Collagraph Artists Proofs

I have just pulled another collagraph print of 'Breathe'. This one is a much brighter version. I now have four options to submit to the 'Trees in Art' National Exhibition here in Atlanta and I have to decide which one to go with. I would have liked to do a painting to enter but somehow this print just asked to be done. I only hope that the judges actually realise what I am trying to say and don't just think it is an odd looking little tree. Here are the last two variations.

The Green Version

After printing up two or three versions of my 'lung tree' in blues I decided to do a green version which is probably more in keeping with the ecological idea. I think my name for this piece will be 'Breathe'.

Which one do you like best?

Trees - Lungs of the Earth

I have just spent the morning printmaking. There is an upcoming exhibition with the theme "Trees" and although I don't usually do trees I thought it would be fun to have something to submit. I also wanted to create a piece with a slight ecological twist and because trees breathe I decided to combine lungs and a tree shape and put it into a landscape. Here is the result so far. Below the image you will find the process described.



The picture doesn't show up all the colours that well however after proofing it twice I am now reasonably happy with it. Here is the process I used for making a collagraph print.

After drawing out the design on mat board I cut into the trunk and branch areas where I wanted the shapes to be raised. Remember that in the printing process everything is in reverse. Anything cut deep into the printing plate becomes raised after printing and the raised areas of the plate become deep, plus the image is reversed. I then built up the landforms and added carborundum where I wanted the very dark area. Once the plate was finished and had been covered with shellac to seal it I was ready to ink it up. The first colour was deep blue which went over the whole plate filling all the cracks and branches. After wiping off most of the blue ink then I rolled over the whole plate with a transparent green and then followed up with another roll of light creamy orange. This last colour I will make stronger next time I print it to bring out the definition more and to warm the whole thing up.

I need a good name for this work. Any ideas ?

Just as an afterthought, I have trouble deciding how to spell things in these posts. Should I use the English spelling of words or the American way now that I am living in the US. Somehow I just couldn't bring myself to write colour as color today. Perhaps another time.

Saxophone Print Winner

Finally I have done the draw for the free Saxophone print that I offered in November. I will be contacting the winner today. I won't give the full email address here but it starts with Rott, so if that's you make sure you look out for the incoming email.

So it's a new year and I'm ready for some new work. I have been asked by a local gallery to create more of my abstract works to show in a few months time. I actually really like working in less realistic manner. It always amazes me how the shapes flow from the unconscious and the fascination that happens as I work with the imagery. Strange but very interesting. The new pieces have a lot of underlying pattern and texture. I have attached a picture of the largest piece which is 48H x 36W inches and another smaller work. As you will see they are quite different from the saxophone and cello paintings I have posted here. I would be very interested to get your comments

In The Art Studio Again

I finally made it back into the art studio again today. I started preparing for a Simple Printmaking course that I am due to give at the Atlanta Artists Center on January 17th although I just found out that they haven't posted it on their web site yet. With peoples holiday costs, the late listing and the economy I'm not sure that we will get enough people for it to go ahead but I will do the preparation anyway.

I find printmaking very seductive. The effects are exciting and there is always the compulsion to try just one more print to see how it turns out. I am eager to do a lot more printmaking this year now that I am all set up with the press and fantastic inks from the UK.

The holidays were both enjoyable and stressful. After having surgery a few days before I left for Toronto and then not feeling the best while I was there, took a bit of the fun out of it all. I was actually quite happy to be back home again, however Toronto was heavily blanketed with the wonderful white stuff and not very cold so that was lovely.

With the unexpected surgery and the holidays I am way behind on updating my blog and sending out the winner of the Nov free gift. I will post that in the next few days.

Life's Irritations

If you have been wondering why I haven't been posting to the blog the last few weeks it's because I haven't been in the studio working but instead fighting a very resistant sinus infection. After three or four lots of antibiotics I finally got to an ENT person this week, had a CT scan, and found out I have to have surgery. Right on Christmas too! I had a tooth out back in April/May and since then have had pain in the same area followed by a very nasty ongoing sinus infection. Dental x-rays showed nothing but the CT scan showed what looks like a little piece of bone or tooth lodged up in the sinuses. They are going to try and hunt it down and remove it. Once that goes I should get rid of the infection and feel normal again. It's very hard to feel creative when all your teeth and face aches. The one good thing is that in another day and age, or even a country without dental or medical care, I would probably die from the infection going into my brain. I think I should count my blessings and not complain.

November Free Draw

I know that it is late in the month to write about this but the free draw for November, for signing up to receive email updates to this blog, is a giclee print of the cello painting posted here today. Remember you have to be in to win!

You will find the box to sign up just down a little and to the right. Do it NOW!

Abstract Painting

I feel this piece is finished although after a few more days I will probably find something I want to change. Next week I will be back into printmaking. I have some ideas I am eager to try out.

I have finally set the dates for my two printmaking workshops at the Atlanta Artists Center. The first one, Simple Printmaking Without a Press, will be on Saturday January 17th. In mid March I will do the Collagraph Printmaking Workshop which will be two full days. The dates for this are March 22nd and 23rd. I'm really looking forward to doing both these workshops. Once all the info is up on the AAC web site I will put a link here to it.

Abstract In Process Sailing Along

I have been busy in the studio again today. I had this nice sized canvas just waiting for something to be put on it. It's 30 inches square so a good size to work on. I wanted to work in a more abstract way again and while looking through a magazine I saw some pictures of sail boats. They have lovely swooping lines which really appeal to me. I seem to have a fixation for lines and flowing shapes.

Inspired by the sails I drew out a few shapes and then started adding lines and shapes that flowed organically from one to another until I got a basic design that I liked however I kept extending and deleting lines as I went along. Before I laid out the design on the canvas I made a messy underpainting with lots of colors and drips etc to get me started. I then began to block in the shapes by painting around each shape with color.

I have posted two photos of the process up to where I am now. I have lots of transparent layers ready for the next stage which is to start using more opaque paint You can see a couple of places where I have started this already. It's always exciting to see where the process leads and if it is successful or not.

Abstract Work

I have been taking a break from printmaking to play around with some more abstract work. I used to work this way a lot but recently my paintings have been leaning towards a more realistic look. It has been fun and I am eager to experiment with more of this type of work in the future.

I had a tidy up in my studio last week although looking at it this morning you would never think that I had. Part of the clean up included pulling out lots of work and trashing some of it. Every six months or so I like to have a throw out. I keep things for a time as a record of what I was doing and to see if there has been any progress. A few pieces I have kept for years and others only a month or so. Lots go in the bin the day I do them especially the work from the life drawing session I try and attend each week.

This week at the life drawing I decided to work in oils instead of just drawing. The pose was quite stiff and unnatural looking but the girl had this wonderful curly orange hair. The session was only a couple of hours so it's unfinished but I've posted it here, along with one of my abstracts, to show you the two different kinds of work I have done this past week. You can see how strange they look together. The "Girl with the Orange Hair" painting is likely to be trash in a week or so too.

Musical Collagraph Update

I ran another print from the musical plate. I think it's better than the first two but I still think the colors could be improved. If you feel like making a comment or suggestion that would be great.

Musical Themed Collagraph

At last I have been able to get back into the studio and do some printmaking. You may remember, if you have been following my blog, that I spent some time building a set of four musical themed collagraph plates to print as one image. I printed up a couple but then got busy with some paintings and other stuff and never got to printing up all four together. Yesterday I pulled two prints from them but was pretty disappointed with them both. I was experimenting with viscosity roll ups starting with an intaglio in dark blue, followed with a hard roller roll up in red, followed by a soft one in yellow. The idea was for them all to overlay and create some beautiful greens and purples as well as the colors that I used however that didn't happen. While doing the first one I was interrupted and the paper dried out a bit and the inks too, so the image isn't as sharp or dense. Also the yellow didn't blend with the blue in many places and so is just too bright. The second one I did in the same manner but used a cad yellow and cad red to try and dull it down a bit but it is still too bright. The great thing about all this though is how much you learn each time you proof a plate. The other challenge with this print is the size relative to the size of my press. The image is 32 inches long and the press bed is only 36 inches so it was difficult to get the paper trapped under the roller, get the plates tucked in close and then have some room left at the other end to hold the roller on the print bed once the print has been rolled through. I think I will have another attempt to print this plate but ink it up in my usual way and then see how it turns out.

Art Festival Madness?

Although I knew the economy was in a bad state I decided a few months back that I was going to take part in some local art festivals next summer. I have done Open Studios and a few small art festivals in the past and what I really enjoyed about doing them was the people contact. It's great being able to talk to people about the art and get feedback. This is something that doesn't happen when work is in a gallery. Last weekend, in preparation for next years festival season, I had a practice run at a very small new festival. It was very small, as I knew it would be, with very few patrons however it served it's purpose for me very well. After squeezing everything into two cars we arrived at the festival and managed to get the tent up along with the display walls. Everything worked and looked great. We met a couple of other artists who were also showing and they were really nice so it made for a pleasant day. Sales were bad for everyone but I did manage to break even and was lucky enought to win an honorable mention and cash award for one of my paintings. I now feel prepared for the larger shows next summer. Lets hope the economy picks up a bit by then.

Collagraph Printmaking Workshop

I have just finished writing up the info for a collagraph printmaking workshop that I am going to give early next year at the Atlanta Artists Center. The dates are not set yet but it will be a two day workshop on a weekend in either January or February. I am quite excited about doing this as I really like to teach and I think collagraph is a fantastic form of printmaking. What is particularly great about it that even absolute beginners get wonderful and exciting results that look very professional. Once everything is confirmed I will post the info.

Exhibiting at Art Festivals

and Open Studios

When I was living in Ottawa, Canada, I took part in several Open Studio events and art festivals. I really liked the Open Studio format. I opened my home and showed my art in a normal house setting as opposed to a formal gallery environment. People really enjoy seeing art this way. They get to see inside someone's house or studio, see art, and meet the artist. I like going to them too for the same reasons. The Ottawa event I took part in was exceptionally nice. There were about fourteen artists and the tour was walkable as I lived in a fantastic inner city neighbourhood. I have had people ask me why I would do Open Studios as surely I would run the risk of being robbed or how could I enjoy having people snoop into my house. I have always found that people who are interested in art are not generally likely to rob me and are in fact extremely respectful of my home. I actually find it very enjoyable thing to do. I did several Open Studios in the UK when I was living there. They are a fairly new idea in the UK but seem to be spreading. My house there was ideal for holding such an event as it was very open and bright and had a gallery like feeling. At the second event I did there I asked a friend who was an amazing potter to join me. That made it really nice as our work complimented each others. In the photo above you can see her work, which has sea colors and applied shell shapes, and my painting of shells.

I also took part in a couple of art festivals in Ottawa one of which was "Art in the Park". It was started up by a local artist, a real character called Bhat Boy, and I was one of the organizers for a couple of years. It was a very laid back event and pretty basic but I believe that in the six or so years since I left Ottawa it has grown very large.

Here in the US art festivals are a big thing and there seem to be several going on most weekends. I have decided it's time for me to put up a tent and become part of them although it's not actually a good time to start with the economic climate being what it is. My first one is the "Seven Springs Arts Festival" in Powder Springs near Atlanta. This is the first year the event has been held and so I have no idea what it will be like however it is close by and I need to have somewhere to try out all the new gear that doing a festival requires. I live in a condo so I don't have anywhere to set up the tent and try it out at home so I hope I don't look too silly the first time I put it up at the festival. It's a one day event on October 18th. Details. I am now getting organized to apply for more events in 2009.

Washington DC

I have just spent a few days in Washington DC. I was very impressed and so glad to have had the opportunity to visit. I actually didn't go to the White House but only saw it from a distance. I was more interested in the Smithsonian Museums and the monuments to Jefferson, Lincoln and Washington. I found the monuments especially compelling after recently watching the TV series John Adams. Coming from New Zealand and only having a fairly basic understanding of American history I found the series wonderful. It was very well acted and really bought the personalities to life for me.

The Smithsonian Museums are fantastic. I am envious of the people who live in the area and can go and visit them whenever they wish. I was able to see some wonderful art in the many museum galleries and in the Newseum, a building that is a work of art itself.

I also checked out an art festival that was on over the weekend called "Arts on Foot". It was very disappointing. Most of the booths looked very amateurish in presentation and the art was much the same. There was a lot of crafty stuff and an abundance of jewelers, a couple of whom had very nice work. I thought that an art festival in downtown DC would be of a high standard so I was suprised to find otherwise. The tents provided by the city were good looking and the entry fees were very reasonable so all in all a great pity. The vendors in the show did look to be selling though so perhaps other people liked it more than me.

Art Studio Clean Up

The last few days I have been doing lots of art related things but no actual art making. I feel a bit of a slob as I have spent lots of time on the computer and didn't go to the gym or get any exercise which I like to do. My husband has been away so we haven't even been out walking each day.

He got really angry with me last week. When we meet new people and they ask me about my art work he says I should have a small portfolio to show them what I am about. Sort of a little granny brag book, something else I don't have even though I now have a lovely little granddaughter. Anyway I feel funny about pulling out one of those but I have been reading about artists having a brochure that shows a few pictures and tells about the artist and their work. So today I decided to put one together. I have this old Corel program called Corel Printhouse that is wonderful for things like that however it won't run on my laptop so I had to sit down at my old computer and work there. It seemed to take me all day by the time I wrote it and proofed it several times. It's amazing how many mistakes and writing changes that need to be made. I'm quite happy with it now and I know I will feel ok about giving one to anyone who is interested.

I am also in the process of making up a large portfolio with all my kimono collagraph prints in it. They will benefit from being in one as they get handled a lot and this will keep fingers off the paper and still allow people to flip through them and see them. They look very nice in there too with the black paper backing. I think I will make a smaller one as well for my other printmaking work so that I have exampes to show when I start teaching basic printmaking.

Part of all this is the big clean up I have been doing in my art studio. I still have more to do but the art work in my plan chest is all sorted and tidied up. I'm not sure what a plan chest is called in the US but it is an architects set of drawers large enough to hold plans. Mine is huge and holds two full sheets of paper side by side. It's one of the best art things I have bought.

Tomorrow evening is the opening of the Atlanta Artists Center National Exhibition. I have never managed to get to one of the openings so I am looking forward to it.

My next post will have some photos instead of all the blurb!

You Too Could Be a Winner

Each month, people who sign up for email updates to my blog, have their name put in for a draw to receive a free gift. Last month the draw was for one of my Kimono collagraph prints. After emailing the winner I discovered that it was someone I had recently met at an art society meeting. It was quite wonderful really as she had lived in Japan for some time and winning a piece of artwork based on the kimono shape was perfect for her. Eva has written about winning the print on her blog so do visit and read about it and also check out her great artwork. Often when I visit an exhibition and look at all the pieces the work I like the best ends up being one of hers.

Last months winner for a free classical CD with my artwork on it is reddwine. Watch out for an email from me so that it doesn't disappear into your junk mail folder..

It's always exciting to be a winner but you have to be in to win. You too could be a winner if you sign up now to get my email updates.

Collagraph Printmaking Workshop at AAC

After showing several of my recent collagraphs and printworks at local art shows it has been suggested that I give some workshops at the AAC or Atlanta Artists Center. I really enjoy teaching and so I am really enthusiatic to go ahead and do this in the near future. My intention is to give two workshops. One will be printmaking using processes that don't need a press and the other will be a two day basic collagraph printmaking class.

In the past I used to teach classes in art for personal development and enhanced creativity. I did this for nine years both in Ottawa and Toronto, Canada. It was great and I met some wonderful people who over time became very special friends.

Once I decide on dates I will post the info here. Meanwhile, I have work on show at Heaven Blue Rose Gallery and will have my piece Golden Geisha in the upcoming AAC National Show.

Art with a Musical Theme
"Musical Collagraph in Blue"

I have been working on a musical collagraph made up of four plates. You may have seen two previous posts with photos and info about the process. In the first post I show the plates in the very beginning stage. The second post shows the plates when they are finished and sealed. I have now made one proof of two of the plates together and will try out a test proof of all four together this week. After all the time involved in making the plates it is interesting to see how they look when I print them. It's not always a happy moment. Sometimes it's very dissapointing. These look ok but I need to improve the way I have printed it. It's printed up in blue hence the name "Musical Collagraph in Blue."

I seem to be hooked on a musical theme at present in my paintings and art work. Every now and then I have fun doing some more abstract pieces and I am working up to a series featuring figures.

Last months winner of a free print is awindchimer. I will be emailing you to get your address so I can send it to you.

If you would like to be in for the chance to win something sign up for email updates to my blog.

New Collagraph Print
"Under the Hot Sun"

Called "Under the Hot Sun" this carborundum collagraph print was done for an exhibition called 'Parch -Thirst of the Earth' which opens August 21 at the Heaven Blue Rose Gallery in Roswell, north of Atlanta. I was trying to convey the 'parched' theme of the exhibition.

The actual image is 14 inches square. It was first inked up in red in the intaglio manner and then wiped. Next I carefully added a rubbing of deep blue in selected places followed by a roll up of bright yellow. I then charged the roller with a light whitish blue ink to which I added extra blue to one end of the roller to give a graduated color roll up. The yellow roll up mixed in parts with the deep blue making greens and with the red making some purple shades. It looked great on the plate but I was eager to see how it would print. After all the time it takes to ink up the plate I am always anxious to see how well it has printed. I was really pleased with the result this time especially as this was my third proofing attempt to get the plate to print in a way I would be happy with. The name "Under the Hot Sun" seemed appropriate.

I also printed up another small piece called "Red Rain." This will also be in the exhibition.

Saxophone and Bass Painting

I have family visiting this week and yet I have actually managed to get some painting and printmaking done. I had fun painting a very colorful saxophone and bass picture on a 24 inch canvas. I may make a few changes but I think it is pretty much finished.

I also wanted to work on a print for the new exhibition 'Parch, Thirst of the Earth' which opens on August 21st at the Heaven Blue Rose Gallery in Roswell where I am represented. With global warming and a drought here in Georgia it seems a very apt theme for an exhibition. I have been trying to create a collagraph print that evokes the idea of a parched and dry cracked earth. I made a plate with an interesting textured surface and pulled two prints from it today, one of which I quite like. I'll post a photograph of it in a few days time.

Atlanta Artists Center National Exhibition

I have just had a piece accepted in the Atlanta Artists Center annual national exhibition called the "National View at Grandview". There were 78 pieces chosen from 35 states. The exhibition at the AAC in Buckhead runs Tuesday, August 26 - Tuesday, September 30, 2008. The opening reception is Saturday September 6, 2008 (6-8 PM).

For those of you who live in the Atlanta area it should be an interesting exhibition to visit as it appears that the juror, Paula J. Katz, assistant Curator of Art at The Columbus Museum in Columbus, GA, chose a wide variety of different media to be shown.

I have been waiting for a very exciting printmaking accessory to arrive. It's a large roller which is used to roll on a final layer, or more, of ink to a printmaking plate that has been previously inked up in the intaglio manner. This is called viscosity printing because the inks are of a different viscosity, meaning stickiness or oiliness. Where the oily ink is on the plate it resists the sticky layer of ink so it makes for an interesting effect on the final finished print. I am eager to get rolling and printing all the collagraph plates I have been working on over the past few weeks.

Collagraph Printmaking

I have been working on a series of plates for a music based collagraph print. A few weeks back I posted a photo of the collagraph plates in the progress of being constructed. In that photo the plates were whitish in color because they were unfinished and they hadn't been coated with shellac. I am now one stage further ahead. In the photo below you will see all four plates, one of which has been inked and run through as a test print. The others have a yellowish color which comes from the coating of shellac that is put on to seal the plate and help protect it. I am not happy with the test print at all but I have added a photo of it so that you can see the process.

You will notice that the letters are back the front. That is because in printmaking, things print in reverse. Also what is high on the plate will print deep on the paper and the other way around. You will see this in the photo of the test collagraph print below.

If you want to see more of my collagraph prints go to my web site http://www.susanneclark.com/ and check out the collagraph printmaking gallery page.

Kimono Collagraph Print is the July Draw


I have been having trouble with the subscription info on this site but I now have it working properly. Some of you who previously subscribed will have recieved another email asking you to verify your subscription. Please do this if you still wish to be on the mailing list.


This month one of my Kimono collagraph prints will go to the person whose name I draw from the email subscriber list. If you are not on the list and wish to be, sign up now with the subscriber button on this page.


I have been working on a new collagraph print with a musical theme. Because many of my paintings recently have had a musical theme I thought that it would be interesting to take that over into my printmaking. I am making four plates 8 inches by 12inches, that will, when all printed together, make a wide narrow print that is 32 by 12. In the picture you can see that I am at the beginning stages and still trying to decide what textures and shapes to add to the plate. Once I have finished adding stuff I will coat the plates with a shellac finish, ink them up and then print by running through my press. I have the option to make prints using the whole four plates or as few as I like. There is always the possibility that I may not like the way any of them print and so then I would have to discard them but hopefully that won't be the case.









The dark areas on the plate are made by putting glue where I want it and then sprinkling carorundum grit over the glue. The grit is a black sand like substance and when inked up for printing, it prints very dark. Where I paint with acrylic paint the ink will wipe off more and print lighter. Every type of paper and substance collaged onto the plate prints in a different manner so it's exciting to try new materials.

In my next post I will show you how this is progressing and also post a photograph of "Tempo in Blue" which now has it's bow in place.

Cello Painting "Tempo in Blue"

I couple of postings back I showed photos of the process of painting Tempo In Blue. As I said in the post I wasn't sure if the painting was finished or not, but that I needed to spend time looking at it to decide. It's so funny because I kept looking at it and thinking something was wrong and that it wasn't quite finished but I didn't know why. All of a sudden I realised I had hands playing the cello but no bow! I had forgotten to put it in. I am now in the process of adding the bow and I'll post the finished painting in a day or so, along with a photo of the Kimono collagraph print that's this months draw for subscribers to my blog updates.

Winner of the June Draw

The June draw for the free CD featuring one of my musical artworks, "Fractured Cello", now has a winner. People who sign up for email updates to my blog are eligible for the draw which will take place each month. In my next post I will let you know what the draw will be for July.

After finishing my last painting, "Tempo in Blue", my studio looked really messy so today I spent time getting it cleaned up. I thought it would be fun to do a video of the studio to post on the blog but first I have to learn how to do it. I actually know how to take the video but I have to work out how to edit it and then post it. With all this new technology there is always so much to learn.

New Musical Painting

"Tempo in Blue"

Some paintings come together easily, others have to be dragged into being and this is one of them. The early stages went well but then it all changed and it got darker and darker. A lot of my recent work has been very red so at least a blue painting is a nice change. I like the idea of "Tempo in Blue" but I'm not sure how happy I am with the final result. I am taking a break to look at it a lot and decide what, if anything, I need to do to finish it.

The top picture is where it is at the moment but if you scan down I have included photos of many the stages it went through.

First of all I put in a random background wash.

Next the image of the cello and hands were added in red oil pastel. This will resist the acrylic paint and enable me to scratch back to it if I want.

I start painting in and around the image and pattern of the wash. This is where the fun starts.

After this it went very dark and I forgot to take a photo. Since then I have lightened it up and the photo at the top is where it's at now.

The Golden Saxophone is Finished

I feel this Saxophone painting is finished. It's rather busy with all the patterned underpainting showing through but I think it makes it more interesting, in fact, I have enhanced the pattern in many places by backpainting around and into it. You can see pictures of the process, right from the start, in previous posts. If you like musical paintings check out my web site http://www.susanneclark.com/ and go to the musical page where you will find lots of cello and saxophone paintings with a few pianos thrown in.

If you are interested in receiving updates to my blog drop down and read my previous post and read how you can be in a draw each month for free goodies by just subscribing. Hopefully I will have some fun items for you.

Free, Free, Free!

Wouldn't you like something for free? Sign up now to my mailing list and be in for a draw each month to receive a free gift. This month it's for a copy of the CD "Strauss and Rachmaninoff - Sonatas for Cello and Piano" with Ruth Sommers, cellist, and David Oei, pianist, and featuring one of my paintings as the CD's artwork. Ruth is the director of Festival Chamber Music in NY. It's a great way to keep up with my new work and get an insight into the daily work in the studio.

You will be in for the draw each month you are on the mailing list. Gifts over the coming months will be CD's, collagraph prints or a reproduction of one of my musical paintings. As they say, you have to be in to win. My daughter knows all about this principle. She enters lots of things and has won some great prizes over the years. One was dinner and a baseball match at the Sky Dome in Toronto for 12 people plus team merchandise. I can't match that however!

Subscribe in the box to the right of this. You can have your name removed at any time by emailing me and I certainly won't give your email address to anyone else.

I will be posting a picture of the finished Golden Sax painting in a day or so. You can see pictures of the first few days work in a previous post.

"Mystery Mountain" Wins Award

I just found out yesterday that one of my recent collagraph prints, Mystery Mountain, won second place in the Atlanta Artists Center current exhibition. The exhibition called "Saturation" runs through to the end of the month.

I was quite amazed when I got the call to say that Mystery Mountain had been selected because when I dropped off my three pieces for submission to the show there appeared to be a huge number of entries. I was therefore very pleased to get all three accepted and win an award. A nice surprise.

The Golden Saxophone
An Update

The Golden Saxophone is turning out to be a very glowing picture. I have used bronze, gold and silver paint on the sax and with the overpainting of other colors it has lots of metalic glints. It's rather busy with all the textured pattern showing through but I quite like the effect. Tell me what you think.

I should be finished in a day or so so check back to see the finished result in the next update.

The Golden Saxophone.
A New Musical Painting.

I started a new painting this week. It's another in my ongoing musical series. What always amazes me is how a painting can take on a mind of it's own. I decided on the composition and then started to put a wash on the white canvas, as I usually do, to get it started. I textured the wash and then that's when it began to happen. The pattern of the textured background started asking to be enhanced and the saxophone demanded to be painted in gold paint! I wanted this painting to be quite abstract with the subject matter blending into the background but with all the pattern I feel it's going to be a bit overwhelming. I have added a couple of pictures showing the process so far.

This is the canvas with the textured wash and the basic outline of the composition drawn on it. You will have to look hard to see the drawing of the sax and cellos.

Here you can see where I have started to add the gold and bronze paint and begun back painting into the texture in red, in the background on the left hand side.

This shows the pattern and detail. I will simplify it all as I go along. Check back over the next few days to see the progress.

The Kimono Prints

A few years back I began a series of collagraph prints based on the Kimono. It's such a wonderful shape and great to work within. I felt like a dress designer putting these together and could go on and on thinking up new designs. Now that I have my own press I am able to start making them again and yesterday I was in the studio pulling one for a friend when I thought about posting a few here.

The Kimonos are signed with my name and the Japanese characters for my name. The colors are vibrant and the image is impressed into the paper by the press embossing it which unfortunately doesn't show up in photographs. I have added a detail picture so that you can see a close up.

There are a couple of beautiful Kimonos framed up at the

Heaven Blue Rose Gallery

in Roswell north of Atlanta however if you are interested in this one you can contact me or the gallery. I will post more in coming days. You can also check out my web site http://www.susanneclark.com/ and look on the gallery page for collagraph prints.

"Signs of Life"

Here is the latest piece I have been working on. It's a collagraph for an exhibition with the theme "Evolve" starting soon at Heaven Blue Rose Gallery in Roswell, north of Atlanta.

Five basic shapes occur in the art of all cultures; the circle, the cross, the triangle, the square and the spiral. According to a twenty year study by anthropologist Angeles Arrien people in different cultures give similar meanings to these shapes. The circle symbolizes wholeness, the square stability, the triangle dreams and goals, the cross relationship and the spiral means growth and evolution.

According to the study, the order of preference in which a person places the symbols, shows which of the five universal processes of change and growth is being experienced most intensely by that person at that time.

The spiral symbolizes the process of growth and evolution. It is a process of coming to the same point again and again, but at a different level, so that everything is seen in a new light.

Art of Music Exhibition

Well I have gone and done it again! Every time I start a new work I intend to take photos of the process to post on my blog but once again I got into the studio, started working and forgot all about it.

Because I am excited about finally having my own press I am focusing on printmaking and trying out a lot of different ideas and techniques. There is an exhibition coming up soon at the gallery in Atlanta where I show my work and the theme is "Evolve" so I am working on a piece with that in mind however I have a friend visiting this week and so I've been busy going out and not doing any work.

Last week I had notification that I have had two pieces accepted for the "Art of Music" exhibition at Mills Pond House Gallery in Smithtown in NY state. Unfortunately I won't be able to attend the exhibition which is a pity as I would love to see the other musical works being shown. This would be of special interest to me as musical instruments have been my main theme over the past few years. The two pieces being shown are posted below. They are "Dynamic Duo" and "Well Conducted"

Later in the week I will be back in the studio.

Experimental Paintings

Yesterday I went to my weekly life drawing group at the Atlanta Artists Center. I really enjoy it especially when the model is interesting as she was yesterday. I like to either just do a charcoal drawing or if I am painting I want to try something different and work in a way I don't usually do. These are my experimental paintings and I am not really interested in trying to make a pretty painting. Yesterday I worked in oil pastels on a board that I had painted with the left over acrylic on my pallet. The board was very textured and the paint very random and messy. Most of the colors were primaries so it was very bright. The oil pastels sat up on the textured surface leaving much of the underlying pattern showing. It's certainly not a neat finished looking painting but it was a fun experiment. I will add a couple of pictures showing the detail so you can see the effect. I called it "Looking to the Future"

Collagraph Landscape called "Mystery Mountain"

Yesterday I spent in the studio here in Atlanta making a new plate for a collagraph. It was really nice to have the door to my studio/garage open and the sun shining in.while I worked.

In case you don't know anything about printmaking, a plate is what you print the image from, and for a collagraph, it is usually a thin piece of board, metal or cardboard that you have collaged or stuck various pieces of paper or other stuff on. You can see some examples at my web site.

I spent a long time working on it and was quite pleased at the end of the day, however, when I sat down and reviewed what I had done later that evening, it didn't look good at all! It's so frustrating. I won't give up on it though as there are some really nice parts. I was trying to have some large clear areas instead of all over pattern, but in the end there was just too much space where nothing was happening. I will have to add some more complexity in those areas to make it work better.

Above is the photo of "Mystery Mountain" that I did a few weeks back before I went to Toronto. I am quite happy with it but I am not sure about the dark area at the bottom and I am wondering about cropping that part off when I frame it. If you have an opinion please let me know. There are some wonderful color combinations in it when you see it up close. Click on the image to have a look. Oh the joy of printmaking, I love it!

Where Does All My Time Go?

This weekend, seems to me, to have been completely wasted. I spent hours on the computer updating things on my web site and trying to set up a paypal system so that I can sell reproductions of some of my paintings online. The web site building program I use is called Homestead and it's really good and easy to use however the thing I find most problematic is sorting out the shipping and taxes. Unfortunately at the level I have in Homestead they don't offer a shipping and taxes option so I have to build all those into the pricing. Entering all the info and pictures in just takes time. Perhaps I was just procrastinating about starting another painting or print!

I have run out of steam and enthusiasm for doing a small print to enter in BIMPE. I find small really hard to do. I think I will go back to bigger things!

One thing I did achieve this week was making a submission to an exhibition coming up that is focused on Music, and I donated a couple of paintings for a charity fundraiser here in Dunwoody.

Yesterday!

Yesterday was quite exciting for me. After several months in preparation I finally recieved a box of CDs on which my musical painting, Fractured Cello, is the cover artwork. The 'Strauss and Rachmaninoff Sonatas for Cello and Piano' feature Ruth Sommers, cello, and David Oei on piano. Both are musicians with Festival Chamber Music (FCM) in New York city.

The other thing that happened was that I picked up a copy of Access Atlanta a weekly arts insert in the Atlanta Journal where my large wacky collagraph 'All You Need is Love' was printed very large in color! I was away when the paper came out but Cathy at Heaven Blue Rose Gallery in Roswell where my prints are exhibited had kept me a copy. Last night when I went up to the gallery to pick up the paper the amazing 'Alive After Five' event was on. Canton St has a group of galleries and lots of restaurants who all get together to make the monthly events a real swinging affair. There were two bands playing and the street was filled with people eating, walking and shopping. Very impressive and worth visiting if you live in the Atlanta area. Just make sure to get there early if you want a place to park and eat. Details of dates are on the Gallery website.

In the Studio Again. New Collagraph Print called "Purse and Pumps"

We have just spent the past two weeks on holiday in Toronto helping to build a kitchen and doing lots of painting and cleaning. for our middle son and his partner. His Dad and I along with his partner's step Dad worked non stop for the two weeks and I have to say that it is going to be fantastic. It's a great feeling to see something come together so well after all the work. We now need another holiday to recover.

It's good to be back and in the studio again and creating some new collagraph prints. My printing press arrived just a few days before I left and I only had time to play with it a bit before going to Toronto. I had been looking forward to using all the fabulous ink colours and experimenting!

Today I started work on some small, 4 x 6 inch collagraphs to enter in BIMPE, the Biennial International Print Exhibition held in Vancouver. It is a real challenge for me to work so small but challenges are good and can lead to exciting new work, well that is what I am hoping happens. I will post pictures of the results, meanwhile here is a picture of my first attempt done prior to going away. It's a pretty girly artwork called 'Purse and Pumps'.

Printmaking Update!

As I promised, here is the finished result. It was great fun playing with this method and I think the result is quite effective. I am eager to try incorporating this technique into some of my paintings on canvas.

I based this print on a painting I did a year or so ago. It was one of three very large works featuring women from different cultures. The Flamenco dancer would be interesting to do too and I could add drawings around her based on photographs I took during a trip to Spain in 2006. So many exciting things to try!

A Little Diversion Into Simple Printmaking

So my printing press has arrived and now sits ready for action in my studio. I'm waiting for the inks to arrive from the UK. I also have lots of new canvas's ready for painting on but I have been eager to get started on the printmaking. I happened upon an article about making simple prints using styrofoam as a printing plate so I thought I would give that a try using the one tin of ink that I already have. Because I am a vegetarian I don't buy meat and so I don't have a ready supply of styrofoam containers so I went out and bought some disposable plates and cut the centers out of them. This gave me small 4inch squares to use. The idea is that you draw into the styrofoam with a pencil or pen, ink it up and then press it firmly onto paper. Where the lines are impressed the ink doesn't print and the original colour of the paper shows through. Very simple to do and in fact children do it at pre school. The only ink I have is gold so I had great fun printing with this on different coloured paper but I loved it on black. Then I got very excited about the possibilities and had to rush off to the art store to buy some decent black watercolour/printing paper.

By making a picture using many of the small plates you have more options.I made several prints of a multi plate print based on a painting I did a while back. The first one, pictured above, was a bit messy as the registration of the plates wasn't very good so with the next one I was more careful, however, it was too perfect and lacked the more print quality that I was after. I also ran one through the press under very gentle pressure using the plate I had already printed from but that still had some ink on it. This gave a very soft print that I thought I could use as part of a collage however I decided to paint part of it to see how that would turn look. You will have to check back for my next post to see how that has turned out.

Heaven Blue Rose Gallery and "Art at Peachtree" Show

This was a very artsy weekend for me. Prior to my trip to Toronto I submitted some work to the Heaven Blue Rose Contemporary Gallery in Roswell. This is the first gallery I have applied to since moving to Atlanta and they will now be showing my printmaking and collage works. I spent several hours up at the gallery on Friday sorting out the details and organizing the framing of several pieces including the wacky print in my last post. I am always horrified by the cost of framing but the frame on this print will be great and really enhance the whole look.

I also exhibited at the "Art at Peachtree Show" an event put on by the Peachtree Presbyterian Church and the Atlantic Artists Center and sold one of my pieces there.

My life has been interesting with all the moves we have done however it is a problem for my art career. I just start to get my work known and build up a clientele and then we move. It will be the same this time too as we are only in Atlanta for a three year period and then we will move to Toronto.

House renovation, music and collagraph printmaking!

The past few weeks have been very busy for me. I just spent ten days up in Toronto. It's a great city but it isn't the best time of year to visit. The snow is mounded up everywhere and the place looks dirty. Once spring comes it will clean up and regain it's charm. What really upsets me is the way smokers stand outside the front door of buildings while they have a smoke and then drop their butts on the ground and go inside. There are butts lying everywhere. Why can't smokers clean up their act.

Now that I have voiced my anger at the disrespect of the environment I will move on to something about creativity. While in Toronto I was helping my son, who has just bought a house, to decide on some basic renovations. It's an old house right downtown in an area called Little Italy. We decided on the style for a kitchen, some modular wardrobes and paint colour for the main living area. It's pretty exciting, but challenging, trying to create some oomph and visual excitement for the house on a fairly small budget. However it's all coming together and we have enjoyed doing it. My son is a full time musician and parallel to all this renovation activity he is busy writing material for his next CD. In a future posting I want to write about his creative process and how similar it is to a visual artists.

My big thing this week has been the purchase of a printing press so that I can get back into printmaking. More on this next time. Just for fun I have added a very wacky print I did a year or so ago.

The Conductor's Hands

So I thought I would post the painting that was supposed to be done in soft greys so that you can see how it got totally out of control and ended up full of colour. I had been wanting to do some works with hands in them and the idea of a conductor's hands in front of instruments came to mind. I think I can take this idea and make more of it in future paintings. If you have any comments I would love to hear them.

I saw a great movie last night and I keep thinking about it. I thought the story was very creative and it totally transported me into it's world. Creativity is an amazing human attribute and we see wonderful examples of it all around us every day. I watched a man walking down the street a day or so ago and he looked as if he was talking to himself but of course he had one of those headsets and was talking on his cellphone. I started thinking of just how amazing all the technology we take for granted actually is. Years ago when people travelled by horse and stagecoach, if you had told them that in the future the coaches would be horseless, that they would be heated or cooled depending on the weather, that you would be able listen to music, talk to people who weren't there and even watch pictures on a little box, they would have laughed and yet through human creativity we do all of these things.

To get back to the movie I was impressed with, it was called 'The Lives of Others'. You can read a review of it on Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lives_of_others/

I started a new painting a couple of days ago. I had this idea that I wanted a very muted, high key painting with a lot of different greys in it. I had been admiring some wonderful work with a palette like this and I thought I would like to try and do something similar in coloring. Well I don't quite know what happened but what I ended up with was a painting that is far removed from that initial idea.

I always start a painting by flowing lots of color onto the canvas in a very watery manner to make the underpainting. I build the image up with successive layers of paint calming down the colors and defining the imagery as I go. The problem is that the colors look so wonderful, glowing and delicious that I can't bear to lose them and cover them over with more opaque layers of muted color, so my work always seems to end up being very colorful. I don't think I have ever been a very muted person anyway. I tend to love dramatic art with a lot of style.

I will try again with my next painting and perhaps bit by bit I will be able to incorporate some of these beautiful shades into my work. Art is so reflective of who we are personally and in trying to change the way we paint we are actually changing part of ourselves. No wonder it is so difficult.

Just a few words now on spelling. I have lived in NZ and Canada, where they spell the same way as the British, and several times in the US where things are spelt differently. I am trying to decide which way I should be spelling here in my blog and on my web site.

Most English words have an internationally-accepted spelling, but there are a few that, spelt one way are correct to some readers, and spelled another way look right to others. Embracing the universality of the Internet, I have adopted a blend of UK and US English. This also makes it easier for me so that I don't have to choose each time I write. Hopefully, you'll be only mildly irritated when the other correct version appears.