Playing with Watercolor and Dot Art

Framed Lotus Dot Art

It all began with a Mother’s Day present for my mom. Yes, I admit it, I’m cheap. Or more correctly, I’m poor. But it’s also true that there is a limit to how many bath products, flowers, and gift cards you can get a mother before it’s just routine. So instead I decided to play around with some supplies sent to me by my friend Brooke and ended up coming up with this:

Watercolor & Ink Dot Art, Framed

I’ve spent the past week working on sketches and playing with watercolor to begin a project for another friend’s mother who saw this piece and ordered two pieces of dot art.

One will be white dot art flowers on a turquoise background, and the other will be mirrored but turquoise dot art on a white background. This is just the first layer of watercolor so far.

The piece at the top of this post is not watercolor, however. It is something I started at first as a way to test out some new ink & paint pens in preparation for the pieces for my friend’s mom. As I went along, I realized that I might as well finish it and make something of it! The piece is available for purchase now at the Elephant and Dove Etsy shop.

A close up of the Lotus dot art piece

New Mixed Media Poem-Collage Series

This is a mixed-media series I created using my own poetry as transfers over acrylic painting on canvas panels. Some of them include collage elements, others use stamps, and others are a combination of items. Each is 8×11. These are scanned images, so the whiteness that you see comes from the brush strokes of the clear acrylic coating, but the originals are more vibrant in color. I chose bright colors and designs as a contrast to the poems, which are a little darker in topic. These will be available for purchase soon.

It’s National Poetry Month! (All the Poetry-Related Updates)

This is another sneak peek! This is from the second series I mentioned. This is text transfer of some of my own poems over paint on canvas panels. There will be other elements of collage added as well, and there are three more I haven’t started yet that go with this series.

I’m planning to participate in an open mic night at the Grand Rapids Art Museum on April 20th (thanks to Greg Bliss for the invite and for organizing it!). I haven’t come to a firm decision yet about which three poems to read. If you’re familiar with my work and you have a favorite, what is it?

Of course there are lots of other art and poetry events locally this month. I’ve already missed several, in fact, because I’m trying to balance my full-time job, a GRIID class, needing to get this art made on a schedule, and my health. I’m planning to show my progress on the collages to a friend after next weekend because I’ve asked him if I can use his venue for a show. I do have plans to attend an open mic next weekend with a friend, and another one on the 17th at Dr. Grins, put together by local poet and activist Azizi Jasper.

A-Poem-A-Day has not been as successful this year as previous years, in that I haven’t managed to write something new each day, but I working on it!

At the same time, I am beginning to read the poetry submissions for the Intersections Anthology and look forward to seeing some new and exciting work on the theme of the intersecting identities of being a Muslim woman artist.

Because I have so much going on, I have not set aside specific books of poetry to read this month as I usually do. I will be reading (and posting a review!) of Liz Henry‘s new collection, Unruly Islands. After that I will return to prioritizing WOC poets, most likely selecting from June Jordan’s Naming Our Destiny.

Also, please remember that I am trying to get to the Allied Media Conference and am fundraising and trying to sell out the Elephant and Dove shop towards that goal! Thanks!

A Sneak Peek at Current Work

This is part of one of two series of pieces I am currently working on. This is very rough, obviously, just the transfers done so far. In fact I’m so unhappy with the Audre Lorde (the magenta one) that I will be trying it over again as my process has improved with more practice.

Commissioned Collage: WOC Sheroes

This was a really exciting piece for me to work on and I taught myself two new techniques – transfers and tea painting – to create this. An online acquaintance commissioned this piece, telling me that she would like a unique collage that combined these specific seven WOC and quotes from each of them. It was up to me to envision the form such a collage would take and this is what I came up with. I’m beyond excited with how it turned out. I used text transfer from books by various of the authors as the background, over paint, as well as text transfer to add their names over their pictures. I used tea to color the paper their quotes are on, and the color effect works really nice with the paint background as well as giving it a less stark look. This is done on a cardboard background with liberal use of acrylic gel medium.

Taking lessons learned from this project and combining them with some other ideas, I am beginning work on a series of collages that will include the use of acrylic transfers. Stay tuned!

Unbelievable Amount of Updates (10/28/11)

• Outlaw Midwives Vol 3 was released today. I have one article in it, but the whole zine is beautiful and great reading.
• As you can see, I have redesigned this blog. Which was a lot of fun, but the best part was learning how to create the banner for the Elephant & Dove Etsy shop, which I am also using here on this site.
• There are several things available in the Elephant & Dove Etsy shop – some crochet scarves/cowls, crochet hair scrunchies, prints of some of my art, and the Jewels for Survival Vol 3 zine.
• I taught myself how to make wrist warmers (fingerless gloves) and have been busy making some as gifts. You can keep up with my crochet and knit projects on my Ravelry page, though I need to update it with the purses I made last Ramadan and the projects that are up in the Etsy shop.
• I created a blog for queer Muslims and am partnering with some other fantastic queer Muslims to run it.
• I am participating in the Art House Co-Op Sketchbook Project and just designed the cover of the sketchbook this week. When I’ve completed the sketchbook, I will scan it and upload it to be viewable online. My theme is “Time Traveler” and I am incorporating stitching and collage elements into my idea of traveling thru time to learn from my favorite artists (many thanks to my friend Sumayyah for the idea for how to use the theme).

Recent Crochet Projects as Gifts

Crochet Purses

Crochet purses made for friends as Eid gifts. The straps are also crocheted, but tucked into the bags for this picture.

Teapot Cozy

Crocheted tea pot cozy for a friend. Made with three strands of yarn (cherry blossom pink, dusty rose pink, and periwinkle blue) to make it nice and thick! This was a super simple design. I took my tea pot to use for measurements. I began by chaining 20 stitches on a size L (8.00 mm) hook. I made a rectangular piece of crochet, checking how it fitted over the tea pot (i.e. I lost count of the rows after about 4, LOL). When the piece was the size I needed, I used a smaller crochet hook to crochet side edges closed (while still on the teapot to give me a good idea of fit), leaving openings for the handle and spout. I then removed the cozy, turned it right side out and put it back on the teapot. It is a snug fit. I know some people like snug, but others might prefer something a little looser than this, especially since a looser fit would make it a bit easier to get onto a full hot pot! I used the periwinkle blue yarn to also add a little pom pom on top.

Don’t forget there are other items available for sale on my Etsy, Elephant & Dove Designs, including some crocheted scarves.

Better Image of Sacred Fire and Prints Soon Available

Details of Painting HERE

So, now you can see the awesomeness of the painting thanks to the magic of scanners. I will be setting up an Etsy soon to sell from, rather than selling thru my site. One thing I will be selling is colored photo prints of some of my collages, drawings, paintings, and possibly of zine covers or photos of fiber arts work even. I am very excited about this venture. Stay tuned!

My National Poetry Month

Basically, just rounding up what i did in the past month, and some pretty excited plans for the immediate future.

First, i said i planned to read five books of poetry in the month, but i managed to do more than planned. What i read:

• Chosen Poems: Old & New (Audre Lorde)
• The Woman Who Fell From the Sky: Poems (Joy Harjo)
• The Dream of a Common Language (Adrienne Rich)
• Haruko/Love Poems (June Jordan)
• Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems (translated by Robert Bly)
• Langston Hughes: Before & Beyond Harlem (Faith Berry) – yes, i realize this is a biography (thought it did include a good amount of Hughes’ poetry) but i figured since it was poetry related it still counts
• Revolutionary Letters (Diane di Prima)
• An Anthology of Somali Poetry (translated by B.W. Andrzejewski with Sheila Andrzejewski)
• Next: New Poems (Lucille Clifton)
• To Be The Poet (Maxine Hong Kingston) – again, not strictly poetry, though much of it is, but fascinating and all poetry-related
• The Last Generation: Prose & Poetry (Cherríe Moraga) – some prose, mostly poetry, and honestly, even her prose is very poetic!

And yes, i recommend them all!

Second, i am planning one-woman guerrilla poetry readings. This is an effort to get myself more comfortable, and an attempt to earn the credit necessary to convince other local poets to work with me on a bigger project.

Third, i maintained a blog with a new poem written each day. Now i am going to transform that blog into an ongoing project called “First Draft Poems”. Each of the poems there are first drafts, and i will be taking them and working further on them as well. Over this past month i discovered an interest in the concept of the “first draft”: imperfection, what are the seeds of a poem, what errors do i commonly make (yes, i make similar errors in almost every poem).

Points two and three lead  me to my Fourth, especially exciting, “announcement”:

Having done my first poetry reading really has excited, energized and inspired me. i am attempting to put together a local poetry reading called “First Draft Poems” (i had this vision before i decided to continue the poetry blog, and the poetry blog seemed like a logical extension of the idea).

First Draft Poems is a wild poetry ride where poets present poems, in relay fashion, that are first drafts or improvised at the moment. The goal is to encourage us to embrace imperfection and love of the original seed of an idea for a poem. Poets may even choose to present improvised work as a team, or to build off of an idea presented by another poet at the event. Un-censored and diverse in style, content and method, First Draft Poems is an event for all word lovers.

My goal is something fresh, though a throw-back of sorts to political poetry of the 60s (can you tell i read di Prima this past month? i have another book of her poetry and her memoir on my stacks to read next!). The plan is very guerrilla-style, no microphone, no “stage”, no real rules. i have a friend who i am talking to about videotaping it, but other than that, it’s simple, low-tech, street. i want it outdoors, and i am trying to find out the best way to put it together while thwarting my city’s ridiculous permit requirements. i would also like to find a local drum group or individual drummers to play at it, if possible. Tentatively set for Friday June 10, 2011 at 7pm at Veteran’s Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan, i am still trying to connect with other local poets to participate. (Interested local poets or drummers can contact me at aaminah.naksi@hotmail.com).

i’m gonna ask my son to consider reading at it, and i definitely want very much to pull in non-Anglo & queer folks, and pretty much whatever poets/spoken word artists etc feel marginalized and unwelcome by the arts community here. i would love it if this helped us to make unexpected friends and connections to begin more such events, and my bigger vision is to help found a trans* inclusive women of color poets’ collective somewhere down the road.

yeah, my dreams are pretty damn big…

AND, In case you missed it, i also released an all-poetry issue of my zine, Jewels for Survival Vol. 3 in April. Have you ordered your copy yet?

Logbook

Last week i read a post by Austin Kleon about keeping a log book (found via this post, which i also recommend). Austin writes:

The best writing project I took on last year was what I call my logbook: a simple Moleskine daily planner in which I kept track of the little details of my day. Who, what, where types of details. Who I met, what I did, where I went, etc.

It’s not a diary or a journal. It’s a book of lists. The lists are simple facts.

The idea really excited me. i wrote about it on Facebook:

one of the ideas from that previous link. i’m gonna do this! i suck at journaling. but like to make lists (ocd) anyway. also, i can see this being very helpful (not only for artists) to track so many things. wondering how many prayers you miss on an average week? when the last time you exercised really was? yes, i can see lots of accountability to self in something like this. also reference points & inspirations…

Then i began one.

Sketchbook turned into a Logbook

i decided to use a small (5.5 x 5.5 inch) sketchbook i had handy. i have written faithfully in it daily beginning 4/13/11. i can’t honestly say i’ve really gotten the hang of it yet, as i sorta have a hard time knowing what i should be listing (not surprising since that’s one of the reasons i’ve always hated trying to journal), but i think i’m getting better.

pages from logbook (4/18 & 4/19)

Today while out shopping with my mom i found a multi-pack of lovely “mini-journals”.

small pretty journals for future logbooks

They are about 5.5 x 4 inches with heavyweight covers, elastic closures, and lined pages. Such pretty (and easy to carry around) books make it even more enticing to try to continue this project.

i am looking forward to tracking who i meet, what i do, what i read, what i write, what i create, project ideas, and overall what i am really doing with my time. i suspect i may learn some things about myself and that it will not only help me to reprioritize but also to remember all my ideas that i tend to lose track of.