When is finished? These four quite different mixed media pieces may all be finished, if I can just keep my hands OFF them! Sometimes I don’t know when to stop.
At least I have some work happening in the studio, although much of it is continuation and completions. I am using older works as parts, or collage elements, and then spending a lot of time on presentation. It all feels so unimportant, but I think I need to persist in order to get to something more significant. Nothing is coming easily just now.
I have managed to work a few small pieces in the past few days. This post is just to display what is new in the studio. I have two new foils of older work, and the completion and presentation of an older monoprint. So not really so new, but at least I am working!
I mounted my hand tinted crescent moons monoprint. It is now embellished with two collage elements that I hope enhance rather than distract… I have also printed two archival inkjet prints which are mounted/presented as variation with different collage elements. The giclee prints have a bolder harsher feel than the softer original, and the colors are off, but I like them well enough.
The last piece is just for fun: I needed to use up some blue acrylic paint. I hate to waste paint! There was a wide palette knife to hand, so I finished out my paint using it on whatever paper was nearby. Once these were dry I added a bit of watercolor. Some of the papers became the target of my two circle cutters, which I love using. That gave me many fine circles and crescents, including the matching moons on this piece.
When you accumulate many bits & pieces, many partially finished art attempts, duplicate images, and early artworks you no longer love, turn to the art of collage!
Of course it is a fuzzy line between mixed media art and the art of collage. When I layer a few embellishments onto a drawing, photo, or painting, that doesn’t feel like collage. Maybe I have made a collage when the focus of the work is actually made up of multiple parts? Or at least when the context is critical to the piece and that is built from many parts?
I am not good at determining firm distinctions in art categories. For one thing, I don’t see the point of doing so! I will leave that to others. Here are some recent efforts, collage, mixed media, or other:
Note that the first two images are two photos of the same piece. The first with the work placed on the studio floor, the second with the work placed in a window. This piece is intentionally translucent, but not necessarily to be backlit through a fly screen as above! The gridded mesh is NOT part of the artwork…
A bit of finish work can turn an older drawing into a new piece, and an older extra part the wrong size can be repurposed in a brand new concept. At left I embellished a drawing for a concept that ended up very differently, and at right is a beginning of a new work which may acquire a few more moons:
After the local No Kings rally on Saturday June 14th, and after watching a kingfisher hover near the Boatyard earlier that morning, I had an idea! I decided to experiment with AI art in order to create my visual concept.
The images below are two variations that started using Create AI Image Generator. Both are further altered digitally using Corel Paintshop Pro software.
My apologies to anyone who may be offended by my using AI due to potential art theft; please forgive me! #AI
I have been thoroughly derailed from my more usual artistic pursuits recently, and have had to find my art in remodeling work. I have been converting a storage room into living space, and it is taking several months to complete. My studio has been chaotic and full of extra “stuff”: furniture, supplies, and more, making every activity more difficult. I cannot find things I need, and cannot put things away properly.
Now I am starting to get some relief; the project is almost complete. However I am still not able to really move in to my newly remodeled space! Maybe next week will be the week!
Here is an attempt to incorporate some artwork into my project. I added some custom artwork during the painting phase, in order to hide the boundary between two different “whites” on the back room wall.
My remodel modified two rooms that had been joined by a double door. Now they are separated, and both now have previously missing closets. Yay storage!
The above bubbles rise from floor level and spill onto the ceiling and the closet door. I painted the first stream of bubbles by hand, but then created different sized stamps from a piece of adhesive backed velvety fabric, then used various techniques with my paints so that each bubble is unique. The effect is satisfactory: not fine art, but not too silly either! So I did find an opportunity for art in remodeling.
My first Small Prayer Piece has multiplied; there are now three small prayer pieces in this series of small collage works! This was a fast, furious, and fun project.
These three small prayer pieces are a series, but not a matching set. These arrived one after the other, and incorporate some related scraps from around my studio. The formality of the shapes and balance connect them in spirit.
I made the left piece with the small kneeling figure first. Although I am not religious in any normal sense, this is certainly a praying figure. I rescued her from an old deteriorated artwork left outside as yard art. The collage is on a thin square of door skin plywood that is mounted on a 6.5″ wide by 7″ tall piece of edge wrapped plywood. The piece is nearly 1.5″ in relief with the 1/2″ thick figure. This collage incorporates the now timeworn figure, a circle of metal roofing (from some forgotten project), a fragment of birch bark, and selected pieces of older collagraph prints.
The middle image is Small Prayer Piece #2. This one is made from paper, feather quills, a low relief hot glue drip, and a circular adhesive felt furniture pad accented with metallic paint. It is 6″ by 7.5″ by .75″ deep with the relief.
The final small collage, Small Prayer Piece #3, is on a heavy scrap of dense wood. In addition to painted paper, there are scraps of feather, a rectangle of green linoleum, and delicate scrap of peeled enamel paint from another artwork. This third piece is 5.25″ by 5.1″ by 1″ deep to include the relief items.
This new collage, A Small Prayer, came about from my studio cleanup, during an interval in my remodeling intensive. I am delighted to make any new artwork at this time, no matter how small! A Small Prayer is approximately 7″x7″ (not quite square) and it consists of quite a few different pieces from older art, along with a couple of found objects.
I started with the one remaining remnant of another much older artwork. This was a rather unsuccessful work that slowly decayed to nothing outside, leaving only the small figure below. I evicted the original low relief artwork from my studio, along with several other early pieces! Yard art!
I rescued the small kneeling figure from the grass while tidying up the yard, and made it the focus in my new work. I probably made this much older and now weathered figure from polymer clay, and added layers of paint.
In addition to the figure, A Small Prayer consists of a construction byproduct circle of metal roofing, a lovely scrap of birch bark, and several pieces of my collograph prints. I mounted these to a square of door skin plywood. Then I mounted that to 3/4 plywood, so it is painted, edged, and ready to hang.
I have few more wrapped items to show off: I have wrapped three nested wooden boxes in art! I used three monotype prints that I completed with paint, ink, and/or colored pencil. The box lids are also topped with parts of these prints, but the lid sides are painted, with all sealed with clear gloss acrylic medium.
Art or craft? Surely a bit of both, when I use my own original artwork. I am very happy with these, although the surface will remain a bit fragile and susceptible to scratches. There is a skeleton leaf and a feather applied to the largest box. Perhaps the warning on the box label should read: “Use with Care”.
Of course I did not make the boxes; I do not have that skill! These are very neatly made.
I have reworked/completed three more older prints: “Fire on the Mountain”, “Fire on the Beach”, and “Fire at Sea”.
All three started out as hand pulled prints, originally printed at Corvidae Press in Ft. Worden State Park. The first is a monoprint using stencils. Fire on the Beach was printed using two plates: a linocut and a solar plate. I think that Fire at Sea is a linocut printed twice, flipped!
I suppose that wildfire and chaos are very much on my mind!
