Friday 15 January 2010

atc and danglies

Sat down to create an atc for a challenge/swap on PDA the theme was New Year Resolutions.

Well I don't usually do them myself - too lazy I guess. However, this year I decided to start trying to branch out with my atc work. I have used many, many techniques for challenges, etc; but always seem to slip back into the same old patterns. I thought, " now what I am I going to do to widen my use of techniques I know?" Let yourself go, the answer came back. So I did. Started with the clown image and added a few pearly pom-poms, added some strange thread ( some of you may know how to use it, I don't) and added charms dangling from threads. Well I did have fun but I am not convinced it has turned out a classic. But then perhaps I shouldn't worry about that. I haven't found a name for it yet either !!


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I also did this pastel painting this week at my art group, it is about 12 x 9 inches. I don't know if it is a real location as I used an image off a birthday card, which I received from my son, as a reference. I liked the way this turned out, sometimes things just seem to go right.

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Well off to do a little more atc'ing, but looking around for other projects to occupy myself with...

Monday 11 January 2010

digital versus collaged atc's

Hi a very quick posting this time. Got to thinking about some of the issues I was thinking about when I wrote the last post, so I had them in my mind last night when I was creating my entries for the Artful Ideas swap on Flickr.

I had been playing around with the theme, Steampunk, using digital techniques to experiment and amuse myself. The outcome was very acceptable, I thought; Mona Punk.

steampunk mona ? (digital manipulation)

Using digital teechniques I was able to resize, reselect and move elements around very easily. When I trie to reproduce this as a "cut 'n' paste" version I found a very different kettle of fish. Even tho' I had a clear idea of what I was going to do, It was no easy matter to carry it out. resizing was tedious, I introduced new elements because cutting out some of the originals would have been a chore so I decided in the end to simply stand back and start from very nearly square one.

In the end, I have probably got close to the digital version, except for the goggle yes but it was not easy.

steampunk mona ? ( collage)

Did it work? was it worth the extra effort? I think the eyes give an extra "rfun" element. My son actually bought me a selection of crafting items for christmas which included a whole pack of these eyes so expect more of the same. Have fun with your art/crafting.

Sunday 10 January 2010

something new - inchie row houses

Well I certainly seem to be very tardy in posting here these days. It is mostly because I seem to be having difficulty in finding time for art/craft even tho' the weather has been atrocious.

This post concerns a set of "inchie row houses" which I have made for a swap on PDA, Kim Newbergs Ning web site . I have posted these on my Flickr photostream, but as usual they are here as well so that I can say just a little more about them than is possible on Flickr. Many of my long-time friends from blogland will know that my background is the world of painting. Important because of the two-dimensional nature of the work involved. I adapted very easily to the ACEO format after I discovered it by accident because of my love of sketching. The originality and freshness of a sketch was what kept me involved with art. Somehow I never quite achieved this feeling in most of my larger works.

Of course you can't get involved with ACEO's on Ebay without coming across many different media and techniques, collage was one of the first non-painting media that I tried. Mostly because of the death of my mother and the subsequent discovery of a large cache of family photos stretching back to my grandparents youth. These photos were just right for collaging to recreate some family memories. Anyway, I tried out collaging and was hooked. I couldn't do enough and joined groups and sites on the web so that I could start to trade with other artists.

Since then I have tried other techniques, always ready to try something new, but I keep coming back to two-dimesional collage work. Of course I use 3-D embellishments, etc and often use stamps to create backgrounds but my first love is collaging. These "inchie row houses" are a result of that background. The small size is a bit of a challenge but I had already accepted that becoming interested in inchies and twinchies because of a recent article in Lisa vollrath's Monthly Muse magazine.

In any collage, I like the images to be connected in some way. I have used some very tenuous links and sometimes even had to resort to shoehorning ( is that a word?LOL) images to make a link. But at least in my own mind there is something that links the images. Let me give an example.



a set of five houses(1)
In this set, the second from the right I have called, " No Strings Attached". I used a marbled backing paper and the swirl called for a set of images to follow it. The girl and her "beau" die-cut from the printed images were easy, but I wanted another.... As this was one of the first I did, I was still unsure of wether I should have windows or doors on the little houses. I compromised and put a house number on! The wire was wrapped around the house to finish it off. The title then fell into place for me. Very tenuous links.

Of course one of the great things about collage is that you do not really need to create this way, and many artists will use an image because it is the right colour or size or..... it grabs them, whatever. And I sometimes do this myself in desperation. This is purely an explanation of what I think is becoming a style for me and in no way is meant to deprecate the serendipitous use of images in collages.

Anyway, I printed a specially small set of images and set down one cold night to create, I really enjoyed the process - lots of thinking time - and was pleased with the results. I had cut twice the number of blanks that I thought I would need, thinking there would be some discards but found myself doing another set, and still liking them:-


a set of five houses(2)The two smaller ones will be posted as a pair, don't want to appear mean, LOL.

Having mentioned 2-D / 3-D art above, I have made one of my New Year's resolutions to be that I will try to branch out in 2010 to start producing assemblages. Been looking at this artform for some time and need to try my hand at it. One source of inspiration is Michael de Meng I will of course keep you up to date on this aspiration.