Accordion Book and Colored Pencil Workshop

I am going to be teaching this 2 day workshop in October. Please contact me if you would like more information or to register. It's going to be a lot of fun. Although I realize many of my readers aren't in the area! 

Fine Points Drawing Exhibit at Bristol Art Museum

I am really excited to have been asked to guest curate this drawing exhibit at the Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, Rhode Island. I invited six artists who are proficient in their mediums and profound in their works of art. They are Deborah Friedman, Holly Bedrosian, Elizabeth A. Patterson and Susan Tait Porcaro (colored pencil), Kathie Miranda (colored pencil, silverpoint) and Tatiana Flis (graphite, colored pencil). You can click on their names to see more of their works on the individual websites. 

I am also exhibiting some of my handmade books containing colored pencil drawings. 

The exhibit opening reception is Friday, July 26 from 6-8 pm. I am hosting a Curator's Chat at 5:30 mp just before the opening on July 26th. 

The exhibit is open for preview Bristol/Warren Art Night Thursday July 25 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm. See the flyer below for more information and all of the Art Night stops.

The works of art in this exhibit are amazing, please stop in and you will surely be impressed by the wonderful drawings! Five of us are members of the Colored Pencil Society of America.

The exhibit runs through September 1.

Collecting Shells - Handmade Book in a Handmade Box

I just finished this handmade accordion book that folds up into a handmade box. I drew the seashell and sea life illustrations with black and white Faber Castell Polychromos colored pencils and Caran d'Ache Supracolor watercolor pencils on Strathmore Toned Tan drawing paper. I wanted to create this artwork using only tones of black, white and grays.

I built the box using book board and made the book cloth with this lovely fabric I found at a local fabric shop. The accordion book folds up into the box but can be displayed on it's side with the pages fanning out.

I enjoy creating small sketches and drawings and looking for new ways to present them instead of just in a sketchbook. I decided that I can create the drawings into handmade books and display them. This piece is going to be exhibited at the Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, RI. I am the guest curator of an upcoming drawing exhibit that opens Friday, July 26. More about that in my next post!

Altered & Handmade Book Talk Tomorrow

Everyone is invited to my book talk tomorrow Monday June 17 at 3 pm at the Providence Art Club, 11 Thomas Street, Providence, Rhode Island. It is free and open to the public. I will be talking about my process of altering used books and turning them into book sculptures. I will also be talking about my handmade books that incorporate mediums such as colored pencil, watercolor, printmaking and collage into the illustrated pages. I will also be showing a PowerPoint presentation of my works and examples of other artists' works to show just what can be done with the art of books!

Handmade Book & Book Sculpture Exhibit

I had an incredibly exciting and well attended opening reception at the Providence Art Club last Sunday afternoon. I have been working so hard on writing the book on colored pencil (coming out in October!) and preparing for this exhibit, plus doing commission work for clients - so I haven't had my own art exhibit in quite some time.

This exhibit of my handmade books and books sculptures allowed me to talk about my work and interact with all of my guests at the opening reception. I had forgotten how much I enjoy connecting with people, talking about the exhibit and listening to their stories, their comments and feedback on my work. I talked continually to guests for two hours straight and never even left the gallery for a glass of water! Here are a few pictures of my work in the Castelnovo Gallery at the Providence Art Club. For those of you unfamiliar with this gallery, it is a small, intimate gallery upstairs at the Art Club and a perfect space for exhibiting my works of art.

I was also thrilled to already have sold 8 of the 15 exhibiting works of art!

For anyone who is reading this and in the RI area, I will be giving an artist talk at the Providence Art Club on Monday, June 17 at 3 pm. I will be talking about my work and my process as well as showing a short presentation of other book artists' work that I have seen. The talk is free and open to the public, so please come if able!

Handmade Accordion Book With Etchings

Last fall my husband and I took a trip to Amsterdam Holland and I was really intrigued by the wonderful characteristics of the Amsterdam canal houses; colors, shapes and how many are leaning forward or against each other. It was explained to us that property is taxed on its width not height - thus the reason the houses are so narrow and so tall. We were also told that canal houses were built on swampy land along the canals many years ago. Time has passed and many are starting to sink into the wet land as well as their support beams are decaying causing them to begin to lean. We saw construction on many houses that foundations were being replaced and newer support beams were being added for support.

I took many photos of the different houses and returned home thinking of how I could create art  with images of these wonderful houses. I decided to create an accordion book illustrated with colored intaglio etchings. I enrolled in a solar plate etching class and created six etching plates from graphite drawings that I had done of the Amsterdam canal houses. I even added a car, mini bus and some bikes. I experimented by printing the plates with different colored inks and on different types of papers. I created some with  chine-collé rice papers (glued) onto the printmaking paper as I ran the etching through the press.

I took the finished prints and cut out the canal house shapes and hand colored some of the windows, door and facades of the houses for added interest. I then decided on an arrangement and glued the canal houses onto a house-shaped accordion paper. The top photo shows the many cutouts I worked with as I decided on a layout for the pages.

The final step was to create a "house" shaped box in which to fit the accordion book. I shaped and glued book board into the box and covered it with handmade book cloth. I added a little door knob to the box.

I worked on this project from January though April of this year. It took me a while to create and execute the concept but I really enjoyed it and probably have enough prints for another book. 

I hope you like it also! It will be part of my upcoming exhibit at the Providence Art Club, Providence, RI opening Sunday, June 2nd in the Castelnovo Gallery.

Handmade Books & Book Sculpture Exhibit

I'm really excited to be exhibiting just my handmade books and book sculptures in an exhibit titled Bound and Unbound at the Providence Art Club, Providence, Rhode Island from June 2-21, 2019. I have my own small exhibit upstairs in the Castelnovo Gallery, which is a small intimate space perfect for my books.

Other exhibiting artists are Marilyn Saabye and Roberta Segal in the Maxwell Mays Gallery and Donato Beauchaine and Lorraine Bromley in the Dodge House Gallery. It will be a lovely exhibit of all the different artworks!

Please join us Sunday, June 2 from 2-4 pm for the artist reception. I would love to hear comments and feedback on my book sculptures!

I named this book Inner Circle. I created it from a book I purchased in Prague that is in another language and I'm not quite sure what language. The shapes of the letters intrigued me to create a sculpture in which the type could still be read. I folded pages, punched large circles and added buttons to create this hanging sculpture. I had great fun creating it over the last several weeks. I hung it and added pieces and took away pieces until I liked the finished result. 

In Between Shells

Here is a new handmade book that I created. The covers are made from two large quahog shells that I found locally on the beach. I drilled holes into the shells so I could sew the pages together and to the shells. I will post more photos of the cover at a later date, the book is on exhibit right now at the Providence Art Club Big and Small Exhibition.

I created the pages by cutting them out to fit the outside shell shapes then illustrated most pages with colored pencil, gouache, markers, image transfer and printmaking. I also used different materials to collage pages; old maps, rice paper, decorative papers, marbleized paper. and book pages. I have been working on this piece throughout the summer and while taking trips on our boat, I became inspired with different fish and marine life I have seen and photographed in my travels.

It is meant to be a small journal of my thoughts and travels corresponding to the ocean.

Beach Studios Exhibits in Newport, RI

Here are photos from 12 Beach Studios Artists exhibiting at Spring Bull Gallery in Newport, RI for the month of September. We work in many different mediums, oil, acrylic, encaustic, pastel, colored pencil, monotype printmaking, origami and paper sculpture.

 Anne Winthrop Cordin (left) and Susan Petree (right).

 Cindy Jordan, origami and paper art.

 Cindy Jordan, paper art.

 Diane Gay

 Helen Woodhouse (left) and Sandra O'Brien (right)

 Kathy Morton (left) and Felicia Touhey (right)

 My work, Turtle triptych, colored pencil boxes and handmade book.

Helen Hadley and Judy Chaves (right)

Anne Winthrop Cordin's painting demo for Gallery Night last week. 

Printmaking Talk at Bristol Art Museum

Please Join Providence Art Club printmakers Sunday, Nov. 1 from 1-3 pm at the Bristol Art Museum for Process and Inspiration talks and demos on contemporary printmaking techniques in conjunction with our Joint Venture printmaking on exhibit at the museum. 

I will be talking about my handmade artist books which are on display. Other speakers will be Susan Patterson demonstrating the white-line woodcut, Richard Harrington, Madolin Maxey and Regina Partridge will discuss different approaches to monotype which is a one-of-a-kind print.

Bristol Art Museum is located at 10 Wardwell St, Bristol, RI and light refreshments will be served.

Open Studio and Award

Tomorrow night, Thursday, May 29 from 5-9 p.m. my studio at Bristol Art Museum will be one of the featured open studios for Bristol Warren Art Night, anyone who is local please stop by! The Art Museum also has a wonderful juried member show on exhibit and will have live string music. The other featured open studio artist is painter Jane Dever of Alta Luna Gallery and studio. 

I am really excited to learn that my handmade book Windows of the World received second prize in the sculpture category at the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club Annual Member Exhibit being held at the Salmagundi Club in NYC.

Handmade Accordion Book for Mentors and Students Exhibit

 During the month of March, my colored pencil students and I are part of an exhibit called Mentors and Students at Spring Bull Gallery in Newport, RI. There are also five additional instructors and students exhibiting in this exhibit in mediums including pottery, drawing, watercolor, pastel, encaustic and acrylic/oil. If you are local and have time to see the exhibit, please stop in. The gallery is open every day from noon to 5 p.m. Our opening reception was so well attended there was barely room to move in the galleries! It is exciting for the mentors to be able to share our talents with students and see our students work progress as they learn the different mediums. I am planning to stop in the gallery when it is less crowded so I can take photos of the artwork and post them.

For the Mentors and Students exhibit, I put together an accordion book filled with my small drawings. I worked on these drawings in my classes along with my students to help them see how I would approach the subjects they were working on in terms of form, value and color. In the classes we were experimenting with different surfaces and colored backgrounds.

To create the book, I cut out and glued together small sheets of heavy weight drawing paper to which I glued my small drawings, some individually on each page and some collaged together. Each little page measures 7x7" and the book is folded and tied into a neat little package. Above are photos of the book stretched out in my studio.


Exhibitng Mentors include: Gail Armstrong, Charlene Capazano, Jane Austin, Felicia Touhey, Susan Shaw and me.

Exhibiting Students include: Elisabeth Wagner, Christine Witkos, Maggie Ramey, Sherry Italiano, Suzann Andrews, Jane Berriman, Mary Jennings, Akiko Omori, Laurence Lavagne, Lara Pilla, Susan Wermuth, Lara Pilla, Norma Burnell, Carol Normandin, Adrienne Ranelli, Rayne Baer, Marisol Lagares, Libby Gilpatric, Cheery Hall, Maureen Cunningham, Patty MacLeish, Jan Goldstein, Elizabeth Sullivan, Brenda Langlais, Craig Masten, Marie Fontaine, Nina Ackmann, Sheila Turner, Diane Crane, Madeline Beaudry, Phil McAllister, Deborah Grant, Sharlie Sudduth, Ara Sadanientz, Michael Manni and Jean Patiky.

Creating Books and Book Sculpture

These are two of my book sculptures which I have entered into an open exhibit at Imago Gallery in Warren, RI. The pieces are hung quite high on the wall but still can be viewed well enough from below. I went to the opening wondering what kind of reactions I would get from people because I think they're just fun and different but as an artist, we never know how our work will be received. I was especially happy because the piece on the right in which I titled Flying Away was sold during the opening. The buyer introduced herself to me and told me she loved the piece and had exactly the right spot in her office for it. For me, to make people happy with my art is the greatest reward.

This collection of small drawings are being made into an accordion style handmade book. When I teach colored pencil to my students, I usually draw along with them. I will pick one subject from our still life and work on my drawing while I help them to work on theirs. I have quite a collection of these small drawings so I have decided to put several together into a handmade book which can be displayed. I am part of an upcoming student/mentor exhibit at Spring Bull Gallery in Newport, RI and I plan for my book to be included in the exhibit.