Abstract, contemporary Landscape Painting

FaQ: Wax, Liquin and Gloss in Painting

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:26:00 +0000

More questions, this time by Kathy:
Q: My first one is the use of wax, I so far have not used this and was wondering if you could give me some tips on how to use this in paintings, the do's and don'ts would also be beneficial to know?

Anne: I'm in the middle of posting a pretty detailed encaustic 'workshop' on the blog. Subscribe to it so you get notified when there is an update. The first post described materials needed for encaustic. The next post will focus on Technique.

Q: The use of gloss and oil paint in your paintings, do you mix the gloss in with the oil paint or do you use the gloss when the painting is finished. I am aware that you cannot gloss a painting until it has been at least 12 months?

Anne: I haven't used gloss in my paintings for year. I have found that it ages unreliably. Unfortunately the same goes for Bitumen, a material I used a lot and which is one of my favorites.

Q: Last and final question, I usually finish my paintings with a final glaze of liquin mixed in with a transparent colour to give it a bang! I have not however found the correct ratio to use that is how much liquin to oil paint, I have been doing this through trial and error.?

Anne: I don't think there is a 'correct' ratio of oil paint to Liquin. It depends on the paint you mix into the Liquin. And it depends on how fluid you want to use it. Since you can apply Liquin pure, there is no detrimental effect or no way of over or under mixing it. Simply mix it as you like it best.

Publication

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:10:00 +0000

Stahl's work is included in the 2009 'American Art Collector' - a book on contemporary American Art published by Alcove Press. It will hit galleries, collectors and stores next week.

Questions and Answers I

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:10:00 +0000

I keep getting emails where people ask me questions about my work, my process, my inspirations, materials, techniques and my disortation. Finding myself strapped for time in the studio, but wanting also to help and be available to questions, I decided to start posting my answers on this blog.

Q: Your series on the landscape of the mind, where did the inspiration come from and how did you come a cross the concept of the mind being a landscape?

Anne: This particular series has a long 'history'. When I was a teenager, I would often imagine how people minds looked like. Mostly they were visions of vast, dark landscapes filled with messy entangled twisted paths - much like a jarn. I didn't do anything with those ideas, until I was contacted by the 'Blue Brain Project' in late 2007 and I reviewed their work. You can read more about my thoughts behind 'Landscapes of the Human Mind' on my website and you can watch a TED video about the 'Blue Brain Project'.

Q: I have found that you have been very active in your travels of different countries and been able to see many different landscapes. In comparison to all these different landscapes how do they compare to some of the landscapes you have seen here in the United States?

Anne: The American West has been a most wonderful resource of continuous inspiration. Perhaps because I'm not from here (but now live in California) these landscapes hold a lot of mystery and romance and are still novel and exotic for me. So, in a sense, it is because I have seen and grown up with very different landscape, that I can see the American West in new ways.

Q: Who has influenced you in your development as an artist and an abstract landscape artist?

Anne:The art of Rothko, Turner, Tapies, Richter amongst many has influenced my path. But of course nature really has the greatest influence on my work.

How to paint in Encaustics - Part I

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:36:00 +0000

Part I: Tools and Ingredients

Part II: How to make the encaustic paint
Part III: Techniques and Painting with encaustics

There are many receipes for mixing your own encaustic paints. Experimenting on your own, will give you the paste you like best. First you'll need to get some ingredients and tools:

purified, bleached beeswax
unrefined beeswax
raw pigment (or if you are just starting out and have a hard time finding pigments, try R&F pirgmented wax blocks.
You can even use standard oil paints to pigment your wax, but don't use more than 15% or so, or else your paste will get too oily. Therefore you should use high-end artists oils such as Williamsburg or Sennelier
turpentine
damar (I use a pulverised product from Germany, but you may be safer using the crystal rocks - don't use varnish)
containers (I prefer fireproof glass or you can use tuna cans or muffin tins etc...)
cheap brushes, palette knives
fusing tools such as hot air gun, heat pens, iron, heated spatulas, etc...
lots of rag
keep water handy in case of burns or fire
make sure your area is very well ventilated! the fumes are toxic.
supports such as panel or board. Canvas is to flexible for thick applications. You can also use paper, if it is adhered to a ridgid surface.

Next post will focus on technique.

R&F Encaustic Paints

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:57:00 +0000

If you're interested in trying out some encaustic painting yourself, try these ready to use, heavily pigmented sticks by R&F. They have lots of gorgeous colors to choose from, plus a number of tools and other materials and ingredients needed for encaustic painting.

At CorkStop Studios we are planning on running more encaustic workshops in the future.

New Work

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 05:12:00 +0000

Work in Progress

The newest work is posted here. More information for each piece will be added later (such as Titles, Prices, Series information, etc...)
View more at :
http://annestahl.com/paintings/new_work.shtml

Review: Don Scott MacDonald

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 05:59:00 +0000

When I recently came across the work of Don Scott MacDonald I decided that the idea or writing artist reviews, which I had been toying with for quite some time now, would finally had to become reality.

Don's work inspires the viewer, not only to blog about it, but to dream and get lost in the space between pure color and suggestion. This 'Zwischendimension' could be considered a profound personal journey or a childish game. Resulting in the ability to look with a fresh clean visual palate, to shed predjudice and to sink into a visual expanse. Like taking a drink of clear water so you can taste another beautifully crafted wine. These paintings allow us to meditate and become one with color, space and dimension.

Don has a show coming up in Rutherford (California) opening on October 17th. Make sure you visit his website as well. http://donsart.com

Expect more Wax

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:01:00 +0000

No, not the bikini kind! Encaustics of course - this is an ART blog after all. I'm getting ready to begin a new painting series and 'there will be wax'.

Wax offers a wealth of options, is fun to work with, has an ancient tradition and is simply gorgeous to look at!

Encaustic paintings are perhaps the most durable of paintings and have outlasted other paintings by thousands of years. Evidence of this can be seen by the Faiyum mummy portraits that are over 2500 years old. Excavation of ancient encaustic painting has shown no mold, cracking, flaking, or fading. This is because unlike other mediums, encaustic paintings are resistant to moisture, acid, and mold. This is why they can survive in humid climates and why I can safely place an encaustic panel in my bathroom!

They do however require some special preparation and care. For one, because wax can crack when applied in thick layers, it needs to be on a ridged surface. I'll be getting my panels hand made by one of America's best: John Annesley. Next, the ingredients and receipes need to be carefully 'cooked'. The tools sharpened and cleaned. The studio well ventilated, but not so much so that dust can make it onto the warm surface before it's cured. And finally one needs to educate potential buyers that the work should never be exposed to extreme temperatures nor physical contact. In particular, don't hand an encaustic where your toddler roams within reach! Most kids love to dig their nails into the wax.

So, I'll be diving under once again to submerse myself into the world of melting points, reversibility, sheen, polish, scraping and the likes. When I come up for air, I'll post a pic of a piece in process...

going under now...
a-

Echo of the Whole

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:16:00 +0000

Echo of the Whole: Call For Entries '08-'09
Adrienne Allebe, Stephanie Dotson, Tera Galanti, Servando Garcia

“Gather a shell from the strown beach/And listen at its lips: they sigh/The same desire and mystery,/The echo of the whole sea’s speech.” The title of this year's Call For Entries exhibition, Echo of the Whole, is excerpted from Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poem titled The Sea Limits. Like the shells in this poem, the selected Tri-County artists—Adrienne Allebe, Stephanie Dotson, Tera Galanti, and Servando Garcia–echo the artistic practices and characteristics found within the art world as a whole, and reflect the many sides of Santa Barbara County’s own diverse artistic region....
Read full article.

Art Sales in London: super-rich hunt for the wow factor

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:49:00 +0000

By Colin Gleadell
Published: 9:52AM BST 30 Jun 2009 in the Telegraph.

While the world's super-rich are looking for great art to buy, the auctioneers are having problems finding it for them. Last week, Merrill Lynch and Capgemini's World Wealth Report confirmed what many in the art trade have been saying for months: that since the financial crisis began, high-net-worth individuals have been moving their money away from bank deposits and stock markets into alternative investments such as jewellery and art.

Read the whole story at www.telegraph.co.uk

Steve Miller's Photography

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:32:00 +0000

This amazing photograph has the painterly qualities I look for and love in photographs.
Check out Steve's work here: http://semillerimages.zenfolio.com

Changing the Art on the White House Walls

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Tue, 26 May 2009 02:15:00 +0000

From the Wall Street Journal:

Barack Obama is taking on health care, financial regulation, torture and environmental policy. He’s also revamping the White House art collection.

The Obamas are sending ripples through the art world as they put the call out to museums, galleries and private collectors that they’d like to borrow modern art by African-American, Asian, Hispanic and female artists for the White House. In a sharp departure from the 19th-century still lifes, pastorals and portraits that dominate the White House’s public rooms, they are choosing bold, abstract art works.

Landscape of the Not So Human Mind

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Fri, 15 May 2009 04:09:00 +0000

Stahl's latest print to come out the intaglio press.

Quiz: Can you tell what it is???

Ears on Art

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Thu, 14 May 2009 05:43:00 +0000

Listen to Anne Stahl and Pacha on 'Ears on Art' a KCBX radio program.
http://kcbx.org/mp3archive/eoa090513.mp3

Central Coast Magazine publishes feature article about CorkStop Studios artists.

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Fri, 08 May 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Meet the Press! Central Coast Magazine published a three page full feature article about the four CorkStop Studios artists: Anne Stahl, Carol Paquet, Roger Lee and Pacha.
http://ping.fm/hn7e6

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Mon, 04 May 2009 04:41:00 +0000

Hard work is starting to pay off with more than 17 prints ready for the big show 'Beyond the Print: Revealed' at CorkStop Studios on May 22nd.

Stahl Interviewed by KCBX

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Sat, 02 May 2009 21:17:00 +0000

Crissa Hewitt and Steven deLuque explore the exciting world of printmaking in an interview with CorkStop Studio artists Anne Stahl and Pacha. The interview will be aired on Wednesday May 13th at 4:30pm.

Ears on Art with Crissa Hewitt & Steven deLuque - The first and second Wednesday of the month,

Visit 'Ears on Art' at KCBX

Printing the edge

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:45:00 +0000

After a whirlwind of commissions, exhibitions and publications during the second half of 2008 - I'm now focusing on printmaking. Inspired by working collaboratively with my fellow artists at CorkStop Studios, the prints are taking a new direction.

New techniques and tools have offered new visions a vehicle. Such as pre-washing emulsions before solar exposure, creating aqua-tints gradation with pixel size dots from a digital printer, mixing printing inks and other painting materials on the plate and paper, combining intaglio and relief printing all on the same plate, and so on...

Equality Watch: Women Artists Get Paid Less

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:49:00 +0000

This is a thought-inspiring article by Melissa Silverstein.

[...]It's hard to make ends meet as an artist, but its harder as a female artist according to the NEA.

Women artists earn $0.75 for every dollar made by men artists...

Pay disparity increases with age.

Women make up just under half of all artists nationwide (46 percent), yet they are underrepresented in many artist professions. In 2003-2005, nearly 8 out of 10 announcers and architects were men.

Women artists are as likely to be married as female workers in general, but they are less likely to have children.

Female artists cluster in low-population states...

Read the full article.

Kippenberger at Moca Los Angeles

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:52:00 +0000

It was interesting to see a fellow German artist, whose work spans from the fifties to the nineties, during a recent visit to the LA Museum of Contemporary Art.

I remember another German artist, Nikolaus von Georgi, once telling me, that German art mirrors German history and events in a remarkable manner: After the second world war, the trauma of war, deaths, the massive collective guilt and the destruction throughout the country was visible in art as artists worked in dark, grungy and morbid imagery and techniques. Then in the late 60ies, Germans - and German art - found a 'new life'. Paintings became brighter, cleaner more positive and almost 'fun'. After a couple of decades, art bounced back and found a balance, as indeed the German people had found balance and stability.

The retrospective exhibition of Kippenberger's work, did indeed show that my colleagues interpretation and observation is generally accurate. It was inspiring and delightful to see his work at the MOCA.

Go to the MOCA website to read the official description and announcement of this show.

Soho Myriad 2nd Annual Art Show & Sale To Benefit Breast Cancer

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:57:00 +0000

This monoprint from the "landscapes of the human mind" series will be auctioned off to raise funds and awareness for the fight against breast cancer.

Soho Myriad 2nd Annual Art Show & Sale To Benefit Breast Cancer
Complimentary Cocktails & Hors D'oeuvres.
Click here to see the invitation and RSVP.

Artists Unite for Healthcare

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:57:00 +0000

Recent News from Artists Unite for Healthcare, a non-profit organization I strongly support: Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed Assembly Bill 1945 (De La Torre), which Artists United had strongly supported. AB 1945 would have established an independent review process if an insurer wanted to rescind coverage and would have allowed insurers to rescind insurance only when a consumer willfully misrepresents his or her health history.

Read more about healthcare for artists.

Call for Artists

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 20:52:00 +0000

ARTISTS * POETS * SCULPTORS * PHOTOGRAPHERS and OTHER CREATIVES WANTED!

The Holonic Art Movement is looking for you! We're in the middle of planning an event on September 27, 2008 at CorkStop Studios. We have a few projects planned and need more participants. Here's a list:

at least 12 artists to create 5x5" pieces of art (photography, prints, drawings, paintings, watercolor, collage... you name it) with a given theme in mind. they have to be on heavier paper and will be matted & framed together.

one more local (SLO County) artist to paint a 18x18" panel (theme: vessel, color: dominantly blue), panel will be supplied by us (there are nine panels altogether)

artists to create 2.5x3.5" cards (like Artist Trading Cards, no rules - as long as the final product is this size and more or less flat) or tags (size to be determined).

poets to submit poems to go along with the artist cards (see 3).

book artists to combine the artist cards (see 3.) and poems (see 4.) into a beautiful book (or two)

four local artists to paint 12"x12" panels (theme: black & white), panels will be supplied by us.

creative people to assemble a sculpture from found materials. we'll supply the first piece. the sculpture goes around from person to person. everybody adds a piece or two.

The deadline for all artwork (except the books) is August 15th. no exceptions. if your work isn't here, we can't use it! pieces will need to get assembled and/or framed, so this will give us enough time. book artists will need time to create the book before the event, so please keep the deadline.

To find out more about the Holonic Art Movement, visit www.HolonicArts.com.

Associate Academician appointment

noreply@blogger.com (a stahl) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:33:00 +0000

The Accademia Internazionale Greci Marino, Italy appointed Anne Stahl as "Associate Academician" of the Department of Arts.