5th Annual Artist Retreat - Day 6, quiet

As I reflect on Friday, it seems a quieter day in the studio. We knew at the beginning that it was a shorter day - had a date to meet another friend and watch a printmaking event at the arts center.

 black tea painted on Kozo paper

No skipping going out to dinner as we had Wednesday night or skipping getting all gussied up to attend an event at the Spencer Museum of Art complete with cocktails et al as we did Thursday because we were hot...on a mark making streak that we dared not interrupt.

So yesterday morning, after posting about Thursday and breakfasting, I ventured downstairs to see how the black tea painted sections of Kozo paper dried. Quite nicely, actually.

Then I laid out a piece of mylar, took a bit of graphite in my right hand (lefty here), closed my eyes, took a breath and simply wrote.

It was such a wonderfully freeing feeling...just as when I painted the wave...letting the studio fates/muses guide my hand. Guess what I'll be doing once back home.

Since we knew that black works well with the natural Kozo, Pam thought to see how white would do

and what effect matte medium would have.

She splattered a bit of white paint on the mylar as well. You can't see it here, but the effect was beautiful. 

As paint dried in the annex, 

we began arranging pages in the remaining covers, 

 deciding front from back.

Once back from our journey out into the world, 

I began the process of packing. Our week really was coming to an end. 

But first, all the books got together for one last chat. Roughly constructed with pamphlet stitch binding, our sample books are our 5th annual artist retreat. They convey the fun and laughter, the trust and respect, the willingness to let go of control, to say what if and then just do it.  

5th Annual Artist Retreat - Day 5, journals

It's Friday morning as I write this post. This week has passed so quickly. Time really does zip by when you're having a truly wonderful time, doesn't it? It's always that way here in Oz. Seems the week has just started when the time comes to return to the airport. That's for tomorrow though - today is another studio day.

Thursday found Pam and I making a few marks - my tiny X's

were added to Pam's splatters (highly technical, that) and O's. 

While Pam stitched a page from painted cotton, 

I took the sheets of Rives BFK

and cut them into 5 inch strips

for use as pages in our journals.

6 sheets in all were cropped and piled together, shuffled and reshuffled to mix them well.
Pam began ritual of picking 

and did a little happy dance when she selected the apex of the wave I'd painted. 

18 pages each - Pam's above, mine below.

 
As we pondered the possibilities and considered which pages would go with which cover,

we turned to view the tags, all 95 of them.

They soon found their way into a bin and were jostled this way and that

so that we could blindly reach in to select one at a time. There were smiles and happy dances (me) and exclamations of delight (Pam) at having selected a favorite.

My group above. Pam's below. It's funny to look at the photos now and realize the tags were already sort of laid out as they ended up being turned into books.

 I sewed the tops and bottoms together

to create a very long accordion book

while Pam stitched the sides.

Surefooted

and stunning in their display, this approach is my favorite.

In between constructing journals (5 each so far), we'd walk into the annex to mark other papers.

I've fallen in love with printmaking paper - with their ability to soak up color and display it so vividly. The tan sections above and below were achieved with black tea. Just black tea.

Oh yes! The ideas are flowing and I can't wait to discover how well rust plays with some of the papers we've used this week. Those experiments will wait until my return to Connecticut.

 One last view before calling it a night...Pam's journals. 

Time to hit the publish button, eat a bit of breakfast and change into studio clothes. Stay tuned!

5th Annual Artist Retreat - Day 4

Could you feel the energy emanating from Pam's studio yesterday afternoon into evening into night? Did bits of our energy slip out while we were enmeshed in the creative process and wend its way to you? Oh! I hope so.

Wednesday began with a visit to Chris Wolf Edmonds home for me to see her portion of the upcoming exhibit

Tall Grass. Deep Water. 

postcard photo from Lawrence Arts Center site

Tall Grass. Deep Water. at the Lawrence Arts Center. Chris is the Tall Grass. Pam is the Deep Water.

It was a delightful visit, a true gift of opening one's home and studio to a fellow artist...and I've not a single photo to share. I wanted to ask permission - yearned to ask, in fact, for Chris's house is one that I could happily live in and with a view that would never be tired of.

 Back at Pam's, the mark making continued. 

As one of us passed by,  we'd add a mark.

Can you tell which marks belong to who?

 

A few more 

were added

and then the real fun began. 

Cut into 5 inch x 22 inch strips

with a slight alteration, I turned the pieces over so we couldn't peak, shuffled them a bit and then we each selected one until

Pam had 4

and I had four. 

They make rather nice journal covers,

don't you think?