A Thousand Cranes of Peace

by Angela Bandurka

ARTspot has a small selection of amazing origami papers and the other day I decided to buy some and play around with making cranes. While online searching out instructions, I stumbled across the most amazing story about a little girl who endeavoured to fold 1,000 of them in order to get well from cancer.

Sadako Sasaki was only two when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. She lived two kilometers from ground zero when the blast blew out her windows. Several years after the atomic bomb, an increase in leukemia was observed especially among children. By the early 1950s it was clear that the leukemia was caused by radiation exposure. Sadako was one of these young victims. 

She had heard that if you fold 1,000 paper cranes you would have a wish granted, and she used whatever materials she could find - candy wrappers, scrap paper. Before she died she almost reached 1,000.

Sadako's story was highlighted at the opening ceremony of the Goodwill Games 1990 in Seattle wherein Seattle schoolchildren, working from the 644 cranes sent by Japanese schoolchildren, completed the unfinished 356 cranes for Sadako, and sent them aloft into the skies in honor of Sadako and world peace.

This month at ARTspot we had dedicated a window in her honour. The antique typewriter holds a brief story of her life, and the paper cranes we folded with her legacy in mind. If you'd like to fold some paper cranes, come on by - we have a free instructional handout for you!

Grey Days Can Bring Bright Color

We all develop coping skills for getting through these long days of winter. As artists we can bring color to our life with our artistic process. I find myself longing to paint bright, saturated canvases and the bigger the better! ARTspot is also sporting tropical window displays this month, and the studio could not be more cheerful. Whenever you stop in, be sure to check out the ever-evolving displays back there. Tracy  

Detail from current work, collaging in symbols of home for me: waffles, music and cross-stitch.

From my "Save A Painting" Acrylic Class at ARTspot Feb 2, 2013. Tracy Felix

Angela Bandurka instructing Fume Free Oil Painting last Sunday in the ARTspot Studio.

Mini manikin men sporting paper umbrellas. ARTspot window display February 2013.

 We have been building our book selection. This month we have new titles about color mixing and DARING COLOR!! ARTspot window display February 2013. 

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ARTspot also a gallery showing contemporary art. Think of us when looking for gorgeous, exceptional paintings, sculpture and jewelry by the local artists we represent.  Painting shown, by Stephanie Reilly,  is part of our current show. 

A Conversation with Angela Bandurka

Angela Bandurka is an award-winning artist, and also a colleague at ARTspot. You’ll see from her accent (favourite… colours…) that she hails from British Columbia, Canada. Talking with Angela about art is always a joyful and inspiring experience!

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Scott:   What are the most important materials you use to make your art?

Angela:   Wow. What a good question. I tend to start thinking too much about this and I'm going to go crazy! Essentially, I could make my art with any materials and support – it could even be a stick and some sand! The end product may change depending on my situation and time, but I will always create.

Scott:   Haha! That’s great – I’d love to see your Stick & Sand Collection someday. What materials are you utilizing in your current projects?

Angela:   As far as the key ingredients that are specific to the work I’m doing today, I'd say these are my Top5:

• Brushes

• Canvases

• Paints

• Modeling Paste

• Gesso 

Scott:   What techniques have you developed that have proven to be essential to your art-making process?

Angela:   I always cover my canvas with light modeling paste as my first step. It's essential to my art-making process because I have discovered that I detest the uniform texture of canvas, but I like the give of the fabric. Modeling paste allows me to create a texture that is not uniform, but can allow bits of canvas texture through in places and still allows the fabric to give under my brush. 

Scott:   What is your favorite art-tool at this time?

Angela:   My favourite tool is a flat or bright brush. I will use different sizes of this style of brush for everything. It allows a thin line as well as a thick line. When using oils I enjoy fluffy makeup brushes as a way of softening my edges and blurring sections.

Scott:   Where do you find your inspiration to create art?

Angela:   I find inspiration in everything! I don't have a choice in whether I create art or not. I go to bed dreaming about painting, what colours I'd use for a specific piece and different ways I can create interesting imagery. Sometimes in nightmares I imagine dark paintings. I might paint these at some point, but right now it's not time for that. Inspiration comes to me in quiet moments. When I'm watching my son play, seeing scenes around home that are beautiful - the play of light in the trees, a flutter of a bird or butterfly, or anything else external that makes me calm and that makes me feel good. 

Scott:   Who are your essential influences right now? What is it about them that stirs you?

Angela:   My essential influences? I have had many that have led me to where I am now, and I continue to find more that help me shape and change the way I create. My grandma and great grandpa, who were both artists, were my first influences as a very young child! Right now, I'm influenced by Picasso and his life -- the way he continued to evolve as an artist, more so than even his art in itself! I see that as a huge influence on me and who I am as an artist and the way I try to think about my art.

Scott:   How would you describe the art you’ve chosen to bring into your living space?

Angela:   There are three types of art in my home:

1. Art created by people I love, my grandmother, other distant relatives, my mom, my son, friends...
2. Pieces that I've purchased because they spoke to me. I buy art for emotional reasons, not decorative ones.
3. Some of my art has been passed down to me by ancestors – going back even farther than my grandparents.

Scott:   What would you love to add to your collection?

Angela:   I'd love to add more functional art - replacing objects that I use daily with handmade, creative pieces. Furniture, dishes, and the like. If money were no object, I'd have hand-painted Spanish tiles in place of my floorboards, and original one-of-a-kind wooden furniture carved sleek and elegantly by someone who loves their craft.

Come As You Are!

by Angela Bandurka

"Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be.

As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy."

Appropriate for the city of Edmonds, these lyrics of Nirvana's song, Come As You Are, says it all. Everyone is welcome down here - young, old, hipsters, traditionalists. Folks who grew up here but moved away are coming back, because of the energy and artisan craftsmanship in the shops around downtown.

The smell of artisan spirit is everywhere (a bad play on words, I know - obviously there was Nirvana playing on my car stereo this morning).

Last night as I was teaching my water-soluble oils class, Tracy Felix Fraker commented on the wonderful scent of the paint (fume free!) that filled the studio. It's true! The whole place smelled of creativity and intention. 

At the new butcher shop on the corner, the air is filled with the bouquet of high quality meat and meat products, crafted lovingly. And down the street you can catch the whiff of a mix of Thai, Mexican, Coffeeshop and other delightful aromas that make you want to stay and eat, play, chill.

There is a liveliness here. You see it in the hand-holding elderly couple window shopping in the rain, and you see it in the young teenagers browsing our selection of art supplies. It's everywhere.

Come, as you are.

Mastering Values with Monet

By Angela Bandurka

Claude Monet was clearly a master painter. But one of the things I appreciate most about his work is the way he used colour and value - it's brilliant! 

Today in my Fume Free Oil painting class, I talked to my students about how colour can trick your eye into seeing values wrong. Remember, value refers to the difference between dark and light. 

Monet gives us a perfect example of this in "Impression, Sunrise."

Impression, Sunrise
Claude Monet, 1873

This painting has some vibrant blues, greens, yellows and oranges in it. The fiery rising sun pops out at you. Your eye might think that the sun is lighter than the sky around it...  but it's not.

As you can see in the black and white version, the sun virtually disappears! 

Impression, Sunrise - in black and white

It's like magic.

Why does this matter? 

It can really help you when you feel like something is just not working in your painting to revisit your values. 

Use a photo editing software like iPhoto, Photoshop, or others, to turn your resource black and white. Then it'll be more clear to you where your darkest darks, lightest lights, and mid-tones should go.

And don't forget that you can exaggerate them, too! As artists, we have tools in our "toolbox" that we can employ to imply a 3D scene on a 2D surface. 

Here are some of mine: (these rules can be broken, but they are usually true and very helpful):

• VALUE: Darks approach, Lights recede. Things that are closer to you are darker - so your shadows in the trees that are right beside you are going to be much darker than the shadow in the trees 100 feet away.

• PROPORTION: Objects get larger as they get closer to you and smaller as they move farther away. That's why the road gets narrower and narrower as it goes off into the distance until it becomes a spec.

• SATURATION: Colors are brighter and have more yellow in them than colors that are in far away objects. Think of distant mountain ranges. They might be full of green trees, but they still look blue and pale. Distant objects are usually greyer and blue/purple-ish. That's because of the atmosphere, which usually drops the color yellow first in the spectrum, followed by others one by one.

• DETAIL: Objects that are closer are gonna have more detail - but as an artist you can determine where you want the eye to go first and be more detailed in that area. So you can fudge this one a little (think of how a camera lens can do this for you - now do it for yourself in your work!)