Abstract collages

I found Ann Baldwin's Creative Paint Workshop at the library this past Saturday. I like her collages, they tell wonderful stories. I spent a lazy Sunday playing with paints and the day passed in a blink.

 

Here, I glued wallpaper on leftover mat board. I am trying to figure out what to do with four walpaper sample books, so I wanted to see how it handles paint. It takes glazes and dry brushing well, but it is platified so the washes won't work. I have lots of this wallpaper - I thought that maybe I will make a journal. Or use the books as journals, except that they are heavy and cumbersome. Anyway, back to the abstract. It was ment to be a study in using texture as the subject of an abstract. It is an attractive idea because it means that all I need is...well ... texture. In other words, I do not always need to start with a real life object and build from there. This is good news because I get lost in that process. If I concentrate on one thing at a time, such as texture or lines or color, then I could still have a finished painting in the end. Once I finished, I saw the space in between the textured surfaces at the bottom. First thought was about how to transition between the surfaces and in the end I decided to let it be. Later, I saw the male profile neatly delineated between the cotton lace and the molding paste surface. Next project is going to be a collage.

Best of 2009

I don't normally do best-of-anything lists and certainly not at the end of the year. This is usually a time of counting dissapointments and ways in which I fell short of whatever it is I wanted to do. I have been told repeatedly that my expectations are too high. I started lowering them, but somehow, I am still coming short at the end of the year. This year, I wanted to improve my drawing skills, keep a regular art journal and improve this blog. My drawing was on and off, my art journaling was sporadical and this blog is as underdeveloped as it was last year.
Lack of time is certainly a major factor in this. Probably the fact that I cannot make up my mind on one hobby does not help either. I could keep drawing. but no, I also also want to do art journals, abstract painting, portraits, pastels ... each one of these takes a lifetime to master and I want to do them after finishing fulltime work, going to school at night and training for marathons. I suppose my expectation are still too high. I don't know what to give up or how to manage it better. But after all, there is next year, right?

I found the "Best of 2009" challenge on Gwen Bell's blog. Here is the what I came up with:
Best trip: Homeplace Ranch and Punta Cana. Vacations are always winners.
Best book: Bestiaire by Eric Dupont.
Best challenge: The sketchbook project because I have never  done anything like that before.
Word of phrase: 2009 was boring.
Shop: I don't think I spent out of control amounts in a particular store. Omer deSerres would be the pick for "the best".

Sketchbook project - part 4

The watercolor on the right page is an older "found" character; on the left, I wanted some color. I stamped with a cork and I got those head-shaped circles with eyes and mouth. I could not help it ... And the native figure with glasses at the bottom?! too funny.

For the background, I used wax resist. It was very hard to remove the wax because the paper is so thin.

The elephant faced with a real-life question ...

Pan pastel portrait. I gessoed the pages first, but even like that it was hard to "convince" the pastel to

stick to the paper. Lots of "arm bending" needed...

Saving face - first I thought about drawing a face with a mask and then without mask. One of those venetian carnival masks. I could not find one to collage, so I settled for another interpretation of the idea.

Silence - and as I was working the background, I noticed the elephant head right there. It was not planned, it just happened.

Photocopy of a face I painted a while back.

Another photocopy.

Funny ... the original image was an edvertisement for milk.

Elephant invasion - at night, the whole family getting closer to the village. Father says "Come on, kids! Now they cannot ignore us anymore!"

These were the pages I liked most. I enjoyed the process; now I have to remember to sign up for the fiction project and start working on self portraits. I already have a list with a few things to try. Maybe Santa will bring me more time this year?! Wouldn't that be nice....yummm

Saturday

No, I was not about to go rob a bank. I was about to start my Saturday run at about -30C. My toes stayed frozen for the 10 of the 12km I run. It took me 2 hrs to warm up. It was not an easy task. The cat tried to woake me up, but to no avail. I thought that would be so nice to just stay in bed till noon ...but no, the duty called! I had to go. In case you wonder, I hate the cold ...

Sketchbook project - part 3

This was my sister's idea. It has less to do with elephants in the room and more to do with a childhood rhyme about elephants rocking on a spider web.

Everything is possible - even flying elephants. I found the images in a newspaper and yes, the tree was upside down in the original advertisement.

Golden paints background and creatures hidden in the background.

Chasing elephant....

I read that in some asian countries, the elephant is a trusted babysitter. The elephant is attached to a post with a cord tied around his leg and the baby is on the ground next to it. Other animals will not approach and the elephant will never harm the baby. Fascinating...

Sketchbook project - part 2

Here are other pages from the sketchbook:

These are headlines from the Saturday paper. Maybe I should use this idea more often as a background. Intersting that in the same newspaper we have corporate profits soaring, Wallmart winning over the union, garlic prices and on the other hand, food banks are running out of supplies as more people need are in need these days. And the article about "grey new world" had to do with retirement and "60 is the new 40" sort of thing ... ha!

The poor elephant has been banned from the village. Instead of facing the issue, brush it under the carpet.

The page to the right is a background I had. I "saw" the faces so I turned it into an elephant page. Children are never afraid to name the elephant in the room, at least until adults teach them to. Hence, they are friends.  On the left page, I applied color randomly, but then she poppes up. She reminds me of Wilma Flinstone.

Another older image that has been tied to the theme. The elephant is homeless, nobody wants to acknowledge it, so the animals try to help him find a new home.

7 things I learned from the sketchboook project

Back in the day when I used to do consulting work, at the end of a project we had a post mortem meeting. Or, instead of a meeting, we would have lunch out, all expenses paid. This, of course, was before the dot.com meltdown. Anyhow.. I thought that since the sketchbook project was finished, it deserved a post mortem.
Here is the list, in no particular order

1. having a tight deadline, even selfimposed, turned out to be a good thing. I think that if I had more time, I would have procrastinated more and in the end, I would have had to rush more.
2. on the other hand, I did not have time to play with the structure of the book. I wanted to try deconstructing and reconstructing it.
3. I kept a sketchbook for the sketchbook! It was a repository to record ideas and I could not afford to miss them. It was the first time I managed to keep such a record!
4. the pages turned out to be quite sturdy after all. However, I treat them gentler than I normally treat my jornal pages.
5. most pages turned out to be collages. If I had more time, maybe I would have painted more. I like some pages more than others of course, but that's ok. I suppose.
6. faces still appeared through the pages. I did not plan it and I was not looking for them, but once I saw them, I could not help it. Even if they do not have anything to do with rooms and elephants!
7. I did not like leaving the left page blank, so in most cases, I painted or collaged the left page as well.I used everything that I could put my hands on, photocopies and images that I had from before.

It was an interesting challenge. Now, I am looking forward to the other ones: the selfportrait, the color project and the fiction project.

Here, I use the pan pastel portrait I already had.

Wrapping paper, stencils, pan pastels, stamps.

           

A shape I cut from cardboard and then I used as a stencil and as a mask.

 

Collage and pen sketches.

Elephants in the mail

This is it! Done! The sketchbook is in the mail. It should get to the destination this year. I also played around with altering the blogger template. I made the middle column wider. This is something I wanted to do for a while because I had a lot of unused space on the screen and I wanted to embed bigger size photos. I am not sure if it is easier to read though. I'd love to hear which one you like best.

The main reason why I wanted to alter the template was to be able to include the slideshow in the sidebar. The images were truncated. Even like this, I had to choose a different slideshow template to make sure that the images are displayed correctly.
I am still tweaking things around here, it does not feel "home" yet.

Update

The sketchbook is finished. I hoped to mail it today, but this is what I am faced with:

This was taken in the morning, not it is much worse and it does not seem that it will stop snowing anytime soon. Expected - some 30cm of snow. On days like this, my mantra is to avoid going out as much as possible. I will try to put together a slide show with all the pages soon. I have to go dig the car now otherwise I won't go anywhere till the snow melts ...

Taking matters seriously...

This was the deplorable state of my art table over the weekend and it did not change much since. When I said I wanted to complete the sketchbook in two weeks, I ment it. The first half is about 95% complete and in the second half, most pages have a sketch of the idea in place. About 10 pages are still empty. The whole book has 40 spreads, I am not sure how I counted 20 the first time. I suspect I was in denial, considering the tight schedule. Pics will come soon.

Pan pastels - my story

- All rise. The court is in session, Hon. Judge Harvey presiding in State vs. Alcor Art Studio on charges of reckless spending and endangerment of personal finances.
- How does the accused plead?
- Not guilty, your Honor.
- On what grounds?
- It was a complot, your Honor.
- Interesting approach. Where is your counsel?
- I do not have one, you Honor. I could not afford one. I will do my best to defend myself.
- Are you a lawyer?
- http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=8945920546145690381No, I am not. I am an artist wannabe.
- Hmmmm ....So you are accused of reckless spending and endangerment of personal finances because you exceeded the monthly spending budget. I see here you committed to maintaining a healthy balance of spending and a monthly budget. you have infringed this commitment repeatedly. A repeat offender?
- Your Honor, please allow me to explain ....
- Enough! No need to explain, the proofs are irrefutable. The jury will be instructed to consult the account statements in court’s possession. I see here that you were brought to court following a shopping spree this past Saturday at Omer DeSerres. Do you care to explain?
- Your Honor, it was a complot.
- A complot?? Are you trying to make matters worse? Are you mocking the court? I have never heard such outrageous statement.
- It was never my intention to outrage the court. Allow me to explain. It is true I went to the store. But my intention was to purchase a limited number of pastels, maybe three or four, and try them in my studio first. I was planning to paint few faces and see if I liked the results. I found above mentioned pastels on sale as the store is discontinuing the product. Applying good judgement, I bought only 2 colors to test at home, which I did. It was not love at first sight, your Honor! You can see here. May I approach the bench? I would like to introduce defence proof nr. 493-995.
- Any objections from the State?
- No, your Honor.
The judge invited the accused to approach the bench and present the proof. This is what was presented to the judge:

The accused regained her place and continued:

-          As you can see, your Honor, than can hardly be considered a successful attempt! I tried the next day, with the same piteous result. But I do not give up easily. I thought that maybe my lack of skill is to blame for the poor result, so I went looking for information. Information from people who are better than me so that I can learn from the pros. The second attempt was as bad as the first one. But then, on the third attempt, your Honor here is what happened. May I approach? 

The accused approached and presented the second proof:

-          It is at this time, your Honor that I considering purchasing more colors. With due diligence, I researched my alternatives. On line availability of the product is scarce in Canada. Only 2 retailers carry the product, as the third one is discontinuing it. The other retailers sell the product twice and even three times more. Purchasing in the US is not an option as I would have to pay duty on top of the higher price. This is when I decided to purchase the set of colors.

-          So your defence is what?? That you spent money to avoid spending more money?!? Are you making fun of the court, accused?! You were expected to show maturity and common sense. You knew you were infringing the law, but you went ahead and did it anyway, and now you want the court to believe you did it because you wanted to limit the expense???

-          Your Honor...

-          Enough said ... this is reckless behaviour. I will let the jury decide.

After what turned out to be the shortest deliberation, only five minutes, in the history of the local tribunal, the jury came back with the verdict.

-          The accused rise.

-          Has the jury reached the verdict?

-          We have, your Honor. We found the accused guilty as charged.

-          Very well. Thank you for your time. The jury is dismissed. I will now pronounce my sentence. Considering the proofs brought to the court’s attention and the rather ineffective and even outrageous defence line stating that the accused was the victim of a complot from other retails, who discontinued the product or are selling it for a higher price, I therefore sentence the accused to one year no art- relating spending. The accused is to submit for psychological evaluation and counsel. And if found to repeat the behaviour, the accused will be sentenced to jail time. The court is adjourned.  

This resumes my intro to Pan Pastels. I also corrected some of the mistakes on the second attempt.

They do not release dust as my Sennelier do. I suspect that is
because the dust stays trapped in the tools. They seem to be easier to use that the sticks. I hope I  will
find a way to use the Sennelier in the mix. I think they can be used with a wet brush too. Probably
grind the sticks, I could use the powder could be used for washes; someplace I think I saw that the
powder should be used with a mix of alcohol ans water. Not sure what that is about. If anybody knows, I'd love to hear from you.

Frustrated

I had another bout of "I must get organized or else." Every time that happens, frustration goes through the roof.

Today, I decided to tackle my personal emails. I have two accounts. To much, I decided. Solution? gmail. Bad idea. I cancelled my account after half an hour. To start with, I hate having a big chunk of screen taken with ads that I do not care about. The whole layout of the screen is cumbersome. I want a lot of clean, white space and the least amount of frills possible. I have no time for frills. I wanted to import my contacts. Only the contacts, not the emails. After all, the point of moving the mail over was to not have to deal with the accumulated junk in my two other accounts. But I had no choice, I had to move everything. I assumed the imported emails will be put into a separate folder. Sorry, label. They were, but I still had my inbox cluttered with all this old stuff that I did not want in the first place. The replies to an email are sorted by date, but in reverse. The newest reply goes at the bottom of the screen. I have to manually expland all the replies if I need the history of the email. Each reply appear in its own box on the screen. Why is that, I wonder? Apparently, there are ways to stop the adds and change the layout of the inbox, but I have to install plugins. Seriously?! I don't have time for that.

All I want is simplicity.It seems that this wish of mine is getting harder and harder to fulfill, now that machines took over our lives...