Preparing for a Resdiency

 I love residencies! It's my favorite way to make art. You put your life on hold, and then you just make art, because you have met all your deadlines and expectations and everything else you have to do is taken care of for the next couple weeks. I have done eight? I think residencies in the past, this one isn't at an accredited artist retreat, but we are treating it the same, so the preparation is the same. I vacillate between being so excited and overly stimulated and all the possibilities-and then overwhelmed at how to put a 1200 foot studio into a Toyota forerunner. Although it is a times like these that I do envy colored pencil  or watercolor artists who just have  to pack one medium and some supports.  But going through my flea market ephemera, my papers, pressed botanical and stocking up I knew inks spray paints and papers is very motivating for me. Now-just to see if it'll all fit in the truck. 

it fit! time to hit the road....

Little Houses Series- a pictorial development

So this week is a visual of how one of the little houses series- "Trees Waiting for the Blooms" developed. More pictures, less words. If you are reading this- you are probably visual too! 

I started out with a version of song lyrics written on raw wood, then coated with beeswax. 

added some encaustic paint and pastel....

  

  

"Auditioned" a tree sketch I had reduced to fit on this house...

transferred it on...

Then added those written words again- but use graphite paper this time so they'd be more legible, prominent.  I also used the graphite to emphasize parts of the tree. The tree is in the stage right before it starts to leaf out, as are the trees outside right now. I had the 10,000 maniacs song “These Are Days” playing in the background. This verse inspired the text inscribed them around a tree: 

You’ll know it’s true that you are blessed and lucky

It’s true that you are touched by something

That will grow and bloom and you

so I wrote "Waitin for the rains to end, and blooms to start."

  

A little more encaustic detail on the side (and an ice pack to help speed cooling- yes, I am impatient.)

Now to prepare for the roof. 

  

I LOVE bark- but it can be challenging to work with! 

I had to clamp it down two days in row to get it to behave.

I cut up several branches to find just the right feet- 

  

...and the finished piece. 

All the wrestling with the bark for the roof was worth it! love the "modern rustic" look! 

PS- I can feel my writer friends cringing at the long, run on sentences with horrific punctuation and capitalization. Yes, it was intentional. 

I am experimenting with focusing on the images rather than the writing....

Available now on new Etsy shop!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/286851901/little-houses-tree-waiting-for-blooms?ref=shop_home_active_2

Exploring a tropical ecosystem- Costa Rica: Corobici River Rafting

I had a rough draft of this week’s blog already in the works from the series I’m working on the studio, but last week we escaped the cold and went to Costa Rica! If you are familiar with me or my work at all, you know I'm a loyal Midwestern girl. But it was very exciting to explore the tropics for a week!  Costa Rica is considered to be one of the 20 countries with greatest biodiversity in the world.  Its geographic position, its two coasts and its mountainous system, which provides numerous and varied microclimates, are some of the reasons that explain this natural wealth, both in terms of species and ecosystems. (-Institute Nacional de Biodiversidad)

While many people we met at the resort were setting up zip line or water park excursions, I was on a hunt to set up a tour based on seeing as much flora and fauna as possible. After asking around, we ended up booking a private tour with a local guide.  He knew where to go to avoid the crowds so that we would see more animals.  We started with a very early morning rafting trip down the Corobici River. 

Since it was during the dry season, it was loaded with activity. I added tons of new birds to my life list, had , swimming next to the raft, 

howler monkeys hooting and swinging overhead, (see my FB page for video to hear em howl!)
https://www.facebook.com/HolzFineArt/?fref=nf

(yes there is a whole family of monkeys in right pic- so included guide book illustration since ya can't see them!)

several agouti, and a sleek, long-haired, chocolate-brown tayra (locals call it tolumuco--a meter-long giant of the weasel family) prowling around in the trees down the shore.

 

 Birds were everywhere, and these were not necessarily camouflaged at all. Saw birds every couple minutes, rather than waiting by a bird feeder for hours....Even got to see a  redwing Macaw, and my new favorite, the Blue-crowned motmot, Nicaragua's national bird. 

  


TONS of osprey fishing, herons- the funkiest being the boat billed heron. 

   Bright and early morning I didn't expect to see any owls-but we got to see two tucked away into this little den carved into a cliff.  (upper left hand corner)

  

And too many kingfishers to count!!

While I was taking pictures, I was too busy being present and watching it all to take perfect photographs, so I've included images from the guidebook and research as well.

Plant wise it was hard to inspect close up from the raft- but our guide pulled us over to check out the sleeping plant, which closed up as soon as you touched it, and huge flowers like these just hung over the water- our guide plucked one so I put it on the raft for a portable centerpiece. :)

How will this impact my work in the studio? Sometimes directly, or it can be as subtle as a brighter palette, or tucking in a feather of a rare bird or tropical plant.  But I feel a Costa Rica series buzzing round my head, so I'll share as it develops.  But I guess what it really comes down to is that it just renews my faith and fascination what a huge diversity of life we have on this planet, which is what motivates most of my art! 

Pura Vida! my favorite new phrase....

Spanish for "pure life." 
The law of the land in Costa Rica. The expression is used in many forms, from a greeting, to a synonym for "excellent." Ticos follow this lifestyle and are some of the most wonderful people on earth. A synonym of "hakuna matata." Life is wonderful; enjoy it.
"Pura vida!" (Damn right!) 
"Que Me 'Ice Mae, Pura Vida?" (What's up dude, all good?)

Rewind: Fun with fire, or delving into encaustics!

NOTE: I am vacationing this week in a warmer climate! so thought this a good time to "re-run" some of my earlier blog posts. 

It is inevitable. I can’t go more than a year or two without adding another technique to my arsenal of processes!! Discovering the new possibilities is exhilarating for me, and fuels a whole new chapter of work.  

 Recently I want to open studio night at the fabulous Starline factory open studios, http://www.starlinefactory.com/ and fell in love with Carol Hamilton’s encaustic work. http://carolhamiltonarts.com .  I brought a piece home, and signed up for a workshop! I had worked with beeswax in the early 90s as a covering for the natural porous materials I was using, and loved the creamy, dreamy matte surface.  However- I remember sitting at an art fair on a 95 degree day and watching the wax start to melt.  I’m sure I did not add enough dammar varnish (or any at all?)  I can’t recall, so anyhow wrote it off as too fragile a medium to endure sitting in an aluminum trailer in Chicago’s hot or freezing weather.  Now, 20 or more years later, I am no longer sitting at art fairs every weeknd, so thought it was time to revisit this again.  

Hers a pictorial trek thru my latest dive into encaustics:

Workshop-

Carol gave us the basics, and then we to to play.  Was also good to look at her range of work (love the 3D aspect- still to be pursued) and seeing how she set up her studio to accommodate the heat and fumes encaustics make. (Great- another toxin. :(  )

I just LOVE how fire moves the wax paints around, creating fluid organic shapes and patterns. It reminded me of pouring ink-but you use fire instead of water to push things around. AND –big bonus- you don’t have to babysit them and monitor them for hours as they dry and change.  These set up pretty quickly- perfect for a manic impatient artist! I was hooked.   So the last couple weeks have been spent scouring resale shops for heating elements, begging for art supply coupons form friends, and setting up an encaustic set up in the studio.  It is growing… 

Then the best part- experimenting when it’s all fresh and new. Just like at the beginning of a brand new relationship when everything is exciting and new… remember that?  So I am relishing that! 

So here’s what I’ve tried:

Shellac:

LOVE this! Paint it on, place it in my beverage metal bucket, and set it on fire!! The resulting amber patterns that occur are so lovely I want to put everything in the bucket and set it on fire. Don't visit me right now.

What i set on fire today....

Incising: 

So I love drawing back into my work- bit with acrylic, you had a small window to do that before things go too….plasticy.  Here- I can use a needle tool to stipple, scribble and write into the piece until the very end.  Then stain it- (LOVE staining too) to get an almost etching like mark. 

Collage- 

Can embed papers, leaves, rocks, pods and…..??

Pan pastels: 

So while impatiently waiting for the beeswax to melt, I pulled out the pan pastels and tried them on the luan. FUN! Erased back in…. then read later that they could also be applied to the surface of wax!! Finding more ways of folding this into what I already do…

Transfer- 

SO darn easy to transfer images!!  Been looking for this my whole life. Don’t have to make a screen, or endlessly coat papers – just make a toner copy and burnish on to warm surface. Scrub off back and – damn! Right there.  Bonus- if you torch it- it will break up and move about (at least I think that's a bonus.) 

Ok- I confess I DO have some pyro tendencies, apparently… 

So- to be continued. Right now- I am working small and experimenting. I’m sure working larger will bring it’s own challenges, but for now, I am vey happy with making small “tests”.  I dream about it, wake up thinking “I’ve got to try incising with a linoleum cutter next…”  or something like that…

Here are some of my test babies:  

    

  

See more at www.Cherylholz.com, or https://www.facebook.com/HolzFineArt

BONUS- 

1. I don’t have to clean brushes!! 

2. No waste- turn off the skillet, and everything is there waiting for you tomorrow without having to cover it up. 

3. Transfer process is a dream! 

4. Collage and mixed media capabilities are endless!

DOWNSIDES: 

1. Beeswax taxes my patience waiting for it to melt-or I need better equipment. 

2. Toxins- need to look into some better ventilation. 

3. Fire risk- the fire dept. every year has told me to move my fire extinguisher out of the back room.  It is now very close to where I work! 

4. Cost- pricey to start, at least…

A new Direction-Little Houses

So Valentine's Day is over, And I've gotten all those magentas, fuchsias, pinks and purples out of my system for now. Moving on.  Starting something new! My favorite thing…

Whenever I begin something new, I allow myself some "Couch time" to regroup, refocus. 

  

 I go back and look at my sketchbooks, and all the plans that I've made for future pieces (always more plans than time to make them), images I've collected, and the things that have been floating through my head. I put them all in front of me and settle into my cozy spot next to Bear on the couch with my sketchbook, pastels, art books, and perhaps some wine and chocolate:) While I was making Valentines blocks for the last couple weeks, I'm kept having this urge to cut the rectangles into house shapes. I look back in my sketchbook, and this” House urge" has been around for over a year maybe two. Time to do something about it. So quickest path to getting rolling was by using some panels I had and chopping off their tops at various angles to create a couple little houses.

I haven't done encaustic since before Christmas, and my torch was calling me! So thought these should be encaustic.  However I wanted to incorporate a couple different materials that I'm not sure would work well with wax. And although I love sculpture, and have always worked my pieces on all sides not just the front as a lot of painters do, this time I just wrapped the encaustic around the two sides, leaving top and bottom unfinished. So I taped them off and jumped into priming a couple of them, not sure exactly where they were going to go, but I had some ideas. 

The first one I tackled was very symmetrical roofline that I worked in a subtle blue-sky background but then faded down to a yellow/ochre -the color of Prairie grass. Dug through my image file for some birds in flight, played around scale and positioning, auditioned them with a piece of transparency, made a copy and transferred them on. This is one of the aspects that I love about encaustic!! If I wanted to do a transfer in acrylic, it would require a special paper, both layers to be coated with at least three layers of acrylic, and basically taking an hour and a half or so before I get to see the image I want on the surface. Immediate gratification! Amen! Or pretty close to it.

Any rate next up was to add some prairie grasses. This is where I love encaustic’s flexibility as well. This process in an acrylic painting could take days to a week, easily. With encaustic I just make sure I have a warm soft layer of encaustic medium, press this grass into the surface. Let cool, trim any stragglers, and cover with another layer of medium, fusing gently so as not to ignite grass on fire:-) 

Of course I had to address the sides too, so repeated the same sequence for the sides.

Now for the top/roof. I used the tacking iron to carefully peel off the painters tape I used to mask it, and wasn't sure how I was going to finish the roof.  Once I had it off, I knew I wanted to keep it rather minimal like a prairie sky. 

So I went into the back room, and dug around my wood piles and collections of bark and twigs to see if I could find a good fit. I came upon two pieces of a gorgeous sandy colored wood, I think I pulled them out of someone's fire kindling bin, but they are gorgeous, match the prairie grasses perfectly, and require no additional treatment. Played around with getting the miter for the top just right, then glued just the two parts of the roof together so that seam was secure. 

Let it dry overnight, then came back the next day to attach to the house. Used my handy dandy sandbags as usual to make sure it had good contact. 

I was considering perhaps some pine bark for the bottom or something else, but I think I may just paint the bottom and keep this one rather minimal. His neighbors in the series we'll have more going on in that area. You’ll see some of them next week!