New Zone Gallery and Metamorphosis

I am very excited to have a piece in the New Zone Gallery's Zone 4 All Show in April. Metamorphosis is a one of a kind mixed-media collage, with vintage elements, hand-lettering, and hand inking. It's my largest current piece at about 36" x 24" with the frame. And one of my favorite quotes to ponder.

Fall Collage: Nevermore

I am having a very, very good time with collage lately, playing with a limited palette of pens, watercolors, papers and stamps.

 I'm using Pitt india ink pens, and loving the really velvety dark black you get by going back over the first round of inking.

Paper for these is either blank watercolor postcard stock (I love watercolor paper) or Bristol ACEOs.

I'm digging into my backstock of vintage books that have been damaged and could use the second life. In this case, we're talking about a couple of old dictionaries and schoolbooks. Fun!

Love and Wings

Love and Wings Mixed Media Collage

This is a little part of my perfect world: living somewhere soft and warm where you are safe with people you love and trust, and it gives you wings to fly with.

This piece will be part of my show next month at the 5th Street Beanery in Eugene.

Blast From The Past

Work in Progress: You Can Take It With

I've been thinking a lot lately about the kid that I was in middle school. Looking back, I was fearlessly creative and completely unafraid to be myself, and therefore so un-self-aware as to be utterly clueless about anything social. I had almost no friends, but except for the constant teasing at school, and bullying, it almost didn't bother me. I had my creative outlets and my books, and that was pretty much enough.

In some ways, I think I was almost happier back then because I didn't have the kind of creative inhibitions that I do now. Self awareness has its price, and so does the desire for social acceptance. There are days when I am so worried about how someone will judge my work and me along with it, that I'm afraid to do/make anything. Considering how badly I want to make my living through my personal handiwork, this is a problem.

While thinking about these things, I decided to make a piece of art as if it were 1983, and all I had were scissors and glue and an old magazine. This is what I came up with. Nothing is glued down yet, because I'm still fiddling with placement and pondering new elements, but I'm not displeased with the effect I've created. I like the ghostly, Cheshire Cat-like effect of the eyes. We'll probably be seeing more of that in the future.

I don't have any answers to my problem yet, but at least I made something real.

Art Show at Orycon

My panel at Orycon's art show

Sorry to be so quiet lately! I've been getting ready for (and then recovering from) Orycon. Orycon is our local science fiction/fantasy convention. I've been going to it since 1991, and for the last few years, I've entered my artwork in the convention's art show. And this year, since I've been doing so much mixed media collage, I decided to enter my recent work in the show.

This is probably the best, most polished entry I've ever put together. Bear encouraged me to frame everything, which made a big difference. (I also had a table with some of my felties and overflow artwork, but I let myself get too busy to take a picture of it, silly me.) Nine collaged pieces and three original illustrations.

Overall, it was a great experience. I sold a couple of my felt pieces, and Discovery was claimed by a friend of Bear's, who saw it in the picture he posted to ye olde Facebooke. I think the big lessons I learned for next year would be to make prints of a few pieces to place in the print shop at the show and to target my artwork more carefully.

My friend Vandy didn't sell any of her original pieces, but multiple prints of her work sold. It seems like convention goers are somewhat more likely to buy artwork at print prices rather than original prices. Also, cats and dragons and Dr Who inspired artwork seemed to be the most popular, so I may try to work in more cats next year. Happily, I love cats.

With Her Heart and Her Boots

With Her Heart and Her Boots - Mixed Media Collage

"Bats in the belfry" "A penny saved is a penny earned" "Her heart was in her boots" - all those wonderfully descriptive sayings and metaphors of the past! I grew up with them, having been raised by a mother who as a child was raised by her Victorian grandmother. Lately, I've been thinking of ways to give those old stock phrases a little bit of a twist, replace a word here and there to give the meaning a nudge.

"Her heart was in her boots" is a metaphor for feeling low. For this collage, I gave her a heart that had definitely escaped from her boots, and both her boots and herself wings to fly away.

The background is hand-colored and painted with a gear stencil. The butterflies, I hand-cut, using my own templates, out of art paper and then hand-embellished with pen. Flowers and heart are another art paper. Boots and cameo are vintage ephemera.

Monday's Inspiration: Lisa Swifka

Artwork by Lisa Swifka

One of the things I love about mixed-media art and collage is that there about a million ways to create artwork in that style, all beautiful and unique. Another amazing artist that I've discovered lately is Lisa Swifka who blogs over at A Whimsical Bohemian. I am particularly inspired by her use of layering, color, and type, and the way she mixes her original art in with found elements.

Lisa is organizing an art blog event called Our World, Our Art for early 2013. I am really hoping to participate; it sounds amazing.

Click here for some more gorgeous examples of Lisa's artwork.

Work in Progress: Metamorphosis

Work in progress: Metamorphosis

I have to admit, as much as I love spring and summer, fall colors are absolutely irresistible. The moment I saw this picture of Pagliacce, I knew he needed wings and rich autumnal colors around him. This piece is very likely to become part of a larger piece with a quote from Edgar Allan Poe. The actor reminds me very much of a young E.A.P.

The backgrounds are hand-colored with Copics and the orange/black paper comes from my collection. Pagliacce came from an old book on the opera. The butterfly (a picture, of course) is a Purple Emperor.

Dreaming & Discovery: Works in Progress

We Live, Move and Breathe Discovery - Progress

I am making progress on several projects. Discovery is a lot closer to being done - everything is now glued down except for the butterfly, and I may go with a different butterfly or moth. I had a breakthrough on the words and did them by hand - I love the results! I added the star field with the same white pen. I'm kind of thrilled with the way this piece is coming along.

Dream - Progress

Dream is coming along as well, though nothing is glued down yet. I found some additional elements to add to the collage mix and added the hand-drawn filigree and butterfly outlines to the matboard ground. I now have a solid plan for the canvas: I'm going to coat it with a thin layer of gesso and cover it with a thin sheet of crumpled white tissue paper. The goal is to have the colors shining through an ethereal textured paper.

Tiny Fairy

Tiny Fair Mixed Media Collage

With a variety of works in progress, I'm happy to have a completed little project to share. This piece began with the words "tiny fairy" clipped out of an old book, along with an illustration. I found an illustration of a woman playing tenis in a vintage AD, and went off from there.

The background is my beloved scrap matboard, hand-colored with Copics. The scrolls I drew work nicely with the variegated effect of hand-coloring. Even with her dragonfly wings, the little figure still has a strong New England preppy feel, so I went with crisp, warm plaids, polka-dots, and geometric print for the flowers. I finished the surface with gel medium to give it some sheen and texture.

The overall composition is meant to be fun and nothing else. Sometimes I love putting something together for the whimsy of it, and not worry about telling a story or having a deeper meaning.

Completed! Catterfly Artist Trading Card

Catterfly Artist Trading Card

I've got a lot of works in progress right now, so it was really nice to come home from a very busy weekend (Bear and I got married last weekend - just a little busy, eh?) and complete a project.

For this art card, I stamped the background with a hand-carved lino block given to me by a friend, which I hand-colored with Copic YG93. The flowers are punched out of art paper from my collection, and the little moth is a found object colored with Copic B21.

I love the way the low-contrast colors on the flowers allow the little cat to gradually emerge from the background! This is my first collaged ATC, and I am happy with it.

Work in Progress: Catterfly ATC

Work in progress: Catterfly ATC

I found out that our local art supply recycling place, MECCA (Materials Exchange Center for Community Arts), has a monthly ATC Swap. ATCs are artist trading cards: miniature works of art on 2.5" by 3.5"backgrounds. I thought it would be great to put some mixed media ATCs together and go meet other local artists. That, and making a dozen or so miniature collages sounds really fun.

This is the first one, with nothing glued down yet. It's interesting to go back to a smaller scale, with collage. I found a picture of a little orange kitten who reminds me of Toby Fat Butt, and some appropriate wings for him. What I haven't figured out yet is what the little guy is looking at. I'm planning on coming up with something amusing for him to be stalking, and embellishing the background with color and pattern.

Work in Progress: Dream

Work in progress: Dream

It's funny, but when I draw, I tend to work small, usually on a background no larger than 8" by 10", and often smaller. Collaging, I'm finding, makes it feel natural to scale up.

I found this painted canvas at BRING, a local recycling/building material outlet. It immediately became something of a logical background for this collage idea inspired by a found print of a painting of a young girl by Pierre Auguste Cott, c. 1870. The canvas is about 18" by 24".  When it's done, this will be one of the largest pieces I've ever attempted.

I'm planning to rework this canvas pretty extensively - probably very little of the original paint will show when I'm done. Nothing is glued down yet, and I expect that the composition will end up being pretty different too. But that's one of the things I love about collage: watching the first glimmerings of an idea start to play themselves out, changing and evolving as they go.

Work in Progress: We Live, Move & Breathe Discovery

We Live Move and Breathe Discovery

Here's my Wednesday work in progress - a mixed media collage (quelle suprise, no?) inspired by the idea that we live, move and breathe discovery. I'm pretty happy with this composition (nothing is glued down yet), but I'd rather like to try luna moths instead of the butterflies. The scale is pretty good, though. I was worried about the butterflies overwhelming the scale of the astronaut, but seeing it at a distance, I think it works. Moths might fade slightly into the background and make for better visual balance.

Discovery background

For the background, I took a piece of matboard and hand-colored the background with Copic B34: Manganese Blue. I really like the rich, watermarked texture I can get with Copics. Then I used a cotton ball to sponge silk paints in blue and black over the top of that. Why silk paints? Because I have them and I haven't been using them for silk painting. They dried quickly and went on nicely. I'll be interested in seeing how the silk paints take the final top coat of gel medium.

Discovery type detail

I think the type needs to be bigger, more readable at a distance. It's an important part of the composition, and those words were my springboard into the concept.

Monday's Inspiration: Lisa Kaus

Lisa Kaus collage in Somerset Studio Magazine

Every Monday, I'm going to try to share something or someone that inspires me.

While looking for mixed-media collage inspiration online, I came across Lisa Kaus and her lovely body of work. My reaction can be summed up in one word: BLISS!

Ms. Kaus's style is light and colorful, lyrical and sweet. Her work has appeared in Somerset Studio and other publications. One of the things about her artwork that appeals to me most is the orderly nature of her collages, such as "Joy Within". She calls this style "Gridlocked" and teaches workshops on it. Taking one of Lisa's classes has been added to my list of dreams.

I Feel An Obsession Coming On

My latest mixed-media collage.

This has been coming on for YEARS. It's like learning a new visual language, but finding that I already have half the vocabulary tucked away in shoeboxes and drawers. I am so very excited about discovering a new way to create characters and hint at stories.

So, for this particular piece, I started with a piece of vintage ephemera that got crunched in a tragic shoulder bag incident. For the background (matboard scrap) I spritzed ink over a tree stencil. The wings, crown, and flowers came from an old and terribly tattered 1927 school reader, and the watch face from a 70s era back issue of AD. The whole was assembled with Golden Soft Gel (gloss), and I layered a coating of the same over the top for texture and sealing.

Blossoms Floating Collage

Over the last year or so, I've picked up quite a few books on collage and mixed media art. The form intrigues me. It's visually rich, borrows shamelessly, incorporates ephemera, and gives new life to all sorts of imagery. It's also a challenge for me, because my personal visual style tends to be very clean and simple. Collage challenges my boundaries. A lot of people don't know when to stop; I don't know when to keep going.

One of my big things recently has been decluttering. Getting rid of things that I don't use to make room in my life for the things that I do. And last week, I decided that if I hadn't made use of my collaging books and materials in the next year, they were all going to have to go. That decision must have seriously kicked something loose because I had an almost preternatural urge to create these happi coat collages.

Inspired by a similar collage, I drew the template for the coat onto chipboard and cut it out by hand. The background is mat board hand-colored with my Copic pens. The coats and embellishments come from my collection of collaging materials. I was delighted by how different my versions are from the art that inspired them.