Psalm Circles

Progression on “Psalm 11:7” artwork

Earlier in the year I created some of my favorite recent batik artwork, using verses from the Psalms as my inspiration. I had been working my way through the Psalms and writing scripture that spoke to me in my journal along the way, making the selection process easy!

Each piece began by writing the verse in some sort of circular form on Unryu paper that had pieces of gold thread imbedded in it. As always I used my trusty Sharpie for that, knowing it can withstand the rest of the batik process without fading.

Beginning of “Psalm 32:7”

I took a wide brush and dipped it into melted wax and blocked off streaks of the pieces so they would remain white and then added light strokes of color with a feathery brush and India inks. Next all the pieces were entirely covered with the wax, crumpled to create cracks for more color to seep in randomly and then sprayed with liquid watercolors.

Covered with wax, crumpled and ready for liquid watercolors

After that application the pieces dried and then the wax was removed to reveal the final outcome of each. All four have been framed in 12×12″ barn wood frames. Here they are:

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Psalm Circles 37:24, 32:7, 33:22 and 11:7

I hope you enjoyed this peek into the process!

Your randomly creative friend,

Lynne

Spring Online Sale, Tuesday April 30th!

I recapped the online sale from December a few months ago and, now, it’s time for the Spring version! Think Mother’s Day, Graduation, Weddings, Birthday gifts….or just because you are looking for art and gifts at a great price.

I’m still creating the listings and trivia questions for the contests but the image above gives you a little peek at some items that will be available to claim throughout the hour-long event. I’m even going to include an exclusive class that can only be purchased during the sale:

The items that are listed begin with a 20% discount and the discount will increase as people make purchases, so be sure to share this event with your friends and family to boost the savings for everyone!

The event runs from 8-9 p.m. EST, “see” you then!

Lynne

Recap: My first “Live” sale online!

Shortly before Christmas I decided to try my very first “live” sale online at Facebook. I gathered up giftable items (including a large amount of the newly created jewelry), classes and other items I thought people would be interested in. Then I created individual posts for each and started promoting the event. Here’s a look at the flyer I made to generate interest:

I also created promo posts leading up to the event with the “Top 12” reasons to shop the online sale memes – some heartfelt, some funny and all true – and used them across Instagram, FB, Twitter, etc. I also added incentive for people to share the event – the more people, the more purchases and the bigger the discounts! Starting at 10% off all the listings I added an additional 1% for each sale, with a cap at 50% off. Below are the details of how an online “live” event can be set up on Facebook, if you’re wondering how it works.

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The prep was actually more time consuming than any other aspect, making sure I had good images and accurate descriptions for each thing. I also designed trivia posts with prizes to keep it fun and interesting. Overachiever that I am, I had 45 posts to get online in one hour. Next time I’d aim for around 30, it was so fast and crazy trying to get all of that on the event page in just an hour! I didn’t feel like I had time to go back and reply to those who had purchased items or answered the trivia questions and I ended up running past the 9 p.m. end time by about 10 minutes. Since it was a holiday sale, this is a sample of one of the trivia questions:

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Here are sample posts of items that were sold during the event:

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In all I sold 38 items, meaning each person who made a purchase earned a 48% discount! Happy holidays to all of us. 😉 The bonus part of all this work is that I was able to use the image/descriptions of the unsold items to list them on my website – something that was already on my to-do list.

I am planning on doing another one of these online sales, what do you think would be a good time? I’m leaning toward late April/early May thinking people will be on the lookout for Mother’s Day and Graduation Gifts. Once I get that figured out I’ll be sure and share the details here on the blog.

Blessings,

Lynne

Bloomington Indiana Shows for July!

Summertime Greetings!

I wanted to make you aware of two shows in Bloomington, Indaina that I have going for the month of July! The first features my Mandala Inspired Artwork at the John Waldron Art Center.

Also at the Bloomington City Hall Atrium Gallery, 13 pieces from my Wood|Stone|Metal series of artwork. Here are some images from the show:

Links to these galleries: John Waldron Art Center, City Hall Atrium Gallery

Be sure to visit these shows if you are in the Bloomington Area!

Lynne

 

Butterflies everywhere…

I’ve been working on two large pieces of art featuring butterflies. Today as I was waiting for some of the layers to dry on those two pieces I took time to create three smaller butterfly pieces. Using the batik style I’ve been fond of lately I started by drawing them with a Sharpie on some hand made paper.

After the outlines were down I added color with my Pitt pens that are full of india ink. Love me some Pitt pens!!

The next couple of steps involve wax being applied on the surface to make a resist when I spray liquid watercolor onto the paper. The first layer of wax just covers the part of the the drawings I don’t want to blend with the background color. After that has been sprayed on and dried I cover the entire piece with wax. Then comes the part that continues to make me nervous – wadding up the paper into a tight little ball to crack the wax in a random kind of way. Then (gently) unfolding it and spraying the piece again, this time with a contrast color to make random lines throughout the piece. I used black watercolor on these pieces but have some white ink on order than I’m anxious to try for a different result.

The final step is to place the waxy art between sheets of newspaper and iron it with a hot iron, which pulls the wax out of the art and leaves it on the newspaper. Sometimes this takes a few ironings before it’s totally wax free. Ta-da! Art! Well, okay, I did go back in with some gel pens and add a few details. Then the ta-da happened. 🙂

 

Rather amusing is that these quick little pieces are more exciting to me than the larger ones are right now! Go figure. I’ve added these three to the “Giftables” page on my website so go pick out your favorite and give it a home!

Lynne

TINY sculptures

Each year around Christmas the Indianapolis Arts Council hosts a show titled “TINY” and each year I think I’ll enter something, then don’t get it done. This year I was in the midst of creating the WOOD|STONE|METAL artwork when the call came out so I actually created some pieces to submit!

All these use some combination of natural stones, painted stones, driftwood, balsa wood, metal, paint & ink. Basically the exact same materials I was creating larger pieces from. I don’t really have any step–by-step images of their creation so I’ll share with you images of each individual piece so you can get a better idea of the details.

“Invoke” Painted stone, copper, hammered wire, painted wood $65

“Spirit Wanders” driftwood, copper wire, nature & painted stone $55 (c) Lynne Medsker

“Unfold” painted wood, copper, beach stones, small stones, $35 (c) Lynne Medsker

“Origin” painted wood, natural & painted stone $55 (c) Lynne Medsker

“Terrain” painted wood, flat copper wire, painted stone $55 (c) Lynne Medsker

Each of them are currently available to purchase online in my “Giftables” shop, along with a selection of other small artistic pieces.

Of the above five pieces one was selected for the show, Origins. Which piece (or pieces) would you have selected?

Lynne 

Totem

Getting back to sharing the process images of the artwork I created for last November’s show at ArtSplash Gallery in Carmel, Indiana.

All the pieces had materials and inspiration drawn from nature, this particular piece started as a fallen branch that my grandson found for me while he was playing back in our woods. I was given instructions to “make some art” with it, so that’s what I did.

Most of the bark had fallen off, whatever hadn’t I striped and then smoothed off any rough spots. The very bottom of the branch was split so I ended up cutting that portion off. I still ended up being four foot in length! After it was cleaned up I began adding designs to it in black.

Once the entire piece was covered then it was time to fill in the designs. Much of it was done using Pitt Artist markers, which lay a nice layer of India ink into tiny places. The black & white areas were painted with F&W artist acrylic inks with designs added on top of the white sections with Gelli glaze pens.

After the painting was done it was looking pretty good but I just felt like it was too tall & skinny and needed a little variety to it, width wise. Out came the drill and I (carefully!!) drilled holes in it, gradually using larger bits until I could fit this aluminum wire through, bending and curling it in different directions until I was happy with it.

 

“Totem” mixed media (branch, paint, ink, wire) wall sculpture. 10×48″ $375 (c) Lynne Medsker

Ta-da! This is one of several “branch” pieces in the body of work. I’ll be posting more down the line.

Later Gater!

Lynne

Sticks & Stones

“Sticks & Stones” Mixed media (stones, driftwood) on 24×8″ wood panel $375 © Lynne Medsker

Going back to more of the artwork from last November, this is also one of the first pieces that I developed using the stash of painted rocks that I made. One of the first parts of the process was preparing the sticks to look more like driftwood. I may a foray into our woods and selected a bag full of different sizes/types of sticks that were lying on the ground and then brought them back to the house to prepare. The first order of business was a two-day soak in a soap solution to loosen the bark and clean them. As you can tell the longer/larger sticks didn’t fit entirely in the tub so they were roatated frequently…although a few still never got their “middles” finished. The water jugs helped to keep the smaller sticks submerged while they soaked.The next step was the most labor intensive…peeling off all the bark. Depending on the type of wood some was easy to work with and others just wanted to stick tight, no matter how long you soaked them! Most of them eventually peeled, the ones that were just too stubborn became kindling for our next bonfire. 🙂 Once they were all peeled they went back to the tub, this time to soak in a bleach solution. They bleached out quite nicely! The final step was several days of drying out in the sunshine and fresh air. 

Here’s one of the early versions of the art piece as I was still moving the pieces around. Although the selection of stones changed positions and I added more sticks it still turned out much like my vision. Sometimes it just takes a little time to get there! The sticks ended up in many of the new creations I’ll be sharing with…as well as my Christmas greeting for 2014.  Altough you won’t see them in my next blog post, be on the lookout for them soon!

Lynne

Flamingo, Seafoam and Citrus

Flamingo, Seaform & Citrus, mixed media wall sculptures, 18×10″ each © Lynne Medsker

Another post from September that was languishing in the “draft” folder! In my last post I mentioned that I enjoyed creating that piece with balsa wood, these three pieces were made with leftover balsa from that project. Very geometric and bright, they were fun to design and are amazingly lightweight wall sculpture pieces. You know what’s next right? Yup…work in progress images:

Here they are individually for your viewing pleasure:

“Flamingo” © Lynne Medsker

“Seafoam” © Lynne Medsker

“Citrus” © Lynne Medsker

Now, I’m caught up through September by the end of 2014. Next year I’ll begin sharing all the new work I created for the show in November!

Holiday Greetings!

I hope everyone is enjoying the hustle & bustle of the holiday season…and also finding a bit of time to relax and reflect on the events of the year. I still have boxes of decorations to unpack and set out and gifts to create and wrap but today, for whatever reason, I feel like I’m over the “hump” (on a Wednesday – go figure!) and on the downhill slide with everything. This has been a crazy year with lots of changes in my life (that seems to be more and more what a “normal” year is for me!) and I’m looking forward to whatever 2015 brings along.

I wanted to thank you for following my sporadic blog postings and let you know I really do hope to do a more consistent job of it next year. I’ve got plenty of art to share, dedicating the time to share it seems to be my stumbling block. 🙂

Warm hugs,
Lynne

P.S. If you’re looking for a last-minute gift I have my gift-certificate available at a 30% discount through the end of the year. Use coupon code HOLIDAY30 on my website to purchase.