ATCs for 60 Tech Swap

Here are the pics of the two versions of the ATCs I made for the 60 card technique swap on the arttechniques yahoogroup. They are made on watercolor paper with watercolor paints and iridescent medium--swap participants will get the technique printed on the back of the card, but I am happy to explain it to anyone else who wants to know.

First ATC

Here is my first ATC ever, made at Belinda's house with a technique Shari researched. You can read more about it below. I am so happy with how it turned out!

Improving

After another frustrating round with the camera, I went back to ask Keith for more help, and he showed me another setting that helped a lot. Here is a closeup of my line collage (called Tiger Tiger). I think it looks better in this photo.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..................

I am quickly learning to loathe hubby's camera. I spent about an hour yesterday trying to photograph my stuff that I mentioned in yesterday's blog. As you can see, I got one photo of my line collage that didn't totally suck, but every other photo I took did, though I varied the lighting, the flash, the distance, etc. Clearly photography is not one of my artistic strengths. I'm going to give it another try today, possibly with some different settings, and try to post some better photos.

Progress

I'll have to take some photos and post them later, but I thought it would be good to post an update. I met with my art friends (thanks, Belinda, Harriet, Shari, and Sandy) Tuesday and learned a super-cool new technique involving tissue paper and glue over various collage elements. That was so much fun. I made my first ever ATC's. Belinda asked me to be a swap angel for the 60 ATC technique swap, so I came home and did up a bunch of my watercolor paper with the wet-in-wet/spatter technique I have been working on. Those came out great and now are ready to go out the door. Then of course I had to make up some of that technique in those colors for myself, since I didn't have any. For the swap I did pthalo blue/pthalo green (yum) and cerulean/veridian(double yum), both with iridescent medium. I'll post photos of those later. Not sure what I will use the painted papers for, but I just loved the color combos so much.....well, it's blue and green, what can I say?

The next thing I tackled was the line collage for the Collage Composition class. I knew I wanted to use a spiral line (because I love curved lines, and particularly spirals). So I got out some big matboard and painted a big green spiral. I had printed out some tiger pictures to collage (copyright free of course) and fiddled with the placement a bit, then reached for the Jo Sonja's True Copper paint and the glass bead medium. Let that dry. Didn't like the shape of the matboard, so I tore some pieces off (in true tiger style). Much better. Then I adhered a picture of a tiger's head. I looked at it for a long time, consulted Tasja (my teenage daughter, also an artist), and pondered the placement of some dimensional objects on the board. Finally, I chose three and glued them on. Now it's drying again. Somehow I think it needs something more to unify it, because I have all these strongly colored elements and a lot of fairly defined borders. I need something to cross the borders and unify it. I am thinking about mixing iridescent medium with the copper paint (to tone it down a little) and sponging some on. Not sure. I'm at the stage where I'm afraid to touch it because I think I might wreck it (which is what happens when I really like something). You know, I didn't like it very much until I ripped pieces off the matboard. That helped it so much. Well, after I figure out what to do with it I will take a photo and post it.

Front Cover of Collage Composition Binder

I decorated the front cover of my collage composition binder today. It turned out better than the back cover. I think the composition is somewhat more balanced. I think it is also less monochromatic than the back, and less chaotic. I would be interested in feedback about the composition because I still have a lot to learn. On another topic (I would start a new paragraph, but Blogger isn't letting me right now), I had the great good fortune to inherit a lot of family treasures, some of which I picked up this last weekend in Michigan. There were a ton of old letters, newspaper clippings, photos, and best of all, old books. The best of that bunch was a set of McGuffey's Readers from the early 1920's. They are in excellent condition. Next week I will pick up more family photos. I am very excited about all the potential these items hold for collage. Edited to add: I have finally figured out how to get rid of the dingy greyness in my photos!

Glass Painting

I love the effects of light on glass, and I love to enhance those effects with glass paint. I have been working on a jar with glass paint and bead inclusions. It's a little chaotic because I decided to try out all the colors on one jar--not my usual modus operandi, but that's what I did. Here is one view. If anyone wants to see the other sides, I have those photos on my hard drive ready to send or post.

Weekend Trip

Ah....lucky me, I get the best of both worlds. This weekend we are taking a trip to Michigan, but courtesy of my husband's laptop and the hotel's internet service, I will be able to check in online. However, I'll probably be pretty distracted with family stuff.

The good thing is, I will be doing some creative things other than collage for a couple of days, and therefore when I come back I will hopefully be able to approach my collage comp binder with new eyes and another perspective. Sometimes when a project is going wrong, that is the best thing for me. In the meantime, I am very interested in people's ideas and suggestions. I am seeing more than ever now that I sure do have a lot to learn about composition (and about collage)! I'm glad the learning process is so interesting and so much fun. And it's so nice to have the amazing help and fellowship I have found on the arttechniques and collage composition email lists. The internet sure is a big help.

VBS (Very Big Sigh)

There is a very fine line (for me anyway) between winging it and "haste makes waste". There is an optimal speed for creating art (for me)--fast enough not to second-guess myself (too much), but slow enough to think things through. Well, tonight I exceeded the speed limit. Hopefully I have not ruined the back of my Collage Compostion binder. Of course you can fix anything with enough gesso, right? ;-)

Everything was going fine until I added the fabric paint--a total impulse on my part that I acted on, and it went horribly wrong. Now it looks way too busy. It looks like it was designed by a ferret on crack cocaine who likes aqua. Well, I'll let it dry and then see what more I can do with it. Any suggestions?

Tag! I'm it....

Belinda tagged me, so apparently now I have to tell seven facts about myself (having in turn tagged seven other innocent bystanders....

Well, let's see.

1. I love fantasy. Dragons, unicorns, winged lions, all that stuff. I think it's because I find reality too restrictive. I'd rather go where my imagination can take me.

2. My Christian faith is basic to my existance. I live to serve God, because without His loving care I know I would have given up on life long ago. My relationship with God is the best and most rewarding relationship in my life.

3. I have a seventeen-year-old son who has severe bipolar disorder. He is in a residential treatment program. I can't tell you the things I have been through, fighting for Nate's life and for the services he needs. It has very much changed the person I am to go through the hell we have been through together. And after all that, I have now had to learn how to let go of him and let him begin choosing for himself, even though I have strong feelings about what I think is best for him.

4. I have an incredibly wonderful husband. After an abusive and extremely painful first marriage, I met Keith when I was a single mother trying to make it on my own. After God, he is the single best thing that has ever happened to me. I can never find enough words to talk about how much I love this wonderful, deeeply caring, supportive, patient, and spiritually deep man.

5. I like to listen to a strange combination of obscure and not-so-obscure Christian musicians with--get this--Weird Al. Yup, I'm White and Nerdy!

6. I am the Queen of ADHD. I have spent most of my adult life trying to learn to cope with my highly visual-spatial learning style and ADHD. Organization? Huh? I am usually working on at least five art projects at any given time, and that's the way I like it. Multitasking, thy name is Sarah!

7. I LOOOOOOVE! having my own little studio! At the beginning of the year, my husband suggested we clear out our three-season upstairs porch and make it into a studio for me. At first I was a little doubtful, but once we got it organized, I was in heaven! Now my studio is my retreat. Just sitting there makes me feel so good. I wish I had done this years ago!

8. I have a wonderful fifteen-year-old daughter who, while different from me in personality, is similar in terms of artistic talent. We pursue different media and have different styles, but a lot of our preferences are surprisingly similar. She is a lovely young lady, and I am proud of her!

9. Our dogs are more than just pets, they are family members. My first altered book (which I am working on now) is full of puppy pictures of Daphne, our border collie/lab mix.

10. My career (sixth grade reading and science teacher), while stressful and demanding, is very important to me. I feel that it is not just a job, but a ministry, and I try to improve my teaching every year. Sixth graders are awesome people! I really enjoy my colleagues as well.

Well, that's it for me. Hope I struck the right balance between TMI and otherwise. Hopefully my tag-ee's will soon be posting things about themselves as well. D'Oh! I went over seven, didn't I?

Collage Composition Binder

I recently joined Belinda's new Collage Composition Yahoogroup. I would like to learn more about the fine art of composition, especially since the last art instruction I had was back in middle school (and NO, I won't tell you how long ago that was!) She suggested we get a notebook to put our class printouts and projects in. I had a binder I had been planning on altering, but had gotten disgusted with (because the paint I was using to create a background kept sticking to things...ugh). Well, I probably should have used gesso, but didn't know any better at the time. So I went ahead and gessoed it, and decided to decorate it. I figure that this is like anything else.....the more practice I get, the faster I will learn, so why not practice on this? I decided to start on the back. This is what it looks like so far. Pretty empty still, but at least it's a start.

The Wedding Girls

Here is the finished version of The Wedding Girls. I have to say, I'm not happy with it, but I'm not sure what else to do with it. The picture is also less than great. I do feel that (with a lot of help from Belinda, Shari and Harriet) I have improved it quite a bit--at least now the faces pop more than they did, and it is more unified--but the funky shape was not a good idea (Belinda, you were right, no surprise there). Well, I'll chalk it up as a good learning experience and move on to bigger and better thangs.

Photography Lesson

My wonderful husband, Keith, spent some time with me today teaching me how to adjust the settings on the camera I'm using (his). It's quite different from my old Mavica. Today I learned that the way I have been taking my photos (with backlighting from the windows) is resulting in them looking greyed and washed-out. Well, I'm working on an alternative setup that will provide the light I need and still allow me to position the objects conveniently. This is a second photo of Zeal with new camera settings. It's not perfect, but I'm making some progress. As you can see, I have added a matboard backing and hanging loop.

Back of Journal

This is the back of the journal mentioned in my last blog entry. The rose is made of 14K gold filled wire (I guess I'm glad now I spent all that time making jewelry!)

Altered Journal

I actually finished this one a couple of days ago, but didn't get around to posting it until now. It's an altered journal (if there is such a thing)--blank inside, decorated outside. It was originally a journal from Borders that I clipped the elastic off of and so on. (Got it for 75% off--perfect for experimenting on). If anyone is interested, I will be happy to explain what I did to it (not that it was rocket science or anything).

Getting to Know You Collage

Belinda gave us a challenge to create a collage with one word that summarized us best. It took me a while to figure out my word. After that I sat down and started slinging paint and picking stuff out to put on it. Unlike Wedding Girls, "Zeal" came together perfectly. I see one compositional error I made (or at least I think it is one), but I'm not sure how to correct it and not sure I want to. Overall, I'm happy with this and feel it represents me to a T.

The parts of the collage have a special story. The background colors are phthalo blue and phthalo green--my favorite watercolor colors. I also have included iridescent medium, which I am in love with. The randomness of the pattern is expressive of my visual-spatial learning style--creative and somewhat random by nature. The medallion was a gift from my son and is an Irish cross (I am more Irish than anything else) It represents both my family relationships and my relationship with God. The wire rose expresses another dichotomy of my nature--the feminine part vs. the tough, resilient part I have been forced to develop because of life circumstances. The mokume' gane circlet in the upper left represents the wholeness I have found in my life as well as the moon, with its cycles of change, representative of the changes that take place as I move from the "mom" stage outwards towards the post-parenting part of my life. The shampoo glass bead in the mid-upper right (which is the element I feel I didn't place so well) doesn't have a particular meaning except that it is something I made myself in the flame, and perhaps it represents the way we are refined through the fires of the trials in our lives to take a different shape, as the glass rod did in becoming this bead. Or what the heck, maybe it all just looks pretty together! =-)

Struggling

I have come to realize that I am really struggling with this first collage (tentatively titled Wedding Girls). I realize now that the photo is too dark for the background, and the colors of the photo don't tie in well with the background. I mean, it doesn't look really bad, but the photo sort of looks vaguely like it's in a cave. I'm going to go ahead and finish it though for whatever I can learn from it. The picture above is the latest update.

Yeah, Another One

In my last post I said "photo_s_", implying more than one, and indeed I do have another one. It is of my handpainted collage paper mentioned yesterday. I am disappointed that the photo doesn't really show the colors the way they are--they are brighter IRL, but here it is anyway.

Finally Got Photos

Well, here's my work in progress photo for my first ever collage. It is based on a photo of my daughter, mother, and two grandmothers at my wedding. I have made some errors on it (such as putting matte medium on the surface of the photo), but this is all one big experiment anyway and I haven't screwed it up badly enough to quit. The heart is a handmade polymer clay mokume gane pendant I created years ago when I was doing polymer clay. I realize the photo is none to clear....and kinda dark, too. Must get technically inclined hubby to give me pointers on brightening/sharpening it up. But it gives you some idea of what I'm doing right now.

Excited by the Possibilities

I found out today that I am going to be inheriting a lot of ooooold photos and family memoribilia from my mother's parents. What timing! I can't wait to see all that wonderful old stuff and start planning on how to incorporate color reproductions into my artwork. There is some colorful history in that part of the family--a well-known hatmaker and some other artistic types. Apparently my grandmother saved just about everything.

On another note, I had a great time hand-painting some paper for collage today. I have been doing a lot of that, but this was with the new Arches rough watercolor paper I got for a steal on clearance. My watercolor swatchbook pinpointed a mix of phthalo blue and quinadorcine rose as a great combo to make a vivid purple, so I did some wet-in-wet work, did some splattering, added iridescent medium, and some embossing powder. Yum! When it dried, I thought it looked too monochrome, so I sprayed it with water and splashed on various combos of the two base colors. Then I put on some more iridescent medium combined with the colors. Then I sprayed it some more. Success! I will take a photo and post it tomorrow.

Long Time No See

It's been almost a year since I posted here, but now I'm back. In that time, my art has undergone a radical transformation. In the past, I made jewelry almost exclusively. Much of it was made with wire, as one can see from looking at my old posts. Shortly after my last post was made, I put my jewelry aside for the most part to work on my health. By that time I had been making jewelry for over six years in various ways. In the fall, I started picking up drawing again, mostly pen and ink. I found that unsatisfying because I wanted to be able to create subtle gradations between and among colors, which is very difficult to do with pen unless you use pointilism. As the Queen of ADHD, I wasn't about to spend weeks on a single piece! Then my daughter sat me down and made me try her watercolor paints, and it was instant love.

I had known about WetCanvas for some time, and had started hanging out there in the Pen and Ink forum, so I just trotted on over to Watercolors and began to research to know the materials I would need. I sold a lot of my precious metal wire back to a manufacturer to give me seed money to start out with the best of materials for my watercolors, which I did, choosing M. Graham paints and Arches paper, along with a variety of different brushes. I played mostly happily with watercolors for several months. The only problem was that I found the slow, deliberate approach that works best with representational watercolors (at least during the learning curve) was very frustrating for me. Since I was viewing my art largely as therapy/stress relief, that didn't work very well. Therefore, I started doing more abstract work. Somewhere in this process I got the idea that I wanted to do collage. I could picture combining watercolor stuff with some of the lovely beads and other materials I had hoarded duirng my jewelry-making days. Sparkle AND subtle gradations of color! Yeah!

So, after awhile, I decided I also wanted to take my watercolors and apply them to household objects. The world of decoupage beckoned, and I started working on that. I wanted my work to be much more dimensional than classic decoupage, which is generally very flat and looks "painted-on". My decoupage books made reference to altered art and collage, so it was only natural that I began to investigate those options as well.

So here I am. It's the beginning of summer break, prime art-making time. I just bought over a hundred dollars' worth of beautiful papers and other materials for collage. I have located all of my cabochons, which just beg to be included. I have been painting abstract watercolors expressly for use in collage. I have found some beautiful duplicate photos and have drawn some interesting things (and gotten my daughter to do the same). Now I am ready to begin. In fact, I have started.....I took a photo of my daughter, mother, and both grandmothers, taken at my wedding, and have started working with it. I will post a photo when it is done. And so I say to myself, Bon Voyage! May it be an artful, color-ful, texture-ful, joy-ful summer of fascinating exploration of the possibilities of mixed media.