We are very excited to have our featured artist Martha Spieker as our August featured artist. She will be speaking at First Saturday Art Walk at 5 pm at the Opening Reception at the Lopez Library.
About Martha Spieker:
About Martha Spieker:
The San Jun Islands are one of the most beautiful places in the world. Everywhere we travel my husband looks at me and says” Wow It’s beautiful here, but not as beautiful as it is at home”. And I think that he is correct. My parents bought their house on Lopez island over 30 years ago, now my it’s my family’s home.
What makes Lopez so special is the people that live here and contribute to the community. I decided to do a series of Lopezians and for my show at the library in honor of a few of the people who make this island their home. I don’t often do people. But I thought that it was a fitting choice for a show at the library. These mixed media portraits, although that word always seems presumptuous, are started with some photographs. I process the photos an app to create a Notan. I used to do this manually but the app is so quick that I now us it. Notan is a Japanese term the literally means “light-dark harmony”.
Before starting a painting I will often do a notan study to explore different arrangements of light and dark without having the distraction of other elements. Notans can be two values, just black and white or can have more specific greys, have 3, 4 or more values. I usually have to play with the notan in procreate, another drawing app to alter the photo so it reads better. It’s much easier to play with things before you start using charcoal. I use the notan as the reference for a charcoal drawing. The drawing with have just two or three values (how dark the charcoal is). I transfer the drawings to a gelliplate. Rubbing the back of the drawomg with my hand to make sure that it transfers well.
Gelliplates are a tool that you can use to print without a press. They are basically a slab of silicone. I’ve come to appreciate many of the things that you can do with gelliplates that you can’t do with a printing press, or at least I haven’t figured out how to use a press to get the same effect. Once the charcoal drawings are transferred to the gelliplates they are pulled off with acrylic paint and paper. It’s always a bit of a surprise at the end. After I pull the print I usually fuss with it a bit adding more paint or charcoal. If I have added charcoal I do use additional fixative before I call it done and frame it.
