Melanie Testa's Blog, page 10

Wee Little Gifties

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a toy palette that works perfectly for adults. I did some sleuth work and went shopping at Roz Stendahl's local art supply store and found the lil palettes! Now, I have to say I first saw this palette years ago. My friend Tim had found and filled one of these palettes in preparation for an island vacation.

I don't know where he found it, and I have been looking for it ever since. When I found these lil palettes, I knew that each of the Journal Study Group ( a.k.a JSG) needed one. So bought one for each of us, dug out the kiddie paint and refilled it with M. Graham watercolor paints. One of our group has flown off, bird that she is.

Um. She tooted her new web site horn and blog, which I or course feel the need to tell you about.

But anyway, she probably has not received her wee lil' giftie, but I have had enough of keeping secrets.

Arrow on the other hand knows nothing of secrets.

I had to get out of the apartment today so I walked to a ...

I had to get out of the apartment today so I walked to a local park and drew. Then I met with a friend for a bagel on a bench.

Cuteness.

Love flopsie flowers.

And neat and orderly ones too.

And the secret is out, I use black and white acrylic house paint. I am thinking about using other colors too. I mean, heck, they are highly pigmented, and to hell if you can wash it off your clothing once it has dried. The hand is fine. Pat turned me on to this cheap fabric paint alternative.

In One Day.

Today I am going to post photos throughout the day. It's a working day. So stop by thoughout the day or at the end of the day, your pick.

Fat 16ths of cotton broadcloth, organza, silk velvet, silk noil. Also cotton knit.

Found those things at vintage store, wish I knew what they are called, tjaps? Half wood, half copper. Little.

1:10 First experiments, I like my results so far. Now I take myself out to lunch.

The view from here.

Yesterday was spent resting for the most part. Arrow needed down time too, as the construction next door served to make him skiddish and stressed. We all napped together and this is a photo of Arrow in repose, under the covers.

And here is a view of my work table. I love a clean tidy, workable table. Ready and waiting for me to settle. Sometimes I have to tell myself that the silver, gold and white pens cannot be used on every page, The sequin waste is special, and that all things have their time and place.

If you could truly look around my studio you would see bits of cloth printed with images extracted from the pages of my journal pages, piles of mess, where I keep pushing stuff aside and piling things up. the laundry is now drying in the middle of it all. I am having fun making stuff for the book and figuring out how to simplify my ideas to make it super easy for you. It is like you are right here.

And all of this in the midst of healing my body. If there is a grace in having cancer, it is that I am softening to myself. I feel much compassion and understanding for myself. The cancer seems to whittle everything down to the most basic elements, energy giving, energy taking, willingness, indifference, beauty. So even though I cannot wait for this segment of my treatment to be over, I am at least able to see the beauty in it all.

To be, simply.

Look at that pristine journal on the top. All pages are white, the cover is still clean.

Mary Ann asked why I use porcelain palettes instead of plastic. They clean up better, don't stain and work just as easily with acrylics. They stay at home when I take my journals out to draw.

Yesterday I printed cloth, slowly and with determination. Today, I day dream.

Art Supply Loot!

As promised, here is the Art Supply Loot, bought recently.

This too was bought with in depth questions to Roz Stendahl, who in many ways is much better at organizing and rigorously distributing information than I am. I really admire her abilities on so may levels. It is important to give credit where it is due, the internet sure does make us all neighbors, doesn't it?

So here we go:

In the lower left you will see a card made by Rice Freeman-Zachery, she is such a vibrant and loving person. You should go over there and tell her I said, 'Hi'.

A couple of weeks ago my Man handed me some made Mad Money. I was so excited, I put it away and had a time listing the three things I had been dreaming on. It didn't take long to decide I wanted more watercolors. And when I went to Roz's website and saw she maintained palettes by intended activity, landscapes, portraits, drawing pups once a year at the pet store. I mean with that sort of focus how could you you go wrong? I suppose you could have so many boxes that you forget the intended one at home, note to self.

This time around I bought a Daniel Smith array of colors. It seems I felt lacking in my current red palette, So I embraced, reds, burnt yellows, and a few blues, A different dark blackish.

Mayan Dark Blue, Cobalt Teal Blue (total self love buying that color [in the past I would have thought that was a frivolous blue]), Indathrone Blue, Graphite Grey, Lemon Yellow (a long standing bright yellow in my half pans and pans.). Indian Yellow, Perione Orange, Mars Yellow, Permanent Deep Red, Napthamide Maroon, Anthaquinoid Red, Quinacridone Burnt Orange, Sicklerite Genuine, Italian Deep Ochre.

I also bought a 12 watercolor box-fights 24 half pans both half and full pans to trick it out with, and a square porcelain palette with deep wells. Can we all hum in the excitement of this vast array of goods? Hmmmm.

I still have ten half pans to fill this box and as I use it, I will get to see where it is lacking and build a wishlist to fill it out. An evil plan if ever I have heard one! Ha ha!

Research and personal development

Years ago I worked in the very old Yale Lock building in Stamford Connecticut. Because I wrote that sentence I went and looked the building up, I don't believe what it looks like now. When I worked there, it was nothing to walk into the bathroom to the cooing of pigeons nesting, a walk to the other side of the building would be like entering a haunted house, the roof was collapsed, bricks strewn everywhere. Heck, one day I watched lightening enter the south wall of the building and exit the north. I would look out to see a portion of cement fall past the window. Geez. I loved that building.

One day I dropped a 2 gallon bucket of water and before I could get rags and towels to clean it up, the water had drained to wherever it went. That building made me love cracked and peeling paint, wood plank floors, and we were at the height of flying seagulls. On good days I could smell the ocean just a mile distant.

What does all this have to do with a bird skeleton? Well. One day I was walking through the building to buy plantain chips at the bodega across the street and I came across what I assume is a finch skeleton. It had flesh still attached to it. I was, of course stopped in my tracks. My love of and fascination with birds is quite long standing and even then I had it in my mind that I needed a bird skeleton. So I bought my chips, nabbed a napkin and fetched the bird.

When I got back to work, bird in hand, my fellow workmates, fine artists all, kicked into gear. We poured one part bleach to four parts water into a bucket and we soaked the bird clean. I have carried this skeleton in a ring box for years and periodically take it out to draw and consider.

Once again, I can't show the artwork. Bummerish. But I can say, I really like that page!

All Over

I am going to try to be honest. I feel tension in myself, a need to project a stalwart demeanor while at the same time, wanting to be true to myself, to you, to life. I could quite simply say, I am tired of having cancer, maybe just tired. The fatigue that comes with the chemotherapy is tremendous. My heart pounds with simple movement, like taking the stairs, turning over in bed, sometimes thinking feels strenuous.

At the same time I am writing my second book and I am so eternally grateful to the spirits that be-that all of this crazy portion of life has come together, at the same time and in this configuration. I cannot show images of my work, I would rather you purchase the book! But I can show you my messy work table.

Being able to journal while thinking about how best to describe the process and to sit and write out my thoughts is a boon and a saving grace. Immersing myself in something fruitful and engaging is what I need right now. I just came off of 5 or more days of recovery, and when I am unable to make, to do, my mind can go to the lowest points imaginable. So today, I painted spirits looking down, gowned and present, a funky bottle glassed man walking as if within sleep, to a house surrounded by creatures and dragons, topped with a a wondrous pearl. It was like walking through a dream, time fell away, my fatigue vanished. Ah, just...what I needed.

Buds, gouache, yum.

Last weekend, my Man and I went to Connecticut to visit my folks. While there, we made a sweep and clipped three buds off the trees in the yard.

These beautiful things have been in a glass on my work table all week. They are being drawn and honored in thier way. I do hope the willow might choose to root itself. They do that sometimes.

It is a scraggly little bouquet and it pleases me.

Paired with my gouache palette, it is almost a rocket booster of fun!

You might remember a few weeks back when I spoke of my watercolor palette. My gouache palette uses many of the same colors, though I do feel as though it is time to branch out and create another palette with new paint and color offerings. For now though I will talk about this palette and the colors I use in it.

Again, this is a reclaimed paint box, another Winsor-Newton box that originally contained student grade watercolors, from that maker. Like my watercolor box, I dipped each half pain in water, set it aside and allowed the paint to soften, then gently removed the old paint from the half pan that contained it. The paint came out of the half pan in a fairly solid form and was allowed to dry. I can reuse them if I choose to.

I cleaned the now empty half pans and set them back in the box in preparation for my chosen paints, M. Graham gouache. I was remiss in my last post about paint because I made the assumption that you knew I would squeeze bits of paint into each half pan and allow them to dry, making my own half pans, in my chosen colors.

Gouache, is not normally a paint used in caked, dried or half pan form. But again, Roz Stendahl turned me on to the fact that M. Graham gouache can be used this wayused in this way, freeing you and I to paint with gouache wherever we choose.

Why do I love gouache? I love the flat, matte finish of it, the opacity, the cover I get from it. I love how it leaves the brush, it is a beautiful paint. I don't think I could honestly say that acrylic paint turns me on in quite the same way, although it has similar properties (It is opaque, though I find that acrylic paints appear plasticky where gouache does not).

Gouache and watercolor are both watercolor paints, it is just that watercolor is transparent and gouache is opaque.

When you dry gouache into half pans and you are ready to paint, you will need to reconstitute the paint. The goauche paints take a little longer than watercolor paints to accept water, give it time and then embrace the wonder of this gorgeous paint.

Here is a list of the colors in my gouache palette: Gamboge Yellow, Azo Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Napthol Red, Quinacridone Violet, Phalthocyanine Green, Dioxine Purple, Ultramarine Blue, Payne's Grey and I also use Schmincke brand Purpur Magenta and Indigo.

Doesn't this post make you want to shop for paints? Go... Now.

Studio Love

We have been mixing it up here at Casa Testa, We built a Love Nest, replete with a large television, a dvd player and a Wii(!). It is cosy and fun, it honors the two of us as a couple and really feels like great space.

We have been working on recreating my studio space and also making space for my Man, who loves to play guitar, piano and needs his own interpretation of studio space. Today we blitzed the apartment and found storage for the odd piles that occur when overwhelmed by all the rest of life, we gathered up the cardboard that acrues when you purchase new stuff and gave the abode a good scrub.

It feels good.

My Mom made a fabulous, embroidered and beaded pin cushion for me. I am in love with it. And hey! I saw my folks for the first time in too long yesterday and my folks need a lovin' shout out. They have their own 'stuff' to deal with and they are doing a great job being my parents!

And of course we had to hang the stolenand helpful reminder of what life is really about (yes, I am both sorry and happy to say, I nabbed this ever so long ago).

And well, talk to ya later, gotta go whip my Mans butt at Wii Tennis.