Studio Tours

Garrett County Artists Studio Tours are this weekend, July 30 and 31.    There are over 20 artists at 9 locations in Garrett County.   The nine host artists will have their studios open for visitors, the visiting artists will be available to talk about the process they use to create their art.    All artists will have work for sale.
The hours on Saturday are 10-4 and on Sunday
 noon - 4.
If you enjoy art, this is a great opportunity to meet many artists and see a lot of their work in one place.
We will have 5 artists at our location.. . #8.
Josh Brown, a potter from Frostburg will be here.   Lois McManus is a wonderful jeweler who has not shown her work in Garrett County.   It is a chance to see a "new" inventory of metal work.
Meg Romaro makes "furniture for the independent thinker". . . her work is stunning.
Alan will be in his shop turning things and explaining his process.    I will be in my studio demonstrating watercolors, monotypes and collage. 

 Pick up a brochure at the Visitor's Center, The Gallery Shop on Alder St. or at one of the Artists Studios.
                or call 301 245 4528

How to Collage

It is a rather warm day here in Garrett County Maryland.   I am using the heat as an excuse to be in my studio working on collages.   They have gotten a lot of attention lately so I thought I would give a brief explanation of how I make a collage.  
I start with  white rice papers of all kinds of textures.  I tear the paper into chunks about 8x 10 and stain them with my watercolors.   I try to get a variety of values for each color on my palatte.   When the papers are dry, I bag them in 1 quart ziplock bags so that I have a whole color palatte of rice papers which are now colored.
I do a piece the same way I approach doing a painting.  First quick value sketch, transfer it to a board and start ripping up the rice papers and glueing.    It is a mess with little papers all over my table, glue on my fingers and a kind of weird progression taking place on the piece.   Eventually it seems to come together into a "painting" which is really a collage.  It is always a surprise to me when one turns out.

A Summer's Day In Garrett County Maryland

It has been a glorious summer's weekend in Garrett County.  I had to go to Cumberland MD today to pick up my pieces at the Saville Gallery.   It was 95 degrees and roasting.    It was wonderful to get back to Garrett County and a reasonable 80 + degrees.   Yesterday we had friends from Cumberland visit.   We lolled around our yard under the weeping cherry tree, enjoyed Donkey Hote, had a lovely lunch they had brought, had a swim in the pond, we did an art project with the ladies.    I showed them how to use watercolors in a shape and then make a card.  We ended the day by attending the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's classical music concert at the WISP resort.  It was a wonderful day. . . . the best of summer.

The cards

Yard art. . . . . . . .Donkey Hote

Art in the Park

Last weekend was Art in the Park at Deep Creek Lake State Park.    We were fortunate to have two of Garrett County's most beautiful summer days in a wonderful setting along the shore of Deep Creek Lake.
There were many vendors with their 10 x 10 pop up tents lining the service road from the parking lot to the Discovery Center.   It is always interesting to see what people are attracted to in our tent.    Alan's wood got a lot of attention and my collages seemed to interest  people.
I create the collages by staining various textures of rice paper with watercolors (all of the pigments on my palatte).  After I have done a value sketch, I begin ripping the rice papers and glueing them on a board.   Eventually a picture is formed.  I occasionally go in and paint in some details (the small branches in this piece).  

                      This piece was sold at Art in the Park

I still have this piece ("Pissaro's Neighbors") in the Loft Shop.

suealoft@aol.com

http://www.theloftshop.com/

Loft Shop's 25th Season

The Loft Shop has opened for it's 25th season.   We are always amazed at the great people that find us, even in these days of high gas prices.   Today we had some wonderful folks come to the shop.   We love chatting and getting to tell people about the wonders of Garrett County.   We had a great time today doing
Loft Shop
  
                            

The customers enjoy my pots of flowers.   Because it has been a bit wet this year, I don't think the flowers are off to a great start, but give us some sunny days, and they will flourish.

Alan's 3 drawer box is pretty nifty.

                                                                A wall of collages. . .. .