First Art Show : List of Things To Do

It seems I've got several million things on my mind regarding the upcoming show and various other projects. It seems that way.

When I actually jot them down, the list fits on a post-it note... if I write really small.

There is a fascinating calm to this stress.

I have no idea how to do several things, and am trying to figure them out in plenty of time. Credit cards? Yeah. I'm spoiled by paypal. Setting up the actual booth? You mean I need a plan other than to pull it out of the box and hang a few things up? Lights? Arrangement? A table, maybe? A place to put the credit card machine? Wow...

Paintings. Carvings. I don't have as many carvings done as I'd like to have. The smaller paintings need more work. I need to get the prints narrowed down from the 76 images I have to choose from and get them printed. I need to order the sleeves for them, and for the note cards. I need to work on the note cards!

I need to send out the postcards as soon as they're ready - tell everyone about the show and offer a discount to those who are interested. I need to update the gallery on heatherartworks.com and I'd like to launch a mailing list, but that may have to wait till December. I have to make a decision on the Spring shows - which one I want to aim for - how many pieces I can accomplish before then, cost, can I really do this?, etc...

It's a very, very different stress than what I was going through over a month ago. (Let's just say: I don't take orders. At all. And I'm going back to being a volunteer so I can say "No" to the ridiculous.)

This is a stress I can deal with, because it allows me to find creative solutions and rearrange how I approach things. (I'm not crying every night, so that alone is 100 times better!) This is my plan, my creativity given free reign, the way it should be.

Paintings will be finished. Carvings will get stained. Prints will be sleeved. Note cards will be bundled.

Speaking of which - the note cards are a limited edition item... come to think of it, so's everything else! When they're gone, they're gone! So... if any of the pieces strike your fancy, snap 'em up!

Now back to sorting out the list of things to do and find a place to start. A paintbrush seems a good a place as any...

grin

You know what makes me happy?
Power tools.
You know what makes me even happier?
Using them!

It's a fascinating blend of destruction and creation when I heft that saw or drill and make the wood change shapes. The sawdust flies, chips popping me in the arm, the high buzz resonating through my body as I lean into give some balance.

Wood has a distinct scent, wet and dry, and all the variations of trees they come from. The grains shift under my fingertips, the hard and soft levels playing fast and loose with the blades as I go across. It's a beautiful and appealing feel, drawing me in and asking for more.

The ones you make yourself hold the most meaning

I gave my paint tool box away.

It was one of those plastic tool boxes for about five bucks that I'd modified for carrying paints and paintbrushes. I didn't have a permanent shelf or place to store my stuff at the time. It had enough room for several brushes and most of the colors I used, and the tray carried extra carving blades, small wood pieces, random beads, and electrical tape because I learned the blades were sharp before I invested in gloves and used the electrical tape to wrap around my fingers and thumb to protect them at the time.

The tool box had been gathering dust for awhile now. I still used it on occasion for travel or working in another location and it made a decent foot stool a lot of the time. My brushes are scattered everywhere, the paints are mostly corralled in a drawer unit, and I still have random pieces of wood here and there.



Well on Friday night I kept an eye on my cousins while my aunt & uncle had an evening to themselves for dinner & shopping. I won't call it babysitting because they're old enough to take care of themselves, really. I just hung out to make sure the boys didn't set the house on fire or throw cupcakes at the dogs.

One of the boys is kinda quiet compared to the other two, and really good at the science fair stuff and has an interest in painting. They're all three sharp, just different interests. Anyway, he was showing me stuff he'd been working on but had run out of green paint.

So I cleaned off my tool box, tossed a couple of newer brushes in there and picked up some new paints for him, just basic colors to get him going. When I felt better on Sunday I took it over, telling him it wasn't a Christmas present, it was a gift from one artist to another. I told him what I'd done to modify it years ago & showed him the brushes and paints and a few board canvases if he wanted to paint pictures for someone else for Christmas, he could.

It was a little hard. To let go. Of something I didn't use anymore, I know. But when I was in kind of a turmoil-y place once, and I used art as a stability, and I picked up wood carving and took to it nearly every night, well, it was a grounding thing. Carry tools, foot stool, sitting stool, drying dock, everything.

But I know it's gone to a good home now. Pass along something that he can use to make his own art with. And that makes me proud.



The photos are some of the wood pieces.

Tonight I picked up my detail brush and started working on them again. I haven't touched them in over a year and a half, since before eye surgery the summer before last. Because before that all I could see was up close. Details and tiny cuts were so easy. I've partly been afraid to try since, and have kept myself busy with other things. The lines are not the same. The details are not the same. But it felt so damn good to pick up something that I remember and have a groove with.

I apologize for the craptastic clarity, or lack thereof, of the pics. I used the phone camera because I could send them straight to the computer without having to dig out wires and download my camera. I'm lazy like that. And was busy being productive anyway.

making marks

I'm looking into more options in the realm of art - one includes engraving, but I'm not as sure of how steady my hand would be. Now doing the carving into wood is one thing, I go with the flow of the grain and let it happen - so goofs or not, it turns out pretty anyway.

But polished stuff, like these guys at corporate plaques, well - there's a reason they do what they do and I do what I do, I think. I mean, they have the shiny tools to make precise and clean cuts and designs.

So, methinks, that maybe way down the road, you know someday after I get around to learning glassblowing and such, then I might brush up on working with metals...

(p.s. that company is giving away freebies, if you're interested - Customized Engraving, 'cause I don't mind helping promote someone else with a bit'o'marketing.)

a bit more

I'm about halfway down the board now. Lawrence asked if I was gonna use this for printing purposes. Umm, nope. While using relief carving for printmaking is where I first saw this technique used, it's not what I look to do with the pieces.

I enjoy the carving process the most. It's the smell of the wood, the feel of the wood, the feel of the hand tools, the movements, the texture of the finished carved piece. Usually, and what I'll be doing with this one, I then stain or paint the piece of wood - laying in color into the grooves, painting the color on the surface, then outlining the cuts in effort to make it "stand out", so to speak.

To me this makes the final piece dimensional. It's texture. I want these pieces to be touched. For you to run your fingers over them. I want it to be about the color and sight of the piece as much as about the feel. It's about the tactile impression as well as the visual.

wood were it that easy

I'm attempting something new for me with this one. Instead of carving out the design I draw in, I'm carving out the stuff around it. I've started to attempt this before, but that was on a large 18-inch chunk of wood I was attacking with a mallet that is still sitting in the garage in Texas.

This one is another remainder board, 1x6, white wood.



I'm using #4 and #2 gouges.

The #2 is V shaped, the #4 is more U shaped and wider to get the larger areas. The #2 gets in between the lines and edges easier, then I scoop out with the #4.

I haven't quite decided what to do with the spaces on the other half of the board yet, so those are blank for now.

I'll sand down the pencil lines and all the rough scooped out areas later.

are the lines moving?

Basic white wood - usually pre-treated white wood found at the local wood- and- tools- and- paint- and- general- building- of- things- stuff store. Picked up a few of these cut off remainders for like 50 cents each.

This piece is roughly 2 feet long. It's a 1x6 board. It's a softer wood than some, so in between the veins is a soft and fairly malleable stretch of white wood.

I picked up a lattice stencil and drew it on in pencil. Am using gouges in #1 and #2 size to cut the wood out with. The drawback to the soft wood is that the gouges will tear more than cut in some places. This leaves a final cut that may go off in another direction completely. It happens.



This is a long work- in- progress. Each leaf, each line.
It's kinda zen like to be doing it this way.
Each line is drawn on, each line is cut out, one at a time.

Sure, I could look down the stretch of the piece and see how many I have yet to go, and see what I have yet to paint, or stain, and edge, and seal... It can be overwhelming...

But the part of me that is holding that very sharp gouge in one hand and holding the wood in another is just there. In that cut. In that moment.

Like I said, very zen like.