A visual dialogue

I received a lovely piece of work to respond to in the UNPVD challenge:

It’s an abstract collage of various prints, fabrics and objects, including leaf skeletons and a feather. The overall size is similar to the one I made with differing size sections, although mine unfolds left to right whereas this folds out right to left.

Drawn by the fabric and texture, I decided to also incorporate lace and fabrics and to continue with the spots and the leaves. As I worked, flowers crept in as well – my visual sub-conscious obviously took over – which, of course, is the point of the exercise. My colours became darker, less subdued, and metallic elements appeared.

I was told that I could add to the above if I wished, but I wouldn’t have wanted to – I just loved the textures and the overall piece. However, I did overlap some lace and colour between the two, in an attempt to blend the two disparate pieces together a little.

It turned out rather less abstract than I intended it to, but overall I’m pleased with my efforts, and I’m looking forward to the next one. Although I may have to put that on hold for a while, as we’re trying to move my art area. I’ll let you know how that goes in due time. For now, though, here’s my finished collage:

The Unstructured No Pressure Visual Dialogue Swap

Quite a mouthful, eh? Set up by a friend, this ’swap’ is actually a kind of consequences game.

It’s unstructured because there are no limits on what each artist creates on her section of the paper – except one: apart from our signature, there’s a complete ban on words.

No pressure because as a group we all have various commitments and thus may not be able to participate at certain times. Thus, when one person has a piece ready to send on, they announce it on the group and anyone able, or wanting, to ‘play’ asks for the piece to be sent to them.

At least, that’s the idea! As we’ve only just started, it will be interesting to see how it progresses.

The main purpose is to produce several visual dialogues, where each person responds visually to the art already done, and works in their own style. Of course, there has to be a starting point, and each of us will prepare a long piece of paper folded, or marked, into sections. Much to my surprise, I made mine yesterday – finishing off whilst waiting for the midnight fireworks. So here it is:

A fairly simple collage using acrylic paint, crumpled paper, spray paint, bought montage pictures, pieces of fabric and a black sharpie. I’ll be interested to see how the next person responds: will they progress/ expand on my own idea or go off on a complete tangent? A great idea, this, that fits in perfectly with my own aim to explore…

Happy and Creative New Year, everyone!!!

And thanks to you all for checking out my blog!

Hopefully I’ll be more active here in 2010. And more creative. Health issues have meant that I haven’t done much in the last month or so, but I have been doing a fair bit in my arty journal, so thought I’d share a little of what I’ve done.

The above were done as part of my ‘explorations’ of a stone: an interesting little exercise, and I’m hoping to explore more objects that I have lying around the house.

Four ‘zen’ doodles – I love doing these, I find them useful for exploring line and ideas as well as being fun and relaxing to draw.

And finally some manga-style explorations. These were done after watching an anime film. The guy on the right is a partial copy of a drawing in a book; the other two were purely imaginative.

So, thats it for 2009! Thanks again for visiting, and here’s wishing you all the best for 2010.

And my new word is…. explore.

As some of you may have seen from my recent blogging, I’ve been unsure about the direction in which my work is going – again. Develop has been a useful word for me over the past few months and I know that, despite my doubts, I have developed over the past year. I’ve tried and learned new techniques; read up on abstract and urban art; discovered more about other artists, especially Kandinsky; attempted to develop one area of my work – urban nature – fairly successfully.

However, I STILL have not come up with a clear artist statement. And over the last 2 or 3 months I confess that my work has veered away from the urban theme. In fact, I have a longing to explore new avenues and themes.

So much so, that over the last few days, I’ve been pretty convinced that I need to change the emphasis from develop to explore. I love these semi-conscious decisions that feel right – and this one does. In fact I feel that I’ve already slipped from one to the other.

Perhaps it’s the change of season, or a feeling of overkill with the urban themes, but my desire to explore has grown. And looking up the definition in Wiktionary has spurred me to change my word, even though the New Year hasn’t yet arrived. After all, as someone pointed out, Jan 1st is an arbitrary date. What matters, I believe, is the intuitive feeling that it’s time to move on.

I’ve already journaled a little about EXPLORE and listed a few themes and ideas that I wish to look at in more detail. With the help of Keri Smith’s “How to be an Explorer of the World” book, which includes great little guides, I hope to start exploring a few objects around my home within the next few days.

Snowman quiltie

For a Christmas/Winter themed swap within Unlimited Textiles. A mix of needle felting, fabric and stitching. The snowman is a vintage clip art image, altered and printed onto fabric, then stitched into place.

More collages

Again, work that doesn’t ‘fit’ my main theme of Urban Nature, these 2 collages were done purely for ‘play’ and to get me into doing some art after a fairly long break. Apart from entries in my art journal, I’ve done very little art recently. Hopefully that will change soon.

The first collage has a vintage travel theme, and was inspired by the photograph of old suitcases that I took during a visit to a special 1940’s  weekend at a steam railway site in Derbyshire.

For the background I used various ephemera of maps and other old papers, which I coloured with distress inks. The quote “Every journey begins with a single step” was printed onto normal paper, and I finished it off by adding the shoes embellishment. Nothing special, but I rather like it.

The second is very different, and resulted from a ‘demo’ of my beeswax technique when my sister visited. There’s a certain abstraction in ‘Crumbs’, as well as some vintage elements and I confess that I rather like the whimsical feel and title.

However, I’m beginning to wonder, yet again, if my art has any direction or purpose, other than to allow my playful muse an outlet. Whilst still drawn to urban and ‘urban nature’ themes, neither are appearing in my actual work.

With the end of the year in sight, I do question whether or not I have kept to my aim to develop my work (see: and my word for 2009 is…. ).  I have certainly learned and developed techniques, and worked with collage and journals more, both areas that I feel comfortable with. But I am being drawn in different directions as the year draws to a close. Vintage, ‘freestyle’ themes, and altered books are calling to me. As is, once more, the lure of painting… Time, perhaps, to re-read my notes and consider yet again how to progess.

Love’s old sweet song

Inspired by some old sheet music that I was using as a background, this 8″x8″ square collage has taken me a while to complete. Originally I had very few ideas for this piece, and had painted the background along with tearing and pasting some of the music before deciding on what I really wanted to do. Finding the magazine picture of the loving couple lying in a field was instrumental in working out the final idea.

The image was transferred onto the already prepared canvas using a dry gel technique. Using more sheet music, including the title, some handmade paper and fabric, I gradually built up layers, painting with Viva decor paints (precious colour and crackle paints) before adding the final embellishments.

Although a move away from the urban themes that I’ve been developing and working on for the past year, I’m pleased with the ‘diverson’ as it allowed me to play with different colours and the transfer technique (something I hadn’t done on this scale before).

Another long break…

Again, apologies. But I’ve done very little art since the last post, and have been in a rather hazy world for the last month or so. Hopefully, the mist is slowly lifting, so here are the 2 little creations that I have done.

The first is an altered matchbox for a rather belated birthday gift. Luckily the recipient didn’t mind about it being late, and seemed delighted with her little ‘treasure’ box.

Open matchbox with goodies

I made the 3 flower embellishments (one on the box, 2 inside) from air-dry clay; the other items in the box were from my stash. The box itself was decorated with paper and paints, including crackle paint, an item which I love using.

The other item I made was a quiltie for a swap. An interesting one, we had to base our design on a photograph taken by our partner. Here’s the original photo (I’m sure Alis won’t object to me sharing it here):

And here is my finished quiltie:

Mostly fabric-painted cotton. The bench itself was printed onto cotton after having been turned into a ‘drawing’ using PaintShopPro and painted before being stuck onto the hand-drawn background. Finished with hand needle-felting and stitching.

And that’s been my creative output for the last month, apart from a few doodles in my journal. Still, I’m working on a collage at the moment, so hopefully there will be more to share soon.

Collages

Again, another long break from my blog Must post here more regularly, I know – sorry, folks!!!

Anyway, here is “Kite over the Moor”:

Kite Over the Moor

Similar to “Window on the Moor” (see “Oops”), using the same techniques. But lighter and somehow happier – having used kites in my doodles for a while, and loving the freedom/ flight symbolism, it was inevitable that one would appear in my collages!

Over the last week, I’ve done two more collages. Entitled “Urban Nature 1 and 2″ these are again on 7″x5″ canvases. I used textured papers, fabric, acrylic and Viva Decor paints plus air-dry clay embellishments. My first time making clay pieces for inclusion in my art, but certainly won’t be the last.

Urban Nature 1

Urban Nature 2

I had great fun with both of these and am pleased with the way my work has developed recently. I’m fascinated at the direction in which my art is going – wonderfully interesting, how it seems to be taking off on it’s own, lol!!!

Urban Twilight

Another long break without posting… partly because we went on holiday for a week, but mostly because I haven’t been particularly creative during the last month.

However, here is the textured collage that I did using various bits of card, bubble wrap, paper, fabric pieces and Viva Decor paints + Rub-n-Buff wax:

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as good from the scan as in real life – too many shiny metallic effects, lol! And not all of the textures are easy to see. But it should give you a good idea of what it’s like.

I really enjoyed working with the materials and the freedom of not working from reality. A year or so ago I wouldn’t have envisaged developing abstraction within my work but it does seem that my art is moving more in that direction of late. In fact, I recently bought a book on abstract painting and am using the exercises to explore the genre further. Hopefully, I’ll eventually share my efforts here