Mathematically Artistic and Then Some - Cut Paper Design Workshop with Dr. Lisa Irby

00:13 - It’s a really detailed type of process to do.

00:16 - So I’m hoping that at least I’ll get you started with doing one, and then if you don’t finish, then you can finish it on your own, but before I go into that, as you know, this, given that workshop is called “Mathematically Artistic And Then Some,” but the reason why I call it… “And Then Some,” is because math and art, they just simply go hand in hand, and the “And Then Some,” is the creativity element that we bring to it.

00:38 - So I’m going to ask you all just to simply let your spirits be free to go ahead and create whatever comes to your mind.

00:44 - I’m going to kind of walk you through some things, but you can use your own little essence to add to it at the same time. Before I get started with that, I wanted to show you also where you can also find art in different things.

00:56 - For instance, this particular structural sculpture I found at one of our little local Hobby Lobby stores, and this gives you a lot of geometry in here.

01:10 - You have your circle in the middle, you have your cylinder, and at the same time you got all the other, it looks to be like kind of rectangular shapes and so forth.

01:18 - But this is just letting you know that there’s tons and tons of art around about you. Another example would be in these.

01:24 - I know that some of you see all the time when you go out different designs and things, that is your art, also as a part of mathematics.

01:32 - As we scan over here, I wanted to show you some other things here.

01:35 - We looked at our materials that we wear all the time, but we don’t oftentimes think about them having geometry as a part of them.

01:41 - This happens to be an example of the mud cloth- mud cloth hat that I was able to purchase several years ago.

01:47 - And then also we have this given woven kente cloth.

01:53 - Also we have a woven and also it is, it’s embroidered on here, lots of unique designs as well, using mathematics, you’ll see the triangle or, triangular design as a part of it and the circular design as well.

02:09 - Other examples of kente cloth, beautiful elaborate designs.

02:15 - Just a couple more here. And then this one I just quite love because it’s really, really intricate.

02:23 - And as I said, I love to go to Hobby Lobby.

02:26 - This happens to simply be a charger and on the front of it, it was that fabric of, kind of like a burlap cloth, and what I simply did was I used this given item to make the geometric designs on it. You have your circles, you have your triangles and it had been rounded out, your diamond shapes.

02:44 - That’s another example. And another thing I love to do is to go to estate sales or just any antique shows. This is a very great, nice piece that we were able to pick up recently.

02:55 - It has of course, a square top. There’s your mathematics in it.

02:58 - It has circles and squares embedded. It has little hearts. It has diamonds.

03:03 - It has all of that. So here’s another example of using art and math together.

03:09 - Since it’s Black History Month, I don’t want to forget to note down the fact that we are celebrating that for the month. And as you know, or maybe you don’t know, the history of the African slaves as they were trying to escape into freedom.

03:22 - This particular one here is referred to as The North Star.

03:25 - This is a cut paper pattern. Believe it or not, but it also was used in the quilts.

03:30 - And then we have this one, too. It’s called The Flying Geese, denoting that head North. Because when you go North to Canada, that’s where you’re going to get your freedom. Aside from that, too. I’ve got a couple of more designs here.

03:41 - I just want to give you a feel so you can see that art and mathematics really do go hand-in-hand. We don’t think about it. We just simply see it. And we like it.

03:49 - And then we, well we end up buying it. Here’s some other examples of Kente cloth here. Another example, too, that’s done with marker. And another example here.

03:59 - That’s just to give you an idea about how you can begin to view art.

04:04 - When you buy something, when you purchase something, when you consider making it.

04:07 - There’s like I said, lots of angles, lots of linear parallels, intersecting lines, all of that. We can’t escape it. So without any further ado, I want to go ahead and get us started. Just a quick review on the materials.

04:19 - You should have something like cardstock paper, your black tag board, also. A ruler, your eraser, your pencil, your scissors, and also, I cannot live without this. This is so important.

04:40 - This is the double stick tape, because you don’t want to glue everything down immediately.

04:44 - We want to go ahead and tag it in place, tack it in place, and then maybe go back and remove it or put it back or whatever the case may be.

04:50 - This is invaluable. Remember that. Okay, Some of the other artists that have influenced me with getting my creativity going.

04:57 - One of my favorite artists happens to be Wassily Kandinksy.

05:00 - He does a lot of abstract art. Another really, really great one.

05:03 - I just recently discovered him and I’ve liked his work forever.

05:06 - His name is Victor Vasarely and his work is very green.

05:09 - He’s known as a grandfather of optical illusions.

05:12 - And also there’s M. C. Escher that has his beautiful work that’s out there, too. So some of these artists, you may be familiar with, some you may not, but I would like to really encourage you to look up Victor Vasarely, Wassily Kandinsky and also please look up M. C. Escher for some of their work.

05:28 - Now let’s go ahead and get started because time is going to get away from us, but let’s have some fun with it. So what I’ve done here, maybe kind of hard to see it- it’s either- You can’t quite see some- Let me move on to another one.

05:45 - Here’s a piece here that I started to do, just to let you know that this is the same black tag board that you’re going to be using to create your work on, but when you’re doing it, I normally don’t do the lines this dark. Like I said, you could not even see these lines before. I would like to encourage you, don’t make the lines too deep and dark because when it comes to erasing those lines off, it tends to leave a little bit of whiteness on your board.

06:08 - But I wanted to show you that these are different designs and so forth, that can be created. I did the circular shape. There’s your mathematics, once again.

06:15 - These are actually triangles, not triangles, but rectangles.

06:18 - Irregular rectangles. And if you look at the nose part, it’s made up of triangles, also. Earrings and circles and whatever else, but whenever I’m creating something, I really don’t think about it being created in terms of shapes and circles.

06:31 - I just create it because it looks pretty and it goes together. Okay.

06:36 - Some other examples, would be this given one here.

06:42 - Yeah. That’s just a design with a lot of flair to it.

06:45 - Look at all the geometric design, your rectangles, triangles, whatever the case may be.

06:49 - There’s lots of things happening there and lots of energy flowing from it.

06:52 - And then I’ve got one more on this side. Initially, I thought, “I would love for these guys to do this. ” If you like this given piece quite a bit, I’ve got patterns for it.

07:02 - So I can go ahead and have Gina put it together for you and then maybe email it out to you or whatever the case. But this is really, really neat, but it’s kind of intricate, so I decided not to do this given one. Instead, we’re going to do something that looks like these.

07:20 - Okay. And in the very, very off-center part you see a cross that goes down here and then there’s my lines that are darkened in a little bit so we can go back in and put the different shapes that go along with it.

07:34 - And this one: nothing’s glued down yet because I’m still playing around with it.

07:39 - But you’ll see that the lines there, the wider colored lines, those are- we’re going to take your paper and then you cut it and put it into place. Okay.

07:48 - So let’s go ahead and grab our paper, the black paper, as I clear my desk here.

08:01 - Grab your ruler and your pencil. GINA: Lisa, can I ask you something? So your artwork, it reminds me of stained glass a lot.

08:13 - How did you start working with paper? And can you talk a little bit about that history? LISA: I would love to.

08:19 - I first started dabbling with just simply using the black paper. You know, it was something different and unique because I used to only use white paper to color or not to color, but white paper to draw. And I said, well, let me try this.

08:30 - And so I went ahead and used the pattern notion for my stained glass to start doing it on this given paper. And then it ended up being something neat.

08:38 - I had my father-in-law say, “why don’t you, why don’t you do this more, but on a bigger scale?” So that’s what got me doing it much larger than the smaller versions of it.

08:45 - Okay. Yes. Here we go. With your paper please in hand, hold it vertically.

08:55 - And what I want for you to do is take your ruler, place it horizontally on your page.

09:01 - And you’re going to measure over, three inches.

09:05 - At the very top of the paper, make a three inch mark.

09:09 - Go down and make another three inch mark. You’re going to do three of these marks.

09:17 - It’s hard to see it. And also I should have told you at the same time to make three and three quarter mark as well. So you have a three inch mark and a three and three quarter mark.

09:30 - That’s going to be your vertical line that you’re going to use for your cross.

09:37 - Please go ahead, turn your paper and line up those marks and connect them.

09:43 - Once again, don’t make it too heavily dark because otherwise it’s going to be hard to erase it later on.

09:55 - Okay, so when you look at it, you should have a line that looks like this on your page.

10:00 - Continuing on, now take your paper, turn it horizontally.

10:05 - This time, what you’re going to do is measure approximately three and a half inches and four and one fourth. Once again, it’s three and a half inches and four and one fourth.

10:23 - You’re going to do three of those. The reason why I like to do three of those, because it really lines it up.

10:29 - If you do two, sometimes one is a little bit askew and it doesn’t end up coming out to be straight. Okay, once again, connect those dots or lines of the marks that you need.

10:49 - So now you have a structure that looks like this.

10:51 - You have a cross on your page, okay? Now taking your paper.

10:56 - Whenever I work with the paper, I tend to use a lot of colors.

10:59 - The reason why is because I want that contrast. I want the lights, I want the darks. I want the nuances between my greens and my yellows.

11:07 - And you’ll see what I’m talking about here.

11:11 - So these are papers that I’ve already been cutting on and I’m notorious for not throwing scrap paper away because you’re going to find that you’re going to need that paper, that little baby strip or that little corner. So don’t throw away any scrap paper because actually you can put it into your, your artwork and it makes it look really kind of neat. Okay.

11:28 - I’m going to start off first by working on the vertical line that you see here.

11:32 - Okay? And, If you look at the colors that I’ve selected, when I talked about the difference in that, the greens and the blues and whatever else, I like to have that variation of color, because like I said, it adds a certain richness. And even with my blues here, like a little darker blue, it’s not much different, but whenever you put it together and side by side, it makes your whole image pop a little bit more. And I also, I love- my favorite colors happen to be- You’ll see, in most of my artwork, I love teal.

This color, I just can’t get away from it. And my yellows, I love yellows and oranges and reds, anything bright.

12:12 - So I’m going to use these colors. So since we’re doing the vertical side of our design, and I do know that it measures approximately, let me go back.

12:21 - I think it’s about three fourths. Yes. It measures about three fourths wide.

12:25 - So I like to tell people to take the straight edge of your paper.

12:30 - You should have a straight edge cutting anything out.

12:33 - So go ahead and measure three fourths on that one.

12:44 - And by the way, I normally have my music going very loud.

12:48 - And I’m normally not talking, but I solve a lot of world problems whenever I’m doing this kind of paper design.

12:55 - It’s a lot of thing. Okay? So if you have any, any quandaries out there, just send them my way. I can tell you the answer.

13:03 - I’m just kidding. Ok, now with your paper and your scissors, your famous scissors.

13:09 - I have two different types of scissors, by the way, that I use.

13:12 - I love these little teeny scissors here. I don’t know if you kind of see them, but the- the tip of it’s very, very fine. And these I like, because I can do broader cuts with it. We’re going to use these right now.

13:23 - So I’m going to go ahead and cut this. And I normally do a lot of eyeing of things whenever I’m cutting.

13:33 - So you’re going to see right now that it basically fits that given vertical line, but I’m not going to keep it like that because you’re going to see it’s so much funner if you can add a little bit of design in with it as you’re creating it.

13:47 - Like if you notice on this one, I decided to put an angle in there.

13:52 - And on this one, I put a sort of a partial circle in with it.

13:57 - So once again, using your creativity and the colors that you want to put together, you can create whatever you want to create.

14:03 - But right now I’m going to take this and use this pencil here and just simply do a bit of an arc with it.

14:14 - I’m going to cut it. GINA: Hi, Lisa, Lisa, we have a request. LISA: Yes. GINA: To go slower.

14:23 - Oh, okay. I’m notorious for doing that. And I am so sorry about it.

14:29 - GINA: We, we only have so much time, but. LISA: Yes, I wish I were in person with you.

14:33 - That way I would go slower and it would be walking around.

14:36 - So thank you for that. I will slow down. Okay. Using this special tape, double stick tape.

14:46 - I’m going to go ahead- And I normally put the tape in the mid section of it because I sometimes slide paper underneath it whenever I’m putting other pieces with it.

14:58 - So I just simply tape it in place like that.

15:06 - Now, what I want to do is add a little bit of red with it.

15:11 - I’m trying to slow down. I’m sorry that was going fast because I know that I’m kind of crunched on time here.

15:22 - Okay. You’re going to see that I simply placed the red paper underneath and I went ahead and marked it off.

15:44 - Okay. I marked it off and now because it doesn’t fit perfectly, excuse me, I’m going to take my pencil and the curvature part there, I’ve drawn the pencil mark there.

16:00 - It’s kind of hard to see it, but I made a pencil mark on it.

16:03 - I don’t know if you can see it or not. And now what I’m going to do is cut that. When I do my cut paper design, the same thing with stained glass, notice how it always had that lead part, that lead part delineates one piece from the other part. Well, with cut paper, the black is acting as though it’s actually the lead.

16:21 - So I’m going to go ahead and use my tape again.

16:25 - GINA: Ah, that’s really interesting. The papers acting as the lead.

16:30 - LISA: Yes, yes. GINA: I had someone here, Maria Lana Queen. LISA: Yes.

16:36 - GINA: She says she works with your sister Pamela, and she’s really inspired. LISA: OH! Hi there! it’s good that you’re joining us! GINA: She’s asking if you can clarify, if you can maintain the revert- the tape as opposed to using glue. So I guess, can you use just the tape or do you also need to use glue? the tape is right now just to adhere things to the page, and the glue is very important because later on, it just keeps everything in place.

17:11 - I’ve known this to kind of flip up. If you see, it just flips up, so you don’t want that happening. You want it to be all the way, you know, stuck down and adhere to the paper.

17:20 - GINA: So we’re just kind of designing right now and sticking and, Thank you. LISA: Okay. As you can see, we have this going at the very top of it and because I want the red to have more of an essence and pop to it, I’m going to now taking the straight edge of my paper.

17:39 - And then on the horizontal part that goes across here, I’m just going to look at and lay it down. And once again, it’s three quarters of an inch.

17:58 - And I want that to be my central focus on the cross.

18:04 - So I’m simply to go ahead and cut that. And I’m going to put a little- a little curvature to this one as well.

18:12 - You’re going to see that as you do the different cuts in your paper, it makes it, it kind of makes it sing and hum to you. Like case in point, back here, when I was doing some of these initially, you’ll see that the designs like they’re straight lines, but then I kind of put other rectangles and linear lines in with it or a circle. And then on top of it, I put something else.

18:34 - Or with these linear lines I put a curvature with it.

18:38 - You don’t have to feel stuck into just making your line straight.

18:41 - As I said, the curves kind of give it a bit of life in it and move into the actual design itself. Okay. Using this one that I just cut right now, I’m going to put it down. And like I said, I want it to move.

18:55 - So I’m going to put another little- and it’s going to be a thinner.

19:01 - And that’s like, kind of, you’re going to see what I’m talking about.

19:13 - Okay, Do you see what’s happening there? Not that I’m going to get rid of this part, I’ll use it elsewhere in my design, but I just simply cut it away and it gives it a different feel.

19:27 - And because, as I said, I want the red to be the focal part.

19:31 - I’m now going to go here and have it overlap the midsection and the piece that I just cut off, I now want to use it further down in my design.

19:44 - So now you have something like this going. And like I said, if I don’t like that shape, which right now, I’m not really feeling it a lot.

19:50 - I know I’m going to come and cut that part because it’s just not talking to me.

20:03 - A lot of my designs as I do them. I normally do it, I put the tape on it, and I step away from it.

20:10 - Sometimes I don’t return to it for like maybe a day or two, because like, I mean, it’s overwhelming because you see so much that you want to create with that.

20:17 - But you know, it’s just not saying what you want it to say.

20:20 - So I step away from it. I think most artists tend to do that.

20:25 - Now it has a different message going with it.

20:28 - And I’m going to come alongside here, with maybe something orange and then maybe not exactly red next to it.

20:34 - Maybe a little bit of orange there and then some more red and then some yellow.

20:39 - Does anybody have any questions? GINA: Lisa, we have one of our instructors asking.

20:53 - So the choice for paper, as opposed to the stained glass, is it, was it because the equipment to do the actual stained glass is prohibitive? LISA: No. I stopped doing stained glass when I became pregnant.

21:09 - That was some years ago. And the reason why is because the lead, at that given time I was using lead, and that lead is not good for your unborn child. And so I stopped doing the stained glass.

21:21 - I still have a lot of glass left and I still want to get back into it.

21:26 - It is probably a little bit more costly because you have your copper and then your grinding wheel, and then you got all these things that go into it. You got to have your nails, your board. There’s a lot of things. And plus you have to have it framed out.

21:37 - I’ve got a piece actually back behind me. If I could just show you real fast, it was my first piece. Believe it or not.

21:44 - This piece here. GINA: A little hard to see. LISA: It’s hard to see it.

21:50 - Well, it’s, it’s actually two love doves. And I knew that I had the artistic ability to do it, but I didn’t want to pay somebody all that money to do it, so I took a class for $50 and I ended up getting the skill.

22:05 - And for years and years for Christmas presents, I would give away stained glass pieces or whatever the case may be.

22:12 - It’s just a lot of fun to create like that, but I mainly do- I mainly gave it up because of the lead reason. I do paper because it’s quick and it’s easy.

22:22 - Well I shouldn’t say it’s quick and it’s easy, it’s quicker and it’s easier than doing the- doing the stained glass. It’s just safer. It’s for safety.

22:32 - And I have to admit there was, there was a point in time, I was rushing to get a piece done and I didn’t have my goggles on.

22:41 - And I was just kind of, I’m going to do a quick little grind, just get the edge down and a little fleck of glass, kind of like landed right in the corner of my eye.

22:49 - And so I was like, I better wear my goggles from now on.

22:52 - So that’s the main reason also, aside from it being the lead.

22:57 - GINA: There’s a second part to the question, if your- it’s, so I guess it wasn’t the cost really that was prohibitive, but I guess if it was for somebody, would it be something like a home ceramic studio where people pool their resources or like a school or community center? I guess they’re asking, “how can people kind of do this on a budget?” LISA: The stained glass on a budget? GINA: Like by pulling, getting together with each other or… LISA: That’s quite doable. I do know that there’s a shop over where I live.

23:42 - It’s called “Hand of Man. ” I don’t know if she gives classes or not, but I actually took a class with someone from a studio that was called, “Glassica. ” They were in Mission. GINA: Oh! LISA: Do you know him? GINA: I knew people who worked there.

23:57 - LISA: Yes. But you know what, actually, I was always in the studio so much, they thought I worked there.

24:04 - I was answering the telephones and doing all sorts of things just so I could get some studio time, but they didn’t mind it. It was so helpful.

24:09 - I learned so much from them because they knew how to do it. GINA: Right. LISA: Yeah, but it’s not really as expensive as much- as most people think it may be.

24:18 - You know, it’s, I mean, I don’t know what you consider to be expensive.

24:22 - Any hobby- GINA: A lot of art is- a lot of art is, it comes with the territory, right? LISA: Yes it does! GINA: I guess a last part of the question is, you kind of mentioned with Glassica, where did you do stained glass and for how long? LISA: I did stained glass from 1985 to 1990.

24:42 - And then I did a little bit more there after cause I would make some pieces for people after my baby was born.

24:47 - I did it maybe until like 1993, 94, something like that. Now mind you I was also working as a teacher.

24:55 - So art is always done on the side, especially over here.

24:59 - GINA: That’s what I was thinking. The paper seems a little more immediate and doable when you’re teaching full-time and- LISA: Oh, I’ll tell you, yes.

25:07 - Gina: Okay. I’ll stop interrupting you for a second.

25:12 - LISA: Oh, its no problem. I really like you asking questions.

25:15 - GINA: We do have a question, if the larger frame behind you is for sale.

25:22 - LISA: It actually is for sale. If he wants to visit my website, you’re more than welcome to.

25:26 - It’s Lisa Irby Art. and it is for sale. Check it out! It’ll look beautiful in your home.

25:35 - I really had the privilege as of late to- to- to gift my sisters with some of my artwork. And I, you know, I’ve always given them things because I just love them so much and everything.

25:45 - But these, these sisters are so dear to me.

25:47 - So I gave them one was called the Essence of Beauty.

25:52 - It’s actually on the website and the other one is, oh gosh, the name is slipping me right now.

26:01 - I can’t remember right now. Do you remember the name of it? Anyway, I gave those to them because they- it, it spoke to them.

26:08 - One of them actually looks like one of the art pieces. That’s why she got it.

26:12 - And the other one, it was because it was- it was her time for retirement.

26:16 - And this was kind of symbolic of her next steps. You know, when she’s going be journeying. GINA: Very nice. LISA: Here’s what I’ve done so far, we can see where it’s kind of taking up and picking up a little bit of energy.

26:27 - And I still feel like I want to put other- something in here as well, in this red part of it. Like I said, I put the stickiness on the back of it because if I don’t like it, I can always go back and cut it out and change it up, okay.

26:40 - So let me go ahead and move forward to a couple that are almost done. Okay.

26:44 - Let’s look at this one. This one’s almost done.

26:48 - So what I want to show you right now is how I block in the larger pieces of it.

26:53 - Okay. And as you can see, it has multiple colors, I think at least seven or eight colors that I have going here. So I’m going to, I’m examining it to see, like, what color do I want to speak to me? And I think I need something green and vibrant.

27:13 - So I’m going to choose this piece. And when I do it, because it has the straight edges all already in place, I’m going to go ahead and just line it up with that edge.

27:31 - And I do, like I said, a lot of eyeing. GINA: When you sent the images through email: gorgeous, but I had no idea how beautiful they were until we were hanging them. And there’s just so much texture to them, and I can’t even explain it, but they’re beautiful.

28:01 - And then some of the, I remember you telling me that some of your acrylic paintings, they start as just abstract expressions and then slowly they form into these ideas, and, and then I saw you took some of those and incorporated them into the cut paper designs. So that was like, even a step further. So beautiful.

28:27 - I, I really enjoy creating things. A lot of my inspiration comes from my belief as a Christian. My- like this, the inspiration behind this one that we have, I have behind me. It’s, there’s a cross in it. And you’ll see, there’s a lot of symbolism with my artwork, because I feel like there’s this message that I need to share, because it’s so much a part of who I am. I know this day and age, a lot of people are like, “Oh, they’ll talk about-” Well, it’s who I am.

28:51 - This is really who I am. And my art speaks to the heart of who I am, which is, I love Jesus Christ. And so this particular piece, as you see here, when I started doing it, it was supposed to be these quadrants.

29:04 - There was a quadrant here, a quadrant there, and there, and there.

29:07 - So it’s going to be four across, another four, another four, and another four.

29:11 - And I had to step away from it because it was, it was overwhelming to me because this, I just can’t do this thing.

29:17 - I don’t want to do it. So when I came back to it, I began to all of a sudden put in the Sun. And then from there, here comes this person that’s coming out from who knows where, and this is actually Jesus here. If you focus in down here, you see there’s a person, and this person has their arms out like this.

29:36 - And there’s another person they share the same heads. So this person’s head, that’s actually a ministry.

29:42 - It’s also helping to care for someone who’s kind of seated like this.

29:46 - And so he’s wrapping his arms around him saying like, “I’m right here with you.

29:51 - You’re not in this by yourself. We can walk through this together. “ Well, as a Christian, what happens with me and those others that are believers, Christ lives within us.

29:59 - So we can’t help, but help other people. We’re his hands, we’re his feet, we’re his mouthpiece. We’re meant to share him.

30:06 - And so all these little round circles, that’s like the Holy spirit is moving around and about. And then you see here, there are these lights, these candles, and then this is a hill and it’s symbolic, basically of us being lights in the hill, putting our message out there to the world, shining brightly. This particular one is called Son, which is Jesus Christ, The son. Son to Sun, because as you know, the Sun gives us light and life. Well, Jesus Christ for me, gives me light in my spirit.

He gives me life, and there’s a cross right here, which was not intentional, but it ended up coming out as well.

30:43 - So a lot of my work when I’m creating it, I don’t really know how it’s going to turn out. It just sort of evolves and it becomes this thing and it just happens. So like with these, these just happen.

30:59 - GINA: It’s really neat. I love the intuitiveness of it. And, a message kind of working through you too.

31:13 - I don’t think that can be taught, right? LISA: I think all of us have it in us, but are we listening? I think we can do it. We just have to kind of step back and get away from ourselves long enough just to see what’s, what’s going to come out of this? We’ve got a voice, but what does that voice saying to us? Is it giving positive stuff? Negative stuff? I choose to believe that, I want that positive voice.

31:37 - I’ve got a lot to share and my artwork is when we- that I go back sharing it.

31:42 - By the way, speaking of being a little bit too close, it’s kind of hard to see, but here it’s too close. You can’t even see the delineation and I want it- I want it to show up. So I’m going to now go back in and trim it off.

31:56 - And you’re going to see how it pops a little bit more because I’m trimming it.

32:05 - I don’t know if you can see it or not. Can you see that? Alright. I can do this forever and ever.

32:13 - So if you have any questions or if you want to know anything, I mean, I’m, I’m an open book right now and I’m feeling happy that you guys have joined me here today to learn how I this.

32:23 - I would actually love to sit with you all and show you how we can create these things, because there’s something about being around other artists, you know? You’re just kind of letting it flow and you’re talking or you’re not talking, or you’re listening to music and it just sort of happens, and it comes alive.

32:40 - GINA: You have a question from Danielle. She says, “What do you like most about being an artist?” I like the freedom. I like the freedom because like sometimes I’m fortunate to have a space in my house where I can go and I can work.

32:54 - And sometimes it hits me at like two o’clock in the morning or three o’clock in the morning, like I wake up and I’m like, yeah, my mind’s going- You know what? I can’t sleep. So I come up and I can do art whenever. Whenever I was teaching, because you have to really be present and awake and energized to handle the students and the day ahead of you, then you, you can’t wake up at two and three in the morning and do that.

33:18 - So I like the freedom of being retired. And then just to be able to create whatever I want to create. I’m always doodling. I got this one book- I can’t find- this book here.

33:28 - Anything that has a surface on it, I’m going to draw on.

33:31 - I don’t know if you can see that or not, but anything with a surface and blank pages, I’m going to be drawing and doodling. And as you can see, this is probably going to end up being another one of my cut paper designs in the near future.

33:42 - Yeah. So my thing is work- work when you can work, but when it’s time to retire- like me retire, and do your passion because life is not over just because you’re retired. I’m a grandma, too. I love being a grandma! It’s like one of my favorite things.

34:00 - My grandson loves to come to the art room and he’s always up here.

34:03 - And when we were preparing to do this, he sat over here. He goes, “okay,” I said, “Rowan, what are we going to tell em?” He goes, “Okay. Everybody, you’re going to need your, your scissors. And you’re going to need your, your color paper and your glue.

34:17 - And we’re going to do today cut paper designs. “ And I was like, “look at- how cute!” He’s three years old. I would love to show you his design, but I don’t have it at my fingertips, but he just, I love it.

34:31 - And I’m able to pass that onto them, that love of creating, because everybody has that ability to create. Thank you.

34:39 - Here’s what he did. I mean, this is he’s only three. GINA: Oh, that’s adorable. LISA: and he’s cutting paper. And he knows it. He would always say, “well, are we going to paint today? Or is it cut paper? Which one are we going to do today?” And so if a three year old can do it, anybody can do it. Thank you.

35:10 - I wonder how their designs are coming along.

35:12 - Has anybody give me any feedback? Are they trying to create something too? GINA: I think of- some of the people are LISA: So tell me how’s it going GINA: So, from Taylor, they are asking, “How do you,” I think you mentioned this in the beginning, but they missed it.

35:33 - “How do you plan out your cut paper design specifically? How do you start? I missed the first few minutes of your presentation. ” LISA: No problem. I’ll be glad to go ahead and share that.

35:44 - I just take the black paper and then I sketch out very lightly, a little bit of a design, like on this one here.

35:52 - This is much darker than I normally would do, but I just sketch something very lightly.

35:57 - And then I go ahead and I create from there.

36:00 - Let me find you another one or two. GINA: Do these designs come from sketches or do you- LISA: Just out of my c- imagination.

36:11 - But like this one, it’s kind of maybe hard to see it. Can you see it? It’s a young girl. That’s sort of that she’s kind of playing around.

36:21 - There’s a sun in there, always the sunshine, I believe in that light.

36:26 - And she’s got her big hands out. Like I’m here to help you. I love you. I don’t know if you can see it or not.

36:31 - And then here’s another one, too, that I did, but it’s not done yet.

36:35 - It’s kind of hard to see it. Like I said, I love this, this black paper.

36:41 - I’ve got another couple in here, too. This one may be harder to see. I don’t know. Can you see that one? This one I’m pretty sure I’m going to end up doing, because I can see where I could put a lot of detail with it.

36:59 - Overlaying the colors one on top of the other.

37:02 - And here’s one more I wanted to show. This is a heart.

37:11 - I think it’s currently on display right now. If I’m not mistaken, can you see the heart? And then all the different little designs around it.

37:19 - And the real beautiful thing is I incorporated this without really thinking about it. I incorporated it into one of my other cut paper designs.

37:30 - It’s called “The Heart of Humanity Begins At The Cross. ” And that is really kind of neat because it always has people’s faces and heads.

37:37 - So in the corners, I got four different ethnic groups and then there’s a, there’s a cross with, it’s very multicolored similar to this one, but the design is a little bit different on it.

37:47 - And then in the very central part of it, it has this, this heart, not this one, but one that’s very similar to this one.

37:54 - And it’s made up of reds and rings and so forth. But like I said, when I do it, I don’t aim to make it look a certain way. Just sort of, kind of flows out and becomes this image that I want to share out with people.

38:08 - How are we doing? GINA: Good. I think we have about 15 minutes.

38:14 - LISA: Okay. Super. So we’re going to keep on creating some of these because I want to show us how we can begin to glue down some of this too.

38:23 - Let me just finish this last piece. GINA: There’s another question. Did you study art or are you self taught? Your work and where you find inspiration is incredible.

38:36 - LISA: Thank you. I did actually, I’ve- from the time I was in kinder, I got a really long story with that. I want to share it with you, but I had a kindergarten teacher and I think really, she was one of the reasons that got me started with education also because she knew, and she understood that this busy little mind of mine, which was just turning and turning, even in kinder, she could see that. We had nap time. We were supposed to go to sleep.

39:01 - I couldn’t go to sleep. And so she was like, you know, “Hey Lisa, could you, do you want to draw?” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, yes!” She gave me five sheets of paper, colored markers, sat me at the big, huge, giant teacher desk. I mean, they don’t have those anymore, those wooden big desks. And she says, “as long as you don’t talk, you can go ahead and create whatever you want to. ” And so I covered every single white paper like, this covered every single one.

39:24 - It’s just, Oh my gosh, this little girl. No wonder. So when you say, am I self-taught, I think that God’s given me this gift to create and to make things.

39:34 - And so I’ve always done it. I’ve done it ever since kinder all the way through high school. In junior high and high school I did art. In my high school, we could actually major.

39:43 - So I majored in Spanish and I also majored in art.

39:46 - Once I graduated from high school, I went to the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale and I studied photography.

39:52 - Talk about an expensive hobby. That’s what’s expensive, because we had developing paper and we have the chemicals. And then of course the film that was super expensive, I couldn’t afford it.

40:01 - So I returned back to my home state and I went ahead and I did the studies, got my degree, ended up teaching, you know, doing counseling and then, but the art was always tugging at me.

40:13 - I need to do my art. So, that’s where I got my art from.

40:17 - My training was minimal in terms of me going to school to be an artist.

40:21 - I think it’s a God gift that he’s given to me.

40:30 - All right. We’re going to start gluing down some of this because I want to see how we modge podge it. Even though it’s not complete, it’s something for us, at least, pretty to see the process of what is all completed.

40:42 - And I’m really don’t like these big, chunky things here.

40:45 - It feels like it needs something to be overlaid on it. But because as I said, time is kind of getting away from us.

40:50 - I went to all to see how the process actually goes.

40:55 - So moving this out of the way. The glue we’re going to use, and you gotta be careful with your glue. I’m, I’m making a discovery as of late that the type of glue that you use.

41:07 - I use this because if you put it down, we can peel it back up.

41:11 - Some glue you put it down, then the paper sticks to the paper, but this one tends to, if I put it down, I don’t like it, I can take a little X-acto knife, kind of scrape it and lift it up, and then I can that I can go ahead and, and, and replace it with something else.

41:27 - Okay. So when I do this, yes, please, whatever you do, remove this tape.

41:36 - Okay, I’m going to put it on this. And with your glue, you don’t want to put too much glue because sometimes it oozes out.

41:59 - So what I’ve done is I’ve stuck some glue onto it.

42:02 - I don’t know if you can see that very well or not.

42:05 - And I’m going to go ahead and put it in its place.

42:11 - And I press it down. Some of the glue may ooze out from the side, but that’s okay.

42:16 - You don’t want too much of it oozing because it’s going to get real messy if you let that happen.

42:24 - And then sometimes whenever you collect your- your paper, the tape might stick to it. No problem.

42:32 - Just peel that up. GINA: What kind of glue are you using? LISA: This is Elmer’s no wrinkle glue.

42:45 - And I’ve had to actually order this online because, unfortunately, hobby stores here, they don’t carry it. So you get a better deal, actually, if you order it online, too. And I normally get it in bulk, sometimes four tubes or six tubes, they sell like in the little case like that for me, but I don’t know why they’ve not been carrying this glue, but I, I really like this glue a lot.

43:05 - GINA: It doesn’t wrinkle the paper? Is that why? LISA: Exactly.

43:13 - GINA: Another question, after doing- about stained glass, after doing stained glass designs on paper, which do you enjoy more stained glass or the stained glass effect on paper? I really like doing stained glass because you have to cut the glass.

43:32 - You have to break the glass, you have to shape the glass and you’ve got to, you have to grind, but then you have to foil it. Then you have to place it.

43:39 - And then if it doesn’t fit, then you’ve got to go back and grind it a little bit more. That process, it feels like I’m, I’m putting more of me into it. I mean, I am doing it with this as well, but then you can put up that piece to the window and the light shines through it. There I go. And with my light, the light shines through it.

43:55 - And it has these beautiful, reflective tones that are hitting the carpet or the ceiling or whatever the case may be. And it just has, it speaks to you. So I like them both, but I like this one because it’s cheaper. It’s paper! I wish I could see you all.

44:23 - GINA: Also the, it being on paper somehow, like with stained glass, because I know we’ve thought about having like a stain glass exhibit, but you have to have a light box and you have to- but for some reason the paper, it seems to like kind of emanate light.

44:44 - I don’t know if that makes sense. LISA: Well, I would agree with you because once you put the modge podge on it, it it’s kind of, it makes the colors more vibrant. I mean, I don’t know if you can see the difference between this without the modge podge. GINA: Right.

45:01 - LISA: It just makes it more rich. And, I dunno, it just kind of speaks to you.

45:07 - You can see like little angles and little flecks. Another thing, too, with my paper, it’s not all smooth paper. Some of it is texturized.

45:14 - So you get like little bumps and grooves and whatever else with it.

45:20 - GINA: Yeah. That was one of the nice things about seeing it in person, all the texture and grooves.

45:34 - LISA: I’m used to not working so fast. GINA: I have one person, Richard.

45:44 - He says “I didn’t have black papers. So I made it with dark blue.

45:48 - I making a purple, pink, and yellow cross. “ LISA: Oh, that sounds lovely. Hey Richard, can you submit it to Gina so I can see? GINA: Yeah! LISA: Yes! whatever you guys are working on, it would be so nice if I could see your work. I mean, because remember it doesn’t have to look exactly like mine. Richard, I like that. I’ve never used blue paper. So you might’ve given me an idea.

46:10 - How much do I owe you? That’s a good idea. I just use black because black is rich, you know? Is it, and you said it’s a Navy? A dark blue? GINA: Dark blue, yes.

46:28 - And, just a request. If you could repeat drawing the, I guess the, the lines and the spaces outside of the cross, how you went about doing that.

46:39 - And then also, since you’re creating as you go, how do you know when the piece is finished? LISA: “Lisa?!” No, I’m just kidding! You know that it’s done because remember I said, I look at the piece, and then I step away from it, and then I go downstairs and maybe I come back a day later, and I look at it, I’m like, Oh, like it needs something.

47:09 - And then it’s almost like the piece talks to you and it tells you, like, “I’m done. ” This is- this is- you don’t want to do any more because any more is gonna- you’re gonna mess up the message.

47:20 - And so, I just let the piece talk to me like this one right here, this is not done because I’m used to having more layers with it.

47:28 - Like in the yellows, it needs something more like, I don’t know if you can see this one or not. I put some little flecks in here of like a purplish color and then there’s another purplish color.

47:43 - But I think it still needs a little bit more and I even want to bring it down into this space.

47:48 - So that’s one thing you’ve got to think about, with- that you can do with paper that you can’t do with stained glass, because you can actually cross over lines.

47:56 - I don’t have anything that’s like, like bubbled up or anything like that, but it crosses over and it’s adhered to it, but it makes it pop a little bit more.

48:04 - So that’s kind of fine with it. Okay. What I’m going to do, because I think that time is almost- Yes, it gives it more dimension is what I’m talking about.

48:13 - I hope that helped out a little bit, but they wanted to know how’d I do the lines. Okay, down here, I just made chunky lines. And I did it based upon the overall of the- it’s like it has a couple of designs within itself. It has the sun, and then it has the cross.

48:32 - And I decided to just to make the lines based upon those two given dimensions put together.

48:38 - And what I do is, it just flows out from that main source. It’s like a puzzle piece that’s being put together.

48:47 - And it’s going to talk to you, like I’ve been telling you, it’s, it’s kind of weird when I say this is going to talk to you, but it says, “Hm, that fits,” or “no, that doesn’t work. ” And if it doesn’t work, because you’re using your eraser, a light type of pencil, when you can erase it, you can simply erase it. And with the piece of cut paper, if you don’t like that shape, you can recut it. Okay? But I just simply just put the lines in to give me the energy that I wanted to have.

And I keep talking about this yellow. Let me show you what I’m talking about, how it’s going to transform that given shape.

49:30 - Okay. I don’t know if you notice. I just simply sketched out something.

49:33 - I didn’t even put a measurement with it, at all.

49:38 - And it’s to try and give her shape. Okay, I’m going to focus in on this one, this particular ray that’s coming out from the sun, and I’m going to put a bit of red with it.

49:55 - And like I said, it just gives it more depth and more dimension.

49:59 - And if I feel like it, I can even go ahead and put like a little strand of orange with it.

50:05 - And do you see how it makes it pop a little bit more? And to give it some more essence, maybe I don’t even want it to be that thick.

50:13 - Maybe I just simply want it to have like a little bit.

50:17 - You’re not tying into any particular size. You, you put down on the paper, whatever you want it to feel like.

50:32 - GINA: A question. Do you ever listen to music while you work? And if so, what are your favorite jams? LISA: Okay, Christian music. I love that. And I like jazz.

50:43 - I love to hear jazz. And then sometimes I hear like real- like country music.

50:49 - Whatever I’m in the mood for that day. I have a- I’m pretty eclectic when it comes to the music that I listen to, I don’t do heavy metal and stuff because I just- I’m not a headbanger.

50:57 - It just makes my head hurt. You know, my kids laugh at me.

51:02 - Guitar music’s too loud: “Turn it down, please. ” Yeah.

51:08 - Look at the difference of this and the other. You can do that.

51:12 - You can do that design with it or that design with it.

51:16 - It’s just depends on what you want it to say.

51:18 - And you can do it on all of those and then maybe come back in with another thicker piece on it as well. Okay. Like I said, what I do want to do, because I don’t know how much time we have going here, I want to show you how to modge podge it. Okay.

51:33 - I like the modge podge because it’s- it’s a, the one that I’m using is the gloss luster.

51:42 - This- there’s another one too is a yellow one, but I like this one.

51:44 - It’s a bit thicker. And it also just makes the pieces like really, it tacks them in place really nicely. And like I said, for those of you that want this, I’ve got the pattern for this one. This is what we were going to do, but you’ll see a lot of symmetry with that one. It’s really fun.

52:04 - So, but like I said, the modge podge makes everything stick in place and plus it, hardens it and makes it more durable.

52:12 - Okay. Moving this aside, and it’s not all the way dry yet.

52:17 - I normally wait till everything’s completely dry because as you know, if you put glue down and it’s not all the way dry, and then you put another glue on top of that, chances are, you’re gonna get some air pockets and it’s going to be kind of warped and things like that. So I normally wait til everything’s completely dry. And when I say wait, I’m talking about maybe at least two days. I mean, I just want to make sure because sometimes they layer one piece on top of another piece, on top of another piece.

52:43 - And if I don’t have it all the way dry, then what’s going to happen is it’s going to either buckle up and peel up and it’s gonna look really bad.

52:50 - That was another thing I wanted to share with you all. When you do your pieces, if you use really broad pieces and your paper is very thin, even though this says non wrinkle, if your paper’s not real thick, it’s going to kind of, it’s going to buckle a little bit.

53:06 - So I would encourage you to minimize how wide you cut your pieces of paper, because if they’re too wide, it’s gonna, it’s gonna mess up your whole design. It’s gonna be kind of rippled in there.

53:16 - Okay. All right. When I use my paint brushes, these are my acrylic paint brushes. I just wash them out really, really well.

53:25 - And I like the broad flat brushes. I just like the feel of these.

53:30 - They’re not the thick ones. They’re not the real bristly type ones.

53:33 - They’re just very silky type of brushes. And the reason why I like these brushes is because whenever you paint on the modge podge stuff, it- it just goes on very smoothly.

53:44 - And I normally kind of go in one direction with it, or if it’s a circular thing, I go in a circle with. It depends on how the design, because once again, like you said, Gina, “it looks like it’s kind of coming at you. ” Well, that’s because of how the modge podge is also laid down. Okay.

53:59 - I said either one of these, I’m going to use a smaller one because the design is not that big.

54:07 - I hope everybody’s enjoying this. I am! GINA: I am! LISA: I’m having a really good time. I was, I was like, I don’t know how to do this because I’m used to talking to students and walking around and moving around and doing stuff with them, but this is kind of nice, I like it.

54:25 - Okay. Put just a little bit of glue, modgey podgey stuff onto it. And it has a certain aroma.

54:31 - So if you’re, if you’re really sensitive to smells, make sure you have your fan going, it’s not toxic or anything like that, but if you have a sensitivity to odors, make sure that you have a window open or you have your fan going.

54:47 - This has never given me a headache like somethings do. So, when I apply it, I just simply- with the cross, because I want it to go down, I’m going to apply it straight down.

55:02 - And I’m not going to do the full thing because I’m not finished gluing everything in place.

55:10 - And maybe by the time we’re done, I’m going across because then I’m going to go back around it.

55:17 - And make sure that you get in-between where the black is.

55:21 - I don’t know if you can see that or not. Can you see it everyone? Cause I have a bit of a light here.

55:26 - Okay. And I’m going to lay it down so I can really make sure I have it all covered the way it needs to be covered. I know I just need the green, so I’m going to do this.

55:40 - And if you put this on too thick, you’re going to see a 3d effect with it.

55:46 - So you don’t want it to be too terribly thick.

55:51 - I don’t know if you can see that or not. Can you? And then you’re going to let it dry.

55:55 - And then it becomes something that looks like one of these that you see here.

56:01 - When it comes to circles- GINA: Beautiful. LISA: Yes? GINA: Oh, I just said beautiful.

56:07 - LISA: Thank you. When it comes to circles, my circles aren’t perfect, but I, I like to do circles. This one young lady that I’m working on creating here.

56:19 - There she is. It’s a necklace type thing.

56:22 - And I’m going to go ahead and continue that pattern of the necklace.

56:27 - And it just feels like it needs to have- I’m going to go ahead and do a yellow to continue somewhat of a pattern, but it’s not going to be your full pattern cause I’m going to put something else on top of these, and it might be a circle that’s kind of off to the side. So when I do my circle, I just kind of eye it, take my paper, create the circle more or less the size I think it should be.

56:54 - I don’t know if you can see that or not. GINA: Lisa, a technical question. Can you use spray modge podge? LISA: I’ve never used spray modge podge.

57:03 - I think it’s like, with anything that you spray on, make sure that it’s not too thick and gunky. Like whenever you spray paint on certain things, it kind of starts to drip. So I’ve never, I’ve never used spray modge podge. They sell that? GINA: Maybe she’s asking, Like maybe you can make it? LISA: Like a varnish or something? GINA: Yeah.

57:29 - DIY modge podge. I have a question, or- We are almost out of time, but you talk.

57:40 - LISA: I’m just trimming this down. Like I said, it’s not perfect.

57:44 - And just go around the circle and I can always like fix it up a little bit later on and I’m going to put it right in place there.

57:54 - Huh. And that’s how I end up getting my circles.

58:00 - It’s not stuck in place, but that’s how I get my circles. By just simply eyeing it.

58:04 - They’re not perfect circles. GINA: I wanted to ask as a, since you’ve been an educator here, working in the school since the late eighties, we’re going through a lot of changes currently.

58:24 - Have you noticed any changes since that time when you started until the current times, and also, are there any things like looking forward? Any kind of changes that you’re anticipating or how we should- how you feel, I guess, in this current moment.

58:46 - To answer the first part of the question, there have been so many changes with education. When I was teaching, when I first started, we had so much more freedom. We still testing, but we weren’t so constricted by the testing. My classes that I taught, they were GT students and special ed students.

59:03 - Everybody was in there and I treated all my kids the same and I would teach to the middle and higher. By that. I mean, I didn’t dumb down the curriculum. Yes, you might’ve struggled. But that meant it was up to me to sit with you more, to make sure I get you to be at the level that you need to be at.

59:18 - So I think that that’s kind of changed because our really, really bright students, they’re not necessarily being fed academically the way that they need to be fed.

59:28 - They’re, they’re covering content, they’re doing activities, but is the education meaningful and relevant? And when I used to do my presentations, I would say it’s so important that when we teach like mathematics, don’t just teach fractions, but actually teach them how to, to measure out something. Bake with them, I mean, truly bring in the materials to bake with and you bake. You measure things out.

59:53 - If you’re going to build something, make a blueprint, okay.

59:56 - Measure it out and then do a little mock up of it.

59:58 - That’s where the kids really learn it. That’s where it’s meaningful and relevant. When you do your science, okay? Take them outside and do the science; Tie in your mathematics, your science.

60:06 - Whenever I was going through being taught as an educator, we did the whole language approach.

60:11 - And that’s the only way that I know how to teach.

60:13 - I think everything needs to be connected. I think nowadays kids are just covering content and they’re not really able to connect that knowledge the way that we want them to. And so, yes, it’s changed quite a bit. I mean, especially with COVID that’s going on right now.

60:27 - There’s a lot of kids that just- they’re not getting the education and they need, they need a teacher to be there with them, to guide them, to encourage them.

60:34 - So that’s changed a lot too. And I’m hoping that testing will not be as emphasized as it is. Yeah, test, but don’t make it the main thing.

60:43 - Make sure that our kids know something by the time that they leave from school.

60:46 - That’s, what’s, what’s very important. And also that they’re loved by somebody other than their family. So yeah, it’s changed a lot.

60:55 - GINA: Interesting. Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly.

61:00 - I guess I will- Start my video. And so we can say goodbye.

61:10 - Is there- I guess one final question, is there any advice you have for students or new artists who are barely coming to the trade? Any advice for them? I think for anyone it’s so important to pursue your passion.

61:30 - Art’s always been my passion and it’s always been incorporated in my classroom.

61:35 - You can’t- don’t give up on it. It may not yield what you want it to yield, but after all artists- yeah, we like to make money. Don’t get me wrong.

61:44 - But I think we really enjoy when people look at the work and they’re like, “gosh, that’s really neat,” because you’ve connected with them, and that’s the main thing that I want my art to do, is to connect with people.

61:54 - And in my given case, pointing to Jesus, that’s what I want my artwork to do.

61:58 - And I think a lot of people when they see it they’re like, “wow, gosh,” and they just stand there and they look at it and that’s what I want.

62:06 - Pursue your passion. Don’t give up on your passion. If it’s art, do your art.

62:11 - So. GINA: Some things are worth more than money, right? But we still need money to survive. Okay, well, thank you everybody for coming and attending the event and I hope you can come see the exhibit. It’s really beautiful in person.

62:29 - It’ll be on display through March 23rd. It’s at the Pecan Campus Library Art Gallery, the second floor.

62:36 - All right. LISA: Thank you everybody for joining us today. It’s been a real pleasure.

62:40 - I hope I get to meet you so we can “cut some paper!”.