So happy to share with you today some video interviews I did with some of our Creative JumpStart 2020 teachers: Marsha Valk, Andrea Chebeleu, and Iris Fritschi-Cussens.
First we have Marsha Valk who I have had the pleasure of working with for many years on different projects including online workshops and my Creative Squad. Marsha is from the Netherlands and she is an incredibly talented mixed media artist who always wows me with her work and her videos. In this interview we talk about the parallels between traditional printmaking techniques and modern ones that can be done in a home studio. She shares how she first learned about gelli printing. We also discuss how travel and visiting museums inspires our work.
Next is Andrea Chebeleu who runs A Work of Heart in San Jose (where I have taught workshops in the past) and is also a talented artist. In this interview she discusses ways to make time for art when you are juggling a busy schedule – which in her case includes not only running a business and family, but also fostering kittens who need homes. She champions the idea that you don’t need a lot of supplies to make art, it can happen almost anywhere with materials that you already have on hand. She also talks about a couple new materials that she has been playing with lately and her Etsy shop where you can find some of her creations.
Finally we have Iris Fritschi-Cussens who is with us for the second time for CJS this year and is an amazing expressive artists who I love to share with you. In this interview Iris talks about her personal motivations for creating art and the therapeutic benefits that she finds through creating and expressing her feelings in the safety of the creative space. She discusses authenticity, the not-so-nice feelings we all get sometimes, and allowing ourselves to be true to who we are. Iris also talks about what it means to call yourself an artist. She mentions Teresa Austin as in artist whose work she loves, as well as Egon Schiele and the Leopold Museum.
Be sure to sign up for Creative JumpStart if you haven’t already! The classroom is open and class began on January 1st. This year we have 31 amazing and diverse mixed media artists.
Today I wanted to share with you my first painting I made in my new studio and on my new easel. As I love our old 1884 house and we did a lot of research into the history of the house, I knew I wanted to paint it.
I was especially fascinated by the different people who lived in this house – for example one family lived in this house for 50 years but also finding old pictures that show some of the changes of the house ….there once was a stoop ! (I am totally for bringing back the stoop!)
I always found it fascinating to think of the stories that an old house could tell about the live of ordinary people. BTW one of a longtime tenants of the house lived in my studio and was a printmaker in NYC …that makes me feel there are special artsy vibes in my studio LOL.
For the painting I carved some stamps of architectural elements – like the cornice, windows and the architectural terracotta tiles that decorate our brick facade.
I loved playing with painting, stamping and stenciling.
As always I was building up a lot of layers – for me it is like the patina that is added throughout the years of stories contained in the building.
And then I hung it in the entry way of my studio on the brick wall – that was a ton of fun to paint.
As for the wall easel – I love it – it is so cool to have that much space and be able to do two paintings at once – not that I have done that yet …but we shall see as next I want to do some smaller paintings. Hope you enjoyed seeing the progress and details of my new painting.
I hope 2020 brings the best for you whatever your Vision 2020 may be! Thank you for all the ongoing support the last year – I hope I can bring you lots of creative joy for this year and we will be on this ride again together :)
Also, Happy Creative JumpStart :) – class starts today so I hope you will head over to the Creative JumpStart 2020 classroom and JUMP with us :)
We have one final Happy Holidays post from my Creative Squad. Our talented Judi Kauffman (learn more about her here) has a calendar project for us today to help usher in 2020 :) Our theme is: Happy Holidays – It is a time of year where we are celebrating and coming together and enjoying some merriment. Create something holiday related (whatever holiday you may be celebrating) and enjoy the season!
Happy New Year, everybody! My day for a Creative Squad project with a holiday theme falls late in the month so instead of cards and gifts I decided a calendar would be fun. And it’s a good way start the year off in a creative way. You can make all of the months at one time, or work on the calendar over the course of the year.
DESIGN STRATEGY
I chose to make the artwork for each month on a separate sheet of cardstock and then adhered them with low-tack tape. That way, as the months pass (or at the end of the year) the pieces can be easily removed and cut up for cards, bookmarks, tags, envelopes, die cuts and such. Or you can put them into an art journal or display in a frame.
In addition, by working this way instead of directly onto the pages the calendar doesn’t get messy and the pages won’t ripple if you use sprays, heavy applications of paint or many layers of collage. And you can much more easily use a gel plate. (I’m a Virgo; I really like the pristine white borders. No need to follow my strategy if you prefer another way of working.)
TIPS
Pick a theme that relates to the season, a holiday or other event, or simply work with stencils and stamps that make you happy.
Use a limited palette if you like that approach. I worked with only three paint colors – Black Plum, Copper Metallic, Mustard Yellow.
Pick different stencils and stamps for each month or unify the calendar by repeating your favorites. I kept going with some of the stamps for several of the pages.
THE RECIPE
Ingredients:
Blank calendar, the bigger the better! (purchased or make your own) Cardstock in assorted solid colors (one sheet per month) Lightweight mulberry paper and/or other handmade collage papers Your favorite stamps and/or stencils by Nathalie Kalbach (StencilGirl, RubberMoon, ArtFoamies) Acrylic paint in assorted colors Brushes (stencil, flat paintbrush) Gold paint pen (Pen-touch from Sakura of America) Low-tack double-sided adhesive tape Glue stick Optional – Gel plate; Glitter dots (peel-offs)
How-to:
1. Cut a square or rectangle from solid color cardstock for each calendar page. (Size: 1” smaller than the page on all sides. Shown: 11” squares for 13” calendar.)
2. Alter each piece of cardstock with torn pieces of lightweight mulberry paper or other handmade papers. (Use a glue stick to adhere the pieces.)
3. Paint, stencil, stamp onto the cardstock. Make gel prints to add to the pages or print straight onto the cardstock. Allow paint and/or inks to dry. Use peel-offs, pens, markers, pencils or more paint to accent and embellish the pages.
4. Adhere the finished pieces to the calendar. Enjoy!
Thank you Judi – we hadn’t thought of making our own calendars but what a cool project idea! Want to give Judi’s project a try? You can find all my Stencils, Rubber Stamps, and Foam Stamps in my Online Shop and here are some of the other supplies she used:
Feel inspired? Working on something yourself that you’d like to share? I love to see how you interpret our monthly themes. Email me or tag me #natkalbach how you used my stencils and stamps – I would love to share your projects in my next “n*Spiration From Around the Globe“.
Also a bit of collage in here with papers that I used with my Kyoto stencil, Signals stencil, my Numerals stamp, and my Brownstone stamp. Lots of layers and lots to look at.
My quote is also collaged in – mixed media tissue paper from Dina Wakley.
Strolls through my hood get me out of my studio, they help me get unstuck and often I get inspired by what I see and get new ideas to create something. It is part of my philosophy about Artful Adventures in Mixed Media – which is the subject of my book. Here are some photos that I gathered in the last couple weeks.
Our first tree in the new house – I am sad to see it go soon.
And I had to buy this stick of butter ornament- it made me laugh !
I know technically this is not yet a stroll through the hood but hey.. it is really cold outside. I love decorating in wintertime – I always wanted a garland down a stair case. Well – while I love how it looks like I learned my lesson – dries out super quick…and makes a real mess and attracts cats ;)
I love the different facades and materials of those buildings and while the balcony needs some love I find this stunning.
I walked by this house number on an art deco apartment complex a lot of time but just now realized the tiles – I love this!
And … meet Mingus- the newest addition to our family. He is adorable …and a handful!
He makes us laugh
and he and Pretzel became friends very quick. They both sleep on me at night …it is kind of nice and really uncomfortable hahahaha.
Yours truly played two songs at a Holiday party with her music school …very fun -well for us not the listeners hahahaha.
December is the month of holiday parties and this food spread at a friend’s house made me swoon – the colors, the decor- oh my. I think she should do this for my parties :)
Kind of crazy cool and opulent the lamps around our main post office in JC. I hope you enjoyed this semi-stroll through my hood and glimpse into my home this month. Until next month – well if weather permits ;)
Beautiful photos! I meant to send, when I commented on yesterday’s (?) post,
my condolensces for your loss of sweet Niles. It is so difficult to say goodbye to these furry members of our families. So very difficult. Minges and Pretzel will help to soothe your soul. Cheers to 2020!
What a year 2019 has been. So much was going on while at the same time I took a hiatus from teaching and traveling. I don’t even remember what my word for this year was …I think it was “home” but maybe that is just what it turned into LOL.
As most of you know, we bought an old house with a bit of renovation work to do. Being able to tend to the construction and go to the house almost daily during the 7 months it took, was definitely very helpful.
We had a really nice construction company and besides the usual delaying headaches of permits, inspections and the one or other hiccup it went all pretty smooth and we are happy with the house.
It was fun and exhausting at the same time ..the process was slow and quick at the same time …
…the only consistency was me being tired and unkempt in the attempt to juggle two places, the “we-do-this ourself-projects” and maintaining my art business.
Things were opened, destroyed and discovered –
like roofs, walls, old newspapers
and crown molding.
New things were created like decks, skylights
and matching crown molding
and some things just took care of themselves, like our amazing garden.
We sorted a million things for the move ….
and contemplated a lot about the fact that we acquired so much SCHTUFF again 6 years after moving with just a shipping container and having downsized a lot.
We spent a ton of time together and we loved our project -we are a good team. And we enjoyed our big housewarming party after we finally moved in.
I love my big studio –
I am so stoked about my wall easel and my little fireplace seating area.
We also spent lots of time with friends and family and we finally managed to take two separate beach days off …WOW – shoulder patting – especially since we are only about an hour away from the beach.
I went on a lot of art strolls- I thought I didn’t, but looking back I did quite some fun art stroll stuff. Especially amazing was the af Klint exhibition at the Guggenheim which I saw with Kim
and my special surprise birthday trip to Storm King with my hubs
as well going to the Re-opening of MoMA with my friends Julia and Adam
which resulted in my FAVORITE Photo with art EVER. Epic! I will never look at this particular Mark Bradford piece without also slightly giggling …sorry Mark!
We made it twice to the Opera this year …wowsers and we had a lot of fun with friends “watching” from our nose bleeding seats.
We also tried a lot of new restaurants because something had to give going back and forth between neighborhoods, so why not trying new places including this fabulous and now one of our favorite Bangladeshi Restaurant Korai.
The saddest this year was that we had to say good bye to our sweet cat Niles in the summer. We had him for 19 1/2 years. I am still very sad about it and Christmas was especially hard being the first Christmas without this little sweet fur ball sitting under the tree.
We welcomed Mingus, a new kitten to our home just a couple weeks ago -and Bobby Pretzel adopted him and they are already buddies! They make us laugh a lot!
I started playing the Ukulele and found some fun new friends – we even performed at a Holiday party – creating art prepared me definitely for the “it is about the fun and not so much about the outcome part” here LOL. You see I have to drink the water that I am preaching in my art classes …or however that saying goes ;) I am not sure if the people listening had that much fun, but we sure did.
Art wise- I painted a bit, I hosted a ton of challenges, released some stencils and stamps, released a couple new online workshops and filmed for Sketchbook Skool as well. It felt good to concentrate on some other parts of my art life …things that I usually do not have that much time for when I travel every other weekend.
I did miss going to Germany to see family and friends and also seeing students in Person, but I have to admit I also loved staying home the whole year and putter around here. Making a new home, embracing my home and the people that are nearby. You can def. say all of those things were connected to “home” whether that was my word for the year 2019 or not LOL.
So now what is my word for 2020? I think it shall be “vision” as in “the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom.” I have some visions for my business for 2020 and some ideas for my art , I am longing for some clearer vision in general and in some areas for a vision at all. That might sound weird, but I feel like I used to have so many visions and then either the plans came to fruition or were neglected. Now I long for a bigger vision yet again. The whole house project this year showed me that. So there we go …Vision 2020 …I am on it ;) Let’s see what Hindsight (is) 2020 will show in terms of successfully getting there next December ;)
What is your word for 2020 if you, like me and many others, pick a word instead of new year’s resolutions?
What an amazing year for you! I have no doubt that 2020 will reveal even more wonders for you. Looking forward to CJS and hope to see you in person again sometime. Happy New Year!
Thank you for sharing your 2019 adventures. It’s lovely to see your new home and fabulous studio. Happy New Year and I’m excited to see what 2020 brings, hopefully a chance to take a class with you again! ❤️
It sounds like you had a pretty incredible year! Except for Miles. I’m very sorry to hear that news. Wishing you a fabulous 2020. Looking forward to another year of CJS! Thank you so much for offering it again!
I so enjoyed reading this post and seeing the photos. I remember the first time I signed up for Creative Jump Start, you were still living in Germany at the time. It has been so inspiring to watch you grow as an artist over the years. Thank you for sharing this latest journey with your new house. Wishing you a very Happy New Year and all the best! PS All signed up and looking forward to another exciting CJS!
Thank so much for sharing your journey. I look forward to seeing what visions you create for the new year. My word is organize, especially as it applies to my office/studio and including blocks of art time on my calendar.
“I think my problem is that I have many fantastic bad ideas!” – but I guess that is better than no ideas lol
For my background I used acrylic paint and my new Space Age Modern stencil, along with collage material from old gelli prints.
There is a hand carved stamp in there and then my figure on deli paper with ink. I used acrylic markers for the journaling.
Here are some of the supplies I used:
And don’t forget – time is running out to get Creative JumpStart 2020 for just $50. Sale ends on December 31st!!! Join us in the classroom when the workshop begins on January 1!
I’m enjoying your blog. I’ve already registered for jumpStart. On January 1, 2020, where do I find the program. Attached to your blog? Site of it’s own? Have not seen that, a supplies needed or curriculum. Have I missed these somewhere?
I’m excited about seeing this faculty!!!!!
Mary Boyd
HI Mary, you should have received an email right after you signed up with all the information. I am sending you an email now again and hopefully it will reach you. Check your spam folder in case not. Please email me with further questions – I am happy to help. nat
Brilliant dear girl x
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