Contemporary Collage Week 2: Desecrating Dinghy Ownership

I had a wonderful time on Monday in Contemporary Collage class  ' desecrating'  the copy of  'Dinghy Ownership' I bought last week.  After  we were shown a variety of examples of artists  and altered books  I took a sharp intake of breath before starting - it feels rather naughty (or should that be nautical!) deliberately cutting out diagrams, ripping out pages, and painting and drawing on the text.

I spent the morning cutting out the diagrams with a scalpel ( I was complimented on my precision - but then I have been  using one for over 30 years dissecting plants )

Then after  lunch, some painting and colouring in.

After cutting out a few hull diagrams , I made a template and cut out some more  then added ink around the edges . I like the overlapping shapes  and what is revealed of underlying pages

On this page the cutouts  show  the  chapter on water and tides (I highlighted these words) 

I started  using the cutout shapes as stencils for  colouring in  the page beneath  with ink . 

The downside to working within  a book is only being able to work on a  spread at a time. Here I painted with acrylic all over except where a couple of  shapes had been cut out but the pages  stuck together while drying. Pulling them apart   left some ripped   white marks which I quite like!

2 sets of diagrams showing flows of currents: on one I extended the areas of black ; on the other I replicated the shape I'd cut out on the opposite page

Painting the stubs of the ripped out pages with ink is when I discovered the effects of ink  spreading to other pages along the spine. This led to  dripping ink deliberately all along the edges of the book when closed. Very satisfying! 

I painted both sides of the ripped out pages using a variety of techniques including acrylic both wet and dry brush; neolcolour crayons; pastels and wax candle resists with inks  

I can't decide whether to put them back into the book ( above) or use them for something else  ( I was thinking again of the structure of  3d weather chart from Contemporary Drawing Sketchbook course)

Some pages I painted lightly with white gesso to partly obscure the text and these I think I will reinsert in the book - I like the contrast of the white with the cream of the paper.  

And the what to do with the excised diagrams and shapes - put them back in the book, use them for another project or stick them in my 'scrap book'? 

I had to leave early  to catch my train so didn't see much of what others had done but there was some amazingly diverse  work going on ( many were using books with coloured illustrations and photos). I half wish I'd been a bit more adventurous   but I'm increasingly finding that  I get more out of using a limited palette and range of techniques but pushing how far I can go within those boundaries  

Painting Studio Time 1

I was unable to get a place on this terms 'Contemporary Painting Studio'  class  at City Lit and in any case I'm  already doing a collage class starting 22nd.  However Lucinda put together a 2 week class in a free room to fill in the time before CPS started  and I was very happy to have the bonus of an additional couple of painting days.  There's 10 of us plus Lucinda who is  working on her own paintings rather than teaching  but as ever,  seeing what other people are doing and asking/receiving advice is invaluable.

I thought about bringing in the large painting I was working on before Xmas but without the big screens to pin it  on  I decided to return to the  preliminary sketches I'd made of  Iron Wharf  in

Week 1. I also brought in  a couple of the prepared newspaper collage backgrounds  to work on 

Focusing in on a detail of the awning I  used transparent glazes to build up colour so the textures were still  visible . It's not finished yet , I need to make further changes to the composition and to details such as the ropes . 

Lucinda had brought in some cardboard so I put together a quick newspaper collage background, painted it with gesso and carried out a quick painting sketch. Not sure about the 'frottage' of paint over the corrugations   but  it's given me ideas about how I might use that effect to best advantage.  

As I've now used most of my newspaper collaged  backgrounds , with access to large quantities of PVA , I used up 2 copies of the days Metro in preparing some more. 

 On our walk on Boxing Day along Faversham Creek at low tide , I took some photos of the sun on the mud(! ) and the boats  and will make a start  in tomorrow's class about developing these into paintings. 

Contemporary Painting Studio Week 5

Week 5 of Contemporary Painting Studio  started  with  a  structured peer review session   looking at each others work : project  development  and experimentation processes;  paint application methods.  

I was paired up with someone   with a very different  style  to mine ( process driven,  painting in oils,  responding to the surface ,  diving straight in without a great deal of preliminary planning). Quite a contrast to my 4 weeks  of developing ideas - she couldn't comment on my painting methods as I hadn't really done any!

I'd already written on my  review sheet ' halfway through, get painting!!'  so I did.

 

I started by  having a go at the techniques that Amanda had demonstrated the previous week : priming a sheet of paper with diluted PVA and layering  glazes of transparent  paint mixed with various acrylic media. I brought my own Winsor and Newton professional paints in as  they were truly transparent  and some unopened Golden  mediums  I got in a set years ago. I  began quite systematically  but then when some accidents  started to happen  ( dribbles and bubbles - perhaps due to a brush not being properly washed?)  I got a bit carried away seeing how far I could push the layering.  I confess I got a bit giddy using colour after so  many weeks of  monochromes and neutrals.

After lunch I returned to working with a more sombre palette,  mixing greys to match the colours in the collages I'd chosen to work with ( without using black).

In this case I'd printed a copy of the collage onto t shirt transfer paper and ironed it onto some primed canvas  and   worked outwards  trying to replicate the marks.

 Still a work in progress, trying hard to work slowly to retain the freshness of the collage.

This collage again was printed on t-shirt transfer paper but applied to a painted canvas.

 I can see I've already overdone it  but have made some copies I'm trying different things with  to see if I can rectify it.

 I discussed with Lucinda some of the outcomes from my mentoring session with   Christine that were relevant to  painting particularly use of collage, moving into abstraction  and scaling up. The painting above is only A3 and I've currently only  worked up to A2 in size.

Lucinda  suggested I build up to at least 1m ( they have paper on a roll) , taking advantage of  the large screen easel I have. 

Our 'tea break' in the afternoon consisted of Prosecco and cake ( it was several peoples birthdays)  and looking at our preliminary work hung in the corridor of floor 3 (it's on for another week)  

I finished off making up another sheet of collaged newspapers  as backgrounds for the following week - A1  this time!

 

 

Red Daub Fingerprinting

 Earlier this year, one of my journal quilts  was a trial trying out different marks with pen and paint  on a gessoed section  of one of my older quilts 'Which Way Now'.  It's been on my mind for a while to  see how it would work scaled up so the first day of my Xmas creative break I sewed together some  gessoed offcuts and scraps and braced the chill of the conservatory.

 I had a fine time mixing together  acrylic paints with my fingers and applying to the fabric!

The overall effect was a bit blobby so I laid it flat and applied trickles of red acrylic ink horizontally  in an attempt to unify the surface.

With  daylight fading I stopped. I'm not sure this piece is going anywhere  although probably  I'll strengthen the marks to emphasise the horizontal arrow at the bottom but I had a wonderful therapeutic time doing it!

Cure for Post-FoQ Blues

 It's always a bit difficult getting started again after being so overwhelmed with beautiful  work at Festival of Quilts. But the  deadline looming for submission of JQ's for CQ challenge by end of August focuses the mind! At least I've been posting mine monthly this time rather than having to submit 4 in one go ( which rather defeats the object of a journal quilt  in my mind). Augusts offering 'Door scraps I' is made from the offcuts of the sample below which I mounted on a canvas for Cwilt Cmyru 'meet the artist'.  

 It was made with photos of doors and acrylic paint applied over masking tape stencils rather then the paper lamination of 'Peeling Portals' below ( which I've just posted off for Harrogate quilt show , cross fingers!) . This technique does have potential, far simpler than paper lamination but it doesn't yield such complex results

 While my offcut basket was out ( just some of the trimmings from finished quilts...) I had fun composing some more 'door' pieces - so September is sorted out !

This   door JQ (scraps of African indigo fabrics) has been on the go since February, a nice size to hand stitch on  train journeys, it might get finished for October. I initially thought the 8inch size would be too small for my liking but this years challenge has proved a delight, permission  to play and see what happens.

Another little quick project was making a present for  intern Ebrailon  who has been such a help in the lab, particularly chopping up slices of orchid roots we've collected to see if they have any fungi in.  He goes back to Brazil next week  and we'll miss him.  I printed some photos of root samples on Jacquard cotton sheets and ironed them onto  a cotton bag with bondaweb

New Direction Samples

Remember the new (or rather recycled ) piece I started  to meet submission deadlines when I forgot to read the rules? I cut a section off this old quilt of mine from the 1990's 'Which Way Now?'

I applied gesso (above) and then acrylic paint (below) to some samples. Inspired by Gerhard Richter I even used a squigee to move the paint around. Originally I thought of painting the whole thing white and having a simgle painted red arrow ,'New Direction'. Now I've gessoed the whole thing and am summoning up the courage to just paint and see  how it develops, covering some arrows over, emphasising others.

Not this weekend though - been  getting up to date with washing after delivery of a new machine (the old one ground to a halt 2 weeks ago) and sorting out packing for a few days in Weymouth . The owner has just emailed to say it's very cold but we'd already seen the forecast and packed thermals and hot water bottles. Looking forward to some brisk walks and cosy pub lunches.