I couldn't keep up with the Paint & Pixel class. During the middle of it I took a real-life workshop called Painting and Writing in Pieces. I was more intrigued by that one, even though I liked learning to use the Procreate and other art apps.
Here are some photos of work I made that came out of that real-life workshop.
The three photos below are of the first book I made: 1) Resource Book Vol 1 with custom case, 2) detail shot of the binding for Vol 1, and 3) a page from Vol 1 where the torn pieces are attached to the page with the tiniest brads I've ever seen (I love the colors and shapes in each of these 4 small sections of painting. The color palette was muted (all 9 of us students used the same colors): ochre acrylic paint thinned with sizing and diluted sumi ink. All object photos were taken on top of a sheet of marked paper that became some of the pages of Vol 2 below.
Below is an image showing four sections of of large sheets of fine 100% cotton paper used for pages (a little lighter weight than the cover paper, still 100% cotton) that I marked and painted over several days, including days at the 5-day workshop.
After marking and painting and writing on the large sheets of paper, we folded and tore the sheets in half over and over again until we had the size of one folded section of the book (I forgot what you call that one piece that is sewn together with 4 or 5 others to create a 'signature' and 4 or more signatures are stitched together to create the book. It was darn fun.
The point of making a bound and cased Resource Book in the workshop was for each of us to leave with a handmade book that includes many techniques for using paint and writing (including 'invisible' writing using white china markers) to make art. I took that idea to the next level and wrote with china markers (white, black, and red) on some of my paintings and I created new watercolor paintings after finding so many wonderful art hidden inside the one large, not-so-great painting. Here is a photo of one of those large paintings - it is the one I used to make the cover of the book and the case.
I've done the tearing up of larger paintings on paper to make smaller artwork over and over again during the past several years; but, I hadn't really tried it in quite this way before. I was tremendously inspired by the orange-red painting of a rose hip - the nature item I chose as my object focus for the week-long workshop (seen in the bottom right photo of the 2-by-2 collage above).
MORE about the next-step artwork in the next blog!!
P.S. I love the work you posted while I was 'away'. I like what you did with the Procreate, too. Have you done anything more with that? I'll show you in another blog post one of the few pixel paintings I did for that online course that I liked; but, it deviated SOOOOO far off from those 'cute' and romantic face paintings everyone else (not you) was doing, I didn't post it.
and i've just left....lol! am staying right in the middle of nowhere in andalucia spain (along the MA 4102 descending from alfarnatejo down to the A7204 going from riogordo to periana) without internet, today we went to colmenar where i am sitting in a restaurante sipping my cafe solo and using their wifi..... will be back on november 4, with lots of images and inspiration.
ReplyDeleteour blog was the first thing i looked up after connecting to the web, and wow....i am absolutely thunderstruck by what you produced,love it, awesome, so unbelieveably inspiring! and beautiful. somehow our creative paths keep on crossing and double crossing and converging, i am so amazed, i have been checking out a long term course in bookbinding and papermaking in my hometown, because i want to print my own work and create my own books....lol! what you have created is really stunning, did i already say that? i am soooo impressed, please show me more! and i agree with your comments about the paint & pixels class, the stuff they are creating is not really my 'thing', with every image i keep thinking: but WHY did you produce this inage, what do you want to convey, what is the message, the process, please give me anything other than: i just like it or i think it is nice.... the co-lab class was a bit the same, everyone just liked to play around with stuff, which is perfectly ok but i need generally want to get something more out of it
I am attaching this to an old message from you that came up. I saw in my email today that you commented on the water colors framed in big white borders and you said something about wanting to see the big paintings from which they were torn. Well, the photo of the big sheet of paper I painted on for the books is just like what I paint on and tear up for the small pieces I virtually framed in white mat. Why do I do that? Put a border around those images? Well, I want to see how they will look when they really are framed. I use Photoshop to figure out whether I want the singled out with a wide space around them or bring them into a smaller frame. I see your point about being constrained...or, whatever that great phrase you used was and it is not in front of me now. But, I feel that, without an unadorned space between the artwork and the wall or the background of our blog, my art gets lost. However, I have to admit that your photos don't seem to get lost in our background. Whatever...
ReplyDeleteI made more books this weekend and I am thinking they might be interesting to make for sale. I need photos that let you see the outside and the inside because they, like much of my art it seems, aren't easily appreciated if you can't hold them in your hand or get up close and personal with them. I am really itching to show you one because I want your opinion on its salability. Personally, I love the colors, love love the 100% cotton paper quality, and love how loose my paint brush is swept across the big paper in my hands that often tense up when I think it is for "real". Even in the smaller torn pieces, I can feel the looseness in the paint application and China pencil marks I made. I did that all weekend long in one hour time slots between working on two grant applications for work. Thank the goddesses the watercolor needed time to dry on the paper, which forced me back to writing with my academic left side brain. Otherwise I was not much interested in those grants when things started cooking in my studio.
I am also working for the last 4 or 5 weeks on 7 or 8 acrylic paintings of various sizes and descriptions. I don't really now where I am going with those. I signed up for a oil and cold wax painting workshop - in FEBRUARY! I am ready to take it in December after these grants are written and submitted. But...I will be patient. Have you worked with cold wax in oil paint before? I saw an exhibit in an artists studio a few weeks ago and really loved his work. It is his workshop that I will be taking in Feb. His name is James Edward Scherbarth. Check out his website with his name ending in .com. Www.jamesedwardscherbarth.com
Ok. I have to stop this and go touch something in my studio before I go to bed.