Helen – Summerhouse Art

Saying good-bye to Mosaic Classes

Posted on December 21, 2023December 21, 2023 by Helen

I’ve decided, this year, to say good-bye to giving Mosaic classes. It’s been a hard decision, and I must admit I dithered over it for a while. First, it was because of the Pandemic, since my classes were in a very small home studio. But, then, I also started to realize that, although I’ve thoroughly enjoyed teaching mosaics to so many students since 2002, I was moving on myself, to other art forms, that I wanted to explore like collage and also painting, that I really wanted to get back to. And to that end, I’ve been having a great time exploring collage, gel printing and have also accumulated an impressive hoard of canvases. You would be amazed at the number of new canvases, still wrapped, you can find at Thrift stores! I haven’t given up making mosaics, though, and still have a stash of dishes for future projects. My poor little studio is heaving with all the types of art I like to engage in.

I do still get lots of inquiries about classes and I wish I could direct those people to an alternative instructor, but I really don’t know any other instructors personally. Although, if you are interested in learning to make Pique Assiette Mosaics, that shouldn’t stop you from searching for and finding another instructor. Or even teaching yourself, from the many how to videos online or as we did, from researching books on the subject in the library. Although Will and I had an education in art, we basically taught ourselves Mosaic. As I always like to say to my students, over the last 20 years, it’s pretty easy to do, a low tech art form and it really fits in with the idea of Slow Art. I’ve left a gallery of just a little sampling of the many students, over the years, on the Mosaic Class page.

Will and I are planning some changes to this website starting right after Christmas. More and better galleries of all of our art work, will be a first priority. So lots to look forward to. And now to finish getting ready for the Holidays…

I’ll end this post with a little visual of a couple of my past students. It’s been a lot of fun and I’ve enjoyed every minute!

Student Irina, cleaning grout, summerhouseart.com — Student Irina cleaning grout for a lovely finished mirror

Student Jane, cleaning grout on her mosaic, summerhouseart.com

Getting Ready for the Holiday

Posted on December 25, 2022December 25, 2022 by Helen

Wreath on a Stained glass door, summerhouseart.com

Thought I’d do a little photo essay today about getting ready for today. I’m leading with a fave photo of our wreath, with the medallion on the stained glass window just peaking up over the greenery. As I mentioned in the previous post I’m into Thriftmas and finding all I need at the Thrift Stores. This year I found some battery operated lights, just perfect for our door wreath. So next up are a few photos of the wreath in day time and night time, with its twinkling new lights, finishing with a moody close up.

Wreath on a Stained glass door at night, summerhouseart.com

Part of getting ready, for me, is baking. I love to create goodies to give away and of course, to enjoy ourselves. I can’t resist adding a bit of colour to the baking and discovered these goodies. I call it Junk Candy Fudge and have great fun popping all sorts of goodies onto the fudge while it’s still setting. The chocolate sprinkled cookies look great with colourful candies although, I must admit, the candies were not quite as bright as I wanted. But still ok.

colourful cookies for the holidays summerhouseart.com

This week we had snow, and quite a lot of it for the island. Here it’s a soggy, heavy snow. And while it does have that Winter Wonderland look, if you look carefully, in the middle of the pic, you’ll see our poor Windmill Palm is feeling the weight. This pic is just before we went out and pushed the snow off so it could happily pop up its fronds again. The next snow shot is of a Blue Spruce towering over the garden. That tree and the one you can’t see behind it, used to be a couple of tiny trees in pots that I bought many years ago, to bring in and decorate for Christmas. Now they’re probably 30 or 40 feet tall! And the last pic I leave you with, is looking out into the front garden through my abstract stained glass window in my studio. Hope today is a good one for everyone. We plan on a nice relaxing day, just the two of us, having already done the big dinner with our sons last night. And they did the cooking! And also, bonus, the rains came and the snow is melting!

Poor Windmill Palm tree in our Garden in Snow

Blue Spruce in snowy garden summerhouseart.com

Stained Glass Window on Snowy Day summerhouseart.com

Happy Holidays!

Posted on December 19, 2022December 19, 2022 by Helen

The holidays are almost upon us and I discovered, on the news, that there is a whole new trend, “Thriftmas”. Which means that more and more people are starting to realize that you can do all your Holiday shopping at the thrift store. I must say, we’ve been way ahead of that trend for many years. And I like it! I hope even more people get into the the Thriftmas spirit. It’s way cheaper, you find all sorts of great decorations, and even lots of gift ideas. I remember posting about this back in 2011 in Helen’s 10 Recycled Earth Friendly Ways to avoid the Mall.

This year has been another Thrifty Holiday for us as well. The Chandelier was found years ago, at the side of the road, brought home and forgotten until this year. This year Will brightened it up with some read paint, English Ivy from our garden and some lovely natural carved gourds that were a lucky find this year at the Thrift store. Even the ribbons are from the thrift store! We like it! Would you believe I even found some outdoor battery operated little lights that will be just perfect on our Wreath on the front door. That’ll be our next post….

Still here….

Posted on March 11, 2022April 2, 2022 by Helen

Glass collage in window, by Helen Bushell, summerhouseart.com

I think I’ve been in the creative doldrums lately, or maybe I should define it as a state of procrastination instead. Either way, there is sense of listlessness and also a sense that there is too much to do, so, overwhelmed, you put off and keep putting off. I could blame it on the pandemic, I suppose. We are both a couple of high risk people and have been staying home A LOT. It does have an effect. But at the same time, I can’t say we haven’t been busy, since our attention has been turned to other boring things that just have to be done. We’ve had to have our greenhouse demolished, which is attached to our home, due to the fact that it was just falling down. And like a ripple effect, we ended up working on the moving of all the stuff stored there and making space for it in our basement or in the garden. So there has been a lot of actual work done in organization and garden work and dealing with construction and builder people, not much has happened creatively. Too tired physically.

Not that there aren’t creative plans being made, ideas being considered and mulled over. It’s just that everything seems to be taking longer. For instance, I’m planning an overhaul of the website/blog. I want to totally redo our galleries and even add more. And also, I’ve decided to get onto Instagram. So before I even post, I want to make sure I’m doing it all correctly. Of course, that has it’s own procrastinational element, as I suddenly find that I need to follow all sorts of artists that I’ve discovered on Pinterest. And mostly, the biggest reason for procrastination mentioned earlier, is that there is so much to learn, re-learn even, so many tutorials to watch, or re-watch. So much research to do.

It’s like, although there is nothing happening visibly, there is all kinds of action going on behind the scenes. I couldn’t decide what to title this post, “Watch this space” or “Still here”. All tongue in cheek of course. It will be happening soon. Maybe today’s post will set me on a roll. At least when I’m not in the garden with Will on sunny days. So I leave you with a sunny little window vignette of one of my stained glass collages….

A little Christmas Greeting

Posted on December 26, 2021December 26, 2021 by Helen

Collage card by Helen Bushell, summerhouseart.com

Haven’t done much posting lately, but I have been busy now and then, in my studio. A few months ago I treated myself to a gelli plate, as a new way to create textures and colours for my collages. Many of those are still a work in progress and I’m hoping to post some of that soon. But, this little card was made with papers that I’d created by superimposing one design over another. It occurred to me that the colours were sort of “seasonal” and started just cutting up and arranging elements until I was fairly happy with them. So here it is, a little abstract image to express our wishes to you for the holidays!

New Collages in our FoundMadeArt shop

Posted on January 26, 2021January 26, 2021 by Helen

I’ve slowly been adding some of my recent paper collages into our shop FoundMadeArt on Etsy. So I thought why not feature my little gallery in our shop. Each is a small abstract on paper, each very colourful and also quite affordable with free shipping to boot! It’s kind of fun for me to see them all displayed in one place. And there’s more to come. click the pic to go to our shop on Etsy.

My small abstract collages in our Etsy shop FoundMadeArt

How Our Family is Doing a Remote COVID Christmas

Posted on December 12, 2020December 12, 2020 by Helen

Paper Lanterns for Christmas summerhouseart.com

We live on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada and like everyone else we’ve been dealing with the Pandemic. We’ve stayed home, ordered our groceries online, been super careful going out to shop, or to the library, making sure we use a mask, sanitize our hands a LOT. And it’s been OK. Really. We’ve managed and more importantly, we’re still healthy. We’re so thankful for all the health care workers, all the people who are still working to keep us in food and everything we need. We’re especially happy that our provincial government has taken the Pandemic seriously and taken care of us.

Luckily we’re both artists, busy in our studios, or doing art research, or gardening, so we haven’t been bored. We have each other so we haven’t been lonely. We don’t take any of that for granted, especially now. We have a family that is all grown up now. We’ve kept in touch with the ones that live in another city by Skype for years. In fact, our grandson really enjoys calling up and asking. “Want to visit? We’ll fire up the Skype!” It’s been a huge help over the years, in staying close, just having that visual connection, a boon in a Pandemic. With the family in town, we’ve kept in touch by phone and by keeping our distance when we do see them. And again, it’s been fine, not a big deal.

But now, well, Christmas is almost here. We do love the baking and the getting together with a big turkey, lots of goodies and crazy presents. But this year, we’re all agreed, it has to be different, so we’re going to do a COVID Christmas! And it’s going to be remote! All of us together but via Skype.

Plus, it’s going to be just Will and I, at home, just the two of us on the day. So we’ve actually made some adjustments. Kind of toned it all down. We’re still baking, but a bit less than usual, just the most favourite goodies and we’ll be dropping off some of those to our local family, very carefully, of course. Usually we do lots of local shopping for Christmas at thrift stores, finding vintage and used treasures. Our usual recycled gifts. But not this year, just a bit of online for the family out of province. We’re still having a turkey, but this year it’ll be a little turkey breast with all the trimmings just for two. Indulging in a few treats for ourselves as well.

We’re reminding ourselves, it’s only for this year, this Christmas. NOT forever. We’ve decided we’re going to make the best of it and still make it special.

As for all the lanterns in this post… well, they’re another way we’re scaling down a bit. Not dragging out ALL the lights, just enough. These actually have been languishing in the greenhouse, found at a free box at a garage sale years ago. They were a bit torn and worn, but we did some artistic repair with glue and coloured tissue this week. Looks pretty cheerful too. My favourite is the green one above. The tears become lovely little lines in the random abstract composition. As for the rest of the decorations, most of them are staying packed since we’re planning a natural décor with greenery from the garden arranged in wreaths and vases. Looking forward to it, too. A nice relaxing Christmas. Hope you have a lovely Remote COVID Christmas too. Take care but keep having fun.

Five New Abstract Paper Collages

Posted on December 11, 2020December 11, 2020 by Helen

As I work on new collages, I like to experiment a bit, with colours, composition and even the kind of glue. So far, all the collages have been on paper and adhered with Gel Medium. I also enjoy finding other collage artists on youtube and began to do a bit of research into what they were using for glue. One artist that was really interesting and doing fantastic work is 104 years of age! In the video she was in her 90’s,going strong and actually working on the floor of her attic studio. Beautiful work! You must look her up if you haven’t seen her work yet…Eunice Parsons. Very inspiring!

As I watched her arrange and re-arrange her torn bits of old posters and magazines, I happened to notice when she got to gluing down, she used a glue called “Yes”. So I went right out and found some at our local art supply and started experimenting with that. It’s sort of like the glue from a glue stick, but acid free, and comes in a jar. Eunice used a brush to apply it but I found spreading it with old gift cards worked quite well.

Here are my latest efforts. The first three have a colour theme, with yellow-orange and teal blue predominant.

Small Abstract Paper collage, Helen Bushell, summerhouseart.com — Small abstract collage, mixed media with pencil crayon, ink, various created painted papers, on paper, 5 x 5.5 inches, Helen Bushell

But the last two are much more jewel coloured, teal, magenta and black and white. As with all the paper collages so far, many will be posted on our Etsy shop FoundMadeArt. My next collages are started, but again, something different, on cradled wood panels and will be done again using gel medium.

My Latest Set of Small Abstract Paper Collages

Posted on November 18, 2020November 20, 2020 by Helen

The beauty of being an artist is that I’m rarely bored. There’s always something to try, something to research, something to mess around with. It can make having to stay home in a pandemic and perhaps suffering from what I like to call “the-four-wall-bouncies” quite a bit easier. I can divert my attention and get into a meditative space in my studio. Making the paper collages has been a great diversion and an excuse to try out ideas, and see where they lead.

This next set is a little odd. I’ve been finding that each of these sets is sort of like a little series but this time 5 of the 6 collages are in variations of the same colours.

And one, totally different. The odd one out, just seemed to come together immediately or close to….

The other five all have elements in common, either the colour, mostly turqoise and orange, or textures or just the “feel”. These collages didn’t come together easily. In fact , I pushed bits and pieces around over a few days. And then, voila, one day I walked into the studio, moved a few pieces around and hey, all of them seemed to get to the finish point. These will be on our Etsy shop, FoundMadeArt, eventually. Still catching up there. They are priced at $60 each and we do offer Free Shipping.

I’m already working on the next set on paper. And I’m planning to do some on small cradled panels and also some small stretched canvases. Got it all ready to go.

Another Six Little Abstract Paper Collages

Posted on October 23, 2020October 23, 2020 by Helen

Today I’m posting another set of six small abstract collages that I’ve been creating lately. I’m quite enjoying working on these, finally finding a use for all those scraps of tissue and painted paper. Some of these have as an element, scraps from photographs of the seed pods of a wild sweet pea that comes up in our garden every year. I’d taken the photos into Photoshop and upped the contrast and created some interesting lines and textures. Now was my chance to use them. Others have scraps of sewing pattern tissue, just for the lines and colour.

The fun thing with creating these is the layering of colour, textures and lines, each piled on the other. I work from one composition to the other, loosely and intuitively. I enjoy taking my time, pondering, and often trying the same scrap in each composition, until I find the one where it fits perfectly. Once I have it all laid out as I want, I take quick photos to remind me of where everything went before I go back and slowly fasten each layer down with matte medium onto acid free mixed media paper. It’s quite the process!

Each collage is quite small, only about 5.5 x 5.75 inches or approx 13×14 cm. I think they tend to have a cohesiveness and would look quite good in groups. I hope to have all of them posted eventually on our Etsy shop FoundMadeArt soon. They’re sold unframed, priced at $60 each and we offer free shipping too.

Working on a new set now, so more to come! The next set looks to be quite different in composition so far. Experimenting again….