Islemuse Studio newsletter,blog,Canadian west coast artists Dianne Bersea, Jodi Forster,workshops,watercolor,acrylic painting,drawing,whimsical art,editorial cartoons,gallery,workshops

The Isle Muse Studio Newsletter
Note: name change - formerly Manzanita Muse Studio

Newsletter Archives: Did you miss our last newsletters? See them here: March 05..., May 0 5..., July 05..., September 05,..., January 06

Top o' the Chart! Dianne's light-hearted Squirrel Cove Whimsy (detail above) is a semi-finalist in the Nanaimo Rotary 2007 Calendar competition. And it's a winner! Along with 12 other accomplished west coast art works, Squirrel Cove Whimsy will appear on the Calendar. To buy a copy visit http://www.rotarycalendar.org.

Jodi has also been teaching. A visitor from Victoria worked with Jodi to learn hide and shell contruction. Katrina's excellent shell rattles above.

More Shell Rattles - Jodi has been experimenting with new rattle images and has enlisted me to help. The wolf, raven and dolphin designs above are the result. For more rattle info click here or click here.

Local Display Ops. Jodi and I both displayed work in our local credit union this spring. Much to our surprise it was one of the best exhibit opportunities on the island. We received lots of wonderful feedback about our work. Above Jodi's display of wood carvings and shell rattles. To see more of Jodi's carving work click here.

NEW GALLERY!! Jodi and I now have work at the Pier Street Gallery in Campbell River, BC. In addition to original artwork, the Gallery will also have framed prints and shell rattles. Drop in or visit needlenart.com.

Are you enjoying our newsletters? Is there something you'd like us to talk about? More images of work in progress? More about our process? Let us know. We'd like to hear from you.

How to contact us.
jodi@islemuse.com
dianne@islemuse.com

Note: Our studio name is changing to reflect our web domain name. Slowly we will become Isle Muse Studio at islemuse.com.

Date: May 11, 2006 by Dianne Bersea

For info on upcoming workshops at Hollyhock and Firesign click here

Art Workshops are already underway for this year. I've just completed a successful Art of the Study in Water Media at Firesign Art & Design with participants from Oregon, California and Chicago and closer to home too. "We sketched outside everyday and then returned to the studio to evolve our work. Lots of room for spontaneity and also careful development". Group above displays their warm-up sketches. We started with a demo on inexpensive paper and a few tools, and then everyone dug in with a flurry.

Our objective - to see more clearly; to learn techniques to simplify complex images & by-pass our reticence to put brush to paper. The two images below are demos. I always like to start off simply. The second exercise involved doing a study of an arum lily (skunk cabbage) with two randomly selected watercolor pencils. I worked with purple and red. On return to the studio we added water and some additional watercolor paint.

Although skunk cabbage is common on our rain forest west coast, we actually had to stalk one. They were strangely illusive. Here we have one surrounded. (see below)

One of our final projects, a beach sketch using our new techniques rendered in direct watercolour, no pencil sketching first.

It's often a challenge to choose a subject from the busy world. For this one, I made myself sit down and begin painting what I found right in front of me, no matter how complex.

How cool is this?? I'm a "cover girl", as a friend put it. I've been regularly submitting work to Federation of Canadian Artists juried shows on my way to an application for signature status. That means after a specific number of juried shows and a portfolio review I can add more letters after my name. I'm having good success with shows and my painting from a themed show, "Spontaneity" appeared on the cover of the FCA publication "Art Avenue" as below. It's spontaneous all right! In a chill November morning, I stood in knee-deep dew laden grass and sketched very quickly to catch the essense of this old boat shed.