StoneyGround Studio

Good friends and a good cuppa green tea

Good friends goofing around

Mmmmmm a good cup of green tea

Lorraine Douglas

    

Lorraine Douglas is one of the participating artists in:

"Proof of Identification"

Biography

Lorraine has exhibited since 1990 and her work has been chosen for juried shows and solo exhibitions in Canada and Japan including The Art of the Book 2008. She loves experimenting with media and improvising alphabets to create works which merge text and imagery. Lorraine completed her Certificate in Visual Arts from the Vancouver Island School of Art in 2009 and has been involved with calligraphy and art making for more than twenty  years.

Statement

"I was first interested in the scientific aspects of identity like the discovery of the double helix and the genome project. Using this research only as a source I drew imaginary images of chromosomes and merged text on each drawing using experimental letterforms. Later I became interested in how our personal identity is defined in our relationships. The quote "tell me who admires and loves you and I will tell you who you are" was rendered in expressive writing for a book which "unfolds" much like our genetic identity.

The two images below are part of the twenty six drawings Lorraine created for  "Proof of Identification".

Lorraine used Japanese Moon Palace Sumi ink, markers, pencils, washes in different intensities, writing with pointed nibs and stencils to create the drawings.

 

This drawing represents the number six chromosome pair.  

 

"Tell Me Who" - handmade book by Lorraine Douglas

A guest on opening night looking through Lorraine's book. This is an oversize book bound by Lorraine and filled with her calligraphy, mark making, writing and drawing.

Pictures from "Proof of Identification" opening

JILL EHLERT

 

KATHY GUTHRIE - CURATOR

  

Kathy and son Read 

ALESHA DAVIES FOWLER

 

COCO JONES

 

LISA ROSE

   

 

LORRAINE DOUGLAS 

     

 

    

 

Lorraine Douglas and John Guthrie

3 STAND-BY HUSBANDS

Paul, Neil and John

Good friends who dropped by

Christine, Mary and Jill

Cannon Beach, Oregon Holiday

We are back from our 8 day holiday to 
Cannon Beach and it was wonderful.

 

   

  

 

 

Show Opening 7:30 pm Thursday September 10, 2009

 d

detail "Essence"

 detail "Say I am You"

 

detail "Seed Crystal/Entelechy"

"Proof of Identification"

"CONNECTION" - Jill Ehlert

12" X 12" - Mixed Media on Canvas

 

"BECOMING" - Jill Ehlert

12" X 12" - Mixed Media on Canvas

Proof Of Identification

"Connection", "Becoming" and "Grow into You" (the painting below) are part of a series of 15 paintings that I created for the upcoming group show "Proof of Identification". Information on the show is in the August 25th entry.

About this body of work

Over the years I have created a lexicon of symbols that have special meaning to me that I use as metaphors for my personal visual language. These "identifiers": chrysalis, butterfly, seed-pod, ladder, honeycomb, ruler, ABC, 123, spiral, double helix, cells...for example work together with chosen themes. These combined ideas and images in turn inform my mark making and direct the "look and feel" of the piece. This is an intuitive process with painting multiple layers of marks, text, shapes, line and colour. I am interested in themes of life, death and rebirth; transformation and metamorphosis; the ancient and the primordial. My abstract paintings are created by applying a rich layering process of mixed media, acrylic paint, collage, drawing, stamping, scratching, subtracting...combined with a layering of imagination, intuition, metaphor, memories, dreams and symbols.

Check out the new photo album "Proof Of Identification" in the left margin to see all 15 paintings.

"Upcoming Art Show"

 

"Grow into You" - Jill Ehlert

12" X 12" Molding Paste & Mixed-media on Cradle Board

"PROOF OF IDENTIFICATION"

"Work that addresses ideas surrounding identity through mark-making, text and  handwriting"

ALESHA DAVIES-FOWLER  LORRAINE DOUGLAS       JILL EHLERT  COCO JONES  LISA ROSE

CURATED BY KATHY GUTHRIE

OPENING RECEPTION

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 10, 2009  - ARTISTS IN ATTENDANCE

SHOW CONTINUES TO SEPTEMBER 28

OPEN MONDAY TO FRIDAY 9 AM TO 5 PM &  WEEKENDS DURING VISA WORKSHOP HOURS

SLIDE ROOM GALLERY

2549 QUADRA STREET  VICTORIA BC  250.380-3500   www.slideroomgallery.com

Bamfield Painting

"THE BIG WORLD OF SMALL"  - Jill Ehlert

 24" X 36" Acrylic, mixed media on canvas

"The Big World of Small" was inspired during my attendance at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre. Check out my  blog for various descriptions of this adventure.

This painting was part of the fund raising art exhibit "Oceans of Art" held June 11 - 27th 2009 in Nanaimo, BC.

 Oceans of Art is a fund raising collaboration between Art and Science. Artists inspired at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre  contributed work for sale, and non-gallery proceeds will provide bursaries for schools to participate in BMSC's Public Education Program. The paintings are now on display at BMSC's RIX Center for Ocean Discoveries.

My painting is actually still showing at the Nanaimo Art Gallery.

No More Secondhand Art

 

Peter London has the following to say about "No More Secondhand Art" on his website:

"This book means to help you uncover your natural image-making abilities and so return to you the power that language has to share and create life. We must recapture our personal and idiosyncratic language so that we may speak about our personal and idiosyncratic life. The claim is not that our triumphs in art will automatically lead to similar successes in life. The claim put forward is more modest but nonetheless substantial; it is that the ways of thinking about what art is, what art has the potential for doing, and the strategies offered herein, are powerful means of awakening the artist within. The potential of carry over from art to the transformation of life is real- not simple or automatic, but real. It is this personal transformation of life through an engagement with the creative process that this book intends.

How breathtaking it is to start out on a journey into the unknown…Setting out on that journey in the hope of uncovering sources of inner worth so that we may step more lightly and confidently through life is our ultimate goal; our means will be the creative process.

Suppose life is a journey, an endless, surprising odyssey in which we may move from naivete to wisdom, from self-consciousness and awkwardness to grace, and from superficial knowledge to profound knowledge. The infinite menu of possibilities that life continuously displays before us may be viewed as an invitation to embark on this adventure through the varied and unpredictable terrain. The artistic process is more than a collection of crafted things; it is more than the process of creating those things. It is the chance to encounter dimensions of our inner being and to discover deep, rewarding patterns of meaning."

Last Friday after playing around with two printmaking techniques we moved on to an exercise called "Going to the infinite well" from Peter London's book.

"This exercise encourages us to traverse new territory in new ways and cultivates a light hand and an uncomplicated, nimble mind. Its rapid pace cuts through our unusual convoluted thinking, and the large number of mini-tasks overwhelms our ordinary repertoire of responses, calling forth unexpected reservoirs of original and personal responses."

We started off looking for an object that spoke to us and then spent five minutes looking it over. We  put the object away and out of sight. We assembled 60 sheets of computer paper in front of us with an array of drawing media. Each drawing was timed for 1 minute. The first drawing was based on a reaction to the object, then the second image was based on our reaction to seeing the previous drawing. We kept repeating this pattern of sixty-second images, each new drawing based on the experience of having made the previous drawing.

We all experienced different reactions as we moved through the exercise, sometimes tired, sometimes frustrated. The idea is to be aware of bodily reactions at each stage of the series, noting at what phase of the exercise we ran out of ideas, got stuck, became frustrated, got a second wind, made a breakthrough, or felt swept along by fresh inspiration.

The whole idea is to work so quickly that you don't have time to think or use old ways of working, hopefully breaking into new ground.

We layed out our 60 sheets in the order they were drawn to see the flow and movement.

Here is an example of the characteristics of the series as a whole that London asks us to think about.

• The direction of the evolution of the pieces: have you moved toward more abstraction/realism, toward more gesture/detail, toward more/less color, texture, parttern?
• The distance between images: how much of a difference is there between one image and the next? Was the pattern of change drastic, or moderate? What kinds of changes did you make in mood, attitude, apparach, conception?
• The fatigue factor: did you run out of ordinary responses after a while and probe any new territory?
• How did you handle your fatigue; your breathless pace, your frustration, your out-of controlness? Did you meet your fatigue in anger, in a welcome yielding, in defeat, perhaps in soft joy?
• Your reaction(s) to the time constraints: Did you make it into an enemy, an ally, or an opportunity?
• Did you uncover some very old ways of working?
• Did you uncover any new ways of working? 

 

 

I really liked this exercise and I am going to try and repeat this once a week in my studio. I think it will be a valuable way to beak new ground. learn about myself, my process and develop a new repertoire of mark-making. I have done this several times before but it has been at least 14 years since I did.

Printmaking

I spent Friday with two artist friends playing around with some printmaking techinques. Diane hosted the day and explained the processes to us.

 

Most important thing first - the food!

SolarPlate Etching:  You  begin the process by drawing onto a transparent material such inkjet transparency film; you can photocopy or print a photograph or other graphic image onto the film as well. Lay the sheet on the solarplate and place outside in the sun.This process needs the ultraviolet light of the sun to work which varies from a minute or two depending on the area you live in. This exposure to the UV light hardens the effected areas of the light sensitive ground. The non effected areas wash away in water and then the plate ready for printing in which you will need a printing press. We didn't do this technique but had a walk through of all the steps. Diane showed us many examples and I forgot to take pictures of them.

 

Solarplate print by Dan Welden.
 

Dan Welden invented the solarplate process and his DVD "Printmaking in the Sun" is available at Daniel Smith whose website describes the DVD like this:

"In this must-have introduction to Solarplate printmaking, the innovator of the technique demonstrates the step-by-step creation of Solarplate prints in both intaglio and relief. An advocate for safer working methods, he directs a nonprofit center for printmaking research and education and has worked with many noted artists including Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns and Robert Motherwell."

MONOPRINTING

Diane demonstrated the technique and then we made severl images with this printmaking process.

Using small pieces of plexi-glass we rolled on printmaking ink, using pages from a phone book we blotted off the ink twice. Laying this on our registered surface face up we then put a sheet of paper over top and drew on the back of the area over the plexi and lifted it off - it was that easy.