Hey, Guess What?

Yesterday was my first day juried into the Artists' Workshop group in Saskatoon!  Officially, I'm number 13.  That's pretty cool I'd say.  ; )

lunch break at Artists' Workshop

I've been 'shopping around' for a group for about a year now.  I wasn't sure at first what I wanted, I just knew I wanted more of something in my practice.  So I started asking around.  Some groups have studio space to rent full time.  I knew that wasn't what I wanted.  I have a studio and wasn't sure about relocating all this fibre and machines.  Some art groups rented individual studio space with not much else in terms of community.  Most groups have public exhibitions or sales events.  That's icing on the cake, but didn't make or break my decisions.  Some groups didn't meet together to work on art at all.

So, I put it on the back burner for months while I trotted along, busy with my work.

As I began to really see great value in drawing and sketching, the more I wanted that as a regular, disciplined practice.  It felt like a hugely creative outlet to do something artistic that had nothing to do with income.  It had everything to do with exploration and self expression.  The more I began to enjoy the practice of bind contour and sketching, as well as oil pastels and paint, the more I found my textile work to become easier to approach - specifically by realistic landscapes.  You can't help it.  Drawing more makes you see more.  The more i work in a series, the more that i see, and the more I discover... resulting in more to create and more to express.  When I came to this understanding, I asked myself, 'now what?  What is it that I need in my life to keep the art flowing and developing and improving?'

I wondered about classes.  I still do.. but most were at times I couldn't commit to.  There was also the factor of fees, and that they are short term.  Some day I will, but now doesn't seem to be the time.  I thought, 'maybe I need a retreat?  I could benefit from a get-away or sabbatical to create and explore'.

The more I work with oil pastels (which I hated at one time), the more I embrace their usefulness.  I can easily whip down some colour and do loose mark making and that turn into an embroidery I love and am proud of.  I want to keep this up, but there just seems to be a big problem with oil paint or oil pastel in my sewing / embroidery studio.  When a smudge or crumb of that stuff gets on a piece of fabric or framing mats, they are stained and ruined.  It became clear that I require a place to work on my sketches, but still maintain my home studio if I want to keep this up.  And I do.

Then I knew.  One of the groups I had checked out meet together to work on their art in a community space for one full day per week. 

P E R F E C T

That was it: an entire art retreat day every week.  That's what I've been looking for!  So I applied to be juried in, and got a YES the following week!  : )  So... here I am!  I'm member number 13 of Artists' Workshop.  They've been in existence for twenty seven years I read, cycling through different members over time.  A couple of the women are original members.  It's a good mix.  There are women who paint, do watercolour, draw/illustrate, there's a Zentangle artist and a batik painter as well.  (I have a link to their profile features at the end of the post.) They do different challenges on occasion, like a still life day, a plein air day, and have group show and sales a couple times per year. Yesterday was my first day!  Want to see what I worked on?  : )

Tobacco Flowers

This first set of sketches I did in the morning.  This middle picture is a photo I took of Tobacco Flowers in the Healing Garden behind the Allen Sapp Gallery a year and a half ago.  I sketched and sketched and sketched it again - trying different styles, levels of detail, and colour of backgrounds.  It was a very useful exercise.

Then it was lunch time.  They meet in the middle of the room to eat and then hold a short meeting after.  (I'm still saying they, but this will change soon. lol).

In the afternoon, I selected a different photo, and did the same thing all over again.  This time I worked on Campanula from the same garden / photo shoot.

similar work on different backgrounds

I was really happy with these as well!  I had fully expected to get stuck, nervous, and really create nothing useful on my first day.  That entirely did not happen.  (WHEW!)  I ended up just loving this one in particular because of the sunshine and shaded areas... I'll have to stitch it up this week with my yarns.  xoxoxoxo  I'm just so happy with all the colours and marks.  : )

won't this be a gorgeous embroidery ! ?   : )  !!

That's my news.  : )  You can read more about the group and the artists involved at their blog here:

ARTISTS' WORKSHOP

Today I'll enjoy another sun-shiny day and packing up my teaching supplies for tomorrow's embroidery class at the Refinery.  See you soon! : )

Chalkin' it Up (a short story long)

Maybe you've heard me mention that my mother is a landscape artist.  Her medium is soft pastels.  It's about the only other medium that I find easy for me to use.  I really, really suck at painting.  Chalk is easy for me probably because I grew up watching her.  She never used photos.  In fact my mother hated cameras.  She would tape her giant pastel paper onto a huge board and sit outside on the ground in the wind & the heat with her messy wooden chalk box at her side and do it 'live'.  She would work fairly fast because the weather and sunsets change constantly.  She'd get the sky down and finish the land or bush later in the house.  (Mom always puts trees in her work.) 

So - I chose not to work in pastels.  It was a matter of not wanting to copy.  More likely, it was a matter of not wanting to repeat my mother's work.  If I worked landscapes in pastels, it would look just like my mom's.  Think of the children of rock stars who go on to make albums.  They can't help it - they sound a lot like their parents.  Me - I wanted to be me.  I wanted my art to be uniquely mine.

Fast forward to my 20's.  A colleague of mine was an art therapist.  She passed all her sets of chalk pastels on to me.  Still, I resisted using them.  I tried oil pastels - YUCK.  That was not fun.  I started using charcoal and ended up sketching out a lot of self portraits.  One set of 12 were in the A.K.A. gallery with a group show!  (I bet you never knew that - December 1995.) 

In my 30's I unburied those self portraits to take a look and immediately thought, "Wow! Was I ever messed up," and I threw them out. !?  Yeah.  well...  I was dealing with some personal trauma at the time and no longer resonated with the images.  I did keep photos of them.

Fast forward to the next decade of my life.  The forties.  I still have the pastels in a box in my basement.  I never threw them out.  Good gosh they are TWENTY YEARS OLD NOW!  You know my dilemma with sketching before I stitch?  I've tried pencil, ink, watercolor (epic fail), and settled with pencil crayons (or not sketching at all).  THEN I went to Margot's house and asked her if she sketched before she stitched.  She pulled out her book full of soft pastel sketches!  I was dumbfounded.  How easy would that be for me!?  Why the resistance?   I can manage chalks, so why do I keep avoiding them?  I decided, "Hey Monika, it's time to get over it!"  I got home, hauled out the 20+ yr old pastels and did my first sketch in my pastel sketchbook.  (Yes - I actually have a pastel sketchbook.  Meant to be?)  It's like I want to, and I know I can, but I won't let myself.

I take a breath, let it go, and pull up this photograph.

photo I took from my mom's place last summer

I love that photo.  I love being up in that pasture.  When I tweaked the contrast, those pretty little blues popped out of the green grass.  I haven't stitched this out yet but it is most certainly on my to-do-list.  Why not chalk it up first?  I pulled out the painfully dry and brittle pastels and did my first pastel landscape sketch.  I taped my paged onto a board just like mom.  I went outside to sit & sketch on the ground... just like mom (even though I was working from a photo).  haha  I set out my chalks and away I went.

20 minute pastel sketch

Sweet!  I did it.  It worked.  BONUS - I ENJOYED IT!  It's now up on my design wall waiting to be stitched.  It made me so happy to sketching all the little grasses and blue flowers in the front.  It sets up exactly how I will place my threads.  I love dotting the chalk and then blowing off the excess - POOF - dust in the wind.  I feel like I'm channeling my mother, but that's okay right?  She was my teacher after all.

Fear # 427 conquered.  ; )  I actually look forward to making more!