What I learned from doing Open Studios

There was so much to learn from doing open studios. 

I participated in two this year, the Portland Open Studios, which is a juried event, and the Washington County Open Studios . 

They both had fees to participate and these are the catalogs.

The PDXOS had two meetings in May and August, and the WCOS had one. This was a chance to meet with other artists, pass out the street signs (used to tell people where we were),

familiarize us with their program and talk to us about marketing.

Along with over a hundred other artists, I had my home studio open the 2nd and 3rd weekends in October.

To begin with, I used Evernote to list off the things I needed: set-up in the basement, what I ordered (envelopes, post cards, calendars, etc.), points from other artists, etc..

There were many mentions from the organizers and fellow artists on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and I ordered post cards to tell about the studio tour.

The main reason for the studios visits is to educate the visitors on what goes on in the artists studio, so I took them on a tour of mine, starting with my still life cupboard and still life set-up.

Since I had to learn with my other hand since my stroke, I showed them how I start my studio time with quick drawings of lines, circles, anything around my studio, and life drawing from YouTube. (Really, I should have been doing this all along...it is important for me to draw!)

Then I would show them my painting process....the picture of the black and white value, setting up the halfway points, value, color, etc.. Because I have a hard time talking (because of my stroke), I typed out signs of each display I wanted to mention and put it beneath my work. Although the visitors thought it was for them, it really was for me. :) I would get stuck trying to say a certain sentence and then I would glance at the typed words and be okay! 

(Does this make sense????)

Finally, I would show them on my computer the image I was painting and how I like to paint upside down.

In my very limited experience, most people don't ask questions or they don't know what to ask. Hopefully, I gave them enough of my process and that will lead to questions.

Although the main reason for the open studios was to teach my process,  I decided to have something that everyone could afford to buy, so I had note cards and calendars. 

The calendars were fun because because I decided to do flowers, which led to a post on Facebook. I asked people for their flower suggestions and I got several submissions and then I could follow up with what I was doing.

A proud moment: the 4'x 8' peg board we got at the 

hardware store to hang the calendar paintings fit PERFECTLY along our wall!

It was tiring, but I loved it. I met a lot of new people, had friends 

come over, and I got many new commission 

requests and class sign ups.

(About 40% were friends and 60% were new people.)

Here is an excellent checklist on open studios from Harriete Estel Berman who goes into much more detail than I. if you are interested.

Listening to while I paint:

Audiobook:  

Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell, narrated by Sarah Vowell

Podcasts: 
American's Test Kitchen, hosted by Christopher Kimball
Online Marketing Made Easy, hosted by Amy Porterfield

Beyond the To-Do List, hosted by Erik Fisher

Artists Helping Artists, hosted by Leslie Saeta

Social Media Examiner, hosted by Michael Stelzner
"Wait, Wait.... Don't Tell Me!", hosted by Peter Sagal
Splendid Table, hosted by Lynne Rossetto Kasper

Truth For Life, hosted by Alistair Begg

Music: 
My iPod

What I am reading:
The Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert

Really helpful:

I am continually checking a dictionary, thesaurus, spell check, but one thing that has been particularly helpful is the grammar check. Please excuse any errors that I make and tell me! :)

Football and Art? :)

My husband called me to watch a play in a football game on TV. "I want you to see this....it is the perfect tipping drill!" he said. 
It was!  
I appreciated it because I coached football with him for about 6 years. We coached the freshmen. 

The University High School Trojans football, Irvine, CA. 1986?

I am the short girl in the white shirt. :)

I would coach the corner-backs and I remember all the drills I had them do..... .doing the same thing over and over again. Why? So when you get in a game, you don't have to think about how to shift your weight, the correct tackling form, the "tipping drill" etc....you just react to the game. Prepare ahead and practice the skill until muscle memory kicks in. 

One of the good parts of me having my stroke was that I have to draw all the time to switch to my left hand, (my right hand is still not responsive yet.) doing the same thing over and over..... 

Something I should have been doing anyway!

 I always start with drawing lines to an upbeat song like this:

Mark Ronson, Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk

and then I settle down and I draw whatever is around me or go to an online figure drawing site and listen to this:

The Piano Guys, ft. Alex Boye - Coldplay - Paradise 

and this:

Maroon 5 - Let's Stay Together (Al Green cover)

I KNOW that if I don't DRAW, PAINT, or WORKOUT everyday, I would not improve. 

At times, my recovery seems like it is taking forever,  (4 years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 2 days...), but I see improvement! 

Practice, practice, practice. Improve, improve, improve. 

Never give up!

Listening to while I paint:
Audio Books:
"Creativity, Inc." by Ed Catmull, narrated by Peter Altschuler.

Podcasts: 

The Nerdist, Episode 621, with Andrea Romano (voice director), hosted by Chris                                              Hardwick

Food is the New Rock, hosted by Zach Brooks
The Lede, hosted by Jerod Morris
Artists Helping Artists, hosted by Leslie Saeta
Social Media Examiner, hosted by Michael Stelzner
"Wait, Wait.... Don't Tell Me!", hosted by Peter Sagal
Splendid Table, hosted by Lynne Rossetto Kasper
American's Test Kitchen, hosted by Christopher Kimball

Music: 
My iPod

Really helpful!:
I am continually checking a dictionary, thesaurus, spell check, but one thing that has been particularly helpful is the grammar check. Please excuse any errors that I make and tell me! :)

Right Hand?

So, my right hand isn't responsive.....YET.... but...... my left hand is doing pretty well!

I begin my studio time with drawing lines...

and circles....

and things I have around.

Next time, I'll show you the charcoal drawing I did using the Sofft tools I noticed on David Kassan's video and David Darrow's video.

I'm back!

I'm back!

For those of you that don't know, I had a stroke October 14, 2010. I wasn't able to speak for a week, but I am working with a speech coach, and my right side was paralyzed, but I am getting better. I only use a wheel chair when I am going shopping, and I can also walk around my house without my cane. I work out every day: lift, swim, spin, and I go to physical therapy every other week.

The support has been amazing! Friends, people I don't know, and relatives have donated dinners, supported the Art Walk, posted on Facebook, helped give my kids rides to sports and school, and just shown up!

I have started to draw and paint, and even though my right side is paralyzed, all of the information is still in my head and I just have to train my left hand.

The picture I put up here is my work with my left hand....

Diana For Karin

white & black charcoal pencil on gray Canson paper

This challenge from Karin Jurick's website Different Strokes From Different Folks, was to paint or draw from a photo of the statue "A Companion of Diana". I chose to use a gray colored paper which became the middle value for the drawing and white and black charcoal pencils for the highlights and dark areas. This allowed me to draw and do a value study in a different way.

Mona Jones Cordell Studio Visit

Mona's studio has a lot of space and windows and light. She has some very big canvases and uses big brushes, bold colors, and expressive lines. The big yellow canvas is what she uses to experiment on.

Last week I blogged about the Mi Mancherai video of Josh Groban and Lucia Micarelli and how the beautiful song they performed had a deeper meaning after seeing them perform it. That same day, I had the extreme privilege of meeting Mona Jones Cordell and visiting her studio.
Mona goes to the Oregon Ballet Theatre rehearsals and sketches gestures of the dancers. She then takes her gestures back to her studio and creates beautiful works of art. What occurred to me after visiting her is that just as Josh Groban and Lucia Micarelli need each other to perform that beautiful song, Mona and the dancers need each other to produce these beautiful works of art. They are all artists who have spent years developing their skills and each brings their unique talent to contribute to the final, beautiful product.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Mona, talking about art and drawing and her technique and sharing how we approach drawing the figure. She is a very kind and gracious lady and a wonderfully talented artist.
I encourage you to take the link to her website to see her art and watch the video to see her at work.

Dynamic Figures

I recently came across the art work of two local artists (Portland, Oregon) Mona Jones Cordell and Martin French who do a beautiful job of drawing and painting the dynamic figure. Here is a link to a wonderful video about Mona's work: http://www.monajonescordell.com/video_files3/index2.html I have always been impressed with artists who can capture the gesture and fluidity of the moving figure. Since seeing their work, and because I have four kids playing basketball and volleyball and I spend a lot of time watching games, I've been inspired to work on this aspect of my art. I checked out the book, Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth from the library and am using pictures from magazines and newspapers and Pose Maniacs to draw from. Pose Maniacs has a variety of images and you can select the poses to change every 30 seconds. This is helpful for me to work on capturing the gesture and the mass of the pose. I hope to get to the point where I can draw from life instead of a picture. I'd love to hear if anyone has other resources to recommend!

Karin's Boots

graphite pencil on paper

Here is my latest entry for Karin Jurick"s weekly challenge. She asked us to try something different so I decided to stay away from paint and stick with pencil and paper.

Click on image for larger view.

Pose Maniacs

I am incorporating a few minutes of quick, warm up sketches to my morning routine. One great resource is Pose Maniacs. On this site there are choices for 30 sec poses, negative space drawings, hands for drawing, etc. Any other resources out there?

More newspaper faces

I have continued to draw faces from the newspaper almost everyday and have quite a collection now. The newspaper provides a never ending supply of interesting people to draw!
Click on image for a larger view.

Volleyball T-shirt

Here's the t-shirt! The kids love it!

We were out of town last week so I am back to painting this week. I plan to post an updated picture of the bear soon.

Volleyball T-shirt Design

My husband is the head girls' volleyball coach at the high school where he teaches and he asked me to design a t-shirt for the girls. Unfortunately I don't know how to do any designing on the computer! Thank goodness for my light table and copier that allows me to reduce and enlarge! So, an ink cartridge and ream of copy paper later I think I have a design! I wanted it to look hand-drawn (good thing, huh?) and have a distressed, stamped look. I'm sure that I could have clicked this look quickly on a computer, but lacking the program and the know-how for that, I took my drawing and reduced it down to about 1/2 an inch and then enlarged that which distorted the lines. I scanned the images and emailed them to the printers. Hopefully it will be layered with the netting image in gray, the squiggly image in purple and the "Sunset" in black! If it turns out, I'll post the results!

Kentucky Derby Inspired

We watched the Kentucky Derby on Saturday and I was inspired to do this charcoal and conte drawing on a brown paper bag.

You Strain Out a Gnat But Swallow a Camel

I have many friends who read the Bible and journal and gain profound insight and wisdom and are able to eloquently express and articulate what they have learned . I guess I'm wired a little differently! As I was reading Matthew 23 (specifically 23:24) this morning this image came to mind. :)