Yesterday, I attended a workshop that was directed toward a professional artist who expected that applying for grants would be part of their life as an artist. There was a representative from the Manitoba Art Council, one of the primary sources of artists' grants locally. Then we spent time with a nationally recognized artist who has also practiced in academia. She took us through discussion and exercises on how one writes a grant proposal.
This has lead me to spent a great deal of time since in sorting out in my own mind whether grants will play any part in my artistic practice. The answer is definitely "no" in terms of my own practice, but maybe "yes", relative to the special interest groups I belong to, and strongly support, although any such grant proposals would be directed to other funding bodies. So, probably time well spent.
But the secondary benefit I see is in the writing necessary to support my own involvement in exhibitions, such as a professional c.v., as well as things like artist's statements for specific pieces, and the more general artist's statement one needs in describing their body of work- so so called "elevator piece". This term describing how you would explain what you do to someone you meet in an elevator-the 30 second "this is who I am and what I do" piece.
This is the same person who will be leading a critique session that I will be taking part in on Tuesday. In the past I have found the few such sessions I've attended very stimulating, informative and thought provoking. That sounds trite, but it's true. Now I have something to look forward to, but at the same time, not much time to make sure my artist's statement hits all the marks in terms of the information I received.
Sunday, May 26, 2019
Sunday, May 19, 2019
Well, that didn't work!
Had a great time playing with the INKtense, but when push came to shove, the images I was wanting on my dyed fabric, just didn't work out. Instead, I went with adding them using FMQ'g. Finally finished that today, but since there is really no value difference, and you have to rely on the loft created by the quilting to see anything, a picture at this point might be useless. I'll add one anyway. I hope you're able to see that this quilted background is composed of several triple spirals, surrounded by a a combination of pebbles and matchstick quilting.
The actual finished image will be one of the Circle of Life, appliqued over a thread painting of the Tree of Life. But I'm having second and even third thoughts about the colours to use. The circle in black would be very, very dominant, and I don't want that. Rather I think I might use a dark grey ( would have to dye that), or maybe a dark green. Now, with a dark green I would need to decide whether it would be a blue green or a bright Spring green. A further thought is giving consideration to loosely appliqueing leaves all over the circle. Since, at this point, I plan to do the tree in dark browns, I have to decide if that should influence my decision. Oh My! What a lot of deciding to do. IN the end, I need to get the tree appliqued on before the circle, so maybe I should do that, and then "audition" various colours for the circle itself. Makes sense to me.
However, the tree will be FMQ'd on water soluble stabilizer. This would have to be done in a hoop, and is not something I've ever done before. Heard about it but never done it. More procrastination, when my brain is saying "just do it already!"
I plan to link this with Nina-Marie Sayre's Off the Wall Friday, and The Needle and Thread Network.
The actual finished image will be one of the Circle of Life, appliqued over a thread painting of the Tree of Life. But I'm having second and even third thoughts about the colours to use. The circle in black would be very, very dominant, and I don't want that. Rather I think I might use a dark grey ( would have to dye that), or maybe a dark green. Now, with a dark green I would need to decide whether it would be a blue green or a bright Spring green. A further thought is giving consideration to loosely appliqueing leaves all over the circle. Since, at this point, I plan to do the tree in dark browns, I have to decide if that should influence my decision. Oh My! What a lot of deciding to do. IN the end, I need to get the tree appliqued on before the circle, so maybe I should do that, and then "audition" various colours for the circle itself. Makes sense to me.
However, the tree will be FMQ'd on water soluble stabilizer. This would have to be done in a hoop, and is not something I've ever done before. Heard about it but never done it. More procrastination, when my brain is saying "just do it already!"
I plan to link this with Nina-Marie Sayre's Off the Wall Friday, and The Needle and Thread Network.
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Trying a new technique
Recently, I watched a couple of videos on Design Matters TV, on the use of Inktense Blocks. I've become quite intrigued with this. Actually I've owned a box of Inktense pencils for some time, used them a bit, and almost forgot about them, but their use appears to be somewhat different than the blocks. So the blocks have been at the back of my mind, but purchase put off by what I knew was a high price. On a pension, this is always a consideration.
But, yesterday, knowing there was a sale on at the art supply store across town, we headed there. I had prepared myself for a price-y purchase, and was very selective in my choices. I looked around, a bit, and found some Lumiere Fabric paint that was on sale and picked up three bottles of that, as well. The check out was very very slow. She had to find a code number on each of my paint sticks--pressed into the block and very hard to find and read. Then she had to match that to numbers in her computer. While this was going on, I asked her if, by chance, the Inktense blocks were on sale, and was surprised that they were 40% off. In fact, everything in the store was on sale! So off I went to see if I could find a sketch book with light weight pages to use for rubbings. Alas no, all of the books there were too good a quality. lol
The bonus with these blocks and pencils is that, once water has been added and the piece dried, the colour is fixed, quite unlike any other watercolour product. This means that they can be worked over, without any fear of losing the colour, or of compromising the work, overall. They also work well on textiles. The deal maker for me.
The plan is to familiarize myself with using the Inktense blocks, and then, maybe, use them in my current piece. I have LWI dyed a piece of fabric with a very high thread count, for the background, I would very much like to use the Inktense in marking symbols on this background. Then I plan to FMQ the background, incorporating those symbols, using silk thread, so as to to keep the value range on the background very low. Spent some time with my thread color charts of Superior Kimono Silk trying to find the right colour thread so that I could order it. Found what I wanted and then found it in my stash of Kimono silk, in the right colour. Wow! Had no idea that I had bought it, many months ago. Must really like that colour.
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