Drawing as Meditation

Fabriano Sketchbook in Orange

This orange notebook is my reward for getting my tax organizer to the accountant. I love the way the cover picks up different shades. In 2004, I took a drawing class at the community college, as part of my year of experimenting with different mediums, on my way to making mosaics. I was one of those “I can’t draw” people until I read Betty Edwards Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and that book gave me the courage to take a class.

I slowly stopped drawing as I became engrossed with mosaics, but I came across a book on Urban Sketching at the library, and suddenly I was ready to draw again. Then I heard Danny Gregory on NPR’s Here and Now, talking about drawing as a way to connect with your own creativity, and the present moment of your life in his book Art a Before Breakfast.

Wheeled Mosaic Nippers in Green Pencil by Margaret Almon.

I have been sketching each day, and for those moments, I am practicing seeing what my subjects look like, not what I assume them to look like. I find my mind races ahead with judgements like, “Those wheels are perfectly round because wheels are round” or “This is too hard to draw.” It is a relief to go back to looking at what I am sketching, and follow the contours.

February 18, 2015

Studio Tunes: Philadelphia Eclectic Jazz with Fresh Cut Orchestra

February 17, 2015

Escape Routes Quilt by Marie du Toit

Escape Routes Quilt by Marie du Toit of South Africa. Photo by Wayne Stratz at Pennsylvania Quilt Extravaganza(2014).

Based on the Block of the Month Solstice Quilt by Jinny Beyer.

February 11, 2015

Heart of Many Colors

Rainbow Heart Suncatcher by Wayne Stratz.

Etsy Shop

February 10, 2015

Mosaic Pendant Basking in Orange

Orange Pendant by Margaret Almon. Glass, ceramic, gold smalti, 1 inch square.

Shop Orange.

February 4, 2015

A Rainbow Emerged from the Grout

Rainbow Brooch by Margaret Almon. Glass mosaic and silver overlay, 1.4 inch.

Where to get your rainbow

February 3, 2015

The Same Trees

Fall Leaves at the Norristown Farm Park. Photo by Wayne Stratz.

These leaves remind me of stained glass with colors revealed in detail when the light shines through. Stratoz took this photo on an autumn walk to the Norristown Farm Park, and it is a wonder that the same tree will go from orange to brown, to bare and then to green and orange again. Melancholy latches onto winter starkness, and yet there are colors sheltered within.

January 28, 2015

Grouting a Rainbow to Pin on Your Coat

Grouting a rainbow #inprocess #margaretalmonmosaics #grout #rainbow

A video posted by Margaret Almon (@nutmegdesigns) on Jan 22, 2015 at 5:43pm PST

January 27, 2015

Collage Meets Glass: Les Gemmaux de France

Pont de Grenelle (Grenelle Bridge)(1959). Design by Louis Gilis; technique invented by artist Jean Crotti (1870-1958); panel assembled by “gemmists” in the Paris studio of Roger Malherbe-Navarre called Les Gemmaux de France. Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY. Photo by Wayne Stratz.

This piece caught my eye at the Corning Museum of Glass. It was mounted in front of a lightbox and the colors of glass emerged in glowing layers. Before I started making mosaics, I made collages with magazine paper and the Gemmail technique is like having those scraps of paper turn to glass. Artist Jean Crotti wanted to incorporate light into his paintings in a new way and began working with thin glass glued and then fused, and called it Gemmail from combining the French words for gem and enamel(Gemmaux in the plural).

Crotti sought advice on the logistics of his technique with his neighbors, the Malherbe-Navarre family, physicists studying light and fluorescence. Eventually Roger Malherbe-Navarre became the primary maker of Gemmail, and artists like Braque and Picasso were enchanted, and wanted to translate their paintings into glass and light.

A reviewer of a set of Gemmail windows, Winefride Wilson from a 1964 issue of Tablet, was ambivalent, torn between the wonder of the effect and concern that it reminded her of childhood kaleidoscopes, and hard to take seriously. I have no such reservations ~ I am on the side of wonder.