ArtiphyTheHeart

Ravens And Crows

I'm jumping from book to book.  Today's page was created in my little brown paper wrapper journal which is one of the paperback journals I made in Kelly Kilmer's J.O.Y. group.  With the exception of Nancy Baumiller's crow, everything on this page was cut from books or magazines.  No paint.  Just strips of paper or cut paper circles, images or shapes.  That's all.  Oh, and pen work.  Quite a bit of that, too.  I used my Rapidograph and India ink for the letters, numbers and flourishes, and accented with a white water-based Sharpie poster paint pen.  That's all.

I made several paperback journals in J.O.Y.  I've dedicated this one to the Crayola crayon project we're doing in another art group I belong to.  Each week, a different colored Crayola crayon is the inspiration for whatever we want to create.  I'm a little behind the curve, but the inspiration color for this page was Crayola's Tropical Rain Forest.  

A Sneak Peak + Some Philosopy. Long, But So Worth It, I Think

If you're a picture book person, you'll hate this post.  There are lots of words here.  Feel free to fast forward  to the picture, if that's your thing.  For the rest of you, I've really got a lot to say today!  So stick with me, grab your favorite beverage, and read on...

I treat art journals like working sketchbooks.  I don't believe in finishing them, because that would defeat their purpose.  I work in tons at a time.  If you don't believe me, drop by with a scale and weigh them.  Go ahead.  But if I'm working, I won't hear you banging on the door, and my dog, Buffy the Bichon with the set of retractable teeth might greet you first, so beware...just saying.  Ask the big, burly guy from the gas company.   The one who refuses to come back to read the meter.  

But that's another story for another time, and the truth is, when it comes to art I also don't believe in rules -- just helpful guidelines.  Adhering to all the guidelines is what makes most art really, really boring.  Not knowing which guidelines to keep and which ones to throw away is what makes up most of the art on the planet.  Discerning the difference, one piece at a time, is what makes a work of art successful, and why most of the masses don't understand art at all, using it as a tool instead of keeping it in it's proper place at the top of everything, not just the food chain.  

An art teacher told me this when I was very, very young, and I still believe him.  Art is its own purpose, and if anyone asks the insipid question, "What are you going to do with it..."  RUN!  As fast and far as you can, because you've met the "enemy".  Or so said Frank Dolphin, my friend, mentor, muse, and very first art teacher.  The one who believed in me enough at age 4, that he told the newspaper what made my work different from the usual stuff, and how I "got it".  Kids hated that.  When I told him, he explained that jealousy is the curse of artists.  Real artists aren't jealous, don't understand jealousy, and are constantly victimized by the jealousy of the masses.  Make no mistake...he was a guy for the masses.  Frank was a real live American Communist.  My family had to stretch a bit to get past Frank's politics, but they put art in its proper place, above the pinnacle of everything, even politics, so Frank was not only accepted, but always welcomed.  But Frank was a realist.  He understood that the masses are jealous, and that for the most part, they don't "get" art.

So I decided to break another one of my own guidelines.  The one above about not ever finishing an art journal.  What I'm after is not an artist book, which is something that by it's nature is finished.  What I'm making is a book of art journal pages with a cohesive style, one page flowing into the next, almost finished-ish, but always able to be reworked.  I don't work out the stuff in advance, I just work the spreads, paint or glue over what I don't like, and keep the rest.  

I think this is how most people view these things called art journals, anyway, as finished books of artsy/craftsy  pages that you may write upon when finished.  It has never been my view, and won't be.  I still believe with my whole heart and soul, that art journals are places for pure, unadulterated experimentation.  Places to spill stuff on, and that makes them better.  The place to try things out, make notes, and keep all the scraps of artistic fodder in one place.  I also believe in functioning soul/art journals.  Places to slather mixed media all over the place randomly, then make all the very, very difficult, gut wrenchingly tough artistic decisions necessary to resolve the pages into an artistic whole, picking apart, digging, ferreting, for the symbols among the rubble that give clues to the nature of the artist's soul, essence, nature, heart.  Then, most difficult of all, looking at them honestly and deciphering their messages and meanings as they are, not as we want them to be, or would have them be, in a perfect world and existence.  This is very far from what we usually see in magazines, and for the most part, except for a couple of stray pages, unless you're a friend, a colleague, or have been here in person, you've never seen any of my raw stuff, either.

So, courtesy of Strathmore Workshop#2 under the guidance of Linda Blinn, who by the way, has some fabulous ideas and communicates them like a charm, I'm having the time of my life making more art journal spreads.  And I'm using my Strathmore spiral bound journal with 140# watercolor paper, which isn't being exploited to its full extent since I'm gluing stuff onto so much of it, that its water-sopping texture for the most part, remains virginal.  But my one aim with this is to try out as many of Linda's suggestions as practicable, and to create a book in which one un-preconceived and unrelated page flows seamlessly into another -- not because they were (un-artistically) pre-planned, but because each unplanned page contains a necessary element which connects it with the page before, and the page after.  And the key,  the true actual in reality key, is that it the book's seamlessness is not pre-planned.  It happens instinctually.  And wow.  It's working!

I plan to show the final result of this experiment in a video.  I'll flip through the pages and probably over-explain stuff, because that's what I do.  It will be on my blog in day or so, or when it gets there, really.  In the meantime, here's a tiny sneak peak.

I can't say that it's representative of the book, because each page in this book is so vastly different from the next, although still cohesive.  I created this spread for Collage Play With Crowabout, Nancy Baumiller's community which delights me to no end.  The aim was to use as many of the images from a collage sheet she provided as possible, turning them into a collage which will be the background for an art journal spread in my Strathmore book.  I like contrasts of all kind, especially the contrast between commercial images and drawing, so I doodled most of it with a rapidograph and assorted Sharpie paint pens over a painted background.  The rest is credited as follows:

• Green paper for girl's dress:  ArtByChrysti
• Alphabet letters and text:  candy-n29
• Arms:  annstanley59
• Lady's face and stole:  Mrs Inman
• More letters:   fidgetrainbowtree
• No. 0377:  Element of Time
• Legs and shoes: Crowabout Studios

Lesson 40

The text reads:  "Avoid good sense and maybe you'll find substitutes for originality in your life".  I won't share my own personal interpretation.  I'll let you decide what it means to you.  My camera is not behaving, so I'm having to make do with scans.

For Crowabout #115, Strathmore Workshops 2, and Wild Precious Art Journaling.  

Image Credits:  "Avoid Substitues" & "Good Sense" from: ArtbyChrysti; "Man" and "3 Men" from: plaisanter; "In Your Life"from: enigmachck1; "Maybe Youll Find" & "For" from: Crankydragon; "Originality" from: scavengerart. 

 

Living In The Present

Todays pages, for Crowabout #114

Lady Luck

In just under the wire for Crowabout #113   

It's been an extraordinarily busy week.  A good one, all things considered, and Lady Luck had nothing to do with it, except for providing a theme.  

Catching Up With Crowabout

I love Collage Play With Crowabout.  Right now I'm catching up on previous weeks.  

The Twilight Club was for week #110.  That's more than 2 years of Saturdays!

Also, I'm facilitating a prompt group at Wild Precious Studios called Making Mandalas: Art Within the Circle.  There are more than 70 people participating, and we're having more fun than I can say!  Why don't you come and join us!

And speaking of Mandalas, I have created three concentric circle templates for you to download and use in your artwork!  You can find them HERE, at ArtiphyTheSoul, along with other information about mandalas, artwork, and SoulCollage®.

Just Another Page

Nothing special.   I did play with Derwent Inktense pencils today, but not here.  This page is mostly gouache, acrylic and sharpie poster paint pens.    

The "love" letters are from Nancy Baumiller.  If you like them, get yourself to Crowabout Studio B at deviant scrap.  I dare you!  Once you get there, you won't be able to say no, but who would want to?

Ice Cream Days

Spring is here and it's time for a cone.  

Ornamental oranges remain on the tree a little longer than the edible varieties, but they will be gone soon. Buds which haven't yet burst into blossoms are already fragrant.  

 

 
 At the bottom right you can see the new buds.  Soon the oranges will shrivel and harden and fall from the tree.  Ice cream days have arrived.

For a great cone, first go to Cave Creek, Arizona.  You'll know you're in the right place when you see this guy in the parking lot on the corner.

 

He's the Bad Donkey.  Don't worry.  He belongs to the pizza side.  He won't eat your frozen stuff.

 

Just inside the door, follow the Dinky Donkey on the right.  That's where the ice cream is.  The hunt is over;  You've found the treasure cone.

 

 

 Here's a little map I whipped up earlier this week for the Crowabout Group. 

 

  I don't know if it leads to ice cream treasure, but it's worth a look.

TwentyTen...

...For Crowabout, Three Muses, and Pointy Hats and Wings

 

Water...

...was the first thing I thought of when I stepped back from the finished collage and took a good, hard look.  It makes me think of an undersea world, or a huge aquarium that the boy is standing in front of.  I hope water is an auspicious sign for the new year.  It's also the Three Muses theme this week.

Most of the images are from Crowabout, but a lot of the border are pieces from my private stash.  The background is lots of thin layers of acrylic paint, and "2010" is penned.

Short and Sweet:

Tuesday was like traveling a long, rocky road which left me exhausted, so this is a short post.   Wednesday will be better (and already is, as it's a fair bit after midnight now).  Thankfully I'm at a place in my artwork where all goes well even if the rest of the day is poor.  This collage was a labor of love!

Have a great day, Everyone!

Tick Tock...

...For Crowabout, Mixed Media Monday, Theme Thursday, Wednesday Stamper, Three Muses, and Pointy Hats and Wings

My fashionable (MMM theme) Zetti (WS theme) was made with images from Crowabout, and from my own private stash of patterned papers (TT theme).  And since the passing of time is a recurring theme in my dreams, it fits for the Three Muses theme, as well.

Tonight's post will be short and sweet.  I'm a little under the weather, and as it's always better to be on top of things than underneath them, I'll be calling it a night early, hoping for lots of rest and pleasant dreams.   I plan to hop into bed with the book I'm reading:  The Needle's Eye by Margaret Drabble, a glass of wine, and I'll try to catch an episode or two of the original Prisoner series on DVD before I drift off to sleep.  We're trying to finish the original series in the order they were made before the new Prisoner airs this weekend.  I must say, I'm not optimistic about the re-make.  From what I've been told, not much of it seems to even follow the original story.  Still, we're only a couple of episodes away from finishing the original, so it will be fun to have those fresh in our minds when we see what the studios have come up with on Sunday.

Stay well, and have a great day, Everyone!

Heroes And Villains...

For Crowabout, Illustration Friday, Theme Thursday, and Three Muses...

 

Sometimes the lines get blurred, and it's hard to tell the heroes from the villains.  

I'm extra busy right now, so there's no long post to go with this one.

Have a great day, Everyone!

The Seer...

... For Crowabout #58, Creative Catalyst #85, Created By Hand, and Theme Thursday

The Carnival...

We all know that there's a first time for everything, and often its the singular impact of those "first times" that set the stage for the "rest of the times" in our lives.  My first onset of bravery and outspokenness, together with the way it was handled by my parents, set the stage for a lifetime of not being afraid to speak my mind, but also taught me to think before speaking.  

The theme for this week's creative catalyst is "the scariest or most daring thing you've ever done".  Before I begin to tell you about my scary and daring moment, it's necessary to consider that bravery is a relative concept.  An act of bravery is dependent on many variables and factors.  It's relative to fear, time, place and perception.  So when I tell you about my experience, please keep in mind that I was five years old, attending my first fall carnival.  It was outdoors, Halloween night, pitch dark, and occurred at a time in history when parents weren't as afraid for their children as they need to be now.  For some reason, I found myself not quite lost, but temporarily separated from my parents, and holding a big bunch of tickets in my hand.  So I walked into the bright lights of the midway all by myself.

The Scary Thing...

In the midst of all the open games, there was a closed, draped, tent which was beyond my power to resist.  I had to know what was inside, so I parted the curtains and went in.  It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust, not only because it was much more dimly lit than the midway, but because the scene was in complete contrast to the noisy booths outside.  The walls and ceilings were lined and draped with multicolored silks, and glittering specks of light moved about the room.  Finally my eyes settled on the turbaned figure in front of me, eyes deeply shadowed, face lit from below the chin by the light of a glowing crystal ball.  At first I was too enchanted to be afraid, but then she grabbed my hand, at the same time taking about half of the tickets I was holding while she forced me into the seat at the table in front of her.  Then she proceeded to read my five year old palm.  I have no idea what she said to me.  All I heard was the deeply mysterious sound of her voice while I tried to look away from her shining face, but my eyes remained fixed.  Somehow I knew that this was exactly where I should not be, and as soon as she finished talking and let go of my hand, I tore out of the entrance and found my parents.  We stayed at the carnival another hour or so.  

The Brave Thing...  

Before I continue, there's something else you need to know about me at that time.  I was an only child, a bit shy, and I really spent my days just going with the flow.  I got along with everyone, and didn't push issues, throw tantrums or rebel against anything.   I didn't tell my parents about the fortune teller until just before we left, but they knew something had spooked me, and were waiting to give me the opportunity to say what it was before they asked questions.  As I told them the story, my feelings about it began to change significantly.  What had been my fear, converted into a sense of righteous obligation, and as we walked by the tent on our way out of the carnival, I dropped my father's hand and ran back inside.  The "gypsy" was bent backwards toward the exit, boxing up the decorations and entrapments, and I guess I startled her because she had a look of mixed surprise and anger on her face when she turned to look at me, but that didn't deter me.  I told her off.  Inside my brain, I was seeing the faces of kids I knew who were younger than I, and I told her she had no business scaring the beejeebes out of children and taking their tickets to buy things for herself.  She stood up and began a sentence: "You little...", but my dad had walked into the tent so she stopped.  He stared at her with stone, cold eyes while he took my hand silently and steered me back outside.  I thought he would be angry with me for running back in there like that and for talking to a grown-up that way.  But the only mention he made of it at all was once, in the middle of the ride home, he said, "Sad, how easily some people will abandon their freedom for the hope that someone will determine their future."  I don't think we ever spoke of it again.

The Seer...

As I was cutting up this week's collage sheet for the Crowabout group, the only thing on my mind was color.  I had painted the background a few weeks ago and it was perfect for the colors in the images.  It was while I was arranging the pieces that memories of the carnival and the fortune teller came back to me.  And I still think it's funny that I don't remember a word she said.  In fact, I remember distinctly that I wasn't hearing her the entire time she was speaking as she read my palm.  But I remember my father's words, verbatim.

Now I'm ready to

Brew another cup of tea

Finish filing collage images

Get back to work on a series of papers I'm designing

And try to stay awake (it was a night of interrupted sleep), and

Put some music on!

Have a great day, Everyone!

Cowgirl Ranch...

...For Crowabout, Pointy Hats and Wings, and Mixed Media Monday...

Beatrice...

Last night I watched a documentary on the famous ceramist Beatrice Wood, titled, "Mama of Dada".  If you can get your hands on this, you need to see it, and I'm told that the entire documentary is on the web, so I'm sure if you Google it, you might find it. 

Beatrice died at 105.  The film was made to celebrate her 100th birthday, and the interviews with Beatrice were done when she was in her late 90's, still working, and sharper and more alert than many of us when we are in our 30's.  Her artwork is sheer genius.  She was a true alchemist.  Her glazes are without equal--anywhere, anytime.  But it's her chosen mix of independence and self-discipline that speaks to me most clearly, and I believe that mix is the secret of her long career and her total presence of mind.

DADA...

Webster's defines Dada as: "A movement in art and literature based on deliberate irrationality and negation of traditional artistic values."  In reality, Dada cannot be defined, as labeling it as an art form of any kind would immediately classify it as something other than "Dada".  Dada is a mindset which insists on the license to create without the constraints of surrounding societies.  Beatrice's work is pioneering and classical at the same time.  Beatrice as an artist, and as herself, embodied the spirit of Dada like nobody else, exceeding even Marcel Duchamp with her intense combination of freedom and discipline.  

Tying It In With The Process...

The documentary played in the background while I worked with the Crowabout images, and I'd pause it from time to time and play parts of it back as was necessary while painting, drawing, cutting, glueing, and taking stretch breaks.  For me, placement of images and painted areas on paper often are made by shape and color, regardless of subject matter, although I am basically a storyteller when I create, and without thinking, I am thinking of scenarios and painting new ones in my head as I move ahead with what I'm doing.  So much of it is subconscious work, that when I declare a piece as finished, I let it "sleep" for a period, then go back to it and allow it to tell me what influenced it.  

Is there anything more self-disciplined and independent (read DADA) than a cowgirl?  There were other images on that sheet that I could have chosen, but this was the combination that my eyes and hands picked and placed, along with other pieces of ephemera, a child from Lisa's Altered Art, and additional paint and dots.  Now that I think about it, a cowgirl is probably the perfect combination of pinks and blues, and all the gradients in between, and while I think that idea was somewhat present at the time, it wasn't until I was finished that the symbolism took hold.

Beatrice said, "If I could sum up my life, I would say it was a burning desire for freedom and to be hugged."  My vision of Cowgirl Ranch is a place that provides a girl with both.

Now I'm off to:

Paint some pages in one of my handmade take-along journals to fill some down-time while I'm out this afternoon

Make sure I've packed a decent supply of pens and snippets

Choose a new "before bed" book to read tonight, and

Think about what we'll have for dinner

Have a great day, Everyone!

The Tooth(ache) Fairy...

...For Me, for Crowabout, for Three Muses, and for Pointy Hats and Wings

 

No Satisfaction...

Sometimes you're just not satisfied, and that's how I felt with my last collage, "Row C".  The puzzler was that I liked it to look at, it was definitely "finished", but I felt personally unsatisfied, like it got there without me.  After forgetting it while I worked on something else, I realized that it was nothing about the collage itself that bothered me, it was something personal.  It was about the process.  I felt cheated because the collage was finished and couldn't hold anymore, and I really wanted to play with pens and inks and paints on top of something.  So I just had to do something else, and that's how The Tooth(ache) Fairy was born. 

What I Did About It...

I chose one of my simpler layered acrylic under-paintings to begin with so that I could indulge my urge to doodle without the distraction of a multi-colored background, then I mixed some pink and started painting.  First a border, then some funky flowers.  Then I grabbed my tiniest black Micron and filled in part of the bottom with a million tiny ovals and circles.  Then came dots, circles, squares, an object here, an object there, some rub-on numbers and stars.  Before I printed him, the doggie was enlarged and adjusted in Photoshop as high contrast screen tones, and was given a pale-pink wash, which I later intensified in areas with a couple of Prismacolors.  His heart (Lisa's Altered Art) was too red, so it got a dusting of pale pink pencil to tone it down.  I created the box body of the fairy from items in Crowabout's collage sheet and glued on an altered pointy hat, then some wings (Lisa's Altered Art, again).  The arm was the last thing I added.

In Search Of A Home...

Here's a true confession:  I don't enjoy making things just to illustrate themes.  It feels like work. Probably because a lot of the work I do in real life involves illustration.  Even teaching art revolves around illustrating themes and concepts, and I now just want to create from what's inside of me.  That's why now, when I design commercially, I choose to design for vendors of products I use, and I do this for the express purpose of using their products in my artwork rather than illustrating a product itself.  It's their products shown off to advantage, but my art, my style, and my themes.  

I think that's why I am so in love with the Crowabout group.  Nancy chooses collage images that are wonderful and often zany, and I get to express myself using these terrific things that I might not have run across on my own, and I get to use them in and out of contexts, all my own.  I know it's why I love Kelly Kilmer's A Prompt A Day.  Even when I'm not actively participating, the vast stores of prompts and the infinite combinations thereof, are creative DNA that subtly find their way into the things I do! 

Also, I really love web challenges. I love this wonderful community of blogging artists, and seeing what others create around various themes.  But when I participate in themed groups, I usually do so when I have a piece that fits.  Rarely will I create something on the fly just to fit a theme, so when I finished The Tooth(ache) Fairy, I took it around the web in search of a theme, and discovered The Three Muses "numerology" theme in the process, where it fit.  

Now I'm off to:

Clean up the studio and file images

Try and motivate myself to do some long over-due blog maintenance

Get people where they need to go 

Figure out what we're eating tonight, and

Get back to the book I'm reading before I fall asleep

Have a great day, Everyone!

Row "C"...

...For Crowabout and Saturday Surprise

 

Creative Vitamins...

Kelly Kilmer was in Phoenix over the weekend, and being with Kelly is like taking vitamins!  She refreshes and energizes my creative spirit like nobody else.  Yesterday was extra special, because my daughter, Amy, worked right along side of us and I hope she'll share on her blog what she did in the workshop.

Process...

"Row C" is an approx. 6"X9" layered acrylic underpainting collaged with transparencies, images and decorative tape.  I never rush to finish a piece.  This one needed something more, so it came home with me unfinished.  Picture it without the dress, "row c", and "face the facts!".  Things don't often resolve themselves so easily or so quickly, but when I set this down on my worktable next to the sheet of Crowabout images for this week, "face the facts!" and the dress found an immediate home.  "Row C", which is undeniably the most important, did not reveal itself until I found it hiding in the words "crow" and 'bar".  

Books...

We make books with Kelly.  All different, and all wonderful.   We aim for beautiful, meaningful, and unexpected.  At least I do.  

I've spent years layering acrylics on two-page spreads of art journal after art journal.  Occasionally, and lately often, I've had people inquiring to buy a print, or an original page.  Prints work.  Original pages are two pieces of art, since there's another piece on the back.  These don't work as anything but prints. 

This has been a dilemma.  Especially when I've wanted to put one on my own wall.  But as much as I work in studio, I thrive on being able to work everywhere, and I love working in books, and I love art journaling.  Something of the inspiration of the place where I'm working goes onto the pages.  More places per page often equals more depth to a piece.  

I take books with me everywhere so I can work anywhere.  I wouldn't take a canvas, or a watercolor, or a sketch outside of a sketchbook with me in my bag.  I feel comfortable getting a book out of my bag to work on in public.  I would not feel so comfortable pulling out a canvas of the same shape and size.  People tend to leave you alone when you're working in a book.  Few people exercise the same respect for your privacy when you're working on a single piece out in the open, and I hate the exposure of having people who are not artists themselves peering over my shoulder while I work.

Solutions...

Last night the dilemma solved itself.  I had actually solved it by accident yesterday afternoon, but I didn't realize it until late last night.  Without thinking, I had done two things differently yesterday.  First, I didn't paint two-page spreads.  I have no idea why, except that I wanted less paint on my brush than usual so I could make thinner layers, and this worked better doing one page at a time rather than on two.  Also, I think that I didn't want to be distracted by the color on one side when painting the next page, so without consciously thinking about it, I flipped each page when finished and worked on right sides only.  

In the car on the way home, I took a look at the book.  The few pages I had begun to collage were all upside down.  I might have gotten around this problem, but the book cover was done and bound, and it had a definite right side up.  I toyed with the idea of deconstructing it, but I love the binding and the stitching on the spine.  Then I got home and set the open book on the table next to the Crowabout sheet, and I really wanted to work on the face-up page, flat.  I didn't allow myself to think or cringe.  I just picked up an xacto and sliced out the page.  Suddenly, a whole new world opened up.  Surgically removing a page made this book a very flexible idea, and potentially, a far more interesting work of art! 

Ideas...

Now there are so many ideas flooding into my head that I can't turn off the light bulbs:  Continue painting one side of the pages.  Continue taking the book(s) with me wherever I go.  It's still an art journal and a sketch book, but whenever something wants to be a stand alone piece, I can slice it out.  I gave myself permission simply by doing it.  And I can add more pages...duh!  I've been adding pages and stuff to books for years.  The difference is that before, I planned it that way.  Now it's going to happen when it's natural to do so!  I used to rip pages out of sketchbooks all the time in college, tape in new pages or parts of pages, and never gave it a second thought.  But I hadn't bound those sketchbooks myself.  The books themselves weren't works of art, I bought them at the college book store.  Something inside me had always treated my handbound books as if that made a difference.  Guess what?  It doesn't!  Is this liberating, or what!  I love art!  It's the only spot in my life where making mistakes so often make things better.

Now I'm off to:

Work in the wonderful book that shifted my vision

Make everyone a (very) late lunch

Do some long-overdue blog maintenance

Enjoy the much cooler, almost springtime weather, and

Continue reading a really great book--a library discard that I was going to use in artwork until I started reading it and discovered a great old author!  (...which brings me to a pet peeve about the indiscriminate way some libraries toss out their books, but I won't go into that now...)

Have a great day, Everyone!