06.25.09
New “Mini’s”
In preparation for the Brick Street Gallery Walk this Friday evening I have been in the studio making a few new “mini’s” to take to the show. Mini’s are just small (5×7″) versions of my mixed media art that I frame in little shadow boxes. They are great for small spaces, small budgets and make great gifts too. The can hang on the wall but also sit nicely on tables and shelves. You can use several of them and make a nice grouping on a wall or fill in difficult to decorate areas. (Can you tell I like the mini’s?!) You can view images of all the other mini’s on my website mixed media page. Here are images of the new pieces:
"mini art" #20 (c) 2009, Lynne Medsker
"mini art #21" (c) 2009, Lynne Medsker
"mini art #22" (c) 2009, Lynne Medsker
"mini art #23" (c) 2009, Lynne Medsker
"mini art #24" (c) 2009, Lynne Medsker
Traditionally I have always assembled them on black mat board and framed them in black shadow boxes like the last two show here. A few weeks ago I had someone ask if I’d ever done any in white. That got my brain to whirling a bit and I decided I had to try it. I will admit I actually like them more than I thought I would! I don’t think they would all lend themselves to the white surroundings but I do like these vivid colors against the white. I hope you do too!
Lynne
06.24.09
Reminder! Brick Street Gallery Walk this Friday!
Just jogging your memory about the Brick Street Gallery Walk in Zionsville, Indiana this Friday evening from 6 to 10. Check my original post for all the details. We’re supposed to have clear, blue skies that day, it should be a great evening to be out and about! Hope to see you there!
Lynne
06.21.09
Recap of collage demo
I had a great time at the Plainfield-Guilford Township Public Library on Tuesday night presenting a collage demo. I was right in the main entrance of the library so I had many people walking by on their way in & out of the building.
Collage demo
It’s always a different experience to create art in public vs. the privacy of your own home or studio. I probably wouldn’t want to create ALL my art that way but it’s fun to do it occasionally. One aspect of it that I do enjoy is the limited palette and materials, you can’t poke around in your cabinets for a different color paint, paper or other items. No re-thinking or second guessing what to do, you have to create with what you bring. It helps me to really focus on what it is I’m wanting to do, at least as far as colors and materials because you have to select them in advance. I brought a fairly limited amount and still had lots left over at the end of the evening.
Collage demo, work in progress
The other thing I like is how loosely I tend to work in these situations…a lot more intuition and a lot less thought. I started off just layering two shades of blue along with a bit of bronze colored paint, fairly quickly with no thought for pattern, this would just be an under layer to the pieces. Wow, was it a bright blue! I went ahead and worked directly on the wet surface (you can’t just sit there and do nothing while the paint dries!) and began adding a few types & patterns of paper torn in random sizes. Once it felt like enough paper I began layering more paint on top, covering some areas and leaving the paper & paint to show through in others. I used a few different colors to build up the layered feel of the piece, also adding some to the edges so that they would finish up looking like the front. After the paint I added precut/printed strips of black paper in a more geometric pattern until I was happy with the layout. The final strips were added to form a triangle shape that pulled the four pieces together and made them feel more like a unit instead of individual pieces that happened to be placed with each other.
collage demo, work in progress, last step at library
By that time my two-hour stint was over and I packed up my art & supplies and headed home. Later in the week I applied a thick, textured layer of acrylic gel to both seal the pieces and give them more texture. I also embedded some organically shaped wire pieces into the gel to add just a bit more interest. (Or maybe because I’m obsessed with wire lately…it’s hard to say which!)
collage from demo, with gel & wire
The gel goes on white but dries clear. It’s my favorite medium for attaching and sealing items in collage and mixed media work! Here is a close-up of one of the pieces, almost dry.
collage, detail
You can see the printing on the black strips that says “Each day a new journey begins” as well as some of the texture from the gel. With the rainy weather/high humidity this week it took an extra day to dry but is complete now. Here is the finished product:
"new journey" collage/mixed media (c) 2009, Lynne Medsker
In addition to giving me the time and opportunity to create some new work I had a wonderful time chatting with visitors during the demo. It’s always fun to talk to other people who are excited about art. 
Thanks to everyone who stopped by and to the library for inviting me!
Lynne
06.19.09
The Hoosier Salon’s Annual Exhibit
"river rocks #1" mixed media, 16x20 (c) 2009, Lynne Medsker
I am so excited that I had a piece of artwork accepted to this year’s Hoosier Salon’s 85th Annual exhibit! ”River Rocks #1 (shown above) will be included in the show that opens to the public on July 13th and runs through September 6th at the Indiana State Museum.
06.16.09
Brick Street Gallery Walk
I will be participating in the “Brick Street Gallery Walk” in Zionsville, Indiana on Friday, June 26th. This free event is from 6 to 10 p.m. and is held along the brick-paved streets of downtown Zionsville, Indiana. Visitors can listen to live music, shop, dine, view and purchase original art created by artists working in various media. Merchants, galleries and restaurants are all open to help celebrate and support the arts in Zionsville. My location? 290 South Main Street at Friendly’s Tavern! Look for me outside the tavern that evening displaying and working on my art.
06.15.09
Collage Demo tomorrow night!
Just a reminder about the collage demonstration I will be doing tomorrow (Tuesday, June 16th) evening at the Plainfield-Guilford Township Public Library in Plainfield, Indiana! Details are listed HERE!
Hope to see you then!
Lynne
06.14.09
Google yourself?
"art & nature #12" (c) 2008, Lynne Medsker
Does anyone else “Google” themselves? Come on, admit it…I know I can’t be the only one! :) I hadn’t actually taken time to do that lately so I popped my name in there this morning to see what the web was saying about me. While I was poking around I stumbled upon a list of accepted entries to a show I had entered a few months ago. To my great surprise my name was one of those included! (Mostly I was surprised because I had never been notified!) Luckily the piece they accepted (shown above) isn’t due there for a few more days so I can still participate. I’d already thrown my entry info in the “trash bin” and forgotten about it! Although it was a surprising find at least it was a good one…I’m sure some people have found things online about themselves they only wish they could throw in the trash bin!
The topic of “googling” reminds me of a series of digital art pieces I thought I would create and just haven’t gotten into yet. Hmmm…perhaps this was a gentle nudge to delve back into that project. Especially now that I almost have my new computer set up & ready to go! Be on the lookout for them (or leave me a comment to jog my memory again if you don’t see anything soon)!
Happy googling,
Lynne
06.11.09
Bookmarks and such…
I am in the middle of transfering info from my old computer to a shiny new one and it just seems like a good time to sort, delete, save and organize so many things that have been on my computer system. One thing I wanted to do was to go through all my bookmarks (an undertaking which has used a lot more of my time than I thought!), revisiting sites, deleting old, irrelevant and non-functioning links and just taking inventory of what I have. It was really fun going through some of the other artist’s sites and blogs that I’ve had marked and seeing what was new with them and looking at images that intrigue and inspire me. Here are just a few I wanted to share, in no particular order:
Anna Baldwin’s Art Studio - one of the very first artists I found online who’s art I fell in love with. You’ll see influences of her style in some of my work, hopefully she’d be flattered by the imitation.
D’Rouge – I don’t even know what half of the site says but art crosses the language barriers and I am always excited to view the collage/digital art on this site from Denmark artist Anja Bloch-Hamre.
The Secret Window – collage, altered and mixed media art by German artist David Caspar. Some of these images just haunt me (in a good way!)…beautiful work.
There are many others that perhaps I will share at another time.
So, what do you have bookmarked that inspires you?
Lynne
06.09.09
Finished studio space!
It’s been well over a month since I mentioned that I would be turning part of my home into my studio space. Although the plans have changed many times over since then it is finally complete (or at least close enough to declare it done!). I am still waiting on a couple of display grids to arrive & I’d like to make a new cushion for the storage bench, but otherwise it is finished. The space had been my photo studio for the past nine years and had collected an enormous, messy amount of backdrops, props, supplies and (I’ll admit it) junk!
"before"
"before"
"before"
It felt dark, crowded and most decidedly not user-friendly but I made it work as best I could. Obviously by the end of it I wasn’t too excited about keeping it clean. (Blush!) It hadn’t been designed for photography and really didn’t have proper space for that but you make do with what you have, don’t you? (On a side note – I am not giving up portrait photography I havejust redefined the way I will do it from here on out, focusing on outdoor & location shoots instead of studio shots. I am excited by that change and look forward to being out and enjoy some different scenery!)
Amazingly I was able to clear almost everything out of the room in a single day! I didn’t think that was possible! After most of the stuff was cleared out we began the painting process. Although technically the room was white before it was amazing what a couple fresh coats of paint did for it!
"cleaning out"
"painting"
"fresh paint"
Next the old carpet went out…and (after a week or so) the new went in:
"old carpet out"
"new carpet in!"
"new carpet"
By that time we had decided, re-decided, changed our mind, made up or mind, changed it again and finally had a loose kind of idea of how to proceed. Looking forward to the future we have plans for retirement and selling the house so decided against any kind of permanent, built in storage, as the next owner many prefer just to use the space as a porch. A few other options were vetoed along the way and I was actually slow to decide exactly what I wanted. Normally I am one to jump right into to something and later wish I had thought it through a bit more first so I actually did that this time. It felt strange! In the meantime it was a big, nicely carpeted room for our grandson to play in and we spent many evenings running back & forth from one end to the other playing “Get me!”. I was glad to get some furniture in there after that, he was wearing me out! Although he still enjoys having a new place to play I think our days of running are over (at least indoors!). Anyhow, here are images of the finished space…although almost all the art shown hanging here has left to go to galleries & shows! But I have plenty of backup pieces that are filling in the gaps quite nicely.
south east corner of room
south west corner of room
south end of room
west wall
more west wall
north west corner
north end of room
As you can tell by the photos I’ve already been working at my new work space (that is the collaborative artwork I mentioned in a previous post). My only fear is that I made the space too “nice” and will be overly concerned with making a mess with paints, etc. but I’ve got several sheets of plastic I can throw on the floor if need be and, honestly, when I am really feeling messy I usually go play outside in the yard where paint splatter doesn’t matter!
Sorry for the overly-long post but now you’ve had the online tour of my studio! I plan to be hosting many workshops, classes and events now that I have my own space so perhaps before too long you can get the “in person” tour instead of just viewing images online!
Until then!
Lynne
