Susanna's Sketchbook

December 9, 2009: Bergdorf Goodman Christmas windows, NYC

The theme for this year's holiday windows at Bergdorf Goodman in New York is Lewis Carroll's book, Alice in Wonderland.

 

Along 5th Avenue, in every nook and cranny of BG's large and small windows are the most wondrous sights.

The attention given to the smallest details

and to the grande scheme of the overall window took my breath away.

 

In one moment, we floated above a decadent royal tea party

and in the next, we wandered through a magical forest. Do you see the Cheshire Cat? And the White Rabbit?


 

To be in the same room with the window designers as they discuss their ideas for these incredible vignettes would be the best holiday event...

 

next to seeing the Christmas windows themselves.

(It was a cold and rainy day when Isabel and I went to see the windows. There is alot more to see at Bergdorf Goodman. It's well worth the trip.)

December 6, 2009: Macy's Christmas windows, NYC

Fa la la la laaaa, la la la laaaa! Yes, it's that special time of year when the large department stores in New York deck their windows for the Christmas holidays.

 

It's a tradition for me (and for many others) to spend a day visiting and photographing all the magical window displays. This year, my friend, Isabel, and I went together. Actually, with all the rain and snow, it felt as thought we swam through the streets of New York. By the time we arrived at Elizabeth's Christmas party, we certainly looked like we had!

Our first stop was to see the Macy's Christmas windows. Along the 34th Street side of the flagship store is the traditional Miracle on 34th Street display, based on the 1947 film.

Along Broadway, Macy's changes its holiday windows from year to year. This year the theme is how Santa letters are delivered via Macy's to the North Pole.

 

Glittery, fashionable elves are the holiday postmasters, of course.
 

They doublecheck the naughty and nice status of each child sending a letter to Santa. When it is determined that the child has been nice (or mostly so), the letter is stamped with approval, provided wings (Yes! Wings!) and sent through a candycane swirl to the North Pole.


 

An entire window explains the mechanics of how the wings are attached to the letters.
 

When the winged letters reach the North Pole, they fly through the sparkly Santa village
 

and into the hands of Santa himself.
 

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus...and that is how your letters to Santa are delivered via Macy's in New York!

Next up: the holiday windows on 5th Avenue.

December 2, 2009: Encaustic painting

 

I've been playing with encaustics this week, collaging flowers that I picked a few months ago into the wax. These are a couple small tests that I made this morning. I'm figuring out which colours to use in a larger painting...think I'll try grey-green shades next. Then I'll figure out the "brushstrokes" and texture.

For those of you who are interested in how others paint with encaustics, check out this video, featuring the artist Shawna Moore.

November 29, 2009: Woman bearing a branch of myrtle

A Belated Happy Thanksgiving to you all! I hope you had a wonderful weekend with your family and friends. I've been under the weather (and often under a blanket) for the last couple of weeks but this morning I woke up feeling a bit better and more hopeful that whatever it is that I caught will be on its way out soon. Thank god!

These are a couple of the paintings that have inspired me lately. I like the mustards and the greens of both paintings and I'm always curious how an artist depicts a body of water, especially the ocean. What really has me intrigued, though, is the woman bearing (and hiding behind) the branch of myrtle in the painting below:

These kind of paintings were meant to show the viewer that Sir George Delves (man of the mustard tights) had it all - honor and status (the pile of armour), property (the estate), wealth (gold and velvet clothing) and love (the woman with whom he is holding hands - although she's thought to represent love rather than an actual person. It's more fun, though, to imagine that she was a real person, a secret lover, perhaps). If a painting could come to life, I'd wish for Sir Delves to gather up his armour and head back down to the estate, leaving me an hour or so to chat with his shy friend.

November 25, 2009: Winged Messengers in Florida and Texas

It's evident when you drop by Deb Taylor's blog for a visit, that this bloggergal loves Life. She enjoys fun get-togethers with family and friends that often includes art, dancing and music. I think the photographs of her with her sweetie, Matt, are adorable. They both look like they were made for each other.

A few months ago I sent Deb a couple winged messengers (the last flock of 2009 were sent out yesterday) and she photographed them flying around in both Florida and Texas. Well, I'll let Deb tell you all about it.

I carried my camera and wings in my car and like a little kid hiding Easter eggs all afternoon for my brothers AFTER the Easter Bunny, I searched for uninvited places to land!

 I love to leave secret messages, love notes and random acts of kindness. So when you gave me two sets, I decided to carry one with me for photo opportunities. And the other I left behind at my local Thrift Store for the volunteers who works so hard, with very little appreciation. It felt so good to give back, in a magical invisible way!!

When I am taking pictures, usually someone will ask about it, so I use the opportunity to explain. You inspired me to make a stash of winged hearts out of paper bags and I carry those with me also to leave little messages in flight...I leave the heart space blank so I can fill in the appropriate message when the need arises!

"Free" is a sample of my own spin-off of yours. I rubber stamped the wings and handpainted the heart onto brown paper grocery bags. I carry a stash of them with me wherever I go and write personal messages that need to be released at that moment! I also carry painted rocks, by Kim Mailhot,  in my pocket to be placed in the hands of someone in need. These are simple gestures that mean so much to someone you never met before, and will most likely never see again, yet you know that you are placed in their path for a reason. Example, I was on an airplane last week, and a young lady boarding the plane was sobbing, all alone, trying to make her way to her seat at the back of the plane. I wiggled to get a rock out of my pocket in time, but she was long past me. So just as soon as I was allowed to get up, I went to find her. All I did was hand her the rock which said "hope" ; a simple, common word we see all the time. But I know it spoke volumes to her. As I waited in baggage claim I felt a squeeze on my arm, it was her with a smiling face, swollen eyes, and she simply said "Thank you." It spoke volumes to me.

Thank you, Deb!

November 23, 2009: Winged Messengers in France

Hey Susanna!
 
I did my first winged messenger! It was Remembrance Day last week, which I always find such a hard and sad day since it makes me reflect on the now distant acts of incredible bravery and sacrifice, the unimaginable suffering of my family and millions of others, the general insanity of war. The world we live in now seems to have forgotten what humanity went through during the two world wars, the chance we had to move in a different direction. I knew I wanted to do a WM (winged messenger) to mark the occasion of my being on this side of the ocean for this year's RD, but wasn't sure one would 'fit'. When I checked your envelope though, the one that says 'your courage gives someone hope' slipped out and I knew it was meant to be.
 
I walked over to the war memorial in the village, and there was a group of men standing around talking, right in front of it, which sort of intimidated me. But I walked straight over to where I wanted to place the WM, and you know what happened? They said goodbye to each other and walked away! So I was left to take my shots and feel connected to what was being memorialized, and to you, and to all of us in the world who see things in a slightly different way.
 
I went back a few days later, and the WM had been moved, but it was still there on the fence, with the wreaths! That means people have seen it, one person at least has touched it and carefully put it back in a good spot. Amazing!

(L. is a friend of mine from college. She is also a gifted handbag designer. L. and her wonderful husband, P., are starting a new chapter in their lives in France. You can read more of L's adventures on her blog.)

November 20, 2009: Winged Messengers

Cough! Cough! Hack! Hack! Popping Ibuprofen and chomping on cherry-flavored cough candies - that's what I've doing this past week. That and making my last flock of winged messengers in 2009. Several winged messengers will be flying to different parts of the United States while others will make their maiden voyages to countries in Africa and Central and South America. Cool, eh? I'm really excited about it. A couple new participants in the project have sent me photographs of the winged messengers placed in their own communities or in places they have traveled through. I'm looking forward to showing you those photographs next week.

Once this latest flock is released, I'm going to focus on encaustic painting and preparing for the upcoming holidays. I had a terrific time painting with my two friends last Sunday but after we finished, I wasn't that thrilled with what I had created so I scraped the image, the wax, everything off to the base coat. Yep, it was one of those moments when I thought, Ugh! That is U-G-L-Y! Make it go away! The great thing about encaustic painting is that if you don't like what's happening, melt the wax and reuse it again for something new.

And what have you been up to?

November 17, 2009: Encaustic Painting with Friends

On Sunday, my two friends, Moe and Jodi, came over for a day of encaustic paintings. I transformed my dining room into a makeshift artist studio by placing plastic sheeting over everything. I made sure that there was enough ventilation by using two fans (one that drew fresh air into the room and another in the window above the hot plate that drew the air out of the apartment). We did not stand between the pot and that window. Safety is important when working with hot wax and damar resin. The hot plate was kept at 200 degrees and we kept our eyes on the temperature of the irons. As an extra precaution, a fire extinguisher also sat next to the table.

We spent five hours applying base coats to simple wood frames that I had picked up from a Michaels Arts and Crafts store. It's important that the encaustic melts into the wood and that every layer applied is fused into the previous layer with the use of an iron, heating gun or propane torch. As we were painting inside my apartment, we used small irons. We applied enough base coats so that the wood frame was no longer visible.

Then it was onto the fun stuff! We mixed a small amount of oil paints with the wax and began painting images. Muffin tins, by the way, can become useful encaustic palettes.

Jodi brought stamps which I pressed into the hot wax to create patterns. For the first time, I also tried transferring images on photocopies by wetting the paper, placing the the image directly on the cooled wax, and gently burnishing the back with a flat tool. It worked! I learned that trick from Susan Tuttle's book, Exhibiton 36: Mixed Media Demonstrations + Explorations. And yes, I should have taken pictures of our encaustic experiments and paintings. Ah well. Now we have an excuse - like we really need one! - for another encaustic get together.

Photo: Moe trying her hand at encaustic painting.

November 14, 2009: Inspired by Natural Fashion

I'm sitting here tonight, a little tired yet content, thinking how good this past week has been. First there was a movie & dinner night with friends, then the news that Rena had her baby, then Wednesday's sneaky bloggergal coronation and Thursday night's dinner with Rachel. Tomorrow morning, my friends Moe and Jodi (MoJo) are coming over for a day of encaustic painting (a mixture of beeswax, damar resin and oil paints). Neither of them have painted with encaustics and I haven't "taught" it before but nevertheless, we always have fun whenever we get together.

I recently bought Hans Silvester's photography book, Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa (Thames & Hudson). His portraits of members of the Surma and Mursi tribes are gorgeous! For generations, these people have been decorating and painting their faces and bodies with earth and plants growing near their homes. They paint themselves for the pleasure of creating. This book has become one of my favourite "art & photography" books.

 

 

November 12, 2009: Queen for a Day

Wow. Yesterday was quite the day! Certainly not what I expected when I first woke up that morning.

It all started with sleeping in later than usual. When I finally rolled out of bed and turned on the computer, I discovered an email from Angie with the subject heading: Good Morning to Our Guest of Honor - READ THIS FIRST PLEASE!

Okaaay...I clicked on her email and lo and behold, discovered that I was to be Queen for a Day! (Actually, I had to reread her email three times til it sunk in that I was the Queen. I'm a  bit slow in the mornings).

I spent the morning and evening riding the royal blogging carriage from one blog to another where I found the nicest, most supportive posts ever from bloggergals who had helped me with my winged messenger project. And then Rachel came over for dinner and gave me the scoop on how it all came about and I just have to say that I am still grinning and pinching myself and doing cartwheels a day later. Thank you to all those amazing (and sneaky) bloggergals who made my day, my week! You are all Queens in my book!