Introducing Jane McLellan

 Allow us to introduce one of our new artists Jane McLellan 

Jane shares with us
I am the  mom of two wonderful girls,  have a terrific husband and am a social worker.  After a serious accident about four years ago, I learned that life can be very  fragile and that you need  to value an live every moment.  I turned to painting glass and my skills have evolved.  I find it rewarding to create unique designs and paint every day items  that can be enjoyed  on any special occassion!

Welcome Jane at her studio location number 14.

Lis Simpson

Thanks to Lis Simpson for sharing her new work with us. 

Lis will be at Studio 4 along with Deb Kirk, Florence Booth and Rita Staniford.
Four artists, one location!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
During a spiritual retreat this summer, a new artistic vision came:

Creating exquisite, small art glass of light, colour, and texture for inspiration and transformation – beads and beyond into objets d’art!  Look deep inside to see what may come.

Immediately after I went to a four-day intensive workshop in Advanced Fusing at Glasstronomy Studio in Markham. The primary focus of the workshop was using and creating molds for glass fusing in the kiln.

This is one of the projects we did, and some pieces I have made since for the studio tour:  making and using plaster cast models.

We used flexible molds into which we put the plaster slurry.  Remember to be careful when disposing of plaster – never put it down your drain!

 

I love shells and other objects from the sea.  Doesn’t this look perfect?

 

Next we needed to build the frame on the kiln board to hold the objects and to put the glass over them.

We were doing two blocks at the same time so there was a common wall between them.  In one of the blocks I put a fern leaf to look like seaweed as well as plaster shells.  The smaller block merely held a plaster shell.

Then we had to continue to reinforce the walls so the molten glass in the kiln wouldn’t leak out!  Don’t want a mess!

In order to cover the objects well, we put in clear glass frit, which is tiny bits.  We covered the objects up to their tops.  I also added some blue and green frit to the smaller block which had the single shell.

We added several sheets of clear glass to the very top and into the kiln they went (Glasstronomy uses a large kiln, so there were two different projects being fired at the same time.  See my pieces on the bottom right?)  What a wonderful surprise when the firing was complete!

Here’s the front view.  The fern burned away too much, and I couldn’t see but just a faint image.  So I decided to use glass paint to fill in the “seaweed”.

Here’s the second block with the blue and green tint and the single shell.

 

‘Course, then I wanted to make some more at home.  Others like this one will be at the Studio Tour in October.  I have such a fantastic time creating with glass.

Artists Participating in Art

As much as artists love to create their own work, they also appreciate the work of others; artists visit galleries, learn in workshops led by other artists and can also participate in art created by others.

The latter is just what happened over the summer in the town of Stouffville.

Artists Linda Duvall and Timeanddesire (Denise St. Marie and Timothy Walker) asked members of the Stouffville community to share their feelings about the town in which they lived. Linda Duvall met with 12 local artists, including 8 Studio Tour artists whom she asked to take her to a location of interest or importance to them within Stouffville.  Videotaping their locations, Linda interviewed each, asking about the location itself as well as what each artist worried about living in Stouffville.

The result was a  lot of video tape that Linda edited into a 35 minute segment, and commemorative pillows with an image of each location that she visited. Why pillows? Linda had taken a trip to the local Care and Share Shoppe and been inspired by the commemorative objects for sale in that store.

On Thursday, Studio Tour artists were on hand for the opening of 'Artists and Agents' at The Latcham Gallery. Here, they stand next to their pillows:

(L to R) Allison Bullock, Ray McNeice, Joan Chalmers and Valerie Ashton

(L to R) Valerie Ashton, John Walmsley, and Margaret Grandison
Sandra Cole Burke and Diana Bullock not pictured

On September 28th The Latcham Gallery will host a panel discussion about this show as part of Culture Days in Ontario. Many of the participating artists will be in attendance as well as Linda Duvall and Timeanddesire.

Carin Bacher

Carin Bacher creates totems. She shares the process on how she creates these beautiful works of art that tell a story.

Thank you Carin for your insight into the process

Listen to the wood.....what role with the unique features of this particular piece of wood play in the finished work “The Enchanted Forest” ?

The answers will become more clear as the work progresses.

1] Soon the inhabitants of the pole will begin to take up residence, evolving over time from design to carved form.

Q: Does the totem direct the artist or does the artist direct the totem?

Answers below

2] Who are these inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest? What is their importance?

3] Rough carving begins on The Enchanted Forest, the totem’s inhabitants begin their new life as shape and form are loosely defined. The tools used in rough carving must be extremely sharp to ensure deep, accurate cuts removing large chunks of wood without compromising the integrity of the wood.

Q: What tools are most effective for this stage of carving?

Answers to questions

1] It is a collaboration

2] Green Man: Peering from the foliage, Green Man reminds us that not all of life’s solutions are logical or obvious.
Eclipse: Comprised of Sun, Guardian of the Earth by Day and Moon, Guardian of the Earth by Night.

3]Hatchet and mallet moving to chisel and mallet.

Make sure to stop by Carin's studio #1 on the Tour 

Diana Bullock

Studio Tour artist Diana Bullock shares with us the process of wet mounting a Sumi-e [Japanese ink painting] work. Visit Diana's studio number 15 on the tour. Her mother Grace MacPherson and her daughter Allison Bullock also will be exhibiting work. Three generations of artists all in one place. Visit www.alternativesinart.ca to see more of Diana and Allison's work.

```````````````````````

Painting Sumi-e work requires patience. I can't count the number of times I have gotten to the last stroke in a painting only to ruin it. This is a very unforgiving media, if you make an error you must start over. 

The next step after the painting has dried is to make the painting more stable by adding another layer of paper behind the work. This also improves the colour of the ink. You can dry mount it, which I have never attempted or you can wet mount it.   

There are places that will do it for you but  I prefer to do it myself. After many years I have got a system that works for me. Bear in mind that both of these papers are a little bit heavier than tissue paper. The "rice paper" that I use is strong if you know how to handle it when it is wet but it can easily tear especially when wet!

First you lay the painting upside down on a clean board.

After lightly spraying the painting with water you paste the back of the painting with an acid free rice  paste.

 

 
Placing a slightly larger piece of rice paper on the painting you gently rub the rice paper to the painting using a piece of parchment paper to protect the work from tearing. 

 
 Carefully lifting the work up it is now turned right side up and place on a clean support [some people use their doors, I don't]. The edges are taped down with packing tape [the worst part of this proceedure for me because I am always losing the end of the tape!]

 
You then have to babysit the work until it drys; sometimes the tape will break away and that can cause a ripple. 

My birds are now drying. Once they are very dry I will add my seal and sign them, all ready to be framed.