Jacqueline Sullivan

Gosh! I just spent an amazing couple of hours in my studio! I was painting papers in “layers”. I would then scrape through the layers and expose some of the marks and colors from a previous layer, which I had let dry! I had my Ipod on - playing Aaron Copeland and I was dancing and brushing away - working hard at trying to get rhythmic strokes that will be repeated later with a line or two of calligraphy written over these layers of paint. Hope it works out to look something like what is in my head

As I was working and having such a great time, I was wondering, why on earth am I not doing this more often? It took me most of the day to decide what I was going to do and to get myself actually into the studio! Why am I so resistant to getting started?

While cleaning up I found these words, I think that I need them emblazoned on my brain somehow - or maybe I can project them very large somewhere where I can see them constantly!

How You Can Cultivate Creativity

by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Try to be inspired by something every day.

Try to inspire at least one person every day.

Write down each day what surprised you and how you surprised others.

When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it.

Wake up in the morning with a specific goal to look forward to.

If you do anything well, it becomes enjoyable.

To keep enjoying something, you need to increase its complexity.

Take charge of your schedule.

Make time for reflection and relaxation.

Shape your space.

Find out what you like and what you hate about life.

Start doing more of what you love, less of what you hate.

Develop what you lack.

Shift often from openness to closure.

Find a way to express what moves you.

Look at problems from as many viewpoints as possible.

Figure out the implications of the problem.

Implement the solution.

Produce as many ideas as possible.

Try to produce unlikely ideas.

This is the type of papers I was creating. I worked on sheets that are 40″ long. The plan is to make it into an accordion book.

I gave a presentation on brush lettering last night for the Michigan Association of Calligraphers. This was the Spring meeting for this association, my “home” guild. We only meet four times per year. It was fun to be the presenter, even though I was well aware that there were many people in the room who were probably better at brush lettering than I was! But the absolute coolest thing was the system that our prez, Diane Stum Fekete and programs chair , Gail McGuire came up with to project my demo onto the big screen.

They used a Video camera plugged into a digital projector. The camera took the picture and the projector projected it. Everyone in the room (approx. 40 people) could follow along with what I was doing at my table! It was pretty amazing as well as exciting for us as an organization. This means that we can have more lettering demos at meetings, because now everyone in the room can see what the person upfront is doing! I was “wowed” by the whole idea! Here is a pic of me lettering with Diane looking over my shoulder - making sure that I kept everything in “view” of the camera!

Also in Portland at Collage was my Layers upon Layers class. In this class students built a collage on a stretched canvas. The canvas was covered with aluminum foil which was then painted to look something like “old metal”. Then molding paste was layer over the aluminum. Some students put images on the first layer coming out from under the pieces of aluminum foil. After the molding paste was applied, images were mounted onto binders board. Designs were stenciled in molding paste around the images. All of the molding paste was then painted. Some of the images were “antiqued” with a glaze made from fluid acrylics. The binders board with the images on were then glued to foam core and then glued to the canvas. In some cases, beads were hung from these dimensional layers. The collages done in the class were really striking and here are a few photos of them.

I will be teaching this same class in March at The Artist’s Nook in Northern Colorado. Hope to see you there!

I taught a couple of weeks ago at Green Heron Book Arts in Forest Grove. One of the classes that I taught was “The Meander Book” . Students in this class painted tissue and layered it on boards to form small 5″ s 5″ collages. These small collages - 32 of them - were then assembled into a “Meander Book”. A fun, sculptural book which can be arrange in many different ways - ever changing art!

Aren't the colors wonderful?

I returned on Monday from a teaching trip to Portland. It was a joy, as always, to see my friends from Portland! My gracious hostess, Alesia Zorn was fun and always willing to help me shop creatively in this wonderful creative town!

One of the classes I taught at Collage was my Textured Journal Class. Students were amazed that they could build this book in three hours! They all did wonderful books, the depth of the color on the covers doesn’t show so well in the photos, but trust me, the colors were deep and rich and the textures just made you want to touch these beautiful books.

I will be teaching this class again next month in Bellvue, Colorado at The Artist’s Nook.

Come join us if you can!

I had the honor and privilege of teaching for The Chicago Calligraphy Collective last November! It is always a treat to see my Chicago friends in letters, yet always sort of scary to think that they would hire me to come and teach them - they are all SO incredibly talented. But we all had a great time and fabulous art was produced. These photos are some samples of their class work. I am sorry that I do not know whose work it is, but if you see your work here - please post a comment and tell us that it is yours!

Metal Etching and Patinas

I FINALLY DID IT! Have been meaning for quite a while now to open an Etsy shop for my hand made cards and smaller collages! And today, staying home in the cold weather, I scanned a bunch of stuff and posted it. You can see the stuff at http://www.jacisull.etsy.com. I have more stuff in the works so check back often!

4" x 6" collage in 8" x 10" mat

Michigan Association of Calligraphy has a show running currently at The Birmingham Conference Center . I have entered 5 pieces in the exhibit. The show is actually a retrospective to celebrate the Association’s thirtieth anniversary. Two of the pieces I entered were a couple of years old. But three of the pieces are new. Those are the works that I am posting here. All three pieces were done in Judy Melvin’s workshop when she taught here in Michigan last March. The exhibit is up until the end of November. It is open Monday thru Friday during business hours.

I have just finished my class proposals for 2009. This work is for a new class that will feature a combination of transfers and hand painted tissue paper. I added some oriental lace paper, some Japanese writing in the background and lots more “stuff” for texture. Great fun! I love the transparency of the transfers together with the translucency of the tissue. It gives the piece a lot of depth! I’ll let you know if it gets accepted and where it will be offered!

Victor and I love our home. And we both love it when we get something “artistic” for it. So we are both thrilled with the new glass for the side light of our front door. I was invited to a friend’s sign painting shop to play with her sand blaster. (Thank you, Wendy!) I was trying to decide what in the world to “etch” when Victor reminded me that I had been wanting to do something with the glass in the front door. The sand blasting booth is not big enough for the glass in the front door, but I was able to do the three small windows in the side light. Not having very much time, I did some quick calligraphic marks with an Automatic pen. We then scanned it into a computer into a program that is designed for sign making. Once edited and cleaned up a bit the image was sent to the plotter which cut the mask. I then stuck the mask to the glass pieces. Then we put them into the booth and sand blasted them! It was really cool! We have the windows sort of “propped into” the frame. We now need to paint the door and the trim. But we are really happy with the way that they look - and they were FREE! The glass was actually scrap glass from our framing business. Can’t beat the price! Of course now we both want a sand blaster so that we can do the entire front door window and the rock out front and…. well, you know how the creative mind works!