Saying bye to a good year

A new year is about to start and I'm a little sad that 2015 has come to an end.  It was a good year filled with many great family moments, good health and looking back I can see that I got a lot accomplished.

I held my first Art retreat and taught classes in my new studio. 

My web page is finally a reality, boy did I ever put that off for a long time but it's pretty sweet, check it out if you get a chance.  loribradfordsart.com

Now it's time to make a few plans for 2016 and I have a number of things that I want to get accomplished. 

Since we won't have to spend so much time in the summer building our house as it's almost done I think it's time to really get down to work and get some serious painting and teaching done. 

I'm planning 2 art retreats, one in June and the other in September.  Watch the web page for the details just as soon as I can get thing organized for that.  I have a number of classes that I teach and if you are interested in coming to my studio for lessons or want me to come teach a class in your town then email me and we can get something going. 

Car Art

We are heading back to our home in Saskatchewan from our home in Brownsville so I'm trying to write this with my tablet in the truck while driving.

I surround myself self with things to do so I dont get too bored.

We have driven this trip over a dozen times so looking at the scenery just doesn't cut it anymore.

Instead I pack reading, drawing, painting and even a few computer games.

Drawing zendoodles is pretty impossible, the road is too bumpy but I can messy draw and messy paint.  I came up with the name car art to discribe what I do.

I have a wonderful little Koi watercolour set and a water brush. Add a Strathmore watercolor journal and I'm set.

No mistakes, no worries how things turn out. Just put down colours, let my mind wonder as we make our way back north.

Ornation Creation

About a year ago I stumbled on to the Facebook page of Ben Kwok who started Ornation Creation.   Ben is a talented and generous artist.  He draws outlines or templates of animals, birds or buildings and posts them for the rest of us to fill in with our doodles or to paint or colour. 

I watched his site for a long time admiring all the wonderful creations people were posting and now have finally done a few myself.

Heart Your Art

A month or so ago I entered my name in a contest for a set of Inktense.  I Won!  WooHoo they picked me and I was so thrilled. 



The set arrived in the mail and it looks so amazing all lined up in it's tin container that I am having a hard time taking them out and using them.  The possibilities inside that tin are endless!  There are so many pieces of art just waiting to be made. 

Thank You Natalie at Heart Your Art.

I thought I would share the web page with you all and let you know that there is another contest running right now for a set of Gelatos.  Enter, You may be as lucky as I was.



http://heartyourart.com/

And the winner of the Inktense Set is….

February 28, 2015 by Natalie 1 Comment

I can’t work out if this post is my most or least favourite one to write – I’m super happy because we’re announcing the winner of our Inktense competition; but at the same time I’m super sad because we only have one to give away, and we know how many people are itching to get their hands on these babies!
Never mind – there will be another new competition next month, so if you didn’t win, there are plenty more chances
So……..
The winner, drawn by random.org from over 200 entries, is lori.bradford – Congratulations!   As soon as we hear from you with your address, we’ll be sending out your pack.   We can’t wait to see what you do with them, and hope you love them as much as we do
In the meantime, please keep sharing. If you have examples of how you’ve used these products (or any really!), we’d love to hear about it!
With love.
Natalie
Creative Heartist @ Heart Your Art

Comments

1. Lori Bradford says

   March 2, 2015 at 3:28 am

   Thank you for picking me! Thank you for supporting Art and Artists. I look forward to creating some wonderful Artfulness with my New Inktense set and I am planning on sharing them with my friends and students. Again, Thanks, Lori.

Natalie asked if I would do an Artist interview and I agreed.  I thought I would share my questions and answers with you here as well. 

 

Thanks so much for helping out with our artist interview :)

The questions are below, if you are ok to complete and send back.

Would be great to also get 2-3 good quality images of your gorgeous art work that we could include with the post.

Thanks again,

Nat

(PS - no hurry!)

1.   Which one word or phrase would you pick to sum up your artistic style?

 Colorful.  I work in all kinds of styles while I'm looking for my own artist voice  I use many different mediums and try all kinds of different art forms but the one constant is the bright colors in my work. 

I remember going to a watercolour class and the instructor told us to take out our burnt umber and sienna.  I didn't have those colours, my paints were crimson, turquoise and green gold.

 

2.                  What is the one thing that keeps you going as an artist?

 
I don’t think I could stop even if I wanted to.  Being creative has been the one constant in my life.  It is my therapy, my relaxation, my happy place.  I try to do it every day even if it's just a doodle of my morning coffee cup.

 

3.                  What do you think is the single biggest reason people give up on their artistic dreams?

I get sad just thinking of having to give up on any dreams, especially artistic ones.  I guess for some, life gets in the way but I have always managed to arrange my life to incorporate my creative dreams.

My  dream is pretty simple, have an inspiring space to create in and share my ideas with as many people as I can.

 The only way I'm going to stop reaching for my goal is if I run out of time but I'm only 54 so have half my life ahead of me. ;-)

 

4.                  Describe your happiest artistic memory?

 I have very happy memories of working with my mom and daughters in my craft shop way back in the 80's. That was a special time for me.

Just a few weeks ago a lady approached me and said she had taken one of my classes and wanted to tell me that it changed her life, she said that she never would have believed that she had any talent for painting and drawing but she found it in my class and has not stopped since.  Now that was a happy memory and made me tear up as she hugged and thanked me.  What could be better than that?

5.                  What is the one piece of art-related advice would you like to send to your ten-year-old self?

 Don't be afraid to fail, not even a few times.  Keep practicing, work at it and never give up.  I guess that is more than one piece of advice to 10 year old me, but I sure could have used all of that back then.

 

6.                  If you could visit inside the head and heart of one artist, living or dead, who would it be? (and why?)

Emily Carr.  She was a Canadian woman painter at the turn of the last century.    She became famous for her paintings of the native villages and totem poles of the west coast of Canada often travelling by boat to the remote Queen Charlotte Islands.  She was a independent woman in a time when that was considered very improper.

A few years ago I took myself to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada to visit her museum and see her paintings.

 

7.                  If you could pick one activity that you think all artists should place on their bucket list, what would it be?

 I think it's important to make connections with other artists so my bucket list includes travelling as much as I can to either see their paintings if the artists are dead or meeting as many artists as I can while we are all still here.  When I can't travel I use the internet and visit blogs, web pages and videos.

 

8.                  What is the one art supply you couldn’t live without?

I like to have lots of good black ink pens.  Waterproof and preferably refillable.  There is always one in my purse or pocket and by my chair, on the kitchen table, containers full of them on my studio table.  I did mention that I like lots of pens.

 

9.                  If you could keep only one work of art that you created, which one would it be?

The first thing that came into my head was the next one.  I love the piece as I'm working on it and for a short time after but as soon as I start the next one that becomes my favorite. 

 

 

10.              Pick one location: City, Forest, Beach, Desert, or Mountains. Why?

That's tough for me because I love both the forest and the beach and have arranged my life so I can live in both at different times of the year.  I live in northern Saskatchewan, Canada in the spring and summer months where my partner and I have 120 acres of forest and share it with all kinds of wild flowers, birds and animals. 

When fall and winter comes we head to the deep south most tip of Texas, only minutes away from the beaches of South Padre Island.

 You asked for one though so I guess I would pick forest.  There is nothing like the smell of pine and poplar trees, it's perfect for inspiring creativity.

 

 

 

Go check out Heart Your Art, they are a great support to artists and the chance to win some awesome art supplies is pretty fantastic as well.

Lori

 

Canoes

Heritage Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada. North East of Prince Albert.

 I was floating around on the internet one day and came across some paintings of canoes that were just fascinating to me.  I thought I had written the name of the artist down, I probably did, on a scrap of paper that immediately got lost in the pile on my office desk.  I couldn't find the name, but I remembered the art.  The pictures were so impressive that I couldn't get them out of my head and I kept looking for the artist.  I remembered it was a lady and she was Canadian but nothing else.

Serenity Camp at Heritage Lake were I hang out for a few days every summer with some amazing women.

I love the power of Google.  A few searches later I found her.  Veronica Funk is her name and the canoe painting was from a series she did called Sacred Vessels.  Im going to post a link to her web site and blog here so you can have a look at them if you like.    http://www.veronicafunk.com/

Like some of us do when we see art that we like, we try making it ourselves.  We study it and attempt to make something similar.

 The first time I tried drawing the canoe my friend told me it was a really strange way to draw a chicken!  I guess it did kind of look chickenish and we both had a good laugh when I told her what it was supposed to actually be. 

Here it is, in my journal. I guess the circle at the top made my friend think it was an eye. 

I tried again, a different canoe shape this time and this is what that looked like.

This time I painted on a piece of recycled cardboard.  I liked the odd shape of it and the little quote on the side were random lines that I cut out of an old paperback. 

It says "And there where water lapped at his fatigue he waded out into the water".  Nonsense words or a message about a friend's son who had committed suicide the week that I painted this?  I try not to think about those things to hard. 

Next came a bigger painting.  A canvas this time, I was getting braver I guess. 

 

I started adding layer after layer of paint and marks. Laid down some stencils and used lots of ink as well as acrylic paint. Then I drew the shape of the canoe and painted out the negative space with more layers of acrylics.  I hand carved feather, leaf and bear paw stamps and added those to the pictures as well.  I love the little blue feathers painted on the bow. 

There are still a couple ideas floating around in my head so I think I will add a few more canoes to my fleet. 

Learn the rules so you can break them.

My art space is scattered with all kinds of paints, pens, brushes and my hands are constantly splattered with paint.  Bernie lets me know when I have some paint on my face or like yesterday on my neck, how that got there I have no idea, but I just smile and tell him how those are badges of a happy and creative person. 



Not much good about this one!

Since I finished Journal Soup 1 and 2, both on-line mixed media classes by Kate Crane http://thekathrynwheel.blogspot.com/ , I have watched a dozen or more you tube videos and read as many blogs about the topic.  I really want to get a handle on this and honestly it's been a lot tougher than you would think.


This page was a ugly mess and there is not much nice I can find in it.  Except maybe how I layered the feather stamps and ended up with those black and blue feathers. 

It's about learning, right.  Trying new things and not worrying what anyone else thinks.  That's what's great about working in a journal or on recycled cardboard.













At first my pieces all looked dull and flat but then I remembered that like any other piece of art, the artist must always remember the rules. 



Things like value, color, texture, composition and shape all have to be considered no matter what kind of creative adventure you are on.

I was having trouble with colour at first.  The back grounds all looked dull and muddy.

Turquois, yellow, green and pink sound like a great combination and they are but don't mix them all together at once.  Three of those would work but when you I added the pink when the other colours were still wet they blended into a brown mud pile.  That is because I was using warm and cool colours at the same time.  I started layering them instead.  Starting with a cool layer and once it was dry adding a warm layer and repeating that until I was happy with the effect.  Much cleaner, much more pleasing.

So even though the rules tell you not to mix your warms and your cools it never hurts to find a way around it.   You have to know the rules but then don't be afraid to break a few of them. 

Ted Harrison's influence

Ted Harrison passed away this month.  I bet you will remember his art work when you see it.  He lived and worked in the Yukon and the people, landscape and culture of that part of the world is so prevalent in his painting. 

Ted was born in 1928 in England but immigrated to Canada.  Ted's biography says that he had his first art show at the Public Library in Whitehorse in 1969 and his career as an artist took off from there. He was living in Vancouver, BC when he passed away.

In addition to his work as a painter, Ted has written several children’s books and illustrated both “The Cremation of Sam McGee” and “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” by Robert Service.
He designed of Yukon Pavilion for Vancouver Expo’ 86 and the design of a Canada Post Christmas Stamp in 1996.

His paintings can be found in private and public collections throughout Canada, and in New Zealand, Japan, Germany and the United States. In 1987 he received the Order of Canada for his contribution to Canadian culture.

I love the way he painted and have been influenced by Mr. Harrison.  I dug out these old paintings I did a long time ago, when I heard the sad news of his passing. 

Jumping on the Diva's Band Wagon

This pattern is called Braidle

It's been a long time since I did any Zentangle tiles but I wanted to support The Diva as she tries to reach 200 posts to her blog on it's 200th zentangle challenge. 

http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/2015/01/tada-weekly-challenge-200.html

I wasn't satisfied with just one tile though, they were so much fun to do, that I did 4.  The guidelines for this challenge was that it was supposed to be a monotangle, one pattern, and fill up the whole page right to the edges.  Also we had to put the number 200 in there somewhere.  Can you find my 200's?

Socc

 

Atrom

 

Mooka

 

Taking classes on-line.

Art is not a thing, it's a way.

One of my favorite things to do during the long winter, especially since our weather isn't that great and I don't feel guilty for staying inside out of the cold, is take a couple on-line art classes.

There are hundreds of options for classes so I first have to find an artist who's work appeals to me.  Then I see if I can afford it, some classes are really high, to me that is anything over $50.00 and some are as low as $5-7, there are even free classes. 

I sighed up for Kate Crane's Journal Soup classes 1 and 2.  Here is a link so you can check it out if you like. http://www.thekathrynwheel.blogspot.com/.  Kate is from the UK.  Once converted to Canadian funds, I ended up paying just over $18.00 for the Journal Soup 1 and under $35.00 for the bigger Journal Soup 2 class.

What I love most about my home is who I share it with.

Kate has mastered the art of Mixed Media but I have a long way to go to feel comfortable with all those layers of gesso, paint, stamps and pens.  It's very easy to end up with a page of MUD.

 Even with the mud pages though nothing is wasted.  A little more gesso and you start again.  How forgiving is that!

  

 

It's not enough to have the feather, you must dare to fly.

 

 

 

I had a wonderful, messy brushes, stuff spread out all over my work space, dirty finger week while I worked my way through Journal soup.  I loved every minute of it.

Catching up on my blog posting

I posted a couple of blogs that have been sitting in my drafts file for a very long time and am feeling a little guilty that I have not posted anything current.  Time, how does it get away on me so easily.  I guess it's just life and mine swings from being extremely busy with house building and gardening in the summer to a wonderful relaxed winter, full of lots of time to paint and visit with friends.  I guess it's like being retired part time. 

The house building went great this past summer and we made enough progress to actually move into the place.  Yahoo!  Running water instead of running for the water.  We take our comforts for granted and living without them for even a short time really makes you appreciate them.  A stove, hot water, a flush toilet and a washer and dryer actually in the same building as your dirty cloths are all things you can do without but boy is it nicer to live in a house that has them.



I learned how to bake fruit cobbler in the BBQ.

We will be back to work on the rest of our house in the spring, the bottom level is still unfinished and we will have to decide on some type of flooring even if Bernie thinks that plywood floors are wood floors and will be just fine.

The bottom level is where my studio is going to be and I am very excited to put that space together. I have all kinds of ideas floating around in my head and my pinterest board is filling up with lots of pictures of other people's studios.  It's going to be a great big space with room for classes, workshops and art retreats. 



Here are a few pictures from the past summer. 



We built a green/hot house and some raised garden beds.



I had a booth at the Cathedral Village Art show and at the Tobin Lake Art Show.

Went for a couple of hikes in the forest around our place and found this little Earth Star.

Tiling the kitchen island was one of my jobs.

I did a little doodling on the top of a lidded box that sits beside my chair and holds a bunch of my art supplies.

I tried paddle boarding.

Our hops survived and thrived and we picked our first crop.

Cut firewood in the fall.

Enjoyed the wonderful view from the deck of our new home.