Creative Process

Grantview Studio Spring Newsletter

04.25.2025 by Barbara Grant //

Greetings from Grantview Studio!

Last year’s trip to Belgium generated some good things 🌷

It has been one year since our family travelled to Belgium to visit the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery where my husband’s birth father is buried. Sgt. Robert Grant was killed at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. Since returning Bob has created a grotto in our back yard to remember his dad, and we’ve stayed in touch with the woman who volunteered to visit the cemetery on our behalf.

She recently emailed photos of her latest visit to place a bouquet of red roses and reported removing bird droppings from the top of the cross.

This prompted Bob’s comment, “Must have been a bird resting there.” Things like this make it into my journal – possible ideas for compositions.

If my journal entry is difficult to read, it basically records that I learned the common Kestrel is the national bird of Belgium, so I made a quick sketch of Mr. Kestrel perched on the cross of Sgt. Robert Grant.

My brother-in-law Paul, a writer, became fascinated by the account in my last newsletter about the reuniting of father and son after 80 years. It inspired him to write the story, spending countless hours digging into legal documents, letters, telegrams, photos, newspaper clippings, researching locations and interviewing anyone who might help fill in the gaps of a life almost forgotten. Our pingpong table was piled with artifacts, and he and Bob created a timeline on an adjacent wallboard. The source of my husband’s yearning for most of his life was being unearthed and finally taking shape after all those years. Paul’s sensitivity to the emotional roller coaster this caused in our family is something for which we cannot repay.

He titled the story Grant’s View and invited me to create the artwork for the eBook & Paperback. On the front cover I incorporated the use of a drawing that is not mine. It is a portrait of Bob’s dad in uniform. Martin Balow is the artist who sketched him from life. (His tiny initials can be seen on the lower right side.) Sgt. Grant then lovingly addressed the drawing to his wife Marie. We found this original drawing in her box of letters.

From the first time I laid eyes on this gem, I understood what a precious record it was. Any trained artist would note the choices made: the variety of pressure of pencil point to paper, the economy of line, the tenderness rendered – a meditation of truth transferred to the page. I marvel that the facial features depicted are recognizable in Robert’s offspring, the men and grandchildren in my life.

I hope someday we may learn the whereabouts of this thoughtful artist’s family to share our stories.

Grant’s View is now available on Amazon.com. Just click this link Amazon.com …or search “Paul Turelli books” on Amazon.com

🌷🌷🌷

As for Grantview Studio, I’m still connecting with my OddBall artist group in Illinois. Many of us participated in the Looking In Looking Out windows exhibit organized by Sara Peak Convery (Arts Alive Chicago). My contribution was a painting on an old window frame called Dance Studio.

I am gifting this one to my dear friend Peggy who suddenly became my impromptu model. It was such an intense collaboration, an important experience for both of us about the anguish of war.

You can learn more about it on my Grantview Studio blog: (that’s https://grantviewstudio.com/blog)

Most Saturday mornings I’m with my Milwaukee sketch group, drawing points of interest in and around our fine city. I’m always open to learning from other artists about new art supplies, techniques and soaking up their various views about…everything. There’s a good vibe that feeds my soul when I’m with my friends.

* Here we are hamming it up for the photographer at Mitchel Park Domes.

The most recent highlight for Roxy and Ringo was a whole week’s visit with granddaughter Bell, who hopes to someday “live out in the country and take in ALL the rescue dogs that nobody wants.” Bell is the youngest of eleven grandchildren in our blended family.

Our great-grandchild David was born last August! Here he is galloping on his rocking horse!

David wearing cowboy hat riding rocking horse

We thank you for your interest in our Grantview Studio endeavors & projects, along with a few family updates. 
And we always love hearing back from you!

Wishing you peace and happiness
  🙏 
Bob & Barbara Grant

🌷🌷🌷

See contact page to stay in touch ~ ~ ~

p.s. I continue to create new work and manage my websites, where I post other things beside our newsletters.

(Most of what I share are stories about the creative process.)

A Colorful Tree & my Fall Newsletter (all in one :)

10.04.2023 by Barbara Grant //

Before leaving summer behind there’s something that I want to share.

I recently finished this painting titled Colorful Tree. The art lover who requested I create it got the idea when she saw my painting of kids in a tree that I had posted on my blog years ago.* She had an empty wall just waiting for something like this, had no particulars about what medium I chose, and was in no hurry. No pressure! Fun project! I’m grateful for her patience, because I was interrupted multiple times with other projects with deadlines.

Following are excerpts from our email exchange that reveal some of the magic of this venture:

Me — This painting has been a joy to work on – more play than work. I loved creating a comfortable, climbable tree; I loved pretending I was each one of those kids; I loved dressing each child and imagining their personalities. Every time I thought it was finished, I photographed it for your approval and noticed something else to fix. But I better stop now before I go too far and wreck something! If there’s something I can alter to make it more to your liking, I will do my best. It’s been so fun!

Client — Barb, I just LOVE this!!! It is gorgeous. Just what I was hoping for! I was mulling over one change. Would you be willing to change the skin tone of one the kids? I don’t care at all which one and while all of my grandkids will most likely be white, I kind of like the idea of some variety. I know that I never mentioned this so I apologize for this inconvenience. It never occurred to me. Let me know your thoughts … Thank you, Barb, I really do love it!

Me — I’m so glad you’re pleased. I have to reveal something pretty funny. As I worked on this I had an Irish redhead on the swing, Hispanic boy up on the limb, lovely Asian girl in the crook of the tree, little blondie tackling the kite and a brown skinned beauty kicking off her sandals. But in final stages I allowed them to morph into a generic crew, because I felt I was being presumptuous. I went back & forth thinking, well…they could be at a city park?! Anyway, pretty funny huh? I’ll make changes & send photos for your approval.

Client — Oh your original plan was perfect. Go for it!!!

ME — I’ll do my best 🤓

Client — I’m sure it will be fabulous 🥰

She didn’t want to risk damage or loss via shipping and offered to drive from Illinois to my studio in Wisconsin. I suggested we meet halfway, and so we were able to enjoy a nice lunch. She was interested in how I created the painting and asked questions about the process. One of the things I told her was about a song I learned as a child in Sunday School:

🎼 Jesus loves the little children; all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white; they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world 🎶

This song ran through my mind as I composed the drawing, chose colors, mixed and applied the paint. I’m fortunate to be friends with two artists who are experts in mixing skin tones; they educated me in using undertones of red or blue depending on ethnicity. It’s tricky.

* The earlier painting of “kids in a tree” that my client recalled can be found on my blog. The title of this post is Poetry + Soccer = America Scores. You can easily go to it by clicking here. This is the artwork:

My last newsletter was posted December of last year, so I have a few other project updates I’d like to share

photos of the creative process to completion

I created another book cover that turned out to be helpful in my quest to learn more about painting digitally. This came about as I was grappling with the composition for the commissioned design. I uploaded my drawings to the Procreate app on my iPad, then using the incredibly magic Apple Pencil started experimenting… So fun! I moved back & forth working on canvas, paper and the digital app and sending images of my progress to Mr. Turelli for his feedback and guidance. Quite the learning process for me! The author’s website is: PaulTurelli.com

My Catch of the Day painting was included in an exhibit this last June with my friends at Oddball Art Labs. As a teenager I heard rumors about Big Foot who roamed around the countryside near Big Hollow Road in Peoria, Illinois. I returned to scout out the area earlier this year. At dusk it was still spooky for me to visit alone. A narrow train bridge came into view as I drove around a curve on the isolated, tree-lined country road, the sides of its inner walls covered with graffiti. It took me back to my high school days and inspired my entry for this artwork.

(Happy Halloween!)

Also I created a logo for Precious Tots Preschool where my daughter Tobi teaches. The design needed to include what the director of her school desired for their new T-shirt fundraiser. I putzed around long enough with various designs and kept throwing in new ideas for approval – back & forth – I could have gone on forever I was having so much fun… But Tobi finally had to say, “Mom, stop! Quit changing things! It’s fine the way it is!!!” So with the help of Dori, my younger daughter who was finalizing the project for print on fabric, I was able to slip in one more itty bitty improvement to balance the composition – a little tuffet of grass in the bottom left corner. Tobi will never know unless she reads this far into my newsletter, which I admit is rather lengthy.😬

It was a fun summer. We made it to Milwaukee’s Summerfest to see the James Taylor/Cheryl Crow concert, Bob cleaned out the garden shed, designed and had a bar built for our deck, met some cute cows out in the countryside during one of his photography assignments, and we celebrated the 4th of July with Roxy & Ringo:

🙏 Thanks for reading and looking… 👀

bottom banner with Roxy & ringo photo signing off with love

p.s. My friend who knows a lot about watercolor told me that yellow “pushes” other colors. I did this experiment to watch it happen. I’m aware that it’s a visually powerful color but just look how it punched into this red! I used this for the background of the banners in this newsletter. I painted it on postcard paper, scanned the image and uploaded it to the Canva app to make my designs. I also sent the postcard via the U.S. post service to my friend way out near Seattle 🙂

A Sweeping Tale

07.08.2023 by Barbara Grant //

When I was a girl I was expected to help my mom with chores around our home. Not just to be helpful (though God knows she needed it with our family of eight), but also in order to learn how to care for my own future household. Early on, she taught us the proper way to set the dinner table and how to:

wash dishes & clean up the kitchen
use the vacuum & dust the furniture
fold “hospital corners” when making beds
iron shirts – at least 5 steps in a particular order
sew on a button.

Useful skills. Skills she needed a hand with I’m guessing. But she wasn’t a clean-freak; I still love her “clean to the eye” motto, which meant pick up the newspapers and toys so, if company happened to drop by, the house would look neat. She was a practical woman, and I’m thankful for the means I acquired under her casual tutelage.

I have mixed emotions, however, about a story she told me when I was sweeping the kitchen for her one afternoon – a tale my grandmother conveyed to her when she was a girl. It’s about a man who visits a household to observe two girls clean up the floors of the home. The first one sweeps the broom around the room in a flurry finishing in record time! The second uses small brush strokes, slowly and methodically gathering the dirt particles so as not to scatter it or drum up dust in the air. The man selects as the winner the more conscientious of the two – the young woman who took her time and did a thorough job. Yay! What was her prize? She got to be his WIFE! (It is a primeval story, of course.)

This morning I felt crunchy crumbs under my toes as I stepped toward the coffeemaker. Too early for the noisy vacuum, I went for the broom to quietly gather the particles. This story about a man choosing his bride based on what is revealed in her approach to sweeping dirt still comes to mind every time I grab a broom. In our garage my husband displays one that has seen it’s better days next to a framed poster of Jasper Johns’ painting entitled Fool’s House. Bob insists on hanging them together prominently – he LOVES this diptych he created. It’s been moving around with us for more than three decades.

broom hanging next to poster of Jasper Johns painting "Fool's House"

Johns’ broom series is engaging because he took an actual broom from his studio, screwed it to a stretched canvas and let it “sweep” an arc of oil paint across the surface. His creative process of using commonplace objects, along with his paint marks and scribbled labels caused a pictorial tension that was new to viewers back in the 60s. His Flag paintings caused more of a sensation and made him famous, but I lived with the broom for so long I believe it influenced me as much as my mother. I collect objects to incorporate into my own paintings. I am known for this among family and friends.

In fact, they add to my stash – save stuff in plastic bags and say, “Here, thought you could use this…” Back when I had a studio in downtown Rockford a fellow artist called to report she’d just driven passed a smashed bucket laying on the corner of Madison & Market that looked like something I could use. It became the background of the lion’s face of St. Mark for my Bible Story series.

image of smashed bucket on canvas for St. Mark (the lion)

Progression of images to create St. Mark (the lion)

Every walk with Roxy & Ringo is an opportunity to find shapes on the ground to put in paintings. These found objects are organized in shoeboxes and crates stashed under tables and on shelves around my studio. I believe for most artists the creative process involves the use of basic elements of design and lots of practice with their medium. This is true for me as well, but my approach tends to get messy and troublesome before I’m able to organize the best presentation. Especially if I want to include one of my precious found objects. But with care and focus it can become a meditation of making harmony from chaos, and it suits me.

Out of curiosity, I searched my Etsy shop to find that 34% of my items presently shown include imbedded found objects. Here is one of my favorites entitled Grace Note. Grace note defined:

a musical note added as an ornament
a small addition or embellishment

painting called "Grace Note" with found objects in it

References:

Jasper Johns, Fool’s House, 1962. Oil on canvas with broom, sculptural towel, stretcher and cup. 182.9 x 11.4 cm. Private collection, on loan to Walker Art Center, Minneapolis © Jasper Johns / VAGA, New York / DACS, London 2017.
Flag https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78805
https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/jasper_johns_fools_house_1964
Jasper Johns painting series of brooms: https://artillerymag.com/outside-la-jasper-johns/
A “found objects” search of my Etsy.com/shop/GrantviewStudio

A Sweeping Tale

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