I’ve been off line for a while, playing in the analogue world of paint and scribbles and little bits of torn up paper. Recharging & recombobulating. Playing with things like this.
This book lived on my desk through the first half of this year. Over the weeks and months it grew fat and messy with ‘while I’m waiting’ doodles, with mopped up paint spills, scraps of stuff, with the words and ideas that were orbiting my mind.
When it was all done, I made this quick flip thro vid:
And when I say quick, I know it’s super quick. So here’s a more leisurely stroll through some of the pages, and some of the ideas that keep rolling back into my art.
Stories unfold from the words I’m listening to in audio books and podcasts, and the characters evolve from magazine pages, advertisements and found paper.
Lines of text set against rows or polkadots, knitted together with scribbly handwriting. Faces in the spaces.
Backgrounds from maps: borrow the contour lines, take them off wandering into new places.
Cut out shapes from scrap paper.
Add eyes and whiskers: see them come to life.
Writing down the words I heard and want to remember later.
I leave notes and messages for me-in-the-future scattered through my art.
“There’s a reason why we get the ideas we get.”
(so it’s important to put them someplace safe until they’re ready to use)
Then there’s the found poetry from song lyrics, Inertia blue zero freeze.
(idk)
Dotted lines around the edges make me happy: as any small child will tell you, they’re really fun to do. Especially in time to music.
Texture in sticky thick paint, like tree branches or arteries, reminds me art is alive and part of nature. And vice versa.
Messing about with perspective with angles and lines. Inventing new people.
Anything’s possible in a book.
These words were pinned to my wall of ideas, making space for new things, now they’re rehomed in the book. Keep things you love in sight, always.
Negative space: white paint dampens the cacophony of color.
Opportunity is everywhere. It really is.
Case in point, I collect cards at art fairs, copying shapes, giving this gal a sister.
Copying faces, shapes and tricky things like hands.
Dropped in here and there amid all the noise and color takes the pressure off.
How they look isn’t important when they merge in with all this stuff.
Keep playing, keep making it up as you go along. That’s really all there is.
My next project is a weeny little sketchbook for the Tiny Book Collaboration.
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