repurpose – Mixy's Art Blog

Squirrelling, Busying & some Re-jig.

Hi folks, I hope you’re enjoying your summer (or winter to those who reside on the other side of this little blue ball).

What’s new with you? I’ve been busy squirrelling away on so many things and I haven’t been over here in wordpress world to share them with you.

I’ve been preparing my class I’m teaching in the 21 Secrets online program that’s out for pre-sale now, releasing in September. That kept me reeeeally busy for a while! I’ll show you some little snips of it here and there pre-launch – like this…………..

Ooooh! All those colors!!

AND busy busily busying art journalling as usual, but not in my usual fashion. <GASP!>

I believe it’s good to shake stuff up, re-jig, re-orient and sometimes reinvent ourselves. The world and its contents keep evolving and the only alternative is stagnation. And that’s no fun at all. Uck!

Art-journal-wise I’ve shaken things up this time. No nice new sketchbook, no repurposed new book, this was a tatty old ledger I found in among my dad’s old papers and desk whatnots, boxed away for years in storage. From the pencilled pre-decimal price inside the back cover I would date it around 1950-something. About a third of the pages had been torn out, the remainder were a little yellowed, but blank. Fresh for painting and collaging and doodling and whatevering all over.

My usual strategy is to progress page by page as one finishes I flip the page and start again.

This time I’ve been opening the book randomly and splashing, doodling, writing and out-pouring with no regard to any sense of the linear.

If you’re in a rut, this is a great shake up. As a process it ripples out into life as little shifts make dramatic differences.

In the case of an art journal, it meant for a few weeks there was nothing aesthetically worth sharing, all oddments of scribble, stark paint scrapings, lonely fragments.

Then all of a sudden faces started to emerge

The pages are filling up and feeling closer to completed. Coherency emerges.

This is the third journal I’ve been working in this year and they appear to be following the seasons, this one fully in the season of summer.

A few weeks time I’ll be ready to begin my book of autumn, I’m already looking forward to that.

Envelopes and Time (19/52)

I shared recently how sometimes I’ll drop into the future and leave myself a note. Turns out I’d done it again for last week’s page:

“Each morning I am born again. What I do today is what matters most.” Last week hadn’t kicked off to the best start, so it was maybe just what I needed to read. (Well done me-in-the-recent past). That in mind, collage on:

Hey, d’u remember the whole paper-dying obsession I had a while back? (it continues, I just don’t go on about it so much these days). Of all the scrap paper I LOVE to make use of, I really like to use envelopes.

What is it? Idk, maybe how they’re so readily discarded, they appeal to the rescuer part of my character.

Also, so often have such pretty patterns hidden inside. So junk mail arrived this week and it was inside one of may fav prettily-insided style envelopes.

I’m aware that’s quite a niche in geekiness to have a fav prettily-insided style envelopes.

This week the page as a whole left me a little Meh, but if anything saved it from it’s feel of half-arsed mediocrity, it’s this tiny honeycomb patterns.

So here’s how the page evolved….

I feel like it isn’t really ‘done‘ and that’s why I don’t feel happy with it. But whatever, it’s last week and in the past now. I like the colours and the honeycomb and sometimes that just has to be enough.

Onward and upward!

every last ounce of goodness

I’ve been dying fabric for the quilt lately. I’ve been dying fabric for years. It got me thinking: The only stage I don’t like is towards the end when the residue dye – as it’s no longer active – has to be poured away. Why? it’s mostly water. But something inside me winces, it’s beautifully colored water and I don’t want to waste a drop of color.

In my perpetual quest for ways to wring every last ounce of goodness out of every stage in a process, last week I had one of those why did I never think of this before epiphanies.

It’s no good to dye fabric with now, but it will dye paper!

Decanting the dye dregs into jam jars, rolling up scrap paper and standing them in the jar.

Then just let science take over: the water soaks in and climbs up the dry paper bringing the remaining pigment in its wake.

When they’re soaked through, or the water in the jar has dried up, or when I just need to clear some space I empty the lot into a bucket to finish intermingling and eventually dry.

It’s satisfying on so many levels: using up color, repurposing scrap paper, creating patterns for future collages and art works. It does it’s own thing when left to its own devices. It’s messy and unpredictable (just like me) And it’s effectively better than free!

More variations on the theme:

Dry paper, water-splashed paper, soaked paper (hot & cold water)
Letting the liquid soak part way up, then up-ending the paper so it runs down and creeps up at the same time
Pouring more color down the inside of the paper rolls
Using paper that’s been part printed on the inkjet so the colors merge and dribble into each other
Coffee dregs instead of / mixed with colored water
Just water + inkjet printed paper (but not laser printed – that ink won’t run)
Scrumpled paper for a veiny effect
Glossy photo paper (make good use of those expensive printer mistakes!)