bodner015

Today Mannie and I were at yet another show and sale in which we are participating.  Mannie and her fabric art and me with my pyro/pastels.  We met a number of our colleagues at the reception and had lovely chats -catching up on stuff.  I think these things are often a social affair.  Many times there are more artists present than the general public viewers.

Over one weekend Mannie and I were in a show and sale with about 20 other artisans.  The Pasmans have been holding this show and sale for a number of years now and it gets quite the traffic. I put in some of my character boxes. Mannie put in booklets... and more booklets... and scissor holders and more character boxes.

I tried at a different oil pastel technique today . I drew directly onto the illustration board and added the values. Areas of dark were made darker .  I looked to check the balance of the light, medium and darks. I used turps to blend the darks and mediums.  When dry,  I sprayed fixative as I did not want the graphite to blend into the oil pastel. I lightly coloured n the principal colours for the painting  with my waxier pastels. Now I blended in other colours into the work.  I am concerned about the really dark lines denoting medium shaded areas -especially on the face.  I kept adding until I had got the colouring the way I wanted it.  Where smudging occurred Ithe area and then redid it. used a palette knife to scrape.  I used my burner to deepen and darken the lines in the painting.  And, finally, I used the Sennelier oil pastels to add accent colours or enriched the colours throughout the painting. When I put on the matt the composition was more to what I had started out to do.  I

Manuela and I packed up our kit bag of oil pastel and fabric art work and off we went to display them in the Orangeville Library.  We met a number of artists we have not seen for a while and enjoyed their company , all the while putting our work up on the display grids.  Later, the librarians look at the work and post book titles suggested by the art work displayed. Somewhere, sometime, someone will see our work.

Today Mannie and I are off to put her fabric art and my oil pastel and acrylic pyro paintings into the Orangeville Public Library, Mill Street.  Presently, we have our work in the Grand Valley Library and Headwaters Art Gallery at the Alton Mill, Alton.  Mannie is also in the Holiday Treasures at the Dufferin County Museum and will be at a show and sale at Maggiolly -an Orangeville art store now opening its doors for a gallery.  Getting things sorted and to the different venues has kept us busy theses last few weeks -along with everything else going on. With all the exposure surely someone at sometime will see our work somewhere.

I found some time to do another small oil pastel piece. I am trying out different compositions with partial faces.  In this one I used my more waxy pastels to paint and blend and then the Sennelier oil pastels for touch ups and accents as they are more oily, thick and high colour. Amazing what the matt did to the composition.  A little more secretive.

What with the shows and all we needed to reorganize our studio.  Well one thing led to another as you all know.  To that effect, Mannie and I left to buy a Persian rug for our family room (there went a whole day).  Then a day went rearranging and cleaning the family room to fit the new rug (I needed a trolley to get it up the stairs to the family room.)  Another day was spent taking the old Persian rug from the family room to the studio's main room and then rearranging all the work rooms to accommodate the rugs being rerouted to them.  Amazing how much time it takes to do all this   -and all because we bought an antique Persian rug for the family room.  No wonder I don't get to my art work.  But, I do love Persian rugs! This rug came from the family room in the main house.  All the furniture had to be moved out and then put back. This rug came from the main part of the studio to my work room.  All the furniture here had to be moved and returned.  Many of the book shelves etc. h

Mannie is constantly working on her fabric art pieces -even while watching TV.  She was working on coil baskets and now is making Dorset buttons -while watching TV.   She can do more than one task  -I can't. She sits and twists threads and threads with beads around a little plastic ring -sometimes 3/4 of an inch across.  Twist and set; twist and set; twist and set...  (I couldn't do it.)  Later she will add them as embellishments to her fabric art pieces. Here Mannie has made them stand out embellishments in a large coil basket.

With the number of shows coming up, we had to deal with inventory and storage for the items until we take them to the venue.  The studio now looks like a warehouse with items coming back in, items in artistic process and items being inventoried and put into bins and art portfolios. I just hope I can keep it all straight.

I only had a few hours for art work today -life often gets in the way.  So, I framed the wee oil pastels I had recently done and that just takes more time than I thought it would.  As well we had spent Saturday  getting items ready to put up at the Library and then went and put them up. Please excuse the flash on the glass.  My work place looks a little dishevelled as I was doing this and that to get things ready and then framed. I thought November would allow me to slow down and catch up -apparently no way.  And. I need to straighten out my room and the studio again.

Mannie has done a number of flowers in her fabric art.  Over the last few days I have seen her working on poppies. Here Mannie hand painted the poppies onto silk. Mannie cut out poppy petals from ultra suede and added the dark area with a permanent Sharpie.  Anything goes. Now she is experimenting with stitches and has written her findings onto a swatch. Over the next while we will see what happens.  This process of experimenting happens often and at other times she just wades into the fray and lets what happens happen serendipitously. And then the snow fell and covered everything.   Good grief!!  Winter is here at Heron's Way in Waldemar, Ontario.