Saturday, June 26, 2010

Blog Feature

Yesterday was a great day for me. One of my online web acquaintances featured me and my work on her blog.

Lynne Taetzsch and I 'met' through us both being artists represented by the same gallery in the hill country area of Texas. She was in Tennessee or somewhere like that at the time and I was in Longview, TX. She then moved off to New York state and we kept up our online friendship through groups, blogs and Face Book.

She is a wonderful, experienced artist and so generous to feature me on her blog. Thank you, Lynne.

The post she made can be viewed here.



http://www.abstract-art-blog.net/2010/06/fridays-featured-painter-of-abstract-art-cheryl-mcclure.html#tpe-action-posted-6a00d83451ded769e20133f1c60964970b

Friday, June 25, 2010

My work from Daniella's workshop

I finally got the pictures taken of the small pieces I worked on at Daniella Woolf's workshop at the 4th Annual Encaustic Conference. Although Daniella gave us some real in-depth information about the techniques she uses in her own work, the main focus was using type and words in your work. The first thing she wanted us to do was to just write for a short time anything we wanted to write...not to be seen by anyone else but ourselves.
After that it was ....start working on the panels you brought. Some people made a great panel of the new techniques they were learning.....others like me just painted using something that we were learning to use...type or a few of the techniques along with our own style of painting.

Off the top of my head and wanting to be positive, I thought of  "some days are good, some not, this will be a good day". I scribbled that across the three 5 x 7 x 2" wood panels I brought with me. They had already been coated with Holy Grail (Evans Encaustics encaustic gesso). The colors were just the colors Daniella gave us to work with or we could use any others we might have brought with us. I just used what was at hand. Funny how these are such 'southwest' colors and me being from Texas. I used collage papers in small amounts and even used some of the little 'dots' from the demo and stencil Daniella gave us.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Some conference pictures and such

I am SO bad. Not taking pictures at the 4th Annual Encaustic Conference......at Montserrat College of Art, Beverly MA. I will say that I had difficulties as I mentioned before. I got all my stitches removed today and hope I am well on my way to totally mending.

I signed up for a workshop with the phenomenal Daniella Woolf on Tuesday after the conference........emphasizing words and text. The workshop was called A WAY WITH WORDS.  She had so many tips for using encaustic and words/text in you paintings.  I got carried away with painting and did my own thing using some of her methods and mostly just my own.

Thea Haubrich, a wonderful Canadian artist, and a member of International Encaustic Artists (IEA) was more objective than I and remembered to take a lot of pictures.
http://picasaweb.google.com/THaubrich/AwayWithWords?authkey=Gv1sRgCK2RgN_F-bebbQ#http://picasaweb.google.com/THaubrich/AwayWithWords?authkey=Gv1sRgCK2RgN_F-bebbQ#

It's wonderful she even has some captions for a lot of the pictures. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. It reminded me of things I would have forgotten.

Here's one of the images of the work she collaged on the hot palette and then lifted up. THIS gives me lots of ideas.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A funny thing happened on the way to the Encaustic Conference

Hi guys... Did you think I had dropped off the edge of the earth?  A funny thing happened on the way to the airport....Well..no ,not so funny! The taxi texted at 3:15 am that they were on the way to take Carolyn and me to the airport. We hurried to get all the bags down the stairs of my daughter's condo and close up............heading to our wonderful adventure of a first time at the 4th Annual Encaustic Conference.




Well...klutzy me did not remember or see the two steps in the foyer as I don't go out that door much. Fell full down hard of my left knee on Mexican tile and got a resounding bang of my ribs on the left side. Bruises are still appearing. We got to Love Field and I found a gaping 1" hole in my knee cap. I ended up in Beverly ER about 3:30 that afternoon. I'm still feeling it a little but I have been so busy day and night that I fell down on blogging and taking pictures. I hope I will be able to remember some of this whirlwind trip and make a little bit of a report later on.



I can tell you without reservation that these people here in Beverly and Boston are just as wonderful and friendly as I have met anywhere I've ever been. The Beverly ER is also a wonderful place to go if you really have to go.......and the pharmacist at Rite Aid, as well.



The shows here looked wonderful. Joanne Mattera has been wonderful to work so hard for all these four conferences. We have all made wonderful friends, learned so much from the demos, workshops and lectures. I definitely want to return.
 
Love from "Gimpy".

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Gearing up for the Encaustic Conference

Coming off a little break in the studio. I've been really busy for the whole of the spring getting ready for various juried and two person shows. I had so much going on I needed a little break.

Now, it's time to get myself back in gear to attend the 4th Annual Encaustic Conference to be held at Montserratt College of Art, Beverly, MA.

I've never been to this part of the country before, much less the Boston/Beverly/Salem area. I am SO looking forward to meeting many artists from around the country..and beyond who are coming to attend this conference. I, also, signed up for a post conference workshop with a much admired artist who will be teaching there.....Daniella Woolf.  I use text or writing in my work now and then and would like to investigate this sort of additions to my encaustic or other paintings. This workshop addresses this subject in more depth.

I'm sorry my only day off will be a Monday when so many art venues are closed. OR, maybe this is good and I will get out of my art 'looking' and just be able to look at other interesting aspects of the area. it all leads back to art anyway for me....whether I intend to look at art or discuss art or absorb experiences that come through in my work at a later time.

I DO hope it is cooler there than it is here in northeastern TX at the moment.....mid and upper 90's.