When I was younger I belonged to the Great Books Program in middle school which deposited a love of skilled authorship that I still own and pursue today.  It had been some time since I had participated in a group discussion of a work, and so when I saw that our local Books a Million was hosting Sunflowers as its February 2012 Book Club Meeting, I dashed on over to Amazon to get my .01 cent used copy.

Sheramy Bundrick’s done a fabulous job re-imagining the love life of Vincent based on historical accounts of his long-term relationship with a village prostitute.  While the two main characters display unconventional attitudes of acceptance and tolerance towards one another, theirs is a courtship set in modern dialogue, exchange and practices.  I found a particular section of the story where the two are penning love letters completely unbelievable.  And, although the author is an art historian who has well researched her work, I suspect she is not a working artist herself.  Descriptive passages about paintings are somewhat lackluster and absent of any true emotive or visual verbiage.  I got the most excited about the use of color during a section describing train seats.

This caused me, once I finished the book, to utilize the very fine chronological listing provided of Van Gogh’s works between 1888 and 1890 because I felt to a degree that after reading Sunflowers, I had been transported in my perception of the artist and his human frailty and relational issues.  To a degree, the work felt like a chick-flick’s hot romance novel.  At the same time, where the complexity of Vincent’s state of mind, travels, emotions and finances are concerned, the book was compelling.

Nearly every artist I know suffers from a degree of self-image doubt, lack of self-confidence, delay in timely sales, inability to co-manage personal and artistic pursuits, and a degree of moodiness related to their perceived successes in works.  To read of Vincent’s shared experiences in these common ailments was a relief, as was to read of his compassion and relentless (insatiable) pursuit of drawing, sketching, painting, and mostly dreaming.

Van Gogh is currently being exhibited at Philadelphia’s Museum of Art through May 6, 2012.  While I wish I could attend, I know doing so after reading Sunflowers would have altered completely my reference and appreciation for his canvases.  As one reviewer already noted, “Forever Van Gogh.”

Shauna Lee Lange is a full-service arts advisory firm and design studio located in Port Charlotte, Southwest Florida.  We are dedicated to helping women and girls live more creatively artful and authentic lives through coaching & teaching,  craft workspace design & organization, and art marketing & branding.  The Artist Shauna Lee Lange exhibits nationally in paper and book arts in art journaling, visual diaries, and sketchbooks.  Her works center on personal geographies and women’s transformative issues through the use of vintage ephemera, collage, and mixed media components.  Come on over and be a part of our International Linkedin Arts Network Creative Art Consultants.  More art IS more love.

When you’re looking for art business guides on how to transition from just an artist to a master marketing machine, the going can be kind of rough.  Here are some guides that I’ve found helpful in everything from consigning with a gallery to working your own open studio days, to creating reproductions and sizing schemes.  Enjoy!

“Business Matters in the Visual Arts” Jeremy Stone.

“Fine Art Publicity:  Complete Guide for Galleries and Artists“  Susan Abbott.

“Artists Guide to New Markets:  Opportunities to Show & Sell Art Beyond Galleries“  Peggy Hadden.

“The Artist-Gallery Partnership:  A Parctical Guide to Consigning Art“  Ted Crawford.

“How to Find Art Buyers“  Nina Pratt.

If you’re wanting to really jump into the mix for excellent resources, nearly anything produced by Allworth Press in their Art section is worthy of your time and money.  I have read every one of Daniel Grant’s books and cannot recommend them enough!

Shauna Lee Lange is a full-service arts advisory firm and design studio located in Port Charlotte, Southwest Florida.  We are dedicated to helping women and girls live more creatively artful and authentic lives through coaching & teaching,  craft workspace design & organization, and art marketing & branding.  The Artist Shauna Lee Lange exhibits nationally in paper and book arts in art journaling, visual diaries, and sketchbooks.  Her works center on personal geographies and women’s transformative issues through the use of vintage ephemera, collage, and mixed media components.  Come on over and be a part of our International Linkedin Arts Network Creative Art Consultants.  More art IS more love.

It’s Chinese New Year today, and we’re celebrating with paper cranes.  Here’s a site on folding an origami crane.  WikiHow shows us another method here.  Be sure to use some very colorful and pretty papers when you take on the project of creating paper cranes.  Once you get the steps down, you can make your cranes as large or small as you want.  Some people create strands of cranes by tying them together in a curtain like fashion with string or ribbon.  I’ve known some artists who’ve designed an entire art installation out of paper cranes, and others who use them to decorate their art studios. 

An origami crane is a symbol of hope in the Japanese culture.  Birds have always inspired artists and the seasons of the year often have birds associated with them.  Today marks the beginning of the year of the water dragon (who may or may not have wings), a mythological creature representing prosperity, fortune, intelligence and benevolence.  

Shauna Lee Lange is a full-service arts advisory firm and design studio located in Port Charlotte, Southwest Florida.  We are dedicated to helping women and girls live more creatively artful and authentic lives through coaching & teaching,  craft workspace design & organization, and art marketing & branding.  The Artist Shauna Lee Lange exhibits nationally in paper and book arts in art journaling, visual diaries, and sketchbooks.  Her works center on personal geographies and women’s transformative issues through the use of vintage ephemera, collage, and mixed media components.  Come on over and be a part of our International Linkedin Arts Network Creative Art Consultants.  More art IS more love.

Southwest Florida Artist Heidi Saletko hand paints animals on palm fronds and calls them “FrondZoo”.  Palm fronds are in plentiful supply in this region, they hold acrylic or oil paint well, they’re durable, and they’re easily transportable.  Heidi was featured recently in News Press as having captured the imagination of school-aged children through her realistic animal portraiture.  She sculpts the fronds to create 3D creatures that almost appear alive!  She’s a member of The Naples Artcrafters,The Naples Art Association,The United Arts Council of Collier County and her FrondZoo masks can be purchased at:  The Artist Boutique, Tin City, Art Etc. Bonita Springs, Naples Ships Store,12th Ave.S.,Naples, Frame It, Bonita Springs, and Your Island Home, Marco Island.

FrondZoo is a kaleidoscope of creatures.  The wall-hanging animal masks are as unique as the trees from which they come.  The shape and size  vary slightly, but just as zebras living in the wild, no two are exactly the same.  All pieces are created from recycled palm tree materials and are carefully hand painted. (www.frondzoo.com).

Shauna Lee Lange is a full-service arts advisory firm and design studio located in Port Charlotte, Southwest Florida.  We are dedicated to helping women and girls live more creatively artful and authentic lives through coaching & teaching,  craft workspace design & organization, and art marketing & branding.  The Artist Shauna Lee Lange exhibits nationally in paper and book arts in art journaling, visual diaries, and sketchbooks.  Her works center on personal geographies and women’s transformative issues through the use of vintage ephemera, collage, and mixed media components.  Come on over and be a part of our International Linkedin Arts Network Creative Art Consultants.  More art IS more love.

Anna Corba‘s new book Doodling in French, will help all visual diarists and art journalists take a trip to Paris, without leaving your their own art studios! Since my own very best gal pal Joy is leaving in just a few days for a glorious time in the City of Light (or The Illuminated City in some circles), I thought I would share Anna’s book which came out last week.

Anna encourages casual doodles which will take on a Parisian je ne sais quoi as artists render  tiers of the Eiffel Tower, sketch the playful outlines of a fleur-de-lys, or learn to draw the perfect croissant. Amazon’s review reads:

“Sure to delight Francophiles and lovers of vintage ephemera alike, Anna Corba’s evocative collages provide an alluring backdrop to her drawing instructions. In a gorgeous little package as pretty as a French pastry, including decorative blank pages in back that tear out so readers can doodle their own masterpieces, this sweet book is an ideal gift for anyone longing for la belle vie.”

Anna’s got a cool little line of art inspired products using vintage ephemera.  They include vintage bottles, lined notebooks, shipping tags and candle jars.  You’ll love the garden serene overtones and the calming, charming undertones.  A recent article about Anna and her work can be found here.

Shauna Lee Lange is a full-service arts advisory firm and design studio located in Port Charlotte, Southwest Florida.  We are dedicated to helping women and girls live more creatively artful and authentic lives through coaching & teaching, residential craft space design & organization, and art marketing & branding.  The Artist Shauna Lee Lange exhibits nationally in paper and book arts in art journaling, visual diaries, and sketchbooks.  Her works center on personal geographies and women’s transformative issues through the use of vintage ephemera, collage, and mixed media components.  Come on over and be a part of our International Linkedin Arts Network Creative Art Consultants.  More art IS more love.

In Pam Lassiter’s The New Job Security, she advocates in Strategy #3 to stop looking for jobs.  The theory is that networking (her version, not yours) and prospecting will steer you away from job postings and search firms.  By keeping those tools in perspective, and by saucily using other, lesser-known ones, you’ll be hard at work keeping your career skills as “nimble as a sports car on the autobahn”.

"Traverse", Shauna Lee Lange Studios, 2012 Port Charlotte, mixed media art journal page

Art journals and visual diaries are by definition practice grounds for our artistic imaginations.  Some pages will succeed wildly and others will not.  Today we look at an attempt to capture my bridge-crossing expedition with my son and how difficult it can be to dedicate to drawing and illustration with a youngster in tow, a moving vehicle, a bouncing soccer ball, and colliding worlds when the McDonald’s toy can’t be immediately found.  Yes, you’ll have days like this.  Days the page doesn’t speak to you.  Days the brain, eye and hand won’t coordinate.  And what you have to do is just traverse and cross over.  Tomorrow is a new day and hopefully, you can try again.

"Wait For June", Shauna Lee Lange, 2012 Port Charlotte, mixed media art journal page

I had the pleasure of opening a six-week art journaling class yesterday at the Charlotte County Cultural Center.  We have six women enrolled to date (thanks to meetup.com!), most who are intermediate artists with or without art journaling or visual diary experience.  In class one, we did some writing exercises and some drawing exercises to demonstrate how the right and left brain work and how the marriage of the two is required for art journaling.  Tonight I spent about an hour working in my own journal as I continue to contemplate changes that may be effected this June.  I originally wanted to do a piece on reading and twists and turns in the plot of a book, but as I worked along, the theme changes (as it often will ).

My students are such interesting people and artists, I can’t wait to get to know them better.  One in particular was showing me some art journals she recently had made and I wanted to share them with you here along with a photograph of some materials I am using to describe what an art journal can do for the artist in terms of capturing ideas.  My students have an assignment to make this week “The Week of No Abandoned Ideas”.  They are also to study their space (even if it’s only using a breakfast tray) and their supplies (to determine what really speaks to them, what they love to use, and help identify their own visual language.)  We all decided we have way too much of some of the wrong things, maybe in the near future we’ll do a small swap amongst the group.

Handmade art journal from cardboard backing and embellished postal stamps obtained from a yard sale.

Handmade bamboo skewer art journal (as featured in this month's Pages Magazine). What a great job!

Handmade art journal embellished with a variety of papers on the cover and pasted down like a pro!

Some demonstration materials for the January 2012 Six Week Art Journaling Workshop. We have a great little room!

Shauna Lee Lange Studios is a full-service arts advisory agency and design studio located in Port Charlotte, Southwest Florida.  The Studios are dedicated to helping women and girls live more creatively artful and authentic lives.  Artist Shauna Lee Lange exhibits nationally in paper and book arts in art journaling, visual diaries, and sketchbooks.  Her works center on personal geographies and women’s issues through the use of vintage ephemera, collage, and mixed media components.  Come on over and be a part of our international Linkedin arts network Creative Art Consultants.  More art IS more love.

For the process of papermaking, you can take an old library catalog card (for example) and beat it to a pulp. Beaten fibers are then submerged into vats or bins of water. This step is followed by using a screen, or mold, to strain the diluted fibers creating a mat of entwined material. Finally, a press is used to squeeze additional water out of the matted fibers. The paper is then spread out to dry. Different papermaking techniques include sheet formation, pulp painting, marbleizing, and cast paper.

You can add character to your pieces by putting flowers or glitter into the pulp or even by using a uniquely-shaped deckle to create interest. A deckle is the frame around the mold. After the paper dries, you’ll discover imaginative ways to put pieces to use like making envelopes or cards.   Dried paper can also be used to make art journals, books, albums and art books.

"Imaginarium Koi", Shauna Lee Lange Studios, 2011

We’ve been thinking and talking a lot lately about just how does one best go about juggling all the demands of the art studio.  It’s not unlike the rapid and unpredictable path of a group of Koi, the artist’s life is taking twists and turns all day long.  And in our research on different models of productivity, we’ve come up with three we wanted to share for all the artists who just continually find there is NOT enough time in the day.  Now, external to the belief that we have more than enough abundance and time will just open up for us and whatever other positive mumbo jumbo you might come across, the truth of the matter is that time is limited and demands on it are increasing.  I hope you get to try out the various models below and let us know what has been the most successful for you.  If you’re using some other organization or strategy for getting everything done, we’d love to hear about it.

1.  ART STUDIO TIME MANAGEMENT MODEL 1:  ORGANIZE THE WEEK IN FUNCTIONS

In this model, the studio artist divides the days of the week into group functions.  On Monday, we create.  On Tuesday, we produce.  On Wednesday, we record/attend to paperwork.  On Thursday, we market.  On Friday, we sell/ship/acquire.  On Saturday, we promote or attend events.  And on Sunday we imagine.  Given that the most productive days of an artist’s life are Tuesday through Thursday, you can see we’re trying to take advantage of the down days.  And as every artists will attest, all the great museums and galleries are closed on Mondays, what better day to put our mind to creative endeavors.

2.  ART STUDIO TIME MANAGEMENT MODEL 2:  DIVIDE THE DAYS INTO BLOCKS OF ENERGY

Many artists I know are either night people or not.  And so in Model 2, the day has to be broken down into segments where we can be the most productive, the most uninterrupted, and the most useful to ourselves.  In this example, Monday through Sunday I am painting in the mornings (well, not me because I am a double digit woman before my wheels even start turning) and in the afternoons, I am marketing.  What I don’t like about this model is it doesn’t take into account the old adage that “The afternoon knows what the morning doesn’t.”  Meaning, as any one day progresses, the complexity and available hours become an increased factor in managing the day.  So time management pros will tell you that in doing the thing that is most difficult or unliked first and consistently, you are actually creating windows of time for yourself.  Also, I do not like having the discipline hanging over my head that if I want to continue painting into the middle of the night, I can’t because I have to stop at 12:00 noon.  However, if you want or need to preserve that marketing time, I don’t know too many art related businesses that are open outside of normal business hours.

3.  ART STUDIO TIME MANAGEMENT MODEL 3:  ALTERNATE THE DAYS AND LET THE ART BREATHE

In our last example of making your time work for you and your art business, the six days of the week are alternated in functionality, leaving the seventh for everything to rest and breathe.  On Monday, one would market.  On Tuesday, one would paint.  Wednesday, market.  Thursday, paint.  Friday, market.  Saturday, paint.  Sunday, rest.  The theory here is that you have to both produce works, and actively promote yourself through your submissions, competition entries, web site maintenance, social media marketing, mailing out marketing packets and on and on and on.  Usually, the effort spent on these endeavors has to outweigh the time spent producing the works unless you’re fortunate enough to have a part or full-time marketing assistant.  And this is the artist’s bane, the need to step away from production.  The great part of this theory is that in leaving the art alone for a full 24-hours, when we return, we do so with fresh eyes.

Shauna Lee Lange Studios is a full-service arts advisory agency and design studio located in Port Charlotte, Southwest Florida.  The Studios are dedicated to helping women and girls live more creatively artful and authentic lives.  As a specialty, we work in design and decor of interior workspaces to help women create their own art place in the home. Artist Shauna Lee Lange exhibits nationally in paper and book arts in art journaling, visual diaries, and sketchbooks.  Her works center on personal geographies and women’s issues through the use of vintage ephemera, collage, and mixed media components.  Come on over and be a part of our international arts network Creative Art Consultants.  More art IS more love.

“heART of winter” – SOUTH 6th Annual Artists Showcase presented by Earth Angels at “The Jeanine Taylor Folk Art Gallery” Friday, 3/2 from 3pm-7pm Saturday, 3/3 from 10am-4pm Hosted by Jeanine Taylor at in historic and scenic downtown Sanford, Florida a well-recognized arts community about 20 minutes north of Orlando Featured Earth Angels’ artists include: Debbee Thibault, Jennifer Lanne, Laurie Meseroll, Melody Elizabeth Doyel, Krys Kirkpatrick, Lynsey Walters, Nicol Sayre, Barbara Strawser, Nicole Bowen, Valerie Weberpal and Cheryl Kuhn among others whose work will be presented in this fabulous gallery setting for festive shopping and the savvy browsers’ enjoyment. Visit  www.jtfolkart.com for directions and more info on our wonderful host. This will be our second time as guests of this renowned gallery, we cannot wait to make the trip once again and hope you can join us!  Please call (845) 986-8720 or e-mail for more info on events.  211 East First Street, Sanford, FL

Shauna Lee Lange Studios is a full-service arts advisory agency and design studio located in Port Charlotte, Southwest Florida.  The Studios are dedicated to helping women and girls live a more creatively artful and authentic life.  We also work in design and decor of interior workspaces. Artist Shauna Lee Lange exhibits nationally in paper and book arts in art journaling, visual diaries, and sketchbooks.  Her works center on personal geographies and women’s issues through the use of vintage ephemera and collage and mixed media components.  More art IS more love. Come on over and be a part of our international arts network Creative Art Consultants.

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