Back from Vacation

Today the kids and I got back into town from a wonderful couple of weeks spent at my parents' place in rural Kansas. It is always a restorative trip for me and the children too. I never do get much time to actually do things of my own, so I have learned not to lug along a whole lot of stuff thinking I'm going to get to play more than at home, but I think the enforced break is a good thing. There is also usually a visit to either the Utrecht store or Creative Coldsnow's Westport location, both in Kansas City. I was quite pleased this visit to find the Golden Van Dyck Brown in fluid acrylics there, which I have been looking for--I know I could order it online, but it's just so much more fun to pick it up in a store and walk out with it.



As I said, I didn't get to play with actual materials much, but I did manage to find some time here and there to do some of the projects in Susan Tuttle's book Digital Expressions; the images with this blog post are a couple of the results. The building is the one-room schoolhouse that my grandfather attended as a boy; it's just down the road from my parents' farm. The other abstract image was lots of fun to play with, and there were no brushes to wash up afterwards!



I did spend some time thinking about what I want to do over the next few months and realized that I don't have any free time if I do everything. One decision I need to make is whether to sell any holiday cards this year. If I do, I need to get cracking on those, get them posted up on my shop site, and fulfill the orders pronto. I also have to decide if I'm really going to offer an after-school book arts class at my son's school in the fall. (I offered it halfway through the spring but it didn't make.) That's going to take some work to pull together as well.

Other projects in my pipeline are doing something with the painted papers I did before leaving on vacation and finishing the Renaissance triptych book that's been lurking for some time now. I also saw something in the latest Cloth Paper Scissors (I think) that I would like to send in an entry for--a book limited to no more than 6x6", if I remember correctly.

I was also contemplating what to do with the 7gypsies printer's tray I got recently (shame to let those Archiver's coupons go to waste, even if I don't know what I'm going to do with something yet), and I thought it might be fun to do some of the ideas from Mixed Media Self-Portraits and do one in each tray. That's a pretty large undertaking--unless I purposely made myself do it in time limitations. Guess it depends on why I decide to do the project--practice doing instead of thinking, or really delve into the self-portrait concept . . .

And on top of all those things, I forgot to mention that I wish to finish the projects in the online Complex Collage class that Julie Prichard & Chris Cozen are offering . . .

Much to think about, and much to do!

Laid Low by a Cough

The day after my last post, I came down with a 102-degree fever that lasted only about 12 hours, but I was left with a debilitating cough. I finally went to the doctor a couple of days ago and got loaded down with medicines (he proposed I might have a mild case of whooping cough!), and things are finally improving. It's been tough, though, as I haven't had the mental energy to do anything over these last couple of weeks. Also it was the beginning of summer, and it's very challenging to do anything when both kids are home. One, yes, but not two.

Anyway, tonight I finally started the final gluing stages for my truth project. It's definitely labor-intensive, and next time I'd use slide mounts for something like this, but there is something to be said for having done everything by hand. I didn't realize what I was going to do until I was in too deep to pull back and go an easier route. I do think it will look neat when done. My quotations are already selected, and I'm going to write them on onionskin to be seen on one side, and back them with vellums for the other side. Then I will add color accents to the black-and-white paper that I'm covering all 26 frames with, and finally I will figure out how I'm going to attach them. I would still like to figure out how to do it so that it will fold up into a book, since that was my original intention, but I can't see how to do that until I have them finished in front of me ready to go. Since I got so slowed down by this illness, I won't be able to complete it before leaving for my parents' house in Kansas, which is disappointing and frustrating, but ah well.

I have also nearly finished the first project in Kelly Rae Roberts' Taking Flight book, and I'm very pleased with it. All I need are fibers for the binding, and I can't find mine in the garage (all my stuff is in boxes as our house is on the market). I may have to give in and buy more, because I want it to be done! It was hugely fun playing with oil paints (although they took nearly a week to dry in our humid climate, and I may have layered them on too thick also), and it was very rewarding to draw something for the first time. I didn't think it turned out half bad.

General Musings

Haven't done anything more on "truth" lately.

I'm still trying to finish my "time" piece; I was unhappy with the background (too much One Step Crackle in a particular spot looked milky and didn't fit in with the rest), so I sanded it down and am trying again with different media. This time I painted it with a coffee bean acrylic undercoat, then a mixture of Golden Crackle Paste tinted with Jacquard metallic pewter. It's been curing for the requisite three days (worked out perfectly since I came down with a head cold two days ago), so tomorrow I'll take a look at it and see if that will work.

Truth still seems to me like something I'd like to have that is seen differently from different angles. Question is how best to achieve it? Put something in a box and have each box decorated differently--stained with alcohol inks, tissue paper, mesh, etc.? Should one be able to lift the box or top off to see what is really inside? I think the answer to that is yes. Now, what should I have in the box??

Oooh, wouldn't it be neat to have something in the box that even when the walls are lifted away and the thing is revealed, you still can't be sure exactly what it is? Now what could I come up with for that? Perhaps that's something for another day when I have more expertise.

Now at least I have something I can go with--can get one of those square display cases at Michael's to use and alter it as necessary. Just have to figure out what to do with the sides and top--that's five things. Perhaps one should be opaque. What if have the top be opaque and the sides done with different palettes of alcohol ink? That's at least a good place to begin.

(Only a Few) Quotes about Truth

This is an interesting one:

Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit. --Edward R. Murrow

That could be quite fun to put into pictorial form, although that's not really how my brain works, but it gives lots of possibilities with the light shining through obscurity. Even go literal and use a woman's full-on nude image, being covered up by things. Go political and make it a burka.

Wow, I'm finding lots of insightful quotes about truth, but nothing that sparks any kind of imagery. Most are all intellectual. I may just go back to the ideas from my last entry and work from there. I did quite like something from Virginia Woolf, who said that "if you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people". That ties in with my mirrors theme that came up last post.

Now this one from Oscar Wilde is interesting: "“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” I like the idea of masks, although of course I don't have any supplies (stamps, molds) to use for it! Of course I'd be attracted by something that requires buying more stuff! But it's also what this blog is about, since no one I know has the URL for it, unlike my family blog or Facebook account. I am truly free to write here without wondering whether someone in my family will think I'm pretentious, deluded, or just egocentric. And that seems to be true for many people on the internet, although not always to their credit.

Now this would be a fun one to do by including these words by Aldous Husley as part of the piece: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad."

Well, harrumph. I guess I'm going to have to muse on what truth means to me, but that will have to be another post.

What is "Truth"?

So, A. has selected "truth" as this month's topic, and I may need to work quickly since we are halfway through April.

How does one illustrate truth? Or make a piece representing it? Could do a mirror with decorative mosaic edge. Ooh, could do a mobile with lots of glass tiles and miniature mirrors, because often truth requires finding little bits of it here and there and then piecing it together. Or along the same lines, do a puzzle (ornamental), perhaps with one piece left to put it. I am liking these ideas . . .

Let's see if I can come up with some that don't involve mirrors. Is truth something that blazes out at you, grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you, saying, "Here I am and you cannot ignore me!"? Or is it something quieter, that steals into your being and makes itself known over a period of time? As always, my question too is this: what color is truth? I don't think it's one of the primary colors--not subtle enough, not enough depth. Perhaps a blue, but why? Because of the blue in the sky, the blue of the water? Definitely not purple. Hmm, and I just contradicted myself, didn't I, since blue is a primary color. I guess I am thinking of a different kind of blue, one with clarity and depth, one with translucence.

Next thing I'll go looking for quotes again. I haven't yet used one, but I enjoy the thinking that comes along with finding them.

End of "Time"

Unfortunately, my group's get-together to show our "time" pieces had to be rescheduled . . . but the plus side of that is that I have a chance to redo what I mounted my piece on. Had a technique glitch with the DecoArt One Step Crackle; I got so frustrated that I wasn't getting the size crackle I wanted, so I poured on a huge lump of it and didn't smooth it down enough. When dry, there was surely a great big crackle in it, but it looked milky and didn't blend in with the rest of the background.

I guess I'm going to have to sand it all off and redo the layers--dark brown acrylic (and I think I'll do two coats this time instead of just one), then Tim Holtz's Brushed Pewter Distress Crackle, then a nice thick layer of the One Step Crackle. Once that's all dry, I'll use the Antiquing Solution. I also think I'll use a tack to mount the faux pendulum rather than a foam dot, which doesn't seem to be holding very well. I *will* get this right!

Finally, Making Something Again!

I have had it with all my stuff being in the garage (our house is on the market for sale). This afternoon I dug around in various boxes and found my toolbox, my Distress Ink pads, my Xmas gifts of some Tim Holtz items (game spinners, sprocket gears), and a few other things. Not too much, just a few things.

Then I made a chipboard clock using some Heidi Swapp items and following the directions on Tim Holtz's blog for the last Xmas tag of 2008 (steps 16-35). It was so much fun! Took about 10 minutes, but the result looked great and I had a neat embellishment for my project. Did I mention that my group's art challenge this month is "time"?

Since I don't have a lot of room or materials available, I am going to try to keep this month's project small. I have inked up a 3x4" canvas with Dried Marigold Distress Ink, then I used one of Tim's new masks and put Vintage Photo DI over the top. Now what I want to do is use some of his new stamps in the sets that have just become available at Michaels, but I can't find my acrylic mounts. Grrr.

It feels so good to be doing something again that is creative, that has a tangible end result--I love it, love it, love it. I feel fully alive again for the first time in two months. Must remember that this is necessary and make sure that it doesn't get shut down like this (of course, we hoped our house would sell faster and our stuff would come back out sooner than it has). But this is a good feeling, a feeling of accomplishment and engagement.

Initial Thoughts on Time

Back to me to pick this month's challenge for our group--I went with "time". None of us seem to have any right now, so it seemed appropriate!

While at a mandatory seminar last weekend, I jotted down some notes and thoughts on the topic; here they are.

To begin, I need to decide if I'm going to look at time as neutral, as an enemy--prisoner of time, a limiter--or as positive. And personal level or society level?

Could do a family tree/genealogy theme. Or could use the fog of time that obscures things, yet sometimes it's only time that brings true clarity.

Incorporate mirrors (small ones) here and there in the piece, because you can't escape time, it is relentlessly objective, there is no appeal--it shows you what is, no escaping.

Also use an hourglass somewhere, or the shape of one? Could get the sand medium to use on part for "the sands of time" (might be too cliched). Or could do some train tracks somewhere for "the tracks of time". Maybe just do an entire piece using common cliches about time! Ha.

What are the colors of time? Browns, golden, iridescence, sand medium around edges.

What are the patterns of time? circles, spirals (use the new technique just learned with wireworking to make some--could use in the border)

Elements to use:
chains
mesh
mirrors
sepia tone
spirals
words/quote on side running off the edge

Find a quote about time--something that addresses how it imprisons and frees us at the same time.

Could do a progression--distressed at top, progressing down to pristine images--passage of time.

Could make a memento box with tiled top (and sides?)--would have to use all manufactured tiles. Idea from Mixed Media Mosaics.

Shapes of piece:
grandfather clock: a portrait rectangle with a circle hanging below it from a chain (chains of Time).
hourglass: two landscape rectangles with circle in middle
other: square on top, circle in middle, triangle on bottom (could use past, present, future in triangle)

March Challenge Topics

It's my turn to come up with a topic for next month's challenge, and I think I am getting a good list together. It's a little harder since I want to find something that I can produce a finished piece on even with the limitations of our current housing situation (primarily that all my stuff is packed away in the garage in preparation for putting our house on the market!), but I don't want to do another month with me just bringing in sketches and ideas and nothing done.

So far this is what I've got:
transition
home/country
faery
transfer [technique challenge]
writing [incorporate somehow into final piece]
complementary colors on color wheel
triptych
tile [give everyone one to do or use however they wish]
mini canvas + easel

As I look at these, I think that faery is the one most appealing at the moment. It's whimsical, could easily be given many different interpretations, could go into literature for inspiration (A Midsummer Night's Dream!) . . . not sure how I could execute on it but it ought to be doable even with limited tools.

We'll see what else pops into my head over the next week . . .

Being Without

We have spent the last month frantically getting our house ready to go on the market. There hasn't even been headspace to think about any projects, let alone blog about them or explore them in my sketchbook. And now that we are nearly ready and the headlong rush has paused a bit, I find myself at a bit of a loss since all my stuff is packed up in the garage, waiting for a new house and space to come out. I miss all my things, my boxes of beads and charms and ink pads, and wonder how it will feel when I finally get to unpack them. Could be one month, but probably more like two or three, and more if we are unlucky. Fingers crossed for a speedy resolution to the whole process.

I'm finding that since A. and I started this monthly challenge thing, that's all I do (except for making the Christmas cards). That's okay with me right now. It's a function of how much time is available, and with a four-year-old it's still pretty limited.

This month's challenge topic is "experiments". I won't have a finished project to show since all my stuff is packed, but I did get out my new sumi painting set last Wednesday on my birthday and tried a couple of things. One thing I found out is that I had never used a brush to do calligraphy--in the past I've always used a calligraphy pen. I love the way it looks with a brush! And I will try to work that into something soon. Our showing is a week from tonight, and I'd like to do something else but am not sure what. Before all the house stuff started, I had already ordered a miniature chemistry set off of eBay and was going to make a shadowbox, but I just don't think I can do that now. It's too hard to go through boxes to get just what I need and then put it all back up again. I guess I could think it through and set it up, at least. After last month and thinking about what turns something from "craft" into "art" (not that it's important necessarily, I know), we concluded that art definitely involves the personal expression of the artist. So I have tried to think of what I could do with the background to personalize my shadowbox. Maybe use a couple of pictures--the one of my dad as a toddler being held up by his dad to press the doorbell, and print one from last summer with Daddy and Jonathan in the granary with the chemistry set in sepia tone--that might be nice.

In Process with "War" Project

Last weekend I had to attend a mandatory parent seminar at my son's school, and while listening to an extremely enthusiastic person expound on the benefits of kale smoothies and hemp seeds, I started writing about the "war" challenge. Just writing out the idea I had, which was good, but not a spark, really. And then the spark came, and I couldn't write fast enough to get all the thoughts and vision in my head down on the paper. I never thought that would happen to me! And yet there I was, sitting on the third floor of the school building, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do and how to do it. Magical.

Now I'm about a third of the way through, and as plans do, mine is changing. And also, as it usually happens, it is changing because something didn't work out like I thought it would. Turns out it's really NOT possible to collage magazine pictures onto a stretched canvas without them wrinkling . . . at least not the way I did it. But that's getting ahead of myself.

I gessoed an 18x24" stretched canvas twice, then I took strips of bleeding art tissue (Spectrum, available at Teacher Heaven and Jerry's Artarama) and added them on with matte gel medium. I did it in an abstract landscape fashion, with greens and browns at the bottom and blues with a few reds and oranges at the top. Mainly my objective was to have the sides of the frame covered, and it was an opportunity to play and experiment since my plan was to cover the front completely with magazine pictures. I was delighted with how the tissue paper turned out.

My overall idea was to put lots of pictures of the earth in beauty on the collage, following a general landscape layout--rocks and trees on the bottom, oceans and sunsets on top, mountains in the middle. That way when one first glanced at it, the impression would be one of peace and grandeur. But a second glance would reveal that in places the paint was cracking (use crackle paint); I had thought about using the peeled paint technique detailed in Christine Hellmuth's Collage Discovery Workshop in a few places, but since I've never experimented with it before I'm not going to do it for the first time on this piece. So I need to age it a little, not noticeably but somehow, in a couple of other ways. Maybe lightly sand a couple of areas, rub Distress Ink over a couple of bits.

Then what I wanted to do is to place magnifying glasses in various spots on the collage, and the picture in the magnifying glass would be one of the destruction and devastation the human race is waging on the earth--birds covered in oil from a spill, dead coral reefs, clear-cutting in the Amazon rainforest, etc. I thought of tying a single metallic embroidery thread between all the glasses, partly to contribute to the misleading initial impression that it's just about the earth's beauty, but it occurs to me now that it would also bring out the theme that everything on the earth is connected, and sometimes that connection is quite fragile indeed. So maybe I will still find a way to work that in.

The reason I have stopped and haven't done anything for a couple of days now is the wrinkled pictures. It actually gave me a great idea because the wrinkles remind me of one of those relief globes, where the mountains are really raised. Would have been neat to figure out how to do that underneath and then have the pictures on top of that (although I can see that would be tough in practice because the paper wouldn't go on evenly over a raised mini-mountain). But that then led to the idea of getting some small, teeny mountains--and maybe also some forests--from somewhere like a hobby shop that sells that kind of stuff for train sets. Their mountains might be too big for my scale of picture though . . . just not sure what I want to do about this and how to work the wrinkles in. I actually kind of like the wrinkles because it's the beginning of showing that all is not perfection, but I need to make sure it looks purposeful and not just like my pictures wrinkled during the adhering process!

At any rate, I'm having quite a lot of fun with this. I was delighted to find a way to do something on war that wasn't going to be immediately depressing to look at--it can carry a message and be serious, but it's also still pleasing to the eye. Hopefully it will all work out in the end.

What to Do about War

So our topic for the January challenge is "war". No limits--could be conflict on a national level such as the current Israeli/Gaza issue, internal conflict such as that between person and role (self and wife/mother), a battle such as the battle against cancer--anything viewed, I guess, as one force opposing another. That's really what war is on the simplest level--two or more forces in opposition that do not compromise and seek to gain leverage over the other(s).

My challenge especially is going to be how to approach this and make a piece that isn't troubling for me to create and that is still something I wouldn't mind having in my house (along lines of last post about what my personal criteria are for my artwork). And I do think that it would be easy to create a piece on war that is disturbing to look at and hard to make. Perhaps the real challenge is finding a way to do a piece on war that is not personally difficult to create and one that is not something the viewer wishes to turn away from upon seeing it.

Not sure yet on which level I wish to approach this. H., who came up with the topic, said she did so because of what is going on in the Isreali/Palestinian conflict at the moment. I thought of something on WWI, with the poppies and headstones of family members who fought in WWI, but as far as I know I have none and Dale has only one, and that just feels a bit pretentious or saccharine anyway. This afternoon I remembered that last summer I'd had thoughts of doing something to illustrate that continual struggle between self and wife/mother roles, so maybe I'll go back and look at that post if I can find it. The personal war--not to illustrate a resolution, just to acknowledge and give voice to the conflict itself.

I am finding it hard to think about this in a way that doesn't feel fake or self-important. Perhaps this might be a good month to do a couple of different pieces for the challenge to see how each comes out and what I think about them. I don't even know how I want to do anything yet. I could maybe use the ration book I got from Duxford last summer--do heat transfer and put multiple copies on a background . . . it just seems that what comes to mind at the moment is "clever" but not honest somehow. Will keep thinking about it and trusting that I will get through to the honesty.

My Goals for Finished Pieces

The more I think about what to make for my challenge pieces with my local friend, the more I find myself thinking about what I like and do not like in my own finished pieces. Even just thinking about what I'm creating has helped me think differently about the pieces I see in a museum. I think I'm broadening my horizons!

One thing I am definitely becoming certain of is that I am firmly in the mixed-media category. Anything else would bore me, but this offers such a wide variety and the potential to keep learning new skills. I also am increasingly that I want all my pieces to have dimension to them. This began even over a year ago when I was still in my homegrown cardmaking workshop year, learning a different technique for each card I made. Just adhering something with foam tape so that it was on a different level than the rest of the piece was brilliant, I thought, and I am now finding that I am always looking for a way to add some dimension or extend something across a border.

Tonight I was contemplating the piece I'm working on for our "beginnings" challenge. It is certainly my most ambitious and I am not at all certain it's going to work out, but even if it doesn't I should learn something from it, so on at least one level it will be a success. Anyway, I realized that it is a personal requirement of mine that first and foremost, I want what I make to be pleasing to the eye. I'm not sure how to put it in any more exact terms--harmonious? pretty? [no, not that]? But some artists want their work to be disturbing on first glance, and I guess that at least at this point, I'm not one of those people. I want what I make to be something I or anyone would want to look at, something that if glanced upon on one's way from room to room, it would give a smile, a sigh of appreciation/pleasure, something like that.

Secondly, after one has simply found the viewing to be pleasing, I'd like the details of the work to be interesting for those (like myself) who find that intriguing. So there needs to be a backstory or amplification of the work that if explored is also satisfying in some way.

I still find great resistance in myself to having words on my pieces (seems way too twee), but this evening I read about Soul Soup and loved some of her poetry that is on her paintings. So maybe sometime in the next two or three months, I will add my own personal stipulation to our monthly challenge that I have to include words on my piece. It would be good for me!

Thoughts on "Beginnings" of All Kinds

Our challenge topic for November/December is "beginnings", put forth by myself. We are taking two months to do it with all the holidays, Thanksgiving travel, etc. I am making lots of Xmas cards and trying not to stress myself out too much. My mind keeps saying that I "should" be doing lots of things, but I try to cut that off right away and just enjoy playing around with different things.

I am amazed at how fast the transition has been for me from following very detailed instructions to create a clearly defined end result to just playing around and seeing where it takes me. Really, I thought that would be much harder for me to do! I think that all the projects and reading I've done have really paid off, which is how I typically do things--immerse myself in information for a while, then I surface and start synthesizing what I've learned to execute it in my own way. From somewhere I have gained a lot of confidence that I didn't have just a few months ago.

One of the things I did that has produced some lovely embellishments to use on my Xmas cards was to make some monoprints with alcohol inks on glossy white paper (I think I used red pepper, oregano, and the gold metallic mixative). I thought they might work as background panels for something else, but they didn't, so I then put some gold peel-off stickers I got in England last summer on them. They looked nice but like stickers put on paper (which they were, of course!), so I put Glossy Accents over the exposed parts, and they really look quite nice now.

With all the coupons Michael's has been handing out the last few weeks, I've been adding some neat things to my inventory. One is the Sophisticated Finishes Patina set, which I'm dying to play with but may not get to until after the holidays (sob). An idea for one of next year's Xmas cards is to cut a big Xmas tree with upturned corners, patina it, and punch holes to hang little ornaments from on tiny jump rings. Or, maybe, just do the tree as is once it's patina'd--embellish it by putting a star on top or something.

Anyway, about beginnings:
--One idea would be to do a collage with many different images of beginnings on it--January calendar, blank book (3D element), wedding ring or announcement, graduation picture, clock or timepiece of some sort, etc. This could be good practice for identifying a focal element and arranging different items, and it would be fun to use the different media for blending things together, especially now that I have the encaustic medium.
--I really like the idea that a beginning is also an ending and have found it very hard, in fact, to separate beginning from ending when thinking about this challenge. It would be another mixed-media piece, but maybe I could fashion a Mobius strip out of something, perhaps with words or a quote written along it?
--I also thought of doing a sunrise somehow, maybe in Art Deco fashion and tearing strips of paper to serve as the sunrise. This would be a landscape-oriented piece.
--I could make it personal and do a collage of beginnings for me: first house I remember, anything else significant. Must admit this seems the least interesting of all so far though.
--Some artistic representation of the beginning of a fractal--see quotes below. Now that could be quite fun!

Quotes about beginnings that might be interesting to muse over:
--The beginnings of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. ~ Kate Chopin
--"In my beginning is my end." ~ T.S. Eliot
--"Play is the beginning of knowledge." George Dorsey
--"Solitude is the beginning of all freedom." William Orville Douglas
--"At the earliest drawings of the fractal curve, few clues to the underlying mathematical structure will be seen." Ian Malcolm

Making progress on magic grimoire

Tonight I made good progress on my grimoire that I'm doing for this month's challenge with A. I decided to go with the idea mentioned in a previous blog entry about illustrating the seven black arts banned in the Renaissance. That means I need to produce seven illustrations, then seven panels for the opposite side, and figure out how to attach the seven pieces of bookboard together.

So far I've completed the panels for hydromancy, aeromancy, and geomancy. My favorite so far is geomancy (I will put up pictures in a later post when the whole thing is complete), which funnily enough was the first one I did. I hope it's not all downhill from there!

What I did tonight were more new things for me. I couldn't find a drawing of any flames or fire that I liked, so I had to draw it by hand myself--horrors! Never done that before, but I prefer my rendition to anything else I've seen. I used white transfer paper, which I'd never used before, and wow! the possibilities THAT opens up are huge. Anyway, I ended up cutting a reverse mask (I guess that's what it's called) so that I could pretend it was a stencil. I used it to apply copper embossing paste from Dreamweavers to cardstock, and once it dries I will apply glue from the Palette gluepad, followed by variegated red leafing. I think it's going to look great! When it's complete, I'll cut it out and plan to mount it on a background sheet of either glitter black, black bumps, or black velvet. Don't think I can decide until the leafing has been applied and I see how that looks.

I also started work on the panel for nigromancy, for which I'm using the Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous circles stamp. I made about five different versions using different inks and embossing powders, then cut out bits of one and bits of another to layer over a base image. I'd like to figure out how to attach some of them so that the circles will actually spin around--maybe just a straight pin? It looks good, though, at least tonight. Hopefully in the morning I'll still be as pleased!

More thoughts on harmony; "magic" challenge

Harmony could be as simple as showing opposites that come together. It's things that are in tune with each other (there's that auditory component again!), or that complement each other. It's a feeling of rightness of place, that things are as they are supposed to be. Maybe I could do something with the Arched Glass stamp? That conveys a feeling of harmony.

Now, for my thoughts on the "magic" challenge. I decided that I want to do a book, and I think it will be an accordion book so that it will fall open like a pack of cards. There are two kinds of magic--the magician's kind, where things appear that weren't there before, or that were there and then disappear on a second look, and the "real" magic that transforms things, that brings a sense of wonder and awe and amazement, the beautiful things that seem too good to be true and thus we call them "magical". I guess there's a third kind, the magick of witches and wizards, potions and spells, fairies and elves.

I'd like to mix all of these things into one. The book will have seven panels joined together with something flexible (maybe tied onto skewers?), so that if I want to, one side could read "MAGIC" using the middle five panels, and then that would give me one additional panel at both the start and end to decorate.

Possible things to use: the frozen opals from Suze Weinberg's store. Glamour Dust. Holographic embossing powder. Pop-up or covered items. Watermarks.

A few hours later:
I Googled "magic" and took a look at the Wikipedia entry, and I came across an intriguing idea. It's a little more formal than I had been thinking, but it might be a neat challenge in and of itself. In the Renaissance period, there were seven prohibited black arts, which fits in nicely with my idea of having 7 panels in my accordion book. I could use each panel to illustrate a different black art (nigromancy, geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, pyromancy, chiromancy, and scapulimancy). That appeals to me . . .

Nigromancy--blackness. Maybe with some image in holographic EP? Skull from Mexican rubber stamp set?
Geomancy--use map, either image transfer or stamp, as background, then something on top.
Hydromancy--maybe build on last month's water challenge and put some water image behind a glass side (2x2"). That should be flat enough to work in a book format.
Aeromancy--this one is tough. I have a cloud Stampscapes stamp, perhaps work that in somehow.
For pyromancy, it would be neat to draw flames somehow and then put copper foil on them.
Chiromancy is palmistry--good opportunity for an image transfer. Key lines are heart line, head line, life line.
Scapulimancy--this is challenging--divination by way of the shoulder blades. That requires some thought.

"Water" Challenge Final Result

Late last week I finished my water challenge pieces. Originally I intended for the two to be one--I was going to have the glass slides hanging down from the canvas--but that didn't seem to work. I think if the canvas had been larger it would have been all right, but it was too small to support three. Going on the premise that sometimes one has to be ruthless and jettison one's favorite thing (advice from writing class in college), I pulled the slides out completely and made them their own piece.

Much to my surprise, I have to say I'm really pleased. It's a great feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment.

Here were some of my musings when I was contemplating having words on the piece:

Surrounding
     Supporting
          Enveloping
Lifting us up
     Carrying us along
Rhythmic waves
     Currents
Motion and complete stillness
     Simultaneously
Our beginning
     Somehow we recognize this
     deep inside
Lulling
     Utter peacefulness
     Deep calm
Best when the sun shines
     Thousands of tiny mirrors
     Sparkling

What does "harmony" mean to me?

I checked this morning on Mixed Media Monday to see what this week's challenge was, and it's "harmony". (My jaw dropped when I noticed that before noon there were already 24 responses. How does anyone do that so quickly?)

So I am considering whether I can produce anything for this and trying to think about what harmony means to me. With so much interest in music, I have to say that the first thing I think of is audible harmony, but I don't really know what I could do with that. Perhaps my challenge is to figure out how to represent aural harmony in a different medium?

When I think of harmony, I think of different things coming together and finding some common ground. Rather like the saying about the whole being more than the sum of its parts. How could I represent that? Maybe go back to the prism idea, showing how all the different colors become one.

Or, perhaps, harmony means peace. I could make something that just feels peaceful, like coming home. The opposite of dissonance. That makes me think of strings vibrating, as on a harp or any stringed instrument. Could I use that imagery in combination with colors? Definitely vertical strings, not horizontal.

As I write this, I find I am thinking only of colors, since sounds are not an option (lack of ability to make my own chimes!). No images are presenting themselves. Interesting. I wonder why not?

Harmony. Also speaks to what my yoga teacher said this morning--we are all happiest when we are doing what we are meant to do. Find what you are meant to do, and do it. That is harmony, being at one with the universe. So I could do something involving an image of someone or something doing exactly what it's meant to do, fulfilling its purpose. There's no greater harmony than that.

I shall have to think about this some more!

31 August 2008

This is harder than I thought it might be to keep an art blog going while in real life rather than on holiday at my in-laws. I knew it would be tougher, but I didn’t realize quite so much! Of course, I did also have my parents visiting for a total of about two weeks, a baby shower at my house, and my cousin had her second baby, so I guess there have been more than the usual number of distractions. At least I am writing now!

Tonight I gave A. our first challenge, and by 30 September we will share our creations. The challenge is “water”. Once I settled on it, I tried really hard not to think about it, but now I can let myself toy with ideas. Here are some off the top of my head:

--glass paints on a bud vase
--bring out the idea mentioned earlier in this blog on the dolphins
--do something with some of the sea rocks and shells I brought back—use Dimensional Magic somehow to simulate water?
--shades of blue keep occurring, for obvious reasons—do another shrine like one for Danny—liked the teeny vase painted with blue glass paint
--try blue alcohol ink on acetate to see how that looks, then maybe use as an overlay on something

Perhaps I should think about how water makes me feel. More than anything, it makes me feel calm inside, serene, still, at peace, connected to the earth in a larger way . . . even the stormy water does that, enhances that connection and being caught up with something larger than oneself. I like the rhythm of the sound of the waves. It does also make me think of Kayleigh’s birth. There is a sense of weightlessness, fluidity, gracefulness. I do not find water threatening or dangerous, I find it welcoming. I like the sense of translucence associated with water. Also I like the freedom that seems to come with vacationing by water—appearances are less important, everything is more relaxed and laid back, meals and bedtimes come at all times—I guess it’s a sense that time is looser by the water.

Could try something on the glass tags from Stampington. Or instead do something on microscope slides—maybe a mosaic-style broken-up picture, using about five slides of different shapes? Hmmm, that’s intriguing. Place those five on a background to create the whole piece. I like the idea of having them in one of those frames like I have in the bathroom (can’t recall the name just now—floating?). Or take a picture of water, or poster, put slides on top of some parts, none connecting, and use those to do the mosaic-style piece? Maybe, thinking big, get a poster of water on a beach, then do slides to place on top of various parts of the picture . . . I like that too.

Could find a poem or words about water that I like, then do an accordion-style piece.

Along those lines, I like the Andre Gide quote used by Melody M. Nunez on p. 23 of Transparent Art: “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

Could write my own haiku to go along with the piece, rather than using someone else’s words. Form is five-seven-five syllables.

I wonder: can the mica tiles be colored with anything? That might be interesting.

Also had thoughts of stitching onto the background, rather like water would run off from something. Use light blue metallic thread, maybe a few crystals here and there. Another thing is that I have always loved the way the sunlight shimmers on the water, if I could work that in somehow.

Could do multiple things to show (Dad’s card of sailboat could be one). Many small treatments rather than one great thing.

Okay, that’s enough brainstorming for one night.

20 July 2008

Thoughts on the “foggy” challenge: I thought of the fog of memory and how people can suddenly pop out of one’s mind when if asked an hour before you wouldn’t have recalled anything about them.

So I thought about having a piece that had a foggy look all over but with faces emerging at certain points between the clouds (use Stampscapes clouds stamp recently purchased?). Not clearly defined, maybe some kind of transfer. Or transparencies.

Have to think about how to make it interesting and also how to make it pretty, or at least not dull.

I did have the idea of having the faces appearing in a circle on the piece.

Maybe the idea with “foggy” is that all the images should be obscured in some way, as though there was a fog or haze or veil in the way. Encaustic? Vellum? Angel hair? Nothing too hard, like metal or wire mesh. Fog is soft, no hard edges, can’t be contained in a form.

NOTE: for dolphin/sea piece, try using heat-transfer method to put a celestial map in the sky (p. 18 Collage Discovery Workshop).

Apply transparent colors on top of each other.

NOTE: try using Cobalt Blue first then Turquoise Phthalo on top for ocean (pp. 22-23 Collage D. Wkshop).

NOTE: try using a combing tool to make waves in the paint (p. 26 CDW).

NOTE: sprinkle sand or crushed shells onto the paint?

Something to try: apply plain white vinegar to copper sheeting.

Something to try in the right piece would be to use incense sticks, either tied together or just glued in place, to frame an element (p. 60 CDW).