Wasted Days and Wasted Nights

Oh the things I do when I'm avoiding doing art.

• Make beef and tomato soup (Saturday afternoon)
• Change my bed linens (Friday evening)
• Play with cats (every day)
• Play on Facebook (every day)
• Housecleaning (every day)

And the list goes on and on.  I'm sure every artist has avoidance tactics.  Actually, most people have avoidance tactics for anything they don't want to do, are afraid to do or...  For me, it's mostly fear of the blank page, of screwing up, and so on.  I've talked about it here many times.  However, I have managed to create a couple of journal pages - not complete projects - over the past few days, and here they are:


This set of pages came about when I decided to stop avoiding things and actually work on painting.  Rather than do my usual mixing, I used colors straight from the tube and just layered them on.  I wanted to say something about my being afraid to break free from 'rules' when it comes to making art, and I decided to make a Victorian lady say what I was thinking.  I covered her face with a piece of Magic Mesh (a sticky kind of mesh paper) to imply that she was imprisoned.  Not sure that yellow was the right choice, but it's done.

The other page on this spread involves a sweet old lady (I am assuming she's sweet) who firmly believes she's royalty.  Heck - she's got a crown!

The other set of pages started out as an experiment.  This time I did play around with mixing colors and came up with a couple of different greens.  I then decided to use the paint as fixative to put some very delicate white mesh paper on the pages.  It didn't quite come out as I wanted, and I was rather disgusted with the results.

So I made things 'worse' by playing with geometrics.  One page came out OK, I think, but I am regretting the little tiny dot in the circles on the other page - reminds me of nipples, I think.  Part of the problem was that I couldn't find the right size hole punch, and made do with the tiny punch.  Mistake!

Wait - there are no mistakes in art.  Only things you might not want to do again.  

How do you waste time?

later,
lin

Process But No Progress

In other words, I want to talk about failure.

Now I do know that there really isn't supposed to be failure in making art - failures are mistakes and experiments.  And that you don't know how something is going to work out unless you try to put it together.  However, I reserve the right, as the artist who made something, to call something a failure when I really, really dislike it.  And that's the case with the piece in focus today.

In the Art Challenge I've been doing, one of the assignments was Dreams.  Now I'm sure most people would like to paint the things they are dreaming of doing, their goals and wishes.  Others would want to paint their dreams.  Which is all good.  

Sometimes dreams are nightmares, though, which can be the case with me.  In the past 2-3 weeks I've been having an uptick in nightmares and bad dreams, based on some psychiatric work I'm doing.  Anyway, the piece I really wanted to do was a riff off a Peter Gabriel song, called "Biko."  Stephen Biko was an anti-apartheid activist who was killed in 1977 while in police custody, and his story was immortalized in the film "Cry Freedom."  You can see the video for the song (a live performance of the song by Gabriel interspersed with scenes from the film here.  

Anyway, I wanted to use a line from the song as inspiration or include it as a quote within the piece which is, "When I try to sleep at night/I can only dream in red/The outside world is black and white/With only one color dead."  I figured it would make a great piece.

The red for me signified blood, but I didn't want to use a bright red color for it.  Instead I was more interested in dried blood, that dark red that you get.  I wasn't sure how to mix it, so I purchased tubes of red oxide and another deep red crimson.  Checking out the tubes, I wasn't very happy with the color, it was still not what I wanted.  So I mixed paint over and over and finally came up with a red I could accept - sort of

I didn't like how it looked on the canvas, really, but decided to try to work with it.  For the white color, again I didn't want a stark white but wanted really a flesh tone, or something close to it.  So once again I mixed paint - titanium white, pink, gray, and gold.  Didn't get quite what I wanted, but again decided to work with it.

Not at all what I wanted at the time, but looking back maybe this would work....  That canvas got put aside.  Then I tried another canvas

REALLY BAD, in my opinion, and I made it worse by adding black (which of course I doctored up to try to make it more of a brown-black)

Seriously?  That got dumped.

Yet another attempt that got dumped

I realized that part of the problem was that I was trying to make it look way too busy.  I was a tad overenthusiastic with stencils and the like.

So I tried a more minimalist approach on watercolor paper that I figured I could just toss if I didn't like it.  This was the version I chose to submit for the challenge

I don't like this either.  At all.  I still want to work with the line from the song, but I will definitely start over and try something different.  Maybe with paper instead of paint.  We'll see.

However, I did want you to see that not everything works the way you want it to, and sometimes a work of art really is a failure.  I did learn a lot from this, though, especially in the area of mixing colors.  This is a process I love, and I do realize that there are artists who prefer to use ready made colors.  Which does protect against wastage, I know.

In any event, I'd love to hear you share some of your 'failures' in art.  Let's commiserate together!

later,

lin

Finding Buried Treasure in Unintended Consequences

(Note to all you wonderful readers - if you are feeling a sense of deja vu, you're right - this post ran last month.  I'm rerunning it as part of Seth Apter's "Buried Treasure" blog project in which participants choose a favorite blog post to republish.  As soon as I have the official link to all the participating blogs from Seth, I will post it here, and on my Facebook page.  Now without further ado - DEJA VU!)

*********

On Saturday morning, I had some time before leaving for my afternoon shift at the Pawtucket Art Collaborative's Mill Gallery - I'm a volunteer there.  And what better way to spend time than to create something?

I had been dithering over what to do for the next installment of the Art Challenge - this week's assignment was Favorite Colors.  I have a lot of favorite colors, but I decided to make this piece with pink.  

One thing I tend to do is when I think of a project I get obsessed with it and make far too many things to go into that project.  Case in point my continuing interest in geometric shapes (which isn't obvious from the work that I do).  Sometime back I had punched and cut out tons of geometric shapes in a variety of colors and patterns which have just sat there.  So, I decided, why not look for pink shapes?

I came up with a bunch of pink squares, which became the raw material.  During my Friday gallery shift, I sorted the squares, chose what I wanted to use, and decided on a pattern.

apologies for the photo

In the meantime I had been pondering the best background.  After some research, I decided to use a grayish background.

the palette I decided upon

Ready for action Saturday morning, I chose a silver paint to start with and mixed in pink to see what I got.  It was rather light so I added some neutral gray paint (this was all acrylic).  I liked the result and painted a canvas board in that shade. 

The result
 (I use FedEx & USPS shipping envelopes to protect my table BTW)

Just after I finished mixing the paint, I had a visit from one of my studio assistants who wanted to check out what I'd been doing instead of playing with him.  Fortunately he decided to leave before getting into the paint.

Junior

Unfortunately I can't show you the lovely paint job I did on the canvas board.  Yet.

I had a little bit of what I'd mixed left over, and decided to add more gray paint, then some black.  I discovered I didn't have an open tube of black paint, so I opened one.  The hole was rather small, so I squeezed the tube a little harder.

Can you guess what happened next?

spots on ceiling

Yes, paint everywhere.  Ceiling.  Bedspread.  Me.  Floor.  Not as widespread as it could have been though.  And I had about 90 minutes to try to clean things up.

Black paint also splattered a bit of the nice silver/pink/gray canvas I'd painted.  I tried to fix it but there are still streaks, so it needed to be repainted.  Later.  First I had to shower - AGAIN - because there was paint in my hair, on my arms, and on my face. 

One decision to make is to not try to accomplish something complicated in a short time.

But the real lesson learned Saturday morning was -- put a larger hole in the paint tube's opening next time.

I'll tell you what happened with the piece for the art challenge in my next post.  And, yes, I'll have to do something about that ceiling.

Later
lin

Now the Consequences are Intended

I hope that you found the humor in yesterday's blog post about my little adventure trying to do art in 90 minutes, and the minor catastrophe that resulted.  Once I washed the paint off myself, I had to laugh about it.

Isn't that what art is all about?  Not taking oneself seriously?

And I was reminded of this when I got to the gallery and encountered the figure drawing/painting class that's held there on Saturdays.  

I was setting up my stuff to work on while I did my shift, and smiled and waved at those breaking down their easels and putting away their paints.  As one man walked by, he glanced at me and asked "Do you draw?"  I replied, "No, I don't."  His response - "Oh, you're not an artist then."  Me - "Oh yes, I do collage. I work with paper."  He lost interest in the conversation and just said, "Oh - collage" and walked away.

Now I have a chip on my shoulder about my even considering myself an artist, so this sort of conversation doesn't help.  However, I was still chuckling to myself about the morning's events and didn't let it disturb me too much.  And I was reassured by friends later, after posting about the incident on Facebook, that the guy was indeed a snob.

But I digress.   I want to show you how the art challenge ended.

This is the lovely gray - pink background I came up with.  I know, you can't see the pink, but trust me - it's there.

And these were the squares I had to choose from originally

Now, yesterday, I had posted a particular pattern that I'd decided on 

But I changed my mind when I looked at the squares again.  I decided to eliminate the dark pink and black square.  I also decided to decrease the number of squares and change the arrangement around, and so I came up with this final version

After I did the scan, I realized that the squares are not attached evenly - some are crooked.  That can be fixed as I only attached them with tape.  I didn't try the arrangement in reverse, or horizontal as I saw this and just said, YES - this is what I want.

I may end up changing the squares around, or even use different patterned papers, but for now I'm satisfied with what I have done.

Doing this project has convinced me that I need to do more geometric pattern and shape work because I really did enjoy it.  I just have to figure out how to keep things in straight lines - although allowing a little "offness" might be good too....

What do you think?

later,
lin

Finding Buried Treasure in Unintended Consequences

(Note to all you wonderful readers - if you are feeling a sense of deja vu, you're right - this post ran last month.  I'm rerunning it as part of Seth Apter's "Buried Treasure" blog project in which participants choose a favorite blog post to republish.  As soon as I have the official link to all the participating blogs from Seth, I will post it here, and on my Facebook page.  In the meantime, here's the link to the post explaining the project.  Now without further ado - DEJA VU!)

*********

On Saturday morning, I had some time before leaving for my afternoon shift at the Pawtucket Art Collaborative's Mill Gallery - I'm a volunteer there.  And what better way to spend time than to create something?

I had been dithering over what to do for the next installment of the Art Challenge - this week's assignment was Favorite Colors.  I have a lot of favorite colors, but I decided to make this piece with pink.  

One thing I tend to do is when I think of a project I get obsessed with it and make far too many things to go into that project.  Case in point my continuing interest in geometric shapes (which isn't obvious from the work that I do).  Sometime back I had punched and cut out tons of geometric shapes in a variety of colors and patterns which have just sat there.  So, I decided, why not look for pink shapes?

I came up with a bunch of pink squares, which became the raw material.  During my Friday gallery shift, I sorted the squares, chose what I wanted to use, and decided on a pattern.

apologies for the photo

In the meantime I had been pondering the best background.  After some research, I decided to use a grayish background.

the palette I decided upon

Ready for action Saturday morning, I chose a silver paint to start with and mixed in pink to see what I got.  It was rather light so I added some neutral gray paint (this was all acrylic).  I liked the result and painted a canvas board in that shade. 

The result
 (I use FedEx & USPS shipping envelopes to protect my table BTW)

Just after I finished mixing the paint, I had a visit from one of my studio assistants who wanted to check out what I'd been doing instead of playing with him.  Fortunately he decided to leave before getting into the paint.

Junior

Unfortunately I can't show you the lovely paint job I did on the canvas board.  Yet.

I had a little bit of what I'd mixed left over, and decided to add more gray paint, then some black.  I discovered I didn't have an open tube of black paint, so I opened one.  The hole was rather small, so I squeezed the tube a little harder.

Can you guess what happened next?

spots on ceiling

Yes, paint everywhere.  Ceiling.  Bedspread.  Me.  Floor.  Not as widespread as it could have been though.  And I had about 90 minutes to try to clean things up.

Black paint also splattered a bit of the nice silver/pink/gray canvas I'd painted.  I tried to fix it but there are still streaks, so it needed to be repainted.  Later.  First I had to shower - AGAIN - because there was paint in my hair, on my arms, and on my face. 

One decision to make is to not try to accomplish something complicated in a short time.

But the real lesson learned Saturday morning was -- put a larger hole in the paint tube's opening next time.

I'll tell you what happened with the piece for the art challenge in my next post.  And, yes, I'll have to do something about that ceiling.

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

It's the Process

I find the process of creating to be as important as the result.  At least, most of the time.  I'd like to be more mindful of how I do things, if only to be able to share how I make my pieces.  I'm trying to get back into the habit of documenting what I do, but I think you know as well as I do how frustrating it can be to STOP in the middle of something and take a picture.  Breaks the flow a bit.

One thing I started lately is an art challenge with some friends on a Facebook group.  It's a terrific way to stretch boundaries and try things I might otherwise not do.

The subjects to be tackled, over seven weeks are:

1. Travel/Paris
2. Beach/ocean
3. Word Art
4. Abstract Art
5. Favorite Colors
6. Self portrait
7. dreams

When we were discussing these topics, I said something about how #1 would be easy for me (and indeed it was), #2 and #3 would be challenging, #4 and #5 easier, #6 would be very difficult, and #7 challenging.

This was the end result of Week 1 

It's not a great photo as it was taken in the midst of the craziness of my collage worktable.  I plan to offer it in the shop and when I do I'll take a better photo.

I was careful, though, to document the process - 

Everything starts with a blank page

I could have been really anal and shown the blank canvas, but this is one I'd covered months ago with a brown-black striped paper with the intentions of doing a earlier piece.  Obviously it never happened (I'd gone into a slump where I didn't make any large pieces for a while).  But this is where it began, with this canvas covered with paper.

Playing Around

Working in collage necessitates choosing and rejecting.  Prior to starting the piece, I first frantically searched for my bag of France-related items.  I don't have a real filing system which both helps and hurts the creative process.  Helps by forcing me to dig through a variety of things to choose what I want, but hurts in that it takes longer to dig through things to find what I want.

Once I found the items, I sorted through them, deciding what might work and what wouldn't.  I came up with about 20 paper pieces and started moving them around, deciding which ones I should use.

An early version

This is before I glued things down.  I wanted to look at a potential layout,  I wasn't completely sure what I wanted, so I took everything off the canvas and looked through additional items and added some to think about

Change is Good

As you can see I found two pieces to add that I think really helped the piece, and you can see the finished result at the beginning of the blog.

This sort of collage usually flows - I think this piece took about 2-3 hours, including searching for items.  It's one that came together easily.

On the other hand, I have one that's not even started where I still need an idea.  Two weeks ago I covered 4 canvases with paper (I don't like to paint the background or have black sides), plus I had an additional canvas already covered.  And I spent part of the next Saturday staring at one of these canvases and wondering what to do.

And gave up.  I'm still thinking about it.

Like I said, the process is important.  Thinking things through is important.  But being willing to make mistakes and move forward is as important, and I think sometimes my hesitation to start is because I'm afraid to make mistakes.  

There are no mistakes in art - mistakes are opportunities.  A lesson that I still need to learn.