The Mindful Artist

Remember How Much Fun Paint Can Be?

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Do you remember the first time you painted? The pure joy of smushing paint about? The miracle of watching colors interact? The visceral thrill of seeing just what the stuff would do?

Sometimes, as we gain skills and get more “serious” about art, it’s easy to get caught up in outcomes and we forget just how fun paint can be as a material. But don’t you find that playfulness is often where you best “serious” discoveries occur?

Pouring with acrylics can take just about anyone back to that immediate delight of handling pure color. Here is a video to show you a basic technique with pouring :

 

But you ought to know there is SO MUCH more it can do! For instance, have you seen Brazilian painter Beatriz Milhazes’ exuberant canvas collaged with layers of acrylic sheets in eyepopping colors and forms?

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Image courtesy of James Cohan Gallery

I created this piece using pouring medium and string gel combined. See my post here for video with details on how I did it.

 

 

 

 

Here is list of materials that I used that will help you get started:

 

 

 

Happy Painting!

 

Using acrylic mediums to created mixed media foil sheets

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A couple of years ago, I was invited by curator Chandra Cerrito to create a piece for the exhibition she was curating at the di Rosa called Altered States: The Collection in Context of artworks related to the mystical, the transcendent and the transformative.

Sea of Connections

I was given a large wall in the gallery space overlooking a small lake. Inspired by a meditative state I had been studying and experiencing call the Sea of Connections, I decided to make a link between this state, the lake outside and the piece.

My intention was to create a piece that would reflect light, shimmer and glow. Based on my in-depth knowledge of acrylic mediums, I innovated a brand new material using acrylics over aluminum foil.

The finished pieced measured was over 6 ½ feet tall by 11 feet wide (198 cm x 348 cm).

Here’s I video I made for you showing exactly how I made the sheets:

And here is a video showing how I connected all those sheets to make the whole piece.

The hybrid artist

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I just found out about Karen Atkinson an artist who has taught the business of being an artist at CalArts in Southern California for over 22 years. She also founded a company called GYST that creates business software for artists and offers other business related services for artists.

What I really appreciate about this talk is how she emphasizes that there are multiple ways to approach a career as an artist. She outlines two different models of an artist’s career – the vertical artist climbing a hierarchical ladder and the horizontal career or creating a hybrid of the two.

It’s important to remember though our contributions may not shimmer glamorously, our role is vital to our communities. Atkinson put it this way:

If you are an artist that is not interested in that vertical career and you’re not the next hot thing, then you’re sort of, like, not as important. If you don’t make a lot of money you’re not considered a very important artist.

But, I think those artists who have been pludging [sic] along, doing very interesting things either in their communities, their businesses or their daily life have much more effect on the general culture than those who work only in a vertical trajectory.

Karen Atkinson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IehUM7XxJNU

What ways can you see that your work as an artist either in the studio or in the greater world have contributed to those around you, even in small ways?