Gizmo from Ax-Man: non-stop inspiration

As a lucky participant in the Women's Art Resources of Minnesota (WARM) Mentor-Protege Program, I get to spend time with my mentor, Layl McDill, an extraordinary polymer clay artist.

Third Gear Painting: Posterized

Third Gear Painting

Two weeks ago our monthly meeting/field trip took us to Ax-Man, a surplus store on University Avenue in Saint Paul, and to the Bell Museum on the University of Minnesota Campus.

6th Gear Painting

We went to Ax-Man because I'd had a tiny moment in the workshop of a very talented guitar maker where the walls were covered with (to me) unknown gizmos, gadgets, and whatsis that cried out to become painting templates. While Ax-man was short of guitar-making tools, it was long on pieces that inspired me to go home and paint.

From the Ax-Man came the Gizmo, and from the Gizmo came "10 Gears." Each began as a post-card sized watercolor that I scanned into Photoshop and manipulated to make digital magic.

Gourds & polymer clay: new techniques

It is important to learn something new every day, and my head if full of new stuff from two classes that I took on Saturday and Monday.

A Gourd Pin

Gourd Art and Kristen Treuting

"Water Movement" is a three-artist show at Vine Arts Center. Kristen Treuting's unique and beautiful gourd art is part of this show, and in her workshop, she let us loose with wood burners, lovely inks, and glue guns to create our own gourd art. Thanks, Kristen. (Note to cat owners: Some cats find gourd pieces very enticing. Hide your work.)

Polymer Clay and Layl McDill

Layl McDill is a gifted, visionary, and whimsical genius with polymer clay. Last night she conducted "Clay Play" with Silly Millies for mentors and proteges in this year's WARM (Women's Art Resources of Minnesota) Mentor program.

Canes and Canes

Tulip Fingers

Having had a deeply disappointing encounter with polymer clay years ago, I had always been curious about how to make the intricate designs actually work. Layl showed us that "noodles and blankets" were the secret, and the designs and figures that we all made were vastly different from one another, and all wonderful.

I can't wait to incorporate these designs into my paintings.

NOTE: Layl McDill is my WARM Mentor in the current Mentor-Protege cycle. I am deeply grateful for her enthusiasm and encouragement. If you check out her work, you'll know that she will never, ever tamp down my whimsy.

Lost Cave Horse in Minnesota Watercolor Society Spring 2013 Show

Lost Cave Horse

The Cave Horse, one of the Lost Cave Paintings of Saint Paul, was accepted into the Minnesota Watercolor Society's 2013 Spring Show.

The Cave Horse and the Cave Toucan were excavated from the Lost Cave  on Christmas Day 2012. The Cave Paintings are available from the small friends' website and on cool products at zazzle. 

The show will hang at the Minnetonka Center For the Arts, 2240 North Shore Drive, Wayzata, MN from April 4 to May 2, 2013.

The framed Horse is for sale at the Show for $300. 

Taking a Break with Two Palm Trees

As I gear up to start a big painting of an as-yet-unknown subject, and continue to work on the (now) 50 Wild Parrots of Saint Paul Project, I took a break on Saturday to paint two tiny (5x5) palm tree paintings.

Palm Tree One (2013. 5x5 inches. $30)

Up North #3 (2008. Not for sale)

Although they reference some of my earliest nanoscapes' landscapes, I made these to play with granulation to give the sand under the palms some texture with paint, and to practice the traditional wet-in-wet watercolor technique in the leaves and sky.

Wet-in-wet is exactly what it sounds like: wet paint dropped onto wet paper. 

I made controlled puddles, and then dropped in a color or colors that I manipulated ever so slightly. Too much manipulation makes dull, muddled color. 

To purchase either of these paintings, please send direct email to susangainen@comcast.net and I will bill you through PayPal.  Thank you.

Palm Tree Two (2013. 5x5 inches. $30)

 

Stars to Wish On

Little Star

All the Colors and Paths 1

Creative Consistency

When asked whether I planned the color placement in All The Colors and Paths #1, now hanging in Altered Aesthetics "Straight Trippin'" exhibition in Minneapolis, I explained that my choices are completely random. The only rule is that like colors cannot "touch."

 

From One Little Star

Making the Stars to Wish On images was a similarly random act. I scanned the Little Star and created a template called Nine Stars. Then I made copies, using some of my favorite Photoshop settings (vibrance, hue/saturation, color balance, invert, posterize, and photo filter) without keeping track of anything. If I liked a result, I saved it. I discarded lots of images because they just didn't work. These are my favorites. 



Blue Stars to Wish On

Red Stars to Wish On



Neon Green Stars to Wish On

Bright Yellow Stars to Wish On

Harvest Stars to Wish On

Turquoise Stars to Wish On

Purple Stars to Wish on

Orange Stars to Wish On

Green Stars to Wish On



















Some of these designs are available on cool products at zazzle.comhttp://www.zazzle.com/susangainen/9+stars+gifts.































Musings on liking your own work

All the Colors & Paths #1, at Altered Aesthetics'
Straight Trippin' Juried Show
February 28-March 28, 2013

If you don't like your own work, how can you: 

1.  expect anyone else to like it -- ever; 
2.  get pleasure out of its creation; 
3.  want to do anything other than use it for kindling. 

Will you love every piece?

Don't expect to love every piece. Because making art is a journey, there will probably be some odd turns or dead ends:

1. You win inevitably make an awkward and damaging splash or drop the brush or do something that in the cold light of day makes you cringe. Learn from it, and enjoy the pleasure of making art. Forgive your child or your cat if one or both might be the culprit
2. When you get a new paintbrush or color or other piece of equipment, your first experiments might be happy accidents that you love (and sell), noodlings that you will use as reference material, or something to  recycle by painting on the back.
3. Not that this would happen to you, but in my earnest determination to get back to painting after being ill, I put a lot of brown paint in a place where, on reflection, it does not belong. Whether I can bring this painting back to where I hoped it would be, turn it into something entirely new, or trash it, is yet to be determined. What did I learn? When speaking a simple, declarative sentence is unmanageable, I should stay away from paint brushes.

Who is the SpokesArtist?

I am the SpokesArtist for my own art enterprises, each of which is dedicated to making people smile. I have no idea how artists who pour their angst onto their canvases think about liking their own work. 

Six Winter Socks from the Nanoscapes' Archive

After four years of above-zero temperatures, in mid-January 2013 Minnesota plunged to a few days of high temps below zero. To celebrate,  I retrieved Six Winter Socks from the nanoscapes' archive. The tiny original watercolor which was made in 2008, is no longer for sale.

Six Winter Socks

This image is on a postcard at zazzle.com.