2012/365 - Day 123

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ahhh...getting a routine (and rhythm) back

Joan, Leann, Scout and I had a Wednesday Morning at Joan's after what seemed like a really long l-o-n-g break.  It was SO good to get back together again this morning and catch up on everyone's news and get back into our rhythm.

Joan showed us the incredible quilt she is working on.
After that we mostly talked and got caught up. 

This is the waaaaay cool guy that Joan brought me from Montmarte in Paris. 

I added him to my car keys right away!

Awwww...good girl, Scout!












Later in the afternoon I tweaked canvas #8.
I had to fix the neck of the llama/giraffe girl...it was too wide on the area over the horse's nose and was really bothering me.


I added more blue paper to the left of her neck and re-did the edge of her neck with some tea bag edges that I saved from the night before -- good thing I saved them!
I am also noticing that the tea bag edges dry much darker than they are when they go on.







And tonight I HAD to work on the marsupial...I just had to. 

But there were some hitches... As you might know from all of my whining, I have a major problem with allergies lately.  Today one of the manifestations of the allergic reaction(s) is that my hands are very swollen.
This was the third glove I tried to put on...you can see that I couldn't pull it down onto my hand all the way and that the bottom ripped while I was pulling it.  This is a small size glove and usually fits like...well, like a glove.

Luckily I also have a box of medium size gloves. The problem here is that the glove is a bit too big.  The fingers are way too long.  That means that the glove bunches at the top of my fingers and I can't smooth the plaster cloth very easily because I can't feel what I am doing and the excess glove material is in the way.

So -- 
This means that I only worked on one of the hand/arm parts. 

When I sat down to work on this tonight I thought I would be putting the plaster cloth on the fingers and hand and wrist areas of both sides...but no.  I soon found that I had to do the entire arm and put it in place so that the fingers would "hold" the pouch.

So I had to cover the whole section very quickly and attach it to the rest of the body...and I really wasn't prepared for that.

This is not what I had in mind, but I think I can work around it.
I couldn't see what I was doing when I was adding the plaster cloth wads to the side and back of the arm.  I had to try to hold it in place and dip/apply/smooth the plaster cloth triangles at the same time.

Considering the balancing act and that I was working blind, I am not too unhappy with this.  I will take tonight and part of tomorrow to think about how to proceed.
But the sugar glider-creature is holding its pouch open, dammit!

2012/365 - Day 124

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broken/faulty camera cord (updated blog post)

Dammit.  I think the cord that hooks up my camera to the computer is finally dead.  It has had a bent connection thing for a long time.  I can't get the computer to recognize either camera.

BUT --
I did put the plaster cloth on the other hand/arm for the marsupial.   

I'm in my pajamas and settled in for the night.  Suzanne is dropping by here after work.  I don't really feel like getting dressed and rushing to Best Buy to see if they have a replacement cord tonight.  That would also mean I'd be driving in the dark and I really don't want to do that, either.

SO --
I am just sayin'...I am reserving this spot for the photos once I get the replacement cord.  Hopefully that will be tomorrow.

 UPDATE

Gasp -- I came back into the studio just now and gave the cord one final wiggle and it worked!  So here are the photos from earlier, plus the back up ones from my other camera...LOL.


 
and by the way...what I was concerned would happen if I didn't make both hand/arm pieces on the same day did happen...the new hand is quite a bit thicker than the first one...maybe it is a sort of subliminal homage to my swollen hands from yesterday...LOL



When I wasn't sure if the problem was the camera or the cord I took photos of the photos -- man...am I a bit overboard, or what?  LOL

2012/365 - Day 125

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the marsupial gets a start on some shoulders

First let me say that this creature is not meant to look like an actual living sugar glider.  It is a sugar glider-creature...a creature sort of based in part on a sugar glider, but with plenty more thrown in as I/we go along.

I think this piece will be submitted to a show calling for assemblage and collage.  I hope this will qualify in the assemblage section.
Today I gave the creature a start on some shoulders (or something).  I keep getting ideas of what this piece is about the more I work on it.  I will talk more about that part of things as I get a better handle on what is going on...LOL.
SO here are the photos from working on the creature tonight.  I worked on both sides at the same time so I could try and keep them even...and...remember how I was doing it.










The back and the glass blobs are what I am starting to get the story about.

You can sort of see them better in this light and the shoulder area is working its way into the story, too.
Oh -- and I went to Best Buy this morning for a  new cord for my Canon camera(s) to hook up to the computer.  The person helping me assured me that I all needed was a small USB cord (new black one).
I wanted to know what the round/tube thing is on the original white Canon cord that came with my Power Shot...they couldn't tell me. Eventually I would like to find an original replacement cord with the extra thingy on it.

2012/365 - Day 126

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playing around with the look of a collage

There are four upcoming shows I am working towards. 



I like this collage a lot. This is/was canvas #4 in the series of repurposed canvases.  It didn't make it into a previous show and now I am considering altering it a bit for submission to a different show.  But I am not exactly sure what I want to do with it or how I want to change it.



Although I am not very skilled with doing things in the photo program, I find it is a sort of helpful tool to get me thinking about things.
So...starting with a photo of the collage...
...I "drew" lines on it in the paint section of the photo program and then "painted" in some of the lines.

Then I "spray painted" some colors -- just to see how it would look if I changed the fox's hat a little.
It would not look like this in real life...but it gives me something to start with.

Then I went back and added some transparent color to the fox's shirt.



I think I might want to make the fox and his clothes more solid looking like this and let the little floaty companion guy on the right stay the way it is...so that the viewer can see it or not.   

Hmmm...
Doing things this way takes me waaaaay longer than it probably needs to...but I have a little more to think about now that I have sort of "seen" it -- and -- I didn't have to mess up the real collage (yet).

2012/365 - Day 127

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it's getting to be about that time again...

Wow -- the second Wednesday of the month is nearly here and I have barely started on my artist trading cards!

This month the theme is "In the style of..." and my inspiration is collage artist Claudine Hellmuth.  I am getting ideas and instructions from her book "Collage Discovery Workshop:  Beyond the Unexpected". 

Ruth and I were planning on getting together for dinner tonight and then coming back to my house to work on our cards together.



I have a number of steps to choose from to prepare the background and add color and textures so I got started this morning with covering the base cards with gesso.  I was thinking that if I used a brayer to apply the gesso it would dry quicker and more evenly than if I tried to paint it on with a brush.  


Yep...it's like watching gesso dry.

I feel that I need to mention that I am not doing my cards exactly step by step...there is no way I could make a collage just like Claudine Hellmuth.  The most I can hope for is a nod to her style.

Another part of the collage calls for a photocopy of a photograph.  I chose this girl from my high school year book.









It is a good thing I got started this morning...LOL.  Dinner/conversation with Ruth was so pleasant and relaxing that neither of us felt like working on cards when we got back to my house afterwards.  We are going to get together tomorrow instead.  Ruth will work more on her ideas at home tonight and assemble her cards at my house tomorrow while I am working on mine.
I came into the studio to fool around and started feeling like I really needed to work on the collage elements some more tonight or I wouldn't get far enough tomorrow to finish them.  I have a dental appointment at noon and I will be glad I did this part tonight.  It is already nearly 11 p.m. so I am showing this much of the next step and I will continue after I blog this.



 Next you find some text, tear the top edge for a softer look and add the photocopy to the text.


Then you paint on a neutral color over the text to tone it down a little...this is the part I will do later tonight.

2012/365 - Day 128

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making artist trading cards

Ruth came over tonight and we worked on making our artist trading cards for this month.  The theme is "In the style of..." and I chose Claudine Hellmuth, Ruth chose Henri Matisse.
I will start with the cards I worked on throughout the day today.


One of the next steps in making the main collage element was to tone down the text that was added to the person's head.
I mixed Neutral Gray and Light Portrait Pink.  I liked the color it produced, but I couldn't quite catch on to how to tone down the text.  I was able to keep it transparent looking (as the book suggests) but somehow I wasn't grasping the whole thing.

This collage element in most of Claudine Hellmuth's collages usually looks like there is no text to me...maybe it looks different close up.  Maybe she just begins this way and then changes it as she gets farther along.

Another technique is layering masking tape and burnishing it down really well with a bone folder.

Then you cover it with paint and rub it in and then buff it to the look you like...adding other colors, leaving more paint in places, removing more in others...whatever looks good to you.













Another technique for background and texture is to draw into wet paint.
You draw on the card in the wet paint and then paint more over it...

...I began to realize that perhaps not all of the techniques were going to work in my particular application...working with paper and cards and the small format of artist trading cards.  At least not for me.
Plus, we all know I am not a painter and I don't draw very often.
Yet one more technique (out of many, many more) is to use layers of tissue paper to create a texture.
I chose to include the registration dots from the tissue I was using.
I did not go to the next step which is adding paint and more paper and more texture...too much for an ATC...too much for me right now...I had some intense dental work earlier in the day and was feeling pretty beat up.

On another card I added some text under the tissue.

Oh yeah...here is another cool thing I tried -- you cut out or punch out shapes in clear contact paper and then lightly adhere them to your surface and paint over them and smush the paint into and slightly under the edges of the contact paper so that the paint makes an outline...kind of like a reverse masking technique.








This is how it looked with the contact paper cut outs still in place.

And this is after the paint dried and I pulled the contact paper shapes off and added lines with a pen.

And this is where I really started to realize that these wonderful techniques were not working for me in this particular project.
I had applied gesso to the cards with a brayer the day before.  That added some texture all by itself and I think this is why I had these results.
Like I mentioned earlier, I think that the combination of working so small and working on paper is not the right use of these techniques.  I want to try them on canvas and with a cigar box (like Claudine Hellmuth does).  I know I won't achieve her exact results, but I think things will turn out better.


The combination of the disappointing cards and being in major distress from some pretty intense dental work had me down a bit.  Then it struck me -- I had no intention at any point to try and copy the work of Claudine Hellmuth...I wanted to work in the style of Claudine Hellmuth.  I wasn't really wanting to go step-by-step to try and reproduce what she does, I wanted to try to pay homage to her unique style that I love so much.
So I went back to the beginning...chose a method that I could identify with and started again.  
As we know, I am much more comfortable manipulating paper than I am with painting (duh) so I chose one of the tissue paper cards I started and worked with that.


This is the best I could come up with.  It is not quite what I was hoping for...but there is no way I can duplicate what Claudine Hellmuth does so wonderfully.
I am happy with this card, though.  It has some of the elements of Claudine Hellmuth's work.  It gives a nod to some of her frequent images and I gave it my best shot.
If I saw this card I would say -- "hey, that puts me in mind of Claudine Hellmuth".





Later, that same night...



While Ruth was here tonight working on her cards, I played with one more of the girl/text images.
Duh -- I found that if I painted the text lightly and then added tissue paper it toned down the text and made the body area neutral enough for me to work with.

I added it to the contact paper card -- but alas, I still couldn't achieve the look...not the way I wanted to.
But like I was saying, I was never out to totally copy Claudine Hellmuth...just try to pay homage to her style.
Instead of making five individual cards with different scenes and the same girl with different outfits I will print out the other card and finish them off nicely and trade those.

These are the cards that Ruth made, in the style of Henri Matisse.  Aren't they good?
I can't wait to see what other members of the Artist Trading Card Exchange made -- I wonder what we'll get!