ArtiphyTheHeart

All The Collage Pages From RIM

A couple of months ago I mentioned that I'd post a slide presentation of the pages in the book which I completed for Revel In The Moment, showing each page in its first stage, with collage.  With the collage completed, the book is now prepped and ready for additions.  Things painted in and things painted out, drawing, doodling, stencils, text, journaling, and more can now be added to these backdrops.  Usually I work a page from start to finish, but I got caught-up with the collage in this book, and chose to just run with it. 

 

I'll post another slide of the pages when they have been worked and completed.  I'll probably post both videos side by side, this one and the next, so you can see the transformation.  

I created this slide presentation in iPhoto, converted it to a QuickTime video, and uploaded it to Vimeo.  I've done this successfully many times in the past, but this time I had to upload it over and over again, five or six times.  Each time something different was changed, left out, or the video skipped.  It totally ignored my smooth dissolves and each page now cuts abruptly, one to the next.  Finally I just settled on the version above, but I noticed that every once in awhile the first page would be skipped during replay.  Just in case it doesn't appear in the presentation, I've included it below.  Next time I might use Picassa instead of Vimeo.

Every page in this book has meaning that is very personal to me alone.  My interpretation would be a reflection of what is inside me.  What you see in my collage is a reflection of what's inside of you.  

Maybe I'll take a page or two every now and then and talk about my thought process as the page was created.  You don't have to read those posts, of course.  They might be bore you.  But if you're interested, some of this collage tells some very interesting stories from the pages of my life.

In the meantime, if you'd like to see some beautiful completed pages, check out Kelly Kilmer's Wanderlust Book by clicking HERE.  

Reality Is All In The Mind: A Relationship Between Collage And Photo Edits

When I work in paint, collage, or any other fine art medium, I'm very aware of the stages I go through from concept to finished product.  Personally, I usually start with a vision of the composition of a whole, even if I'm working section by section and letting the piece develop into itself without a fixed concept.  That way, I can work out the lights and darks, and the placement of shapes and their relationships to one another.  Here are a couple of examples of collage where I did just that.

Both this piece and the piece of collage below were created for Revel In The Moment.  In this first piece, I was more concerned with the placement of the shapes of the paper pieces, the balance of lights and darks, and they way the colors harmonized more than the theme.  When I started out, I knew I wanted to combine a black and white image or two and a variety of some interesting textures in an analogous color scheme.  I chose to work with green/blue/purple and purple's compliment of yellow.  Mostly this was done without thinking about it, or consciously considering more than what was pleasing when placed side by side or juxtaposed.

This piece was begun with two thoughts in mind:  The use of two moons, and the layering of pattern and color.  My eye was drawn to another analogous set of colors, yellow/orange/green/blue, all with similar values, so the black and white provided the high contrast necessary to deliniate the moons as focal images as opposed to just another set of items stuck onto the page.  In this piece more than the one on top, imagination needed to be moved from its abstract mental image to an image of an imaginative reality before I could translate it to the page.  The two moons are a central theme in Haruki Murakami's book1Q84 which I am currently reading, and I created an abstract thought of using them creatively in collage.  Because two moons do not exist in the reality of our world, I could not go out and draw them from life, or re-create them from a memory of real life.  I had to create a reality for them in my imagination, visualize that reality and really see it in my mind's eye, before I could begin to work to translate my imagined reality to the page.  In the end, I chose to use dual stamped images of the moon rather than drawing new moons, as a contrast to the drawn look of the handwritten script already on the page.

It occurred to me that the way I filter what I see in an imagined image is very similar to the way the eye filters an image in reality.  Some things are brought to the forefront while others recede to the background or blur in the periphery.  And it got me thinking about relationships between the way I work with collage and the way I work with digital images.

I'm really interested in the way other artists photograph their work and the way websites in general display photos.  Personally, although au courant web consultants will tell you to pull a thousand and one arty tricks from your sleeve and display them all in the same six ways, I still prefer the straight forward gallery approach to photographing and displaying my work on the web, with clear, reality based color and content.  But I'm a fad-hater.  And I've noticed that from one generation to the next, what becomes very popular today, even if it's lovely and in good taste, will often be picked up by so many copycats that it loses its appeal, and often its meaning, as well.  Much like worn out records overplayed by disc jockeys from playlists limited to the 15 top rated songs.  

I've also spent a lot of years observing consultants and advisors run companies into the ground by forcing the latest and the greatest out of the box trends and techniques on management in order to get the desired response from the paranoid stockholders who hire them, and who know and care very little about anything other than nervously holding on to their purses.  And I've watched this backfire, over and over and over and over again.  So while I prefer a realistic gallery of portraits of my work on the web, keep in mind that my work on the web is often far from a collection of portraits of realism.  I like portray the items from my imagination as I've created them, in realistic pics on the web.

 I am in no way an ace photographer and I ask for help quite often from my professional photographer friends.  But I  have acquired a pretty awesome set of Photoshop skills over the years.  I've written some powerful Photoshop actions, and I've developed some special brushes, blends, and filters of my own.  I thank lynda.com tutorials for some of this knowledge, but when it comes right down to it, a few pieces of sage advice, some drawing skill, and a working knowledge of vector drawing programs like Adobe illustrator have been the key combination for my sucess with photo edits.  Sometimes these skills are used to make a poorly shot photo look more like the real article being photographed.  Other times, they're used for digital imaging and digital collage.  In either case, there is an indespensable skill set to be acquired.

Topping the list of skills that are worth taking the time to master, first and foremost, is gaining a working knowledge of the host of selection tools, pracitce, and mastering the art of selection in as short a time as possible.  The truth of truths is:  The more acucrate your selections, the better everything turns out, every time.  

Also on the success list is mastery of:

• A good sense of color identification and color matching

• A good sense of light and value 

• Seeing accurately, and developing your eye so that you are able to see what's really there, by overriding the eye's natural filters.  Being able to quickly tell the difference between what your eye tells you--what it wants you to think you see--as opposed to what's really there, is key

• Reality matching 

If good selections top the list, then achieving reality by matching reality is the skill that combines and unites them all.  If you have this skill, then you'll always be able to move into an artistic direction with filters and color changes, and also with collage, painting, and fine art and photography in general.  

You may think that reality and imagination are at opposite ends of the pole, but paradoxically, you can't use the images that your imagination wants to create until you've mastered reality.  Imagination and reality are not polar opposites, they are two sides of the same coin, and the coin doesn't exist with only one side.  If imagination is a vision of the destination, then reality is the vehicle that gets you there.  Reality takes you to the place your imagination envisions, because once you have a vision, you have to execute that vision from the reality of the material your imagination has conjured.  You can do this only if you have mastered reality matching.  You need to be able to visualize the dream of your imagination, capture the reality of that imaginary image, match it in your consciousness, and then replicate it.  Whether your canvas is digital or on your easel,  the reality of your imagination must be captured and translated onto your chosen substrate to move from concept to artistic reality.  

And vise-versa.  While I employ reality matching from imagination to collage, I employ the same principals in reverse when I shoot a photo of my work that doesn't look like the piece in reality.  I take the photo backwards from its unreality, photoshopping it back into what it looks like in real life so that I can display as accurate an image as possible on the web.  And indespensable skill when you shoot with a cheap camera, lack basic photography skills, or both.

Collage: Some Process Notes

We skipped a week, so it was doubly great to get together yesterday with my art pal Rita.  I'd look up from my collage every once in awhile to take a peek at the detailed feathers of the rooster she was busy drawing with her Rapidograph.  Absolutely gorgeous!  I hope she decides to post it so I can link to it and show you!

While Rita was drawing, I managed to collage two more pages in the book I bound for Revel In The Moment.  Bear in mind that these are raw pages, just the collage, and any paint, pen work, lettering or other marks and color will come later.  

While I usually work finished page by finished page, my plan for this book is a little different.  Each page will be collaged until the book is full.  I'll do either a flip video or a slide presentation of the book as collage, and not post that till the entire book is finished.  When I finish the book, page by page, I'll film a second video or slide and present both of these back-to-back in a blog post.  It will take awhile.  I work slowly, and this book is one I relax with in between other projects, so prepare to wait.  Just letting you know that it's what I have in mind -- down the road a bit.

When Rita and I work together, we field journal.  This means that we pack our bags with random supplies plus a few planned essentials and work with what we've brought.  The little league collage came together entirely by itself.  The only thing I decided upon to begin with was the image of the boy with the mit on his bat and the overall composition.  Other than that, I used what I grabbed from my bag.  These elements very serendipitously turned out to include a report card, a ticket, a blank check, and a measuring scale.  I chose them for color, size and shape to fit the composition, not for content.  That they seem to go together in story form is purely accidental.  Sometimes these accidents happen and it's really fun and even a bit of a shock to step back from what you've created and see what's happened on your page.  

I usually love what I'm doing, but sometimes it doesn't turn out that way.  Sometimes I wrestle with a page and really struggle with it.  This was one of those pages, and like most things I struggle with and am sure I'm going to hate, I came away loving this piece.  You can see where I (unintentionally) distressed the page by ripping off what had been glued down.  What you see is not at all what I started with, but I chose to leave the scuff marks and residual scratches and stray bits of previous glueings in place after deconstructing about half of it, then moving on.  I wasn't happy until I added the bit of Hambly transparency.  Repetition of the center circle and the grid of the plaid finally made it harmonize.  I didn't think that out.  I added what I thought it needed, where I thought it needed it, and noticed afterward that I was pleased.  

Whenever I hate something or love something, I always ask myself why.  Not to question myself, but to learn more about my own choices, why some work and others don't.  The answer almost always has to do with a design principle that was either followed instinctively, or artfully broken.  

I've mentioned before that I'm an avid reader, and that I find that my art suffers a bit when I'm not in the middle of a good work of fiction.  My literary tastes are all over the place.  I'm very eclectic when it comes to subject matter, just as long as the book is very, very well written.  Right now I'm savoring Haruki Murakami's1Q84.  It has a really meaty plot line which is revealed bit by bit through a cast of characters with very diverse and interesting lives who are presented alternatively throughout the book.  I'm loving this book, and I'm taking my time with it.  

But I also like quick, fun reads that tell a good story.   Just before I picked up 1Q84, I finished Sara Addison Allen's third book,The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel.  This one took me only two days, and delighted me to no end.  Very unlike 1Q84 in weight of material, but equally satisfiying.  I had read Allen's first two books, and was ready to jump into the next.  It did not disappoint.

I love it when bloggers I follow give book suggestions, so if your blog regularly includes a book choice or two, please include a link in a comment so I can go take a look!

More Raw and Simple Collage

Two more pieces done for Revel In The Moment.  These are great warm ups for the painting I'm currently working on, and nothing at all like it.  I do a couple of these collaged pages, then a little of the painting, a couple more of these, then a little more of that.  Two quick, followed by one slow and smooth.  Great way to work.  Quick quick slow.  Very rhythmic.  Just like dancing.

These are freely worked using templates by Kelly Kilmer as a starting point.  In the end, they will have been added to and subtracted from, but this is how I begin, with a raw collage.  

I hadn't thought about Chinese New Year, but I'm sure it was there, ready to come forward when I began this.  I just recently learned that I'm a Dragon, after thinking all these years that I was born in the year of the Snake.  A Chinese expert told me that it isn't the dates of the western calendar that determine the year, it's the beginning to the end of the Chinese New Year in the year one was born.  Both New Years are usually about a month apart, so Chinese horiscope calendars go with the western year because it's so easy.  But for those of us born on one side or the other of the actual starting date, it makes a difference.  That makes sense.  I never could identify with the Snake Year description, but the Dragon is spot on.

Reveling In Moments

I'm two pages away from finished with the collage templates from Kelly Kilmer's Revel In The Moment workshop.  You probably think that means I'm almost finished, right?  Ha!  Wrong!  There are so many ways to use these templates, it boggles the mind!  You think I'll just use them the right way round?  Really?  And you say you know me?  Ha again!  Besides, this is just naked collage.  No journaling, no drawing, no penwork, no text, no paint, nothing added, nothing painted out....

But here are the next two pieces of collage in the series.  They could stand on their own, but they won't have to.  Sooner or later, I'll be adding more, subtracting some, etc.  You get the picture!

If you could see what the others are doing with the same templates I'm using, you'd be in an extended state of disbelief.  You'd say, "No.  Can't be.  Nothing the same.  Not even similar".   But you'd be wrong.  The possibilities are infinite.  Too bad we've over-used that word: Inifinite.  Because the possibilities truly are!

Mug Shots

One of the art groups I belong to (An Affair With Art) has asked us if we're tea drinkers, and if so, what we prefer to drink from.  Easy questions for me.  I drink tea all day long!  Twinings English Breakfast keeps me going, and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf's Swedish Berries makes me calm and sleepy.  Here's my cup of choice:

Last mother's day, my daughter Amy took me to Anthropologie and told me to pick out a tea cup.  So many beauties to choose from, but the minute I set my eyes on this pretty orange mug, embossed, scalloped, and paint spattered, I knew it was the one for me.  Orange is the color of creativity, and paint spatters, well, every artist needs a paint-spattered mug!

Here's an inside view.  Pre-tea, of course.  I love this!  Usually when I spatter paint in my tea, I have to throw it out.  I love that I can drink out of this!

Mug Shots:

In the meantime, why not join me and have a cup of tea or coffee, too?  And while you're at it, why not share a pic of your favorite cup or mug?  Just leave a comment in this post with a link to a pic of your favorite cup, and we'll all stop by and take a look!  If you post about your favorite tea cup/coffee mug/ or other drinking recepticle of choice, please link back to this post so others will know where to share their links if they want to play along, too! 

Right now I'm busy-busy-busy.  Trying to finish hold-overs from 2011, and beginning some new projects in 2012.  There's a lot on my plate, but at least I love everything I have to do!

My Current List Of Stuff and Stuff To Do:

Here's a partial list:

• Three books ready to bind and stitch -- I thought there were five, but I can't find the other two... Oh well.  If they're around, they'll show up eventually!
• Take a Stitch Tuesday.  LOVE this.  If you want to know all about it, click the TAST badge on my sidebar.
• Setting up ArtiPhybers.  You can go there now, but I haven't yet made a first post, and I'm slow at getting links and photo albums uploaded.  Eventually -- sooner, rather than later, I hope -- it will be home for all my fiber art (including TAST), and I'll add to it regularly.  You can get there from the link in my side bar.
• Journaling, of course.  Three collage journals and a sketchbook/notes journal are active at the moment.  There are others too, but right now I'm concentrating on these.
• Kelly Kilmer's Revel In the Moment workshop.  I'm working without stopping in this one.  Can't get enough of it!  My friend and art partner Rita and I spent hours with this last Thursday, and will have a repeat performance next week.  In the meantime, we're both collaging our little hearts out every chance we get (which is one of the reasons I'm behind on everything else...)
• An Artsits Of The Round Table workshop.  Beginning tomorrow, we'll be binding 100 books in 2012.
• A printing project, which I'm defining and refining as I go.  More about that as things progress...
• A crocheted throw-WISP
• Three quilt tops-WISPS
• A really gorgeous (if I may say so myself) mixed fiber illustration--more on that later...
• Painting!  Lots of painting!  A semi-new direction in paint and collage for me, and I'm loving every minute!  It takes me back to my childhood art loves.  More to come on that, also.
• Oh, and reading.  LOTS!  But that's not unusual.  Right now the books on my nightstand are: Strange Wine by Harlan Ellison, and Nuns and Soldiers (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by Iris Murdoch.  Neither of them new; both are favorites of mine.  And this is the book I'll be working my way through as my 100 bindings in 2012 progress: Alisa Golden's Making Handmade Books: 100+ Bindings, Structures & Forms  

But now I have to get busy on these things so I'll have something to photograph, and you'll have something more to see!

More Collage

I love knowing what people are up to and reading status updates, but I hate whining, so I hope you won't think I'm whining when I tell you that from the 18th of December until just a few hours ago, I had the flu.  It affected a knee joint.  Flu + trouble walking was not a fun combo.  The knee is somewhat better but it still bothers me, and the flu is pretty much gone except for the residual tiredness.  Still, I managed to get some things done, and also to teach myself to use iPhoto for the slide presentation I uploaded to Vimeo.*  Sitting at the counter in my fuzzy slippers, cutting and glueing was really good medicine.

 

 

Here are the 13 pages I created during flu fog for Kelly Kilmer's Revel In The Moment workshop.  Much fun!  I didn't realize just how much a person could create when even too foggy to read a book or watch a movie.  This was the perfect thing.  I could work, drink tea, then rest.  I've been doing this for so many years that I've found I can collage on auto pilot, which is something I wouldn't have guessed if I hadn't been placed in the situation.  Although, I vaguely remember being sick in bed as a child and my mother bringing me a tray with magazines to cut out, scissors, and paper to glue things on.  So maybe collage is my comfort food.  

Now that so many pages have been done I've decided  to collage the entire book before working the pages with with the good stuff--paint, mark making, lettering, and journaling.  Not the way I usually do it, but hey, nothing wrong with being pushed into a different way of working in order to adjust to the situation at hand.   Who knows?  I just might find I like this well enough to do it another time.

 

* A head's up for those of you who have ever used slide.com:  Slide will be leaving the web in early March of 2012.  You have only a month or so to get your photos moved, or lose them forever.  Just saying, just in case...