Channeling Josef Albers

Hi, I am back at work in my studio after catching up on paid-job responsibilities.

A few weeks ago a friend came over for dinner and spent a little time in my studio looking at my small, pocket-art books. She made a comment that stuck with me: "I like these little books; but, I don't like each and every page. Why do you put these little paintings in a book like this? I would buy a small painting because some of these spreads really speak to me." I already wrote here about why I like making the books; but, my studio visitor made me ask myself if I am afraid to do the same thing in a larger format, picture by picture to mount and frame. I had to test that fear but I decided to first use the same size as an open spread in the pocket-sized books. Here are a few of my favorites that I mounted:

What a pain. I cannot access my iCould to get the photos I want to embed here. Why does Blogger limit my choices to Picassa, phone, or images I've already posted? Or URLs. NOT my iCloud where I have hundreds-maybe thousands-of photos of my work.

Without photos, I will describe a place I eventually came to as I worked on these small, 2-D paintings. I started (unintentionally - although I've recently seen at two separate art museums exhibits of art from Black Mountain College where Albers taught for awhile in the 1930s) channeling Albers in putting torn pieces of paintings into a full sheet of background painting from the same large sheet of painted paper (process explained here a few months ago for the Make it Yourself books). I really like how these come together and ask the viewer to step a little closer to inspect what is going on, then step back again to see the illusions created by negative and positive space, color combinations, and overlapping patterns that move forward and back.

OK. I don't like this lack of photos to talk about. Just know that I am working in my studio even when the weather calls me outdoors. I also signed up for an online course in advanced color theory. Are you taking any courses?

surfacing

Just came back from a 3 week stay in Andalucia with my friend Aletta (Let).
For the first time i feel the tide is slowly turning and i might be able to come up for air. Barely enough to fill my lungs before going under again, being dragged away on the waves of this merciless current of grief and pain and loss that has completely enveloped me for the last 21 weeks. Almost six months now..... I cannot even begin to tell you what has been going on during this time, what i have felt, how i have suffered.
But after a while my art came to the rescue. Apart from screaming and crying it has been the only way to express some of what i felt, and perhaps it is also the sanest, most healing way to turn myself inside out. Because that is what i have to do to survive, one way or the other. If it were up to me i would always prefer the artist's way, but creativity cannot be forced into mercifully appearing just because i desperately need it, it comes and goes by it's own design, i have found.

But let my images speak for themselves, let them evoke some of the crushing agony that infuses my life these days.
These four images were created in january. More to follow.

it's just a dress rehearsal rag

they were blood sistahs

it's inner silence i fear most

 the fickle hand of fate

Last december i finally bought my new professional Epson surecolor P800.  Had to postpone the delivery until mid january, couldn't deal with it before then. Made my first prints (of image 1 and 3) on a 17" roll of Permajet Textured Fine Art Parchment  and they look absolutely stunning! 

Where did I leave off?

It is March 25, 2016. I've lost my link across the Atlantic - for now - and I feel a sharing loss. I have been working on art all along. I'm ready to show a few things I've been making.

You may remember (see earlier posts) I created in December and early January Make It Yours books using 100% Irish linen paper; but, nothing has happened with those for the last 3 months. 25 to 30 of them sit in a storage box while I figure out what to do with them...whether they are worth continuing or just using them myself to work in and give as gifts. I really don't know. However, after a 2-month fling with oil paint and cold wax painting, I decided to come back to that wonderful linen paper - especially some scraps I had from making the MIY books - and create something with the scraps and left-over unpainted paper. Over the past week or so, I've created with scraps some pretty small books that fit in the palm of my hand. Here are some images of two of them.

These are made with scraps of paper already painted in watercolor - in this case blue/blue-green. I let myself meditate on each open spread to come up with a large abstract image that invited me in to wander around a big plot of land where my son built a beautiful BIG house for one of his clients in New York state several years ago. I used a page from the landscape blueprint to help inspire me. I pasted small, torn sections onto "random" pages. Then I used black pen and graphite pencils to mark the pages in ways that connected everything together, as you can see from the photos above and directly below. The one below includes a section of the blueprint that locates a "concrete walk" in my fantasy landscape. The darker black lines on the left of the book in the photo below come from a B/W photocopy of a blown up version of a manipulated photo I took of an early spring Jack-in-the-pulpit I spotted in the woods in Massachusetts in 2014. It seemed appropriate to bring in this blueprint-like -image of a flower, which adds dimension-and-scale wonkiness to the pages.

Next, is a book I am working on - actually one signature of a book I plan to make into 3 signatures - that is small enough to fit into my hand (smaller than the blue-green book above). I like the weight of the stacked signatures in my hand and the soft texture of the linen paper. I like the color thread in this set of signatures - a bright but soft yellow that I am pairing with black and blue marks and a few red accents that are part of the original watercolor paintings I'd made on the paper I used to make these pages.

Because I started thinking of these tiny books as pages to meditate on instead of Make It Yours books (I think people are 'stuck' trying to figure out how to approach my MIY concept), I continued my exploration of focusing on an open spread to pull it together into one cohesive abstract image. I imagine sitting in a quiet place contemplating on one of these open pages while reflecting on my emotional state - or not reflecting at all but letting the image draw me in to find meaning to the colors or lines or, in some pages, words that appear (notice above the series of connected and repeating words "seeseaseeseaseesea" something like a mantra if softly repeated aloud in a whisper. You can also see from the photo below that I punched holes in one of the pages to invoke who knows whatever other thought and reflection from the user.

Anyway, I like making these. My iPod music, as always, inspires the way I approach each of the pages and I really like how one of these books is very subtle and the other is quite bright and bold. I'd love to keep them for myself; but, I know I can make more and I already have specific people in mind who might like these...or, maybe a stranger would like one. Who knows.

I'll show some of my oil and cold wax painting in another post. They are so different than these and so much more frustrating to me.  These are fun and the paintings are ...well, they are not going anywhere for me.

Helga, if you are out there lurking, I miss you. This one-sided conversation just doesn't feel "right" to me.

Working on these

It is bitter cold here in the UpperMidwest-US. Actually, today it is a little warmer at 20 F; but the temperatures are dropping to nearly -20 F by Sunday, January 17. It's possible the weather has influenced my artwork or what I've selected to post today. I can't really say.

I've been experimenting. Maybe that's all I'm ever doing. Now it's time to share and get some feedback from anyone lurking out there and, of course, from Helga when you are ready.

First, a few oil paints mixed with cold wax and painted ON TOP of some acrylic paintings I'm fed up with.

I didn't mind where this one above was going in acrylic; but, when I painted over it with oil and wax, I really saw the difference in the depth one can achieve with oil compared to acrylic. The original acrylic painting design is intact, as is the general color scheme. The oil mix stays wet longer, which allowed much time for marking into the paint to reveal colors underneath and to add texture to the surface. This was inspired by a tiny piece of used soap.

I've been working on the above painting for months, maybe even a year. There is a ton of stuff under these layers of oil paints mixed with cold wax, including collage papers and even a piece of a blue print my son sent as the wrapping for a gift. Something is going on with these houses on stilts and it may have to do with my childhood days when my family lived in the Philippines. I'm trying not to force this painting. Again, using oil and wax in this next version has given the picture a lot of depth and bizzaro colors. I may need to let it sit again for several months.

OK. This is a newer painting in progress over the last month. It was pretty weird when I first started painting it in black and gray acrylic paint over and under charcoal and graphite marks. Some of those marks are still visible. I added some bright colors in the lower half using oil paints, then came back with more earthy oil colors after it dried. For some reason, I started using some pink in the upper region. Where is this going? I have no idea. My current name for it is "Arising." Something, perhaps, is arising from the dangerous-looking rubble below. Flip it around, you suggest. I'll try that.

Next are a few images of work on paper that I've been using for my art books - 100% linen, very fine weave and soft as can be. I decided to start as I usually do, marking with white China marker and painting over that with a thin watercolor wash. Before the watercolor paint was dry, I added splashes of ink from a standing position above the paper positioned on the floor. I got bold and added drops of fluid acrylic because I didn't know how it would react to the paper and the other media already there. Finally, after everything had dried over night, I tore the paper up into three pieces and added oil pastel marks, acrylic gesso, and fluid acrylic where I felt it needed it. These are done. The paper can't take anymore!!

After using a soft touch of oil pastel and gesso on the bottom row of "leaf tops" (above photo), I loaded up my palette and paintbrush with lots of acrylic colors to get the thicker look in the green leaves. Pink is a negative-space area at the top, just for the fun of it and to tie it to the pink in the lower row.

I like the way the inks bleed through the transparent and semi-transparent paints in this one. I used various writing instruments to write text in some of the leaf areas and I like how you can see that showing through. Mostly I was experimenting with a lot of things here and I like the variety. I'll use this as a reference when I want to intentionally recreate some of these textures and layers in new paintings on paper - or maybe I'll try it on wood panels of canvas.

The last one is FAR TOO TIGHT; but, I was playing with oil pastels in a way I never had before and I like some sections of the "scene" as a result. For instance, I like the dotted green hills and yellow sky in the background; and the glowing yellow and violet hill in the middle ground. Delicious! Totally silly.

OK. It is time to get back into my studio and WORK! Take care and thanks - anyone! - for comments and feedback.

Eileen