Shadow

I did have a neat idea for a piece sneak into my mind over the holidays--a portrait-oriented landscape, mainly fields and hills, with a shadow of some animal in the sky falling over part of it. You can't see any of the animal itself, only the shadow on the ground below. Overall effect would be of menace juxtaposed with beauty, hovering nearby, lurking. It sounds more like a straight painting piece, and I'm not a painter, so I'd have to figure something out, but I like the concept.

Plans for the New Year of 2010

I feel a need to reset myself and figure out what I want to do with all this stuff. I feel very strongly that it is IMPORTANT for me to break through this barrier I have set up for myself that is prohibiting me from truly making my own pieces. When I look back at the things I've made over the last year and a half, I do see a very strong presence in those pieces I did early on, before I got . . . self-conscious, or something, whatever it is. I love the water piece I did with the glass star in the sky, and I love the Magic book I made. I also enjoyed the over-the-top romanticness of the watchmaker's tins that I did for a recently married bride and her parents.

But for some reason, when I sit down to think, "what do I want to make", I am met with a complete void of thought. No colors, no words, no images, nothing. That's why I feel it's so important to break through this and not walk away from it, because that's just not right. It needs to be faced and dealt with. The question I have to answer is what is the best way to do that.

One thing I have considered is that I may be putting too much pressure on myself. It is okay to take pride and enjoyment in following someone else's project plans, and for that reason I plan to make some of Tim Holtz's Christmas Tags once I get settled back into the house. I'm also going to try to not save every single possible moment for art but use some time for cooking for myself & others and generally try to keep a balance without getting wound up about doing so. By now I have gotten to the point where I don't feel I have to apologize for having time to myself during the day, because my being available that way allows us to raise our children as we think it ought to be done--without babysitters, afterschool care, forgoing extracurricular activities. So okay.

The one other possibility I have thought of is that perhaps I just can't "create" this way--I need to be able to give into the obsession and not stop for picking kids up from school, fixing dinners, doing bedtimes, etc. In that case, I'd have to wait a long time to make anything! I think I can find a way to manage that, if necessary.

I think that when I relax a little, whatever I want to explore will come out. Now I'm open to it--even more, finally aware that I have been avoiding it. So I'll continue to do stuff and wait for whatever I want to explore to knock on my door, which will be unlocked and inviting.

Making a Scroll Book

Tonight I made a scroll book based on the description in Mary McCarthy's Making Books by Hand (p. 84). I used leftover scrap from my Gregorian chant paper, a chopstick for the dowel, and red ribbon. Took all of about 2 minutes--simple. The hardest part was figuring out that in the last step there is a typo, and a little bit of the ribbon should be glued to the outside of the scroll, not to ribbon! Either that or I got it completely wrong, but what I did seems to work.

The thing to do if I do this in a class with the kids is to have them decorate and write on the scroll first, leaving an inch undone where the scroll will go and making sure nothing hugely important is at the very edges.

I still don't know what I will put in it, since my belief in any kind of self-generated content is absolutely nil right now and even the thought completely paralyzes my brain, but at least I sat down and made something start to finish. I'm pleased about that.

Floundering

It's amazing how fast things can change. I look at things I made just weeks ago, and it's like someone else made them. I almost can't remember being that person.

October was great with making the holiday cards, and I learned a lot (to be noted here soon, I hope, for reference next year). Then everything seemed to pile on top of each other and I feel I've had very little time for creativity. I am putting some pressure on myself because I want to move what I make to a more personal level, and yet I am resisting that on some level, I think.

Also, I had a personal issue happen with two women whom I thought were good friends, and in the end I felt I had been presumptuous to think such a thing. More fool me. Now that has bled into my creative life and sapped my belief that I am doing something worth doing and not just pretending with all this paint and ephemera and imagery.

On the other hand, maybe I just have a cold!

I guess I trust that I will wake up tomorrow and find enjoyment in this again, and not put pressure on myself. Given that hanging over my head is the need to protest someone's parole, maybe this is a good time to retreat into process and the act of doing without thinking so much, and find healing and solace that way. Tim Holtz already has two tags posted up on his blog, so maybe I'll just do those and enjoy the process of creating rather than digging into myself for a while.

I leave in two weeks for Xmas vacation, so there's not much time anyway; then I can return in January refreshed and restored and ready to see where I go from there.

Finishing Tins with Mini Scrolls

I am finally finishing up a project started a couple of months ago. One item has been done since then, but the other one gave me materials issues. These are a present for a family friend who got married earlier in the year--one for her & her husband, and a companion piece for her parents.

The bride's wedding was very elegant--colors were silver, pearl, cream--no actual color. So I did her tin with glass spheres and silver mini marbles, and the scrolls were edged with silver leafing. For her parents' piece, I wanted something with bold colors, so I thought I'd use Lava Red Roxs, iridescent glass spheres, and gold mini marbles. To my great dismay, the Lava Red Roxs were not colorfast! When I coated the whole thing in Glossy Accents to seal the mini marbles on and provide a finished look, the red ran and tinted everything a shade of orange that I did not find particularly appealing. The folks at Judikins, which makes the Roxs, were very helpful, but basically I was out of luck if I wanted to use red or pink Roxs (all other colors are apparently colorfast). So it was back to the drawing board, but I was at a loss for what to use. Then the holiday card orders went into full swing and the month of October went by just like that.

The good thing about the delay, however, is that I discovered two gels from Golden that I hadn't used before. One was the Clear Granular Gel, and the other the Extra Coarse Pumice Gel. Neat stuff! In the end, this is what I ended up doing:

--coated lid with Perfect Medium and applied a couple of layers of Frozen Opals, then filled in spaces with Kaleidoscope embossing powder; when cool, I poured a thick layer of Diamond Glaze over the entire (top of the) lid

--made a mix of Extra Coarse Pumice Gel, 22 drops Quinacridone Red Fluid Acrylic and 3 drops Quinacridone Crimson Fluid Acrylic, then applied this to the sides of the bottom and the lid

--when dry, I applied some Interference Gold (Coarse) Heavy Body Acrylic over it, leaving plenty of the underneath to show through

--I realized it was too pinkish for my taste, so I applied some Cadmium Red Medium Hue Fluid Acrylic, then another layer of the Interference Gold

--I think after that I mixed up some Interference Red Fluid Acrylic with the Cadmium Red and applied that in patches over the whole thing, sprinkling with gold mini marbles as I went

--finally I was happy with that and let it dry over night. Then I applied Diamond Glaze over the sides and stuck some iridescent glass spheres on as I went. I also used Glossy Accents (a little less runny than DG) around the edge of the lid to place the glass spheres around it.

The scrolls inside are edged with gold leafing. I think I'm almost done! Now just have to wait for it to dry so I can mail it off.

Making backgrounds for a snowflake Xmas card

I didn't have the same cards that I did last year to produce a snowflake Christmas card this year, so I tried using the Creative Cards by Swarthmore that I'd picked up at Jerry's Artarama. I couldn't reproduce what I had done on the smoother cards, of course, and the ink didn't look the same either. So I ended up doing lots of paint with Cobalt Blue, Cerulean Blue Deep, and Titanium White. One I used bubble wrap on, but most of them I just painted.

When dry, they still seemed too dark, too bold, so I added yet another a layer, this one composed of 10 parts Titanium White, 3 parts Cobalt Blue, and 1 part Cerulean Blue Deep. I brushed some on with a paintbrush then quickly took a wipe (the Inkadinkado Crafters Cleanups) and smeared it all over the card, then waited a moment and wiped again to remove some of it. I think I finally ended up with some good backgrounds. Got messy though!

Notes on Pumice & Clear Granular Gels

Just taking notes in preparation for my "Bathtime" piece as well as documenting in general. Not a terribly interesting post for anyone but me, I'm afraid . . . all products used are Golden unless otherwise specified.

Yesterday I mixed Clear Granular Gel (CGG) with heavy body Mars Black + Dioxazine Purple and painted over 1/3 of a gold gessoed mini canvas. I then mixed the Mars Black with Anthraquinone Blue and did the next third. The last bit I painted with untinted gel. Might as well not have used the purple or blue--I couldn't see any evidence of it, so use less next time (or don't bother and put it on top).

Today I painted over the untinted clear gel with fluid Carbon Black. Laying down the untinted CGG and then painting on top of it once dry is good if one wants what is underneath to peek through in places. If full coverage is desired, it's best to mix the paint in with the gel before applying. And remember that although it's named *clear* granular gel, the parts where the granules are does dry snowy white, just as Patti Brady says in her book Rethinking Acrylics.

Over the top of the two-thirds of the canvas that had been painted with tinted CGG, I first brushed fluid Interference Violet, then Interference Blue (Liquitex--Jerry's was out of the Golden). After letting that dry a few minutes, I brushed over all of it with the fluid Carbon Black that was now on the paintbrush I was using. This toned the interference back down and brought the black back up. I think this is going to work for my piece. The purple is quite purple, though; the blue is more subtle.

I also mixed some Extra Coarse Pumice Gel (ECPG) with Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) and applied to a couple of mini canvases, one that had white gesso and one that had a wash of fluid Transparent Yellow Oxide on it. It looks so cool! Putting Interference Violet over this looks pretty neat. I'm not sure about the Interference Blue, but I may not have shaken it enough before applying--it looks milky white, and I don't think it's supposed to be that way.

Getting Personal & Playing

Last night around midnight I gave in to the pull I'd felt towards drawing all evening (too tired to act on it before), and I finally just sat with my journal and a Koh-i-noor Magic pencil and played. I colored on things that were already in there, and I also did some of the doodling I used to do as a child over a whole page. On yet another page I made marks on it guided by what the song I was listening to at the time was doing ("My Father's Face", by Leo Kottke). I had a great time!

One thing I found had a very interesting effect indeed was using the multicolored pencil over a stamped image (one of Stamp Zia's nudes) that had been partially painted with Micaceous Iron Oxide (Golden fluid acrylics). Great texture and look, and I discovered that when I rubbed my finger over it all, I created a glow around the figure from the pencil particles that had been deposited on the iron oxide.

Also got a very nice look rubbing the pencil over the onionskin paper. The raised veins picked up the color, and it's a more subtle effect than using ink.

Book Idea for a Christmas Present; Personal Challenge

Recently I found Book + Art: Handcrafting Artists' Books, by Dorothy Simpson Krause, on the shelf at Borders and had to get it. It is beautiful, lovely, and filled with inspiration. I read it at a time that I was wondering exactly what I thought I was doing, and this helped everything to coalesce in my mind. I love books, I have always loved books, and nearly everything I have learned over the last three years is all useful in creating books. I am still going to do other things, because I don't think I'm made such that I could do only one thing, but I can embrace the idea of being a book artist.

I really liked Stepan's blog posts about their trip to the Czech Republic this summer, and along with his pictures I think they would make a beautiful book--and a great Xmas present. Been thinking about how to do it. Would love the images and words to overlap. Wouldn't it be neat to do it on glass pages, and use the nifty Keith Smith Coptic sewing to attach? I think that's beyond my abilities to execute for this Xmas though, with everything else I have to do. Maybe I could print the pictures onto canvas, or do image transfers onto Claudine's sticky back canvas (reverse before printing), and then have the text on paper? Could I use plexiglass pages instead of glass? More durable is better. Then I could put images and text on and have it all look like it's floating. Would it be too hard to read, and would that matter? Or could put the text on a translucent paper, like onionskin or vellum, and have the images printed on transparencies. Ooh, that sounds like it has possibilities. Will keep ruminating on the matter.

One of my biggest challenges is to take my art to a personal level. I still have a very large barrier between me and what I make, and I think if I can surmount that, what I make will have more power. That is going to require me to slow down my thinking a bit and also focus it more. There are just so many things I want to try! And the quote by Lily Tomlin quote about her teenage diaries that I read on Dorinda Fox's blog recently does express one of my biggest fears, I'm sorry to admit. ("What if it's boring . . . or if it's not boring, it might be too revealing, or worse, it might be too revealing and still be boring.")

What do you make for someone who is grieving?

The father of a good friend recently died, on the day she was to leave and fly back home (an overseas trip). This was not unexpected, yet I had not prepared anything to give my friend that in any way acknowledged her loss. Objectively speaking, that seemed rather foolish, yet another friend reassured me that it wasn't. I guess neither of us would do well in the print media world where obituaries of famous people are on file and updated continually. Just in case.

Anyway. I bought a card at a bookstore for my friend, wondering if she would be offended or feel let down that I didn't take the time to make something personally. Two chances came and went to give her the card; I signed & addressed it before leaving to go to her house, then left it on the kitchen counter. A day or two later, I neglected to take it with me to a place where I knew I'd see her (although I did know we would not be able to speak privately). Perhaps I was purposely forgetting on some level.

So today, while walking around or driving or something, I was struck with the idea of using something I had done months ago--had stamped a sunset image on thin paper and colored it with pencils blended with mineral spirits. Didn't know what to do with it so just kept it in my box. I thought I could use that as the image on my card and combine it with something I'd read on a card in the bookstore that moved me deeply: "The world is but a resting place." (Apparently a Japanese Buddhist proverb.)

I got out my box of scrap papers and nearly immediately just went into a very focused state of being. Unusually for me, I was quite decisive, didn't need to seek anyone else's opinion or let anything sit for a few days to make sure I was happy. And I am pleased with the final result, and I hope it will contribute to some sense of peace in my friend's heart.

Details: I wrote the proverb on matte black paper with an Inkssentials opaque white pen--beautiful pen, very white. The image had been stamped with permanent ink on a thin drawing paper, colored with Derwent Inktense pencils, and blended with Gamblin mineral spirits. The image and proverb were mounted onto black sparkly paper using a Xyron. I had a piece of watercolor paper that I had sprayed with Stamp Zia spray watercolors; I cut the appropriate size and mounted it to black illustration board using 3M Super 77 multipurpose adhesive (at 5-1/2" wide, it wouldn't fit in my largest Xyron--will have to consider getting the 9" one on sale sometime). Then I ran a piece of white posterboard through the Xyron and mounted it on top of the watercolor paper, and finally I ran the black sparkle paper through the Xyron and stuck it over all. The image looked a little raw, so I used a 6B charcoal pencil and a tortillon around the edge of the paper to blend it into the black paper.