The Quicksilver Workaholic

I'm just finishing (AGAIN) the article for Early American Life--got lots of questions (some unanswerable), interviewed 4 people, did lots of research on images, and hopefully will be ready to send it out again, tomorrow. (It should be in the June issue.)


The article will be on miniatures--the one above is a wonderful, worthless 19th C. reproduction piece that my godchildren found in the walls of an old farmhouse we were helping to demolish.  I love it!  With its chipped edges and still-bright colors, it has a story to tell that I wish I could hear.

Of course, the article will be about miniatures from the 16th to 19th C., focusing on American originals.  I suspect my girl, above, is mass-produced.

It's been fun browsing some of the museum sites. Visiting the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston has always been a goal for me in real life; haven't made that yet, but the website is great. They own the earliest known American miniature, by Mary Roberts, painted some time between 1740-1750, and I hope we can use that image in the article.  The Cincinnati Art Museum has a wonderful collection as well--I must have browsed several hundred graphics yesterday!

The Starr Collection at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has fascinated me since I was a kid--the Nelson's sort of my "home museum," delighting me with sights, sounds, aromas.  (They've also got one of the foremost collections of Asian art in the world...I've posted about Quan Yin here before.)  Catherine Futter, curator of the Starr Collection, was a great interview! 

Oh, and if you like antiques of any kind, Northeast Auctions has ALL their catalogs online, and they're searchable.  Their Ms. Coolidge was helpful and fun to talk to...she was delighted to hear that I paint miniatures, as well, and amazed that as much as possible I use 18th C. methods and materials.  (I paint on bone or legal ivory, with water-based paint and gum arabic.)


This is one of my favorite commissioned pieces...everything just WORKED, that time.  It's tough on the eyes...these are about 1 1/2" tall.  (It was interested to read how many historical miniature painters had to give it up when their eyes wouldn't cooperate any more.<:-})

But nonetheless, I will be GLAD to be done with this project and on to the next one! :-)

My wonderful webmistress and I worked on my website at http://cathyjohnson.info, to simplify it and make it broader to fit the newer monitors.  I've got my new Art Tip newsletter reminder on the page, but when we get finished with the update, it will be easily found at upper right, and kateslover has been helping me tweak the newsletter so it's more readable.  (Thanks, babe!  I am NOT good with html!)  The next one will use a different template, with a white background!

With all that going on, I've hardly had time to sketch this week, and I miss it...off to the City to a family birthday, soon, so the sketchbook is going along!

After years of having problems with email delivery of my newsletter, I finally decided to bite the bullet and go with a paid online service.  Eeeep...it looked so SIMPLE when I got them from other people!  I made a new banner, and am learning the ins and outs...I hope.  Who knew what "global fields" were?



I put a new art tip signup form on my website, at http://cathyjohnson.info (bottom of the page, now...) and on my Fine Arts Gallery, at http://cathyjohnsonart.blogspot.com/ so hopefully they'll be easy to find. 

(If you're not already a subscriber, feel free to to to either of these and sign up!  I always try to include links, news, websites, artists and materials I like, feedback, info on my latest classes and more, in addition to the art tip.) 

My first mailing was colorful but hard to read, sorry, folks!  I loved that rich blue background, but who knew the links would be blue, too??  Or kinda purple, really...and the text looked larger on the draft than it did on the email, so the NEXT newsletter will be a lot easier to read...

...and have a lot more links and news!  I was so frazzled by the time I got something out, I just hit SEND!

Meanwhile, Art TIp #99 is up on my website, in the usual place--upper left!  I hope you enjoy it...

NEW CD for ARTISTS, SCRAPBOOKERS and other CRAFTERS

Have you ever been frustrated with the paper in commercially-bound journals? Wished you could have paper that would take the mediums YOU like? Wanted a different size or format than you could find in the stores?




I'm delighted with the reception of my easy bookbinding CD--I did it in conjunction with the online class I taught in November and December, and the students really seemed to love it!

This one makes it easy and fast, if you're not ready to jump into full-scale bookbinding.  You can STILL have exactly the paper, size, and color you want.

You can find it HERE  in my website catalog, or in my CafePress store, along with all my other CDs for artists--slide shows, how-to demos, plein air, and copyright-free photos for artists.

This one includes accordion fold books, folders that use a single sheet of paper, ring-bound journals and much more--including making cover papers and your own bookcloth! 



Lots of hints and tips for those who want paper they love to work on without having to learn about stitching signatures and all that--though that IS fun, and I love it!



The cost is $15.99 (plus shipping) and it will save you many times that over buying sketchbooks, while offering the satisfaction of having JUST what you want--and of course having made it yourself.

Give it a try!

...well, they weren't swimming, because the lake was frozen, but it was delightful seeing these big birds!  Trumpeter swans were thought extinct in the first part of the 20th century, but they're making a comeback--there are an estimated 1000 birds now...




They're huge--25-30 pounds, wiith a 7 to 8-foot wingspan. Some of them have rusty or orangish heads--that's because the feathers get stained when they feed in iron-rich water or mud.

I didn't get to hear them trumpeting--just grumbling because I was too close!  As you can see below, I really didn't get close enough to take a really good picture, though.




My "studio" is usually pretty simple--the front seat of the Jeep or our truck, Rosie.  It's a bit awkward, but it's OUT there...and warmer in the Jeep than it was outdoors, right around freezing...

It got into the stores, onto Amazon, and into buyers' hands about a month earlier than expected, and the reviews have been really good! 

Above is one of my favorite step-by-step demos from the book, from a visit to kateslover in the Blue Ridge Mountains, back before we were married..  Gorgeous area...we drove through clouds and watched that subtle, beautiful sunset over the mountains...


I found a link on the Artists' Network today--it's one of Jen's Picks, and they even included a step by step demo of my landscape on Yupo.  You can find it here: http://www.artistsnetwork.com/article/watercolor-tricks-techniques/ and order it from the North Light Shop (linked on that page), and of course Amazon has it as well--you can click here for details, including the Search Inside option...Watercolor Tricks & Techniques: 75 New and Classic Painting Secrets (Just remember to hit "surprise me," you can see a lot more of a book that way...)

I did animals and people, too, of course, and also some whimsical pieces like childhood toys and a goofy doll I designed years ago!


There are step-by-steps on both of these, too...my little friend Fiona and my beloved Merlin...