Process, Process, Process

I hope you're not bored with this continuing series detailing the journal exchange between my friend Lisa Busch and me.  I just like to show you things I'm working on, and since I have a bit of a bully pulpit with this blog you'll just have to put up with it.  

I've started a new journal, since the one that currently has been with Lisa (and which has been mailed back to me) is just about filled up.  I like to make my own journals rather than buy them, so the journal itself was made with watercolor paper sheets that I cut down to size, and I added two pieces of black cover stock to use as covers.  I then brought the pages down to Staples for binding, rather than use my Bind-it-All (I'm lazy), and voila! A journal.

I started out plastering old text pages all over, something which I've been enjoying doing recently.

 Yes, I know - they don't look that much different from each other, do they?  But wait.....

The next photos show that I've added some rub ons to each page of the first spread, then added additional embellishments, and one figure of a priest on one page, and two people talking on the phone on the other page.

The rub-ons I used were discontinued by their company, 7 Gypsies, and I bought a bunch of this pattern from Lisa some time ago.  I normally use rub-ons to add background to the magnets that I make but thought I'd use them for the journals.  The strip of fabric trim on the left page is also from Lisa's shop (collagestuff.com)






The priest image came from a Dover collection, I think the "Men" collection.  The people talking on the phone images came from TheGraphicsFairy.com, a great site for finding free, quality, vintage graphics. 

I finished the two pages by adding quotes from two songs by Pink Floyd: "What Do You Want From Me?" on the left, and "Keep Talking" on the right. 

Often, when I'm working on pieces I forget to take photos documenting the whole process, so for the second set of pages I can only show you the finished product.

With this set of pages, I added lots of embellishments without really planning anything.  When I'm doing the journals, I don't plan.  I simply take stuff and stick it.  Sometimes I'll stencil, sometimes I'll use rubber stamps.  It's whatever I feel like doing.  I don't have a theme in mind most of the time either, and this set definitely shows it since I had no clue how to finish the second page after I glued the cat's head to it.  I just left it as is.  


On the other page, however, I decided to add a quote from another Pink Floyd song, "Wearing the Inside Out."  The songs I've quoted from are from their The Division Bell album, something I've been playing over and over lately.  I've been thinking a lot lately about hiding, about communication, about demands, and I felt that I wanted these pages to reflect that.  Except for the cat page.  There's no deeper meaning to it.  

On these pages, I used some gold punch paper that I got from a local art store, cheapo tissue paper from Dollar Tree, old buttons, and more rub-ons from 7 Gypsies.  Both the images are from Dover books but I don't know which ones.

Hope you've enjoyed yet another excursion into art-making.  I'm thinking that these might become larger projects someday.

later,
lin

Back to Process

I haven't been doing a lot of collage work that I plan to offer for sale, but I thought you might still be interested in hearing how I made one of my recent pieces that I have hanging in a small show.

This piece is called "What Are You Looking At?" and it's one that I like quite a lot.  

As always I start with a more or less blank canvas, this one has been covered with a goldish-black paper that I quite like.  It's wrinkly but stretchable and has a nice texture to it.  Though it's going to get covered up, it's good to know that good paper forms the foundation of this piece.

I then start adding things.  As I said, I tend now to cover up the foundation.  My reason for including the paper is to make sure the sides of the canvas are covered.  Lately I've been using wider edged canvases that I don't frame and I really dislike seeing blank white canvas sides on a piece.

 I really enjoy the process of moving things around and picking and choosing what images I want to use as the focal point.  At first I wanted to use a character I haven't worked with for a while

I love this guy, but I decided to once again go with a female character

I chose this one because I love the expression her face, plus there's a hint of sensuality with the clothing a bit low cut.  Usually my ladies are dressed to a T, but there's just something about this woman that I love.

After deciding on which character to use, I decide on additional elements to add such as this key

And I make sure the sides are covered

And this is the piece completed, hanging in the gallery.  One thing I'd done was to lightly color in the woman's cheeks with a pink watercolor pencil.  It's not at all obvious but I like the hint of pink, and I think I might do this again, color in parts of the character's image.

 I hope you like this piece, and that you've enjoyed this journey through my creating a collage

later
lin

Process Papers Yet Again

One part of my process that took a while to develop is how I start a piece.

When I first started doing collages on canvas, I used to only cover the actual front surface of the collage with my creation.  This meant that the sides were plain and white, and after a while I realized that this was rather ugly and wasting space that could be prettied up.

I tried to amend this by painting the sides of the collage with colors that sort of matched the collage itself.  This looked even worse.  Sometimes the colors did match, but often they were off just enough to ruin the effect of the whole piece.

Eventually, my cousin Jan Lawson, a great artist herself, said to me, "Why don't you just extend the collage out over to the edges?"

DUH!

Why had I not seen this before?  It made perfect sense.  I often had extra paper hanging over the sides that I used to just cut off.  Now I could feel free to glue that paper on to the sides and it would extend the design and, I hope, heighten the appeal.

I've extended that further.  Rather than add the collage design to a blank white canvas, I've been covering the entire canvas with a sheet of handmade paper with a color that compliments the piece I plan to make.  This is what I mean

The base of this collage was originally a piece I'd shown in a pop up exhibition honoring my home town.  A few weeks later, I looked at that piece again and realized it just didn't work.  In truth, I cringed at the sight of it.  It just looked so awful.

So I removed what parts of the collage I could save, and just left the canvas to sit for a while until I decided what to do with it.  Close to a year actually.

So then I restarted the piece by covering it with a sort of bronzy paper that I just love and can no longer find.  (Sorry about the photo)

Then I started to add paper that I'd picked out earlier when I was figuring out what to make.

It really is trial and error.  Some things work, others don't.  I have the option to change it until I glue it down, and even then I can cover it over if I don't like it.  But usually I test drive the stuff until I am ready to use the glue.

I had had several images of people I wanted to use at the beginning, but I found this photograph in a bin of photos at an antique shop in Bristol, and really liked the woman's face, so she was the one for me.  

As you can see, I continued to add elements after the previous photo, and came up with something I like quite a lot.  I'm hanging it in the Member section of the Mill Gallery, run by the Pawtucket Arts Collaborative - a perk of being a Gallery volunteer.  

By the way, you may have noticed that this collage doesn't have one of my usual tag lines.  I considered adding one, but decided that it worked without it and actually, I think, a tag line would have spoiled it.  

Do you agree?

later,
lin

Working Through Mistakes

I love to make things, as you know, and I'm always pleased when I can make things for others.  I was asked by a fellow Etsy seller to create a card for a friend that celebrated the end of her chemo treatments.

My brief was basically to create something with a particular woman's image that she'd seen in a previous piece - this one

It's based on a larger collage I had done.  I had titled it "Taking on the World" and Patricia, I think, loved the look of the young woman.  I do too, and have used her in other pieces.

The other brief I had was to use a certain saying, "Confident that chemo gave her superpowers," and to make it cheerful.




I already had a card with colors that I wanted to use - a pretty pink and red.  And started playing around with it and embellishments.  I actually had a hard time figuring out what embellishments to use.

First this version

 

Then this version... 

Yet another version (bored yet?).  I show these photos to illustrate the process that any artist probably goes through to figure out how to accomplish a work of art.

Another version....

 










And then I finally came up with this - after about 8 hours over three days of thinking about it.

Fabulous, I was happy.  I thought it looked great.  I glued down the flowers and the young lady's image.  Then I picked up the card to add the goldtone corners and .....

I had done this card foundation as a horizontal card (accidentally), so of course this card is just not useable.  Though I may be able to resurrect it again as a printed version.









Obviously I needed to do something, and I sifted through the card foundations I already had and found a great solution, which you can see in the finished product below.  

 I actually like this version much better.  And I am hoping that Patricia does also.  I'm thinking of possibly making similar cards for other people celebrating the end of chemo OR radiation OR even recovery from other illnesses.  

I hope you don't mind yet another process post.  I plan to do more so be warned.

I'd love to see your comments, and I am always eager to get suggestions for future posts.

Later, 
Lin