Star Island Arts Conference

After a long journey from Star Island in the Isles of Shoales to Wilmington, Delaware I woke up Sunday morning in my own bed, a little sad. My body was home but my heart was still there.

Photo by Barry Simon

I will have a hard time teaching Expressive Painting in a new environment because I know nothing will ever come close to what happened on Star Island. I'm going to try to recap the experience for myself and the many new friends I made.

I opened with an exercise from Betty Edwards book Drawing on the Artist Within. Drawing Out Insight exercise: Drawing with marks alone, no pictures the emotions 1. Anger, 2. Joy, 3. Peacefulness (Tranquility), 4. Depression, 5. Human Energy, 6. Femininity, 7. Illness, 8. Your Choice.
Draw how the emotion makes you feel, I instructed. We discussed the similarities and differences in the drawings.

Then they chose one emotion to do an ink painting of with some really beautiful results.

For homework I instructed everyone to look at colors, here are a few photos I took that day.

Day 2: Color

I shared color poems, and we wrote color poems, how a color smells, sounds, feels, tastes, looks, makes you feel and other associations.

Painting with large sponge brushes we painted color fields of one or two colors per page.

I had fun photographing them in different arrangements.

Homework was to look at texture. Photos I took that day.

Day 3: Texture - Using tools to create texture in the paint. Painting over dried color paintings to create layers.

Art imitates nature. Look at the similarities.

Homework was to look at shapes. Here are some photos I took.

After a while everything looked like a painting to me.

Day 4: Mono Printing Shapes
We did a fun exercise with shapes and their meanings that everyone seemed to enjoy.
I demonstrated additive and subtractive painting techniques on palette paper to make prints on dried paintings from color and texture explorations.

Elizabeth's monoprint

Day 5: Collage with painted papers created on days 2, 3 and 4

Bettie's Work

Day 6: Collage with some instruction on composition and negative space.
Look at all the finished work on the walls.

Finished work in order by Betsy, Bettie, Christine, Darby, Holly, Cynthia, Jean, Joan, Kathy and others

Samantha's finished collage mimicked her ink painting from the first day. She had 2 others I didn't get photos of that looked like the island in ocean blue waves.

Fred loved painting and gave me the best testimonial. He said "You gave me permission to put emotion in my art."

Here are some of Fred's paintings I wish I would have photographed more, he was very prolific.

I read daily excerpts from Eric Maisel's book Fearless Creating:

Hushing Exercise- page 5,
Holding - page 6,
Wildness Rules - page 14,
Thought for Food - page 28,
Surrender to Order Chaos - page 144,
Hating the Work - page 156

And I meant to share Criteria for Completion - page 173
Ask yourself is it Alive, is it Powerful, is it Suggestive, is it Resonant, is it Wild and I added is it Sublime? You can add your own as you continue down the path of creating expressive visual art.

Art in the Open, Philadelphia 2012

I've been selected to participate in Art in the Open Philadelphia, May 18 - 20, 2012 along the Schuylkill River Banks. Art in the Open (AiO) is a citywide event that celebrates artists, their inspirations for creating art, and their relationships with the urban environment. The above picture was taken on the Schuylkill River Trail, near 23rd and Race a few weeks ago.

What is this event exactly? Well it's not an art fair. I'm not selling my work this weekend I'm creating the work. It's in the tradition of en plein air painting a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors. I'll be working in acrylic paint, watercolor and colored inks for the convenience of their quick drying qualities. With the support of an opportunity grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts I purchased fluid acrylics, pouring medium, wood panels and some large pieces of Plexiglas to paint on. I'll also bring some primed and unprimed stretched canvases and watercolor paper.

My work is about nature and the connection between man and nature. It seems fitting to make my work outside on location en plein air. My process is pouring thinned paint, allowing it to run and puddle like liquids in nature. The result is patterns similar to waterways. There is a correlation between these imaginary waterways and our own circulatory system, illustrating the connection between earth and mankind. I usually work in a climate-controlled studio so I’m interested in taking on the challenge of working outdoors. This will push my work forward as I embrace chance and make nature my muse and partner. I will invite whatever effect wind, sun, and rain have on the work. That's what I wrote for my proposal anyway but it looks like it's going to be beautiful weather those 3 days.

I'm really looking forward to this opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone and see what happens. The finished work will be exhibited at the Independence Seaport Museum, Philadelphia, June 14 - September 9, 2012.

If you are thinking about coming out this weekend there will be 17 other artists working in a variety of styles and fun, family art activities scheduled throughout the event. Check the Art in the Open website for dates, times and locations. I will be doing real time updates on my location and progress on my Linda Celestian Artist Facebook page. Follow the link and "Like" my page.