Thursday, July 30, 2015

Rough Crossing

Another collage of altered papers, embossing, gold leaf.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Journey to Another World

This is another piece from one my classes at Artful Gatherings. This is a small world collage with altered papers, embossed stamping, gold leaf & inks.

Sunday, July 26, 2015

Story Teller

This is my first Story Teller creation. There are so many elements to her. There is an old watercolor batik painting that I ripped up for the robe, sari waste was hand dyed for the shawl. There are paper beads on the shawl ends made by another art friend. The face is paper clay made from a mold. All kinds of embellishments and techniques inspired from a workshop. What do you think?

Monday, July 20, 2015

The Hot Mess

Traveling to a convention didn't seem to be in the cards this year so I am taking some online classes. Stretching into new ideas about art was top of the list when it came time to choose classes. This is scary territory - it is soooo much easier to do safe & happy! But stepping outside that safe & happy space can lead to some real art growth sometimes. And I have really stepped off into the unknown!! One of my classes is called Small Worlds and consists of creating very small landscapes with torn and altered papers. These photos are what I have so far and were created with old National Geographic magazines and CitraSolv. I have seen this technique used by numerous artists but was never brave enough to give it a try. Not anymore! I think I over saturated this batch a bit. They are drying now and some have some lovely passages of color but I need just a bit more movement. Stay tuned to see what comes next! If you are interested in checking out the class go to http://www.artfulgatheringevents.com. I am taking Small Worlds by Lyn Belisle. Session two has just started and there is still time to sign up!

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

WHERE AM I GOING WITH THIS???

Abstract imagery isn't my usual starting point when it comes to making art but several recent experiences have encouraged me to take a closer look. First, I took a design class from Kelly Hoernig and one of the class exercises was to cut out different shapes and arrange them into a painting layout. For some reason that was really hard! Static shapes really did nothing for me and I realized that the actual object informed my design choices more than I thought. Still, designing with shape intrigued me. The second experience was taking my first stained glass class. Choosing glass and placing the pattern pieces was more challenging than I thought! Again, there was that line/shape connection. Third - Carol Spohn's class came up in Art Play Date. Carol is a great watercolor/mixed media artist and she had some really interesting techniques for adding line & color in her paintings. And what is this charcoal business? Gotta try that!! Watching her play with lines within the design was really intriguing. Could I do something with that? Next came lots of time spent on Pinterest wasting time researching line & shape & color - oh my! So I pulled out some watercolor paper and tried the charcoal treatment on several. Got one that I liked and set it aside. The others are experiment surfaces. I drew on some lines and a circle, tossed on some paint (& salt), tossed on some more paint. Decided I didn't like using every color in the rainbow so moved into Paynes Grey. OK - this is harder than it looks!! More paint & more salt. And now most of the paper is really dark! Not what I was going for. Wait - I have bags of watercolor batik scraps! Skinny little colored strips torn & glued on might help. OK, bigger pieces might help too! Still needs more texture/pattern. Stencils to the rescue! A bit more shine/sparkle was needed. Pulled out my 1/4" double sided tape and placed one line in the empty space through the circle. Varigated leaf pulled in a bit more blue & copper with the gold. This definitely needs to be cropped to rebalance the weight though! Lessons learned??? Working this way is harder than it looks. Balancing line & color is not easy in the abstract as there are no recognizable objects to inform the viewer. Cropping is my friend. And I definitely want to do more!!!