A Whole New World! And an upcoming class.

Little did I know when I started this blog how addictive it is likely to become. I can already tell that I am enjoying mastering the steps necessary to keep improving it. Today, I learned how to link to a document that I want to share by storing it in "storage space" outside my own computer. A major a-ha! It still isn't quite what I need as a final step, but it's certainly more than I knew before.

For example: You need to know that I am going to be teaching a class on January 24, 2009 at the Art Stand Gallery on "Artist Journals and Books." To download the Winter Workshop flyer, click here and print it out. Once you've registered for the class and perhaps other classes, mail it with your check to Elaine Towne Lane at the address shown on the flyer.

In the class, I will show you how to modify purchased books and journals and several ways to make simple artist journals of your own, using a variety of watercolor, mixed media, and collage techniques and supplies. It should be productive and a lot of fun! Hope to see you at the class in January. Between now and then, I am going to take a design workshop in San Diego. More about that in another post. . . .

"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas "

. . . . and to sound a lot like Christmas, too! This is the time of year when music is playing everywhere and when you're a musician, so are YOU! Concerts, programs, caroling, church programs--everyone wants your services. My husband, Roy, is a French horn player and he finished his last Christmas job on Sunday evening. Not that he's complaining, but he did a lot of playing in the last 2 weeks. I am an oboist and I don't play many places like he does but the fact that we are both musicians brings me to the subject of today's post.

Perhaps the fact that we are is why so many of my paintings have musical "themes" or subjects.

Even some of the abstracts feel like there are musical elements and I think it's because music and musical instruments are something I can paint about without having to see them (0r a photograph of them) right in front of me to paint them. I can paint them from my memory, using my imagination. Not that they are all that accurate sometimes, but you will know what I'm painting about.

So when I'm at a workshop, for example, and at a loss for a moment about what to paint, I often turn to something musical. I guess it's because that's my comfort zone. Today's painting example is called "Gimme That Old Time Rock 'N Roll" and it is a large acrylic--2' by 4'--with a gallery wrap edge, no separate frame. It's done in acrylic with paper collaged on, some pen work, a little sparkle, and some gesso from a squeeze bottle for some of the linework. I have the original available and one print on canvas that is the same size as the original. Prices upon request.

A Foggy Friday after an inspiring Thursday

Several days have gone by since my last post and the weather has changed dramatically from beautiful, clear, and warm to wintery, frigid, and foggy. It's amazing how much of an overnight process going from fall to winter can be in the San Joaquin Valley.

Last night I returned from a the Bay Area late after a wonderful day spent in Berkeley with my friend, Grace Rankin. I went from doing a presentation in Lodi on Wednesday to Berkeley on Thursday morning. Grace and I met and spent the day looking around, visiting, and browsing Berkeley's Utrecht and Dick Blick art stores and having a nice relaxed lunch at a Thai restaurant. The opportunity to visit and "talk art" with an artist friend reminded me of Julia Cameron's suggestion that artists block out time each week for both a long walk and an "artist date". In both "The Artist's Way" and "The Sound of Paper",  she writes of the importance of taking time each week to recharge our creativity by walking and playing, allowing ourselves time to look at beautiful things or things that inspire us or just talking with another artist in a setting that motivates us. I've found her suggestion to allot time each and every week for ourself, as an artist, to be invaluable. If you haven't read her books, look for them at the library or bookstore and start planning your own "Artist Date" for next week!

Another thing she suggests is writing "morning pages" each day and I suspect blog entries could become the new format for those pages. I wonder what Julia would say about that idea. Hmmmmmm. . . . . .

Whoops! I should have waited!

I should have waited a little longer to notify everyone of the new blog. Because now I have to let them know that I have changed the title. More than 1 artist friend suggested to me that I use my name in the blog title rather than "katmagic" and I know that is good advice. So, the address will now be: mixedmessagebykathleenmattox.blogspot.com

Slowly but surely, I'm understanding the process. I can say nothing but good things about blogger.com in terms of ease of use, reliability, and attractiveness. It is a good program for a beginning blogger to start out with!

I did it! (sort of!)

The origami ornament

The tree

An experiment from the Art Stand Gallery

I am trying to edit my blog from my iPhone and I just updated the list
of events on the blog successfully. "Yippee do", as I might say in
reality!

The next step is to be able to post via email, which is what I am
trying now. I am going to try to attach a photo of our Christmas tree
and one of Chieko's intricate double origami crane ornaments. Here
goes...(holding breath and crossing fingers....)

Sent from my iPhone by Kathleen

Wow! What a steep learning curve. . . .

I can't believe how much I've already learned, just since starting this little blog a few days ago! Tonight I was successful in adding a slide show of 10 paintings at the bottom and also a counter. Yesterday, I tried to do both and couldn't make either one "happen". But I got it today. Yippee!

Rather than send out a notification to everyone that I want to know about "Mixed Messages," I chose 12 people to send it to as a sort of trial run. So far, people have sent back positive responses and have been able to successfully navigate it so I guess I'm on the right track. What I can already see is that I'm going to have to get busy both painting and with the camera to be able to add an image each time I post because once I've used an image with a post or in the slide show (gallery) I will try to NOT use it again. (Off she goes. . . to paint or charge the camera. . .  AND to get her "ducks all in a row!")