I love the dance between the digital and the analog.
Set the pixels in place, print and then set to with the tools of a previous age:
Actual cutting with actual scissors
Actual mess with actual paste.
The combination of these colours and the sheen of the medium have given her heads a pearly purity.
(And all that baldness was bothering me.
It’s getting lost now under layers of cut out swirls.)
Poured paint, deluge of color.
But tonally bland.
Contrast added. A sea of souls.
Art journalers who embrace the unplanned,
who find their mojo in the serendipitous,
whose ideas bloom out of happenstance:
these folks will know this old trick: Squash that inky stencil between future pages of the book in which you’re playing and get the two-folded benefits of not wasting a drop of delicious colour and planting the seed for a creation yet to be born. That’s where this page began:
And another familar trick: glue in a load of the offcuts of paper that are littering the work table. Much of this was soon to be lost under layers of heavy paint. But that’s the nature of the ephemeral.
Last week’s pages were dominated by these faces. And where there are cut outs, there are the spaces from which they are cut. Add them to the gluings:
So I felt called towards bigger colors. More defining. Louder.
It came out as something a bit Easter Islandish, I like the way they are looking out:
One into the past, one into the future.
Another week, another page in the altered book to show you.
I notice sometimes when I’m working on a project, just how little control I have. It’s not that I don’t know where it’s going, I’m not even steering the way. It’s going its own course and I’m simply wielding the brush or the pen or the whatever-it-is.
Some sort of external force does all the decision making. It took my inner control freak a long while to learn to rest back and let this happen. (Sometimes she worries so. I distract her with thoughts of cheese and music and cushions. She chills, we move on)
This page was a bit of a hotch-potch til the latter stages when it seemed to start coming together.
See what I mean?
I mean it’s not lost it’s hotch-potchery vibe, but I feel like it’s crossed the line from uncoordinated chaos to cohesive vision. Although you aren’t seeing what will be the finally finished thing, it’s a large part of the way there. More again soon.
I’m having so much fun with this altered book.
As it develops more meanings are attaching themselves. For instance, it h
as 42 pages, and as we all know 42 is the meaning of life, the universe and everything. So suddenly it has a theme attached… it’s a book with elements of life, the universe and everything. Reckon those are parameters I can keep within!
Plus I’ve brought in elements of Somerset Maugham’s writing. Seemed only fair as I’d already obliterated so many of his words in paint and collage and whatnots.
This page is titled from his quote:
“The Essence of the Beautiful is Unity and Variety.”
Here is how the page developed …………..
I’m so enjoying the page a day project, and the 12 in 12 (updates on that one soon) but it has meant that not so much art has been going on outside of the sketchbooks.
So I decided to venture out of my papery comfort zone and onto canvas. This is a first for me! It’s still a work in progress, but here’s how it’s starting out…
Being a deep canvas I want to incorporate the edges. With no particular plan I started out with acrylic glazes….
Starting out with collage bits the trial layouts begin then gluing commences!
Bit by bit…
More glaze to bring the bits together,
And some dyed scrim for a bit of texture
More paint, blending some of the raw edges together
More layers
More dyed scrim
And doodles in thread
I’ll post more as it develops, but so far I’m pleased with the way it’s coming together.
With the rest of the alphabet stencils cut (ok… v, w, x, y, z aren’t done yet… it’s a bit fiddly and I wanted to get on and play!) today’s page is all about sat sat saturday…
Layering up the letters, positive and negative cut-outs
Using a mix of acrylics, glazes, watercolors, gouache, pastels and charcoal to see how they work out
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