Extreme Composition Lesson 4 Collage

Lesson four is all about variety. How much variety can a composition take.? 

Using a variety of collage papers form a grid collage. Don't use the same collage piece twice.

Then using patterns made on transparent sheets try to connect the various elements. 

Collage I

22 x 33 cm

Collage II

22 x 33 cm

Collage III

22 x 33 cm

Used a variety of transparent papers: Thin plastic film, baking sheets, and wax paper.

Haven't been able to able to find tissue paper as yet. 

I have to be better organized. Have to have a bigger supply of options and then limit them.

Enjoyed the process, helped release pent-up energies. Not sure if the compositions work, they are still a bit fresh.

Making by Hand Collage WIP I

I am experimenting doing collages with oils and cold wax. These are done mainly in my weekly workshop. Sometimes I paste the pieces on at home and then work on it at my weekly workshop.
In this piece, I am using cuts from my RISD alumni bulletin.  I forgot to take a photo of the collage pieces before applying paint so the first image is with the gray background color,
Previous collages: Reflections and Diptych Collage.

Oils & Cold Wax Collage  I

WIP

Oils and Cold Wax

Start with Background color

New Roads

This morning while checking my mail I opened Chris Lalley's blog and aside from her lovely painting was a quote that I really connected to.

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there."

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

I feel that I am traveling roads that I don't know where they are going, in hopes that they will take me to where ever I am going.I just hope I will know when I get there! Speaking of roads I have to mention Frost's beautiful poem The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Yesterday I was feeling out of sorts. Maybe I was incubating something. Rested most of the day reading, watching TV, napping. In the evening felt up to tackling my dancing lines project. I had already cut them into four parts and they had been in my view all day.  The question rose, still in bed I remembered that at one time I had bought a small, and I mean small, set of gouache paints. They seemed a good choice for the situation, although I had never painted with them. I bought them in the anticipation of an artist that was to make a webinar on gouache that never materialized. So I took them out of their hiding place, took a few of my Rosemary Ivory brushes, and with a small jar of water on my side table went to work. It was a juggling act but worked itself out.

These are all  18 x 21 cm. Two I rotated and two were kept the same. Click to enlarge and view in the light box.

Bottom Left

Bottom right

Top Left

Top right

These are the four in  their correct positions

Reminder of where I started

before cutting

Hope to be traveling a new road some time today. May take them outside in the sun.

Dancing Line Part Three

Remember Dancing Line part 2. Well thought I about to cut it into smaller parts. Not just yet. Bought pen and ink at the store and decided to try my hand on this piece. Took to the pen very nicely. But whoa and behold some creatures started to come out of the woodwork. Actually I liked them so I did some more crayon work,

Not to get too attached I will be cutting this evening,

Dancing Line  III WIP

35.5 x 42 cm

Black and White

Extreme Composition Lesson 4 Variety Variety Variety

Lesson 4 is all about variety. The first exercise was to make as many marks on a paper with no background, using crayons, ink, paint, cutouts etc. Now I  have to go back and doodle more on some of the marks.
There were questions to ask oneself.

• How difficult was it not to repeat elements?
I found it quite difficult, I have to increase my library of mark making.

 • Do any of your collections look like interesting compositions in themselves? Or do they all look disjointed?
Very disjointed

• Are they fun to look at?
Yes in a way

• Did you discover any new ways of making marks?
Yes

• Did you use processes or materials that felt uncomfortable to you? 
No, not really. Tried pen and ink which was new for me.

• How difficult was it not to paint a background or connect the elements with some unifying principle?
Slightly uncomfortable.

Next part is to make three distinct marks and connect them in various ways!
I made 3 pages of marks!!! Click to enlarge!

 Bye for now!

Last of Mish Mash

Finished I don't know. This piece has history. Started back July 2015 and then in again end of November till I took it out of the closet and decided that it need revision/transformation. Looking at it on my easel as I write this blog I still feel uneasy especially about the middle area. Think I'll let rest for a while or chuck into the wood stove. This is the last of the 3 revised paintings.

37 x 28 cm\

Oils & Cold Wax

Cardboard

 Here are some of the stages.

From November 2015

Going bold

Calming down

Have been doing some exercise from the course I am taking from Jane Davies. Started before the January Challenge. This is a work at your own pace course. Hope to post tomorrow.

See ya!!

Dancing Line Part Two

OK put on paint and spread it around. A sort of greenish gray. Added oranges, yellows and blue. Rubbed and blotted, scrubbed a bit too! Spread it on with my silicon knife and palette knife. Decided I needed white. Spread it on, rubbed some off. Really not knowing where I was going or what I was doing. Tried some stamping, rubbed it off. Decided to leave it for the night or else I think I would have chucked the whole thing.. no not really!!!

Dancing Line  II WIP

35.5 x 42 cm

Black and White

I sometimes check out how the tones look in B&W. May need some contrast!!! 

See ya tomorrow!

In Line for Messing and Cutting

This piece was done in the evening and was done with the intention of modifications, layering and cutting and more modifications.

Well, that's fine, but where do I begin. So many choices so many decisions! What now, what colors to use, what tools to incorporate. How am I going to cut it up?

Using heavy watercolor paper the first layer was done with watercolor pencil, dancing line, and watercolor crayons. I used water on this layer and then put a layer of matt medium.

I am doing a project for my art workshop that involves a presentation along with a piece of artwork of our making, painting, collage, photograph, sculpture etc. My topic is getting out of the box specifically in regard to creativity. I have been doing research and one thing I read is that restraints can increase creativity. So I shall choose a limited palette and work with acrylic paint using mainly the palette knife for my next layer.

Dancing Line WIP

35.5 x 42 cm

More thoughts for consideration, what do I like and what don't I like. Don't think these are relavent at this stage because I want to be intuitive as much as possible.

Jerusalem Mist

Leaving Jerusalem at bus stop caught the mist rising.

Reflections

I always look forward to receiving my RISD alumni bulletin. The minute I opened this winters issue I knew that I would use the cover for my next collage, The issue is mainly to do with self-reflections. In the January 30 x 30 I tried somehow to reach my inner self, sometimes succeeding and sometimes not. That is one faction of self-reflection.

I quickly tore up the pieces and randomly glued them to a piece of cut canvas, from my storehouse of cut canvases Traudi gives me when she trims from her roll of canvas,  Then in class, I started painting and then realized I hadn't taken a photo of the first stage.  Luckily I found the RISD site for these bulletins and found the cover. If you want to read the issue here is the link.

Cut Canvas 39 x 47 cm

Oils & Cold Wax

Collage

WIP?

Cover RISD XYZ

Winter 2017

Portrait of the artist 22 x 17" by Shahzia Sikander

one of four etchings published by Pace Editions

What attracted me to this print were the colors, grays and yellows, and the abstract quality of the marks. Found some other elements in the issue, mainly pasting them to the left side of the canvas.

Don't know if this is finished, but I do like this stage. Will bring it into class next week.

Catching Up

This past month has been a sort of roller coaster with the challenge and all that needs to be done to post and link. Also the end of the month with health issues that thankfully are better. So it's time to catch up with work done in my weekly workshop.

My weekly workshop is not like workshops that I have seen online, where everyone follows the demo of the artist.  We are a group of artists, each doing his/her own thing, at all stages of artistic levels, and in different medias. To look at the variety of work you wouldn't think that they came from the same mentor. That is what is why it's so great to meet and share. I plan to do a  photograph shoot and maybe post and introduce you to my wonderful group.

This piece has a long history. It started more than a year ago when I started to experiment with cold wax and oils in an abstract way. Then in December, I took 3 works that I decided to re-work. The first I posted several versions the last finished in January.  This is the second piece. The start you can see here. I called it metamorphous.

Metamorphous II

25 x 35 cm

Oils & Cold Wax

Early stage

Boldly added black UGH!!!

 Hope to post the third over the weekend. I also have a few from the challenge that I cut up and re-worked.  Move on or catch up? A juggle!!!

Wonderful Gift

Don't you just LOVE sketchbooks? Traudi, an Artist friend from my workshop, surprised me with this gorgeous one!!! Pages are 9.5" x 7" of very good heavy textured paper. Anyone else afraid of a new sketch book? It looks handmade!

Traudi doesn't have a website so I will paste a few images here with some of her fabulous work

Thanks Traudi!

Collage January 30 x 30 2017

This time I wanted to make my collage using Photoshop. Sometimes life interferes and I didn't have the time and mental energy to cope. Missed the date to link to the challenge site but decided to post anyway.  After several tries, I made an action to resize by batch, brought them in a new doc and moved them around. Next one will be better.  Happy camper!! Have to renew my PS skills!!

Diptych Collage

These were done in my weekly workshop. Two 50 x 50 cm wrapped canvases.  Collage pieces from newsprint. Done with a palette knife.

Start

Start

Diptych 1

50 x 50 cm wrapped canvas

Newsprint 

Oils and Cold Wax

Detail 

Detail 

Diptych 2

50 x 50 cm wrapped canvas

Newsprint 

Oils and Cold Wax

Detail

Detail

Have to figure out how to place them together. Probably have to change layout.