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Stephanie Dalton Cowan was interviewed by Lisa L. Cyr.

This month'southward Mixed Media Alchemy column presents an exciting interview with creative person Stephanie Dalton Cowan, one of the featured artists from my mixed-media bestseller Art Revolution . She shares her unique insight every bit a multimedia artist and illustrator in this highly informative dialogue. Her innovative use of materials, surfaces and tools is inspiring!

Costless From the Past
30" ten 40" mixed media with photo on leather book encompass, vintage papers, debossing and oils. © 2007 SDC

Q: Your mixed-media work is so wonderfully tactile with lots of debossing and textural collage. Can you lot tell us a bit about some of the unique tools and materials you use in your work? Where practise you notice such wonderful treasures?

A: I have collected all sorts of printmaking materials over the years. I haunt boutique shops and flea markets to find unique items such as paw-carved Indian and African woodblocks and vintage papers. More than recently, I take been fatigued to some of the simpler household tools such as scrub brushes, wisk brooms and paint scrapers to create linear scores and random textures into my surfaces. I have also started working predominately in common cold wax, oils and dried pigments. The cold wax is soft plenty to make impressions into the surface when starting time applied, and dries to a rich lustrous surface that is similar to encaustic. I like the luminous, ethereal quality these materials offer, which is why I moved away from using gel mediums and acrylics that seemed to have more than of a plastic finish. Although, I have discovered that by adding marble dust (calcium carbonate) to these manufactured mediums I tin can attain an organic chalky finish that is similar to the feeling of the powdered pigments and cold wax.

Breadth of Absolute
36" x 48" mixed media, book covers, etchings, cold wax, pigments and oils. © 2012 SDC

Q: Do you work in a sketchbook to develop your ideas? Please detail your conceptual arroyo to picture making.

A: I always have a sketchbook inside accomplish, several scattered most my home and studio. I likewise keep a small journal by my bed. It seems that a lot of my ideas come to me in the evening, as I'm winding downward from the day. These ideas chimera up from many sources, such as poetry books, art books, magazines and even my Pinterest boards. So, I oft sit in bed and sketch out thumbnail ideas. I too have a lot of inspiration posted on the walls in my painting studio. Equally I brainstorm to produce the actual work, information technology takes on a life of it's own. It may have me weeks or even months to end a piece because of the multi-layered nature of my work. I begin by laying downward a groundwork of textures and a few layers of pigment, then I allow them dry. A few days later, I will come back and work into these layers past subtracting and calculation texture and more pigment. This process continues until I feel I have accomplished the right amount of texture and depth. In the end, the final work is really nearly the history that has been created over time. It is an expression of my interaction with the surface and materials. The initial sketches serve more equally a catalyst to brainstorm the process of creating.

Atypical Points
18" x xviii" mixed media encaustic with photo emulsion lift and transfer. © 2007 SDC

Q: In addition to very tactile traditional media, you lot besides employ photography and digital media in your work. Tin can y'all talk about how you intermix such polar approaches?

A:  In the past, my art pieces accept combined digital media such as photography with painted works. But more recently, I have separated the ii and created dissimilar series. The first series encompasses photo encaustic works that utilise digital photographs that had been modified in Photoshop and painted on top with oils and wax. I start past mounting an archival print onto a woods panel, so I employ layers of oil pigment to the surface. Afterwards, I apply a few layers of hot beeswax and damar to seal the print which adds dimension to the photo imagery.

The second series I created consists of abstruse works that apply no digital media at all. I work in a collage fashion, weaving cloth, vintage papers and various elements onto the panels. What I have discovered along the fashion is that I am actually drawn to colour fields and the physical process of painting and combining elements to create rich surfaces of color and texture. Then you might say my creative path has diverged a bit from my before works where I brought together both the analog and digital worlds on paper and panel. I am withal working in a collage environment just with different elements and approaches.

Cerulean Presence
30" x xxx" mixed media, buckram, papers, common cold wax, pigments and oils. © 2012 SDC

Q: Tin can you tell us a lilliputian scrap about your arroyo to storytelling through the layers of mixed media and collage you employ?

A: In that location is a natural inclination for me to incorporate some sort of narrative in my illustration works, which combine both painting besides every bit digital media. Near of my illustrations take a figurative focus that guides the viewer along the storyline I am asked to create by my clients. The narratives in my paintings are much more than subtle and ethereal, whether they are photo encaustic or abstract. I rely more than on colour, form and surface to express myself in my personal work.

In the Mist
eighteen" 10 48" photo encaustic – poured beeswax over archival photograph montage © 2011 SDC

Q: You are drawn to dimensional surfaces also as unique framing elements. Tin can you tell us more about this aspect of your work?

A:It's true. I do like dimension in my surfaces and texture is very important to me. I plan to create some dimensional assemblages with primitive forest carved pieces I have collected over the years. I also accept a drove of vintage frames that take been refurbished and rebuilt by my hubby, Robert. Sometimes these frame patterns act every bit an inspiration for some of the mark making on my pieces.

Myopic Vision
26" 10 22" mixed media and photo transfer on paper, antique volume pages, beeswax and oils in refurbished vintage frame.© 2006 SDC

Q: Describe your artistic working environment and how information technology helps support your distinctive procedure and arroyo.

A: I have two studios on the lower level of our firm that are both quite large and light filled. The digital expanse contains a fireplace, sitting expanse, bookshelves and a parsons table that houses my calculator, scanner and printers. I have a second studio that contains a large Epson 7600 printer, gallery lighting and open up wall space that holds upward to v 48" square paintings on 1 wall. The open painting space helps me immensely because I work both horizontally and vertically. I by and large outset working on my pieces apartment to lay down the starting time layers, then I move the pieces to a vertical position on the wall to written report them from a distance and to let for more layering and drying fourth dimension.

Adjoining these ii large studios is a third space with a full bath that gives me storage room for my finished panels and vintage frames. There is as well a workshop expanse for Robert who creates all my woods panels and frames. Lastly, at that place is direct admission from both studios to a big backyard that is nicely landscaped and serves as a quiet sanctuary and retreat from my workspaces.

Inside the studio, summer of 2012.

Q: What are your artistic influences and where do you wait for inspiration.

A: Inspiration comes to me in many forms. I savor music, literature, verse and being in nature. I oft observe myself inspired afterward reading or sketching in my journals belatedly at dark, which inevitably lands me in my studio in my PJs' laying down a layer or 2 of paint on a console. My artistic influences are primarily the Modernists and gimmicky painters. Some of my favorite historical figures include; Matisse, Picasso, Georges Braque, Paul Klee, Georgia O'Keeffe, William Turner, Rothko, Barnet Newman, Jasper Johns, Antoni Tápies and  Robert Motherwell. That is a very short list. There are really too many to name. Additional contemporaries that influence me are artists such as Diebenkorn, Marcia Myers, Robert Ryman, Julian Schnabel, Ernesto Berra, and Ciao Fonseca. I also like many of the contemporary illustrators that cross over into fine art, several of which were featured in your book Art Revolution.

Volo
xx" x 30" photo encaustic newspaper on panel , commissioned for the Ritz Carlton, Atlanta, Ga. ©2012 SDC

Q: What do you lot see yourself incorporating in your work equally your mixed-media vision evolves?

A: I see myself incorporating more than architectural elements into my work. I like assemblage and I enjoy incorporating elements such as fabric, vintage book covers and found architectural forest objects into my panels. I am currently sketching out some ideas for my panels that will hold custom forest carvings that are imports from Bali and Bharat. My vision is to create a custom inset inside these panels that will exist surrounded past layers of color and textile to achieve the look and feel of a very aged architectural wall or doorway.

Palimpsest
36" x48" mixed media, paper, book covers, cloth, house pigment, pigment and common cold wax © 2012 SDC

Q: What are your future aspirations creatively?

A: I truly enjoy the illustration world and I have been exposed to many exciting projects since I began working with Gerald + Cullen Rapp in 2006. I will continue on the illustration path and I volition as well continue to produce personal piece of work, expanding my gallery representation. My goal is to notice a happy residuum between the ii worlds, then far it's working pretty well. At that place is no conflict creatively in switching from digital analogy to physical painting. I am actually fueled by working in the two unlike environments. It seems to suit my metabolism and my interests. The biggest challenge is time, which seems to be true for many artists.

Attraversiamo
48" x 48" book covers, vintage papers, cold wax, pigments and oils. © 2012 SDC

Artist Bio:

Widely published in the commercial world, Stephanie's work has appeared in publications such equally: The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, the LA Times and Harvard Business Review. She regularly produces magazine covers for higher education every bit well equally book jackets, and artwork for opera and theatre posters.

In improver to her illustration work, Stephanie'south paintings and photomontages accept appeared in several major motion pictures including: Failure To Launch, The Within Man, I Am Legend, The Happening, Enchanted, Don't Mess with the Zohan, Constabulary Abiding Denizen and Welcome to People.

One of her photomontages created for the Shakespeare play Macbeth is part of the permanent illustration drove at the Guanshanyue Museum in Shenzhen, China. She besides participated in exhibits with Museums in New York and Israel.

Stephanie has been published in 3 books: Dialogue, The Fine Art of Conversation by Marking Murphy, Art Revolution by Lisa 50. Cyr and Masters Collage, Major Works by Leading Artists past Randel Plowman.

Her paintings accept been placed in numerous public and private collections, as well as hotels and corporate settings internationally. Her paintings hang in the Ritz Carlton, Atlanta, Lowes Hotel, Atlanta, and Madera Hotel in Washington DC.

Stephanie works from her home studio in Metro Atlanta. She is assisted by her four legged studio companions Emily and Linus and her husband Robert Cowan, a talented woodworker who creates custom woods panels and handmade frames. Analogy Representation: world wide web.rappart.com and Fine Art: www.daltonprojects.com

Muybridge on Linen
11" ten 14" photo encaustic printed on linen with poured beeswax. © 2011 SDC

To see more work and a step-by-step demo by Stephanie Dalton Cowan, bank check out Fine art Revolution , a mixed-media book that is the forefront in exploring alternative, innovative ways of conceptualizing and creating fine art that is on the cutting-edge. Throughout the highly visual volume, insightful and idea-provoking profiles of leading artists and illustrators accompany stellar, multi-media work. The book besides provides insight into the historical influences behind gimmicky thinking and approaches, investigating the origins of culling, anarchistic moving-picture show making throughout the decades. In addition, exciting splash spreads featuring demonstrations and behind-the-scene looks at groundbreaking artists at piece of work help shed light on signature processes and techniques. There is a rich amalgam of media available to creatives today, offer a wide range of possibilities for exploration and experimentation. Art Revolution reveals how alternative, mixed media aesthetics is uniting the disciplines of two-dimensional, three-dimensional, digital and new media art in inventive combinations. For those wanting to venture outside the norm, the book includes a directory of the manufacturers and suppliers used by the featured artists then that sources for materials, access to wellness and safety procedures and boosted data on unconventional techniques and approaches are easily accessible. For artists that are looking for an border, wanting to push their work further, this volume is a valuable asset and ongoing source for inspiration.

Artists featured include: Marshall Arisman, Brad Kingdom of the netherlands, Dave McKean, Barron Storey, David Mack, Kazuhiko Sano, Fred Otnes, Michael Mew, Kathleen Conover, Rudy Gutierrez, Lynne Foster, Lisa L. Cyr, Cynthia von Buhler, Robert Maloney, Susan Leopold, AE Ryan, Matt Manley, Stephanie Dalton Cowan, Richard Tuschman, Dorothy Simpson Krause and Camille Utterback.

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