inspired by scenes at my cottage on Kennisis Lake. It's a long narrow lake and sometimes gets lots of whitecaps. Not my favourite conditions for using our canoes.

"Gone Fishing" is another triptych. The bouy was made from neccessity...there was a nob in the middle of the die.

THE WATCHER was another sculpture piece. I thought she looked sort of aboriginal but Michelle tells me that the elongated "S" neck is reflective of my celtic heritage. Not sure that there is much of that in my blood, I married into the name and my family is so Anglo.

Tha';s it for the encaustic, but leave you with a scene from Kennisis Lake, a late day sky, just starting to clear after a grey day.

Planning for Fall

Yikes! I hate the thought of fall, it seems we've had no spring and summer hasn't been up to scratch yet either. Too much wet and cool weather. Not that I like it stinking hot and humid but....

I met Satuurday with 3 friends, we are planning a show in September on encaustic painting. Her is a prelim photo for the press release. The show is called FUSION and involves Wendy Orr, Anna Koot, Michelle Salter and myself, Wendy O"Brien.

                                                                       

Each one of us has a different style, which should make for an interesting show. Here is  work by Anna Koot. You can check out more of her work on her new website  http://www.annakoot.com/

I love the sculptural effect in the pears.

I will give you some sneek peeks of the others as we get closer to the date. The actuall show is September 9,10 and 11 at STRAT STUDIO , Stratford, Ontario. We are open 4-9 on Friday the 9th and 12 noon to 5pm on both Saturday and Sunday.                                                                                                            

June shows and some new work

Where did the time go? Silly question actually, when I know I spent alot of time working on pieces for two shows and neglected my blog, amongst other things. Two shows that opened on back to back weekends. Who's crazy idea was that? And, as if we didn't learn anything with that, I'm doing two shows back to back in September. Not very good planning, I admit.

                            " Go Fly a Kite" acrylic 18"x24" $135 Cdn

The first show was "4 Artists", Wendy Orr hosted myself,  Anna Koot and Ev Scott for a show in her home. She didn't seem to mind the nail holes because she plans on painting. The Friday night opening was a fun party with a few sales, Saturday wasn't as busy but the sales were good. I was happy with what I did. All smaller pieces, but they do add up. Here are a few shots from that event.

"Back at the Bush" acrykic 6"x8" $95 Cdn

"Nest of Eggs" acrylic 6"x8" $95 Cdn

"Circ" mixed media 18"x24"  $140Cdn

"Remember When", mixed media sold

Here are a few of Wendy Orr's beautiful pieces. Her work is available through Village Studios in Stratford, or through the artist herself.

Here are some more of mine; "Arch in Moonlight is 6"x8", acrylic/mixedmedia,is framed and sells for $95

 "Jungle Ruin" is much larger at 24"x 30" and is also acrylic/mixed media and sells for $ 230 Cdn

                     'Tightrope Walker" is another mixed media piece 18"x 24" and $135 Cdn

 These are a set of illustrations by Anna Koot for one of her Children's books.They are books that help tell children about "hard to talk about subjects", this one deals with death.

                                             Her are a couple more acrylics by Wendy Orr

 This next bunch are from the Gallery 96 Members show that opened last night at Factory 163. The first one is by Victoria Shannon, I had to take it on an angle to help with the glare and the reflection of a near by window. I love this piece.

                                   Here are a few more, featuring a tryptych by Carolyn Horley

 This next one is one of mine, "the Old Front Porch" and it sold immediately. It is faux felt with a photo transfer and machine embroidery.

 Also one of mine done the same way. It was in the 4Artist's show and moved here for this exhibition. It is available for $150 Cdn.

 Here is one of Lucinda Jones prints. she and I are working together on pieces for a collaboration show, "A Line of Thought". One of those infamous back to back efforts in September. We are planning a play date, to expoeriment and come up with some solid ideas for that show. Should be fun.

 Another printmaker with Gallery 96 is Gloria Kagawa, these are 3 of here pieces, something new for her.

                 A lovely little piece by new member Heather Ruthig.

This show runs for another week if you are in town or live close by. Gallery 96 won't be doing another show until September. Stay tuned for more looks at that project and the encaustic show "Fusion", that I am involved with as well. It's going to be a full summer with trips to the cottage, gardening and making artwork.