Happy Valentine's Day!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
I Love ... On-Line Students!
May I tell you how much I love my on-line students? The Artist's Toolbox (new session opens this friday) is an especially wonderful class for me to get to know these lovely people.
 |
| Angela - value study |
So many of them come in saying "I can't draw" or have real reservations about their abilities to create original art but by the end of class you see their confidence just blossom.
 |
| Dahlia - depth study |
I truly DO believe that everyone is creative in some way.
If you give yourself time to learn and permission to be imperfect it is amazing what you can do.
 |
| Cindy - shape study |
Art CAN be taught. You can learn to draw through some simple steps and exercises if you are willing to put in the effort. You CAN learn to understand the basic elements and principles of design.
 |
| Uliday - texture study |
If you want to be and artist, if you are willing to put in the time and the effort....
YOU CAN BE AN ARTIST!
 |
| Lorelei - movement study |
I'd love to share the journey with you. I feel an attachment with each one of these students.
Join me for
four lessons, $36.00 beginning
February 17, 2012
Yes ... I'm shamelessly begging.
(but it's for a good cause)
(update: you all are absolutely amazing. I do mean AMAZING! Both kidlets have surpassed their goals and are very excited to send out some fun drawings. They've got their work cut out for them. Thank you, thank you, thank you! From the bottom of our healthy hearts - the the hearts of those you've helped to survive - we thank you.)
Could you do me a GREAT BIG favor?
My little ones are doing a fundraiser for the American Heart Association. They are raising money through a jump-a-thon at school for children who need heart surgery.
If you have a minute could you click on each link and help them out? Even one dollar will help. Their deadline is coming up TOMORROW and the only one who has donated is me and one of you amazingly kind readers. They've been drawing valentine pictures to send out to their sponsors but they don't have any (other than me) yet. If you donate then reply here with your address we'll mail you a delightful piece of their original art.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Creative Wisdom from Pixar's John Lasseter 2 of 7
2. Remember the first laugh.
“A big problem in the creative process is related to the enhancement of your ideas. Revising, retouching, refining is very important, but it carries a danger. If you have a story, a joke, a thought, which you write down, it loses its effect over time. It wears itself out. When you hear a joke for the second time you still laugh heartily, on the third or fourth occasion already less so, and when you hear it the hundredth time, you hate it.”
“I say to my authors: ‘Take notice of the first laugh, write it down if necessary. This may at times be bothersome, but it is important. Many times, good things got lost because people could not remember anymore how it felt when they heard the idea for the first time.”
To me this means keep your ideas fresh.
How? It's probably different for every artist.
I keep a sketchbook.
- Write down all of your thoughts and ideas and inspirations.
- Journal a bit to capture your thought processes.
- Include test samples for when you are trying out new techniques.
When you get too close to a piece you're working on, gain some distance.
- Put it away for a day or two - there is an art fairy that visits at night an makes things look good again.
- Put it on the wall, walk as far away as you can before turning to view it.
- Turn the piece upside down or look at in in a mirror.
- Go back to your sketchbook and remember what it was you loved about it at the beginning.
How do you keep your ideas fresh?
How do you stay in love with your work?
Here is the rest of the series:
Friday, February 10, 2012
Up Close and Personal
The Sketchbook Challenge theme for this month is Close-Up.
RIGHT UP CLOSE is the way I really like to see things.
I focus in so close on the details that sometimes we'll be traveling and my husband will take the camera away just to take one picture of where we are.
I'll take a tiny thing and blow it up huge in a work of art. When one of nature's tiny gems fills your entire frame of vision it gains a grandeur and beauty that can be shared.
 |
| Dream by Lyric Kinard |
The ocean is gorgeous - but so are the ripples right under your feet.
 |
| Leftovers by Lyric Kinard |
UP CLOSE is one of the reasons I love hand work. The slowness, the concentration on detail, feeling the thread and the cloth in your hands.... it's all about the details.
 |
| Family Ties III by Lyric Kinard Now - pick up your sketchbook and look around. I'm sure there is something RIGHT THERE that is worth drawing. There is inspiration everywhere if you look CLOSELY! |
Thursday, February 9, 2012
I Love ... Teaching!
Last week I had the great good fortune to meet a fabulous group called Fiber Frenzy in Athens, GA. The Lyndon House Arts Center is a beautiful venue with galleries and classrooms. We had two days of serious fun - a stretched out Surface Design Sampler Platter.
Usually I teach it in one day and it can feel like drinking from a fire hose because we do SO MANY THINGS all in one day.
In a two day class we had time to play a little longer. Here we're trying out some instantly gratifying citrasolv photo transfer - (tutorial here)
We played with foil - letting the magpie shiny sparkly things lovers come out in us all!
We were having fun - honest. Ignore all the wrinkled brows of serious concentration.
We carved stamps and screen printed - and LOVED every minute of it!
Did I mention how great the facility was? Room for everyone to PLAY!
I had a teacher in high school that I loved because she would let me perch on my desk or the counter by the window. I found out years later that she was always telling me to get down. I never heard her. Not once. I must have been seriously off in La La Land. I still love to perch.
Larry Forte came in and put together a mini-video of the day at the Lindon House Art Center.
You can find all of these techniques - and a few more on my Quilting Arts DVD Workshop called Surface Design Sampler Platter. You can purchase it from the link up there on the right side of this blog. ;-)
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Doodles, Screens, and Art
I'm still doodling away even after last months Sketchbook Challenge theme has come and gone. As with many of us, it's simply a way of life. I thought I'd show you what I do with some of my doodles. I always have my little sketchbook with me and often will just play around with a shape or an idea or an image.
In this case I was playing with circles. Big circles, little circles, circles in a grid, circles in random places.
From a large series of circle scribbles I chose three that relate to each other in some way but have different scales and different visual textures. One scribbled and bold, one orderly, and one delicate.
Next I cut them out of my sketchbook, scan them and print them out in different sizes, then create a thermofax screen with each one. Now the fun really starts!
I gather up fabric that catches my fancy and use the screens to print or discharge those doodles onto the cloth. The cloth above was discharged with Cascade Dishwashing Gel. (You can find a tutorial here.)
 |
| Circles by Lyric Montgomery Kinard |
Eventually this particular batch of fabric is put together into a lovely little abstract piece of art.
What ways can you think of to make use of your doodling?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)