August Final Friday Featured Artist in Studio 414
Come see my new series of oil paintings.
This August, I am the featured artist in Studio 414 for the Final Friday Art Show at The Pendleton Art Center, showcasing my latest series of mixed media oils, featuring 18″x24″ and 24″x30″ paintings.
- Final Friday Art Show
- August 27th from 5:00-9:00pm.
- Studio 414 in the Pendleton Art Center
- 1310 Pendleton Street
- Valet Parking available
When you arrive at the Pendleton Art Center please come to the 4th floor, studio 414. We will have complimentary Food and wine available.
I look forward to seeing you there.
Christy Wolfram
Art Journaling
I use my art journal to express and explore my feelings.
I had a massive stress headache over the weekend. Struggling to function, tried lying in bed in the dark and that didn’t help. Tried loosening up my muscles. Scott gave me a brief back rub and it hurt, my back muscles are so tight, it’s probably constricting the blood flow to my head, hence massive headache. Made this art journal page the next day as a response to still feeling hazy and fuzzy. The buzzing sound of my headache is still there hissing constantly in the background. So, I sat down at my art journal and wrote about how I was feeling. I wrote out the thoughts in my head, worries, feelings, emotions, concerns. Just poured it out onto the page with free flow writing, not worried about spelling, legibility, or neatness. (I always spell “creatively” why spell things normal?) This writing process helps in multiple ways including:
First, it gets something down on the page, so I am not staring at a blank page that is intimidating, and worried about messing it up.
Second, it helps me get thoughts out of my head, helps identify what I am thinking and straighten out my thoughts. Can sometimes help me identify what I need to do for myself. Like today, I identified that in addition to struggling to focus and think, I am still hopeful for the future and afraid for the future simultaneously. And it helped me identify that I need to go to sleep on time, and rest and not push myself too hard. Reminded me to take it easy with myself, and give myself grace that I’m not going to get a lot done, but self-care actually is getting something important done so I can get back to functioning better and painting more.
Third, the graphite interacts cool with the next layers of oil paint that I put down. Tonight I used oil paint and cold wax. Mixing up colors of white, buff, and adding cold wax medium and teal oil paint to both of those. When you use a silicone catalyst wedge to smear the paint on the page it picks up the graphite from the writing and blends in together, creating shades of grey. You can see some of the words I wrote as a cool first layer of texture, other words are blended and unrecognizable, and that’s ok. I don’t need to remember, or see, exactly everything I wrote down. It is the process of writing it out and painting it out that is helpful for me.
Stormy Feelings
My inspiration for this art work comes from all of the recent hurricanes and storms around the world. I am concerned about global warming and climate change and how it is impacting our planet and people. Drawing inspiration from weather forecast maps I use watercolor crayons on gesso textured water color papers to paint out my stormy feelings. The papers are loose, and placed into a cigar box painted to look like a book or journal.
I was published.
I was published in the second issue of Brush magazine!
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Gratitude Art Journal
I want to share with you my Art gratitude journal. It’s all about the things that I am grateful for. Journaling about the little things that we are grateful for can increase our happiness. Identifying and focusing on those little important things brings our attention to them, and helps us to focus on the positive instead of all the negative things out there in this world.
The first page is a collage picture of the whole world and the title: Gratitude, identifying my intention for this journal.
I wrote a thank you letter to my husband and included it inside the envelope I glued the envelope to the page, experimenting with paint and color on the page. I also added a bookmark to keep track of what mape I am working on next.
I am thankful for fall. I love the fall in Ohio, it is one of the reasons we decided to move back to Ohio. I included real leaves glued down with matt medium, they are holding up good.
The next page I gave myself permission to experiment with different mediums in my journal on the watercolor paper, just to see how the mediums resist the paint or not. I added in some image transfers. I am grateful for having art making in my life and for different kinds of art supplies to experiment with.
Again I’m playing with materials here, and expressing my love of the warm sunshine, missing the sun on this dreary February day.
An abstract representation of my brain. I am so thankful for my brain and that it helps me function
I am “Thankful for bright spots.” Trying in this page to focus on the bright spot, some days it is hard to find something positive when surrounded by sad news, but acknowledging the little bright spots however small helps.
Again experimenting with gel medium resists and texture
Added in potential colors for my future kitchen. We are in the middle of renovating, and it can be hard to see progress and stay positive, working out of a temporary kitchen is hard, but dreaming about finishes and colors cheers me up.
I intend to continue to work in this journal randomly focusing on the little good things in my life which I have to remind myself there are many.
Negative Self Talk
Negative self talk about anything, including art journaling, is very common. We all talk negatively to ourselves at times. What helps me is to try to increase awareness of the negative comments I am saying to myself. Identify the negative statements. And come up with an alternative positive thought.
In my journal I write down my negative thoughts
Then I paint over them, and paint out those negative thoughts, so they almost disappear.
Next I write alternative positive thoughts, and add positive images.
This process works for me to try to combat my negative thoughts.
What helps you deal with your negative thoughts?