mixed media art – Page 23 – Mixy's Art Blog

digtal fings

hey folks, hope you’re all keeping well n keeping warm!

"Circle of Life" doodles & photoshop — “Circle of Life” doodles & photoshop

I’ve just been looking through some pics from last year on my computer, and thought I’d share with you some of my digital doings.

digital collage - this looks familiar from somewhere..! — digital collage – this looks familiar from somewhere..!

For about 10 years, pretty much all the art I made was based in the digital world.

"Golden London", photos and doodles — “Golden London”, photos and doodles

Having a small space in which to play was the reason I got started like this – it’s pretty much impossible to make an actual mess – you can’t spill pixels on the carpet and get in trouble with the grown ups for a start!

"Abstraction" Photos n Photoshop — “Abstraction” Photos n Photoshop

I became entranced, as I learnt new skills I was seduced by the squillions of options, and I poured my spare hours into learning more and more.

"Digital Pond Life", doodles in photoshoppery — “Digital Pond Life”, doodles in photoshoppery

While I still enjoy a good dabble, the world of inks and paints and stained hands (and, ahem, carpets… shh don’t tell!) and all that has, for now, won my heart.

Who knows what comes next! 😀

some P, M, bits of N and oddments from G

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Remember the dictionary I dyed? Pages are evolving!

Apologies for the poor photo quality. Better to follow when me, camera, art & daylight are in same place @ the same time!! 😉

continuing theme

edit20121125_0170 — ink and water splash

My project is coming together, I have 3 weeks til final presentation.

edit20121125_0156 — acrylic and chalk on board

This is snippet of this week’s doings…

edit20121125_0155 — block prints, acrylic on board

backgrounds for screen printing.

edit20121125_0153 — ink, chalk, acrylic on paper

More to come soon!

edit20121125_0152 — ink and water splash

out of the color zone

One of our major projects for this term is beginning to take shape. I’m expecting it to be a series of images (or ‘outcomes’) with a connecting theme – someone very special to me – as a form of memorial. Incorporating digital photo editing, screenprinting, and some painting. So here’s a little bit of where I’m at just now

It’s looking a bit murky, I’m venturing into muted tones… (it’s weird out there!)

This is a series of experimental backgrounds.

I’d forgotton the salt on watercolor trick. It is actual magic!

Restricting colors to focus on form and layers.

White ink, then dilute black procion dye, then collaged.

I’m looking to get a slightly dream-like, ethereal quality…

This one doesn’t fit with the theme, so will wind up in a future project some day…

Dabbling in doodling. I want a taste of the post WW2 era print designs.

Playing with ink… bound to get a bit spattery 😉

Too dark, but I can see it meeting up with that other one from earlier.

I’ve got some part-written posts on other comings and goings which I must get round to finishing! Feet not touching the floor much these days – but I’ll be back again soon! 😀

thoughts of the moment…

In the accidental gap year I found myself in last year, I determined myself to continue learning. I absorbed a wonderous feast of inspiration and enthusiam from the good folks of the internet. Yes, that includes you. I thank you sincerely.

Day 1 back at school, drawing with strips of paper.

I collected and devoured books and articles, blogs, tutorials and galleries (online and off). I explored new techniques and new media with whole-hearted abandon. I believe I learnt a lot.

close up: 1st in series ‘Structure’, drawing with paper.

Turns out I forgot a lot too.

I forgot the time lost to debating the obvious and making suposition about the intents behind all manner of art. With mind maps.

3d city scape constructed from recycled paper

I forgot that for every hour in the classroom, at least another one or two are needed for research and time lost down figurative blind alleys. I forgot how the time it takes swells and nudges out of place all other aspects of day to day being.

noticing, photographing, recording moments: all that visual stuff other folks don’t see…

I do remember having a big wobble at about this stage on my last course. The initial I’m an art student euphoria has burnt itself out and in its wake sits a mildly stunned version of me, in mini-crisis-of-intent. Just a stage in the process.

The shopping bag by my desk. Thank you for your simple wisdom, orange elephant.

words and colors

If you’ve visited here before you’ll have to noticed two of my favourite things are words and colors.

So dying a dictionary seemed the obvious thing for me to do.

editDSC_3130 — Flamboyant through to Flat, multiple ink stains

30 years ago this month I began high school.

30 years ago? Lordy!

editDSC_3123 — ink soaked paper napkin squashed between Shun and Side

Equipped with the essentials dictated by the school, I now owned a Pocket Oxford Dictionary.

editDSC_3143 — from Irk to Irresponible. Coffee painted on with teabag.

(At over 1000 pages and a good 2 inches thick, the average pocket size of an eleven year old child negated its title.)

editDSC_3135 — Lure to Machine. Dripped inks and dye water.

Nonetheless this book has travelled with me through the decades.

editDSC_3132 — Abbreviations to A. Squished inky paper

editDSC_3126 — Repay through to Reproach. More inky goodness.

Battered, dog-eared, with scribbled notes in the margins here n there…

editDSC_3128 — from Pylon to Quandry. Squashed strip of inky paper

… the spine went first but now it’s cover has separated totally from its papery wordfilled heart.

In it’s new incarnation – a colorful version of the former – it will one day become collage ingredients.

editDSC_3131 — Encode to Engine. Colorex inks

As an aside, I sometimes catch a glance of myself in my art room, as if from an outsiders perspective. I’m ironing torn, stained scraps of paper. Phrases like ‘not doing anyone any harm’ in bemused but sympathetic tones echo in my head. I smile. They just don’t understand. Anyway, I do it cos I have to and it makes me happy. Nuff said.

never say never (ever)

If there’s one thing that will motivate me into action, it’s being told that I can’t do something. Even (or especially) when the person doing the telling is me.

In reaction to a phrase in my last post “When space limits me to work on just one project at time…” Uha, really? I went on “… working within the parameters of my living/painting space, I have to exercise a little more self discipline…” I have to what? Says who??

editDSC_3037 — ink drips on handmade paper

Working on small (8″ x 10″ and smaller … often scraps) scale, there’s really no excuse, there’s no ‘no space’ that can’t be remedied with a small amount of putting stuff away!

editDSC_3035 — Opaque white ink dropped into puddles of transparent colored inks, left to flow.

Settled with a selection of old doodles on watercolor paper, some bottles of ink and water; and the giddy enthusiasm of new colors, I soon had a small dripping/drying/oozing/dribbling production line set up.

Aided greatly by the way I work – splashy and messy – no harm can come from cross contamination and minor spillages.

In fact, I ended up using the least soggy works to mop up some of the more puddly over waterings

editDSC_3032 — drips of ink, then water, then ink…etc, wet on wet + wet on dry

Release from these self imposed boundaries!

editDSC_3025 — inks dripped onto wet threads draws up the pigment leaving outlines. Highlighted with stitching (recycling that thread!)

acrylic gunk bird

Y’know the gunk that builds up round the top of acylic paint bottles?

Y’know when the paint is copper color and it’s just so shiny and gorgeous that although it’s also dried up paint something inside you says No! Don’t throw that away! It’s pretty – stick it in the book!

Y’know when this happens on a day you’ve already started with a page covered in hairy paper that does have a certain feathery like quality?

Y’know when you look at the dried up copper color acrylic paint gunk that you stuck to the page and it looks back at you, demanding: OK, I just have an eye and a beak. You must make me a body with a tail and wings. Immediately!

Y’know? Y’know that feeling?

I knew you would…

That’s how this happened.

scrap-driven pages

Working in the way I do generates a lot of scraps and offcuts. There are days (most of them) when I have no idea where to begin or how the page will look. The scraps often decide this for me, and Day 33 is pure 100% scrap driven!

Along with the scraps I make there are scraps I save from the ‘outside world’ – labels, tickets, lists and quotes written on the backs of envelopes… these were the founding ingredients for day 34.

The quote that I made annoyingly illegible was from an unknown Sufi master: “May I overcome any bitterness that may have arisen because I was not up the magnitude of the pain I was entrused with”. Hearty food for thought.

Scraps make for textural interest too, in page 35 I used little torn rectangles to build up a layer of white on the blank white page, that’s where the linear forms began and the rest just happened!