Blast from the Past

So way back in 2000, my stampin friends and I decided to participate in this cool paper study project that Michelle found. It was to be our way to keep in touch as she was off to the East Coast. Note to self: Xmas windows In NYC

We'd only gotten a few projects in when life threw us all into a dither and the book found a quiet nook on a shelf and sat neglected. It's moved with me everywhere because I can not bear to let it go after Michelle went through the trouble of putting it together for each of us. And now.... digging through it again. I want to make this my project to finish this year (2014) just commit to one page a month. I can do that.

It will be interesting to see how things have changed, or not, since 2000.

From the Vault

My favorite color scheme should be pretty obvious by now. This 12x12 canvas came shortly after my father died. Seems fairly evident that the loss left me feeling like I was missing some parts of me; searching for those parts. Not sure that I have found them yet

Focused on red still? Or again? This is a 4x6 with the texture paste. The stencil is my own design, cut from thick mylar. I love it. But the next time I use it I will go with the blue stuff. It is thinner and I think will leave me with cleaner edges when using the paste. It needs another paste object in the bottom right corner for balance.

I really like this tree. It is a bit cartoony in this version. But the roots have that swirly curly character that was my almost "Signature" style in school. And obviously yellow is a bit of a departure from the norm.









The pictures are a bit washed out. That is due to the lack of proper photographic lighting and a small basement window by which to take pictures. Will remedy that soon. I wanted to get these up so that I could keep a discovery journal while unpacking the boxes downstairs.
 

Artifact Box 4

This was the last thing on the table when I was told to leave. I'd been playing with texture paste and my own hand cut stencils (I know. But you have to suck it up and cut your own when the commercial brands don't have what you want.) for a while. What with the intense focus on earthen vessels and jars of clay could be better than a material that could easily pass for actual clay? So why not? So I did.

It takes a long time for this stuff
to dry.I think that this particular
canvas spent four days curing
before I ever applied paint to it.
The tricky thing with this is to
remember to keep things in the
proper perspective. Which, looking
with a somewhat distant eye now,
I see I did not quite make muster.

There is the same left-side-right-side
issue with my perspective. And the
lip of the rim is not foreshortened
enough. That being said though...

I absolutely LOVE the texture and
color of the mid-section of the jar. It
looks like it has a well worn patina...
exactly what I was going for. And I
worked in come cool compliments
so that the whole color scheme didn't get bogged down or become boring.

Man I hope that color scheme isn't boring. Now I am not too sure how I am going to finish the background. That was a schmear of raw sienna and some other yellow and lifted with plastic wrap. Of course I need to lay in some shadow colors and punch up the background. And some kind of embellishment, handwriting and maybe some high gloss finish.

This is a close up shows the colors.
All the colors were dry brushed. The
first layers were matte base colors.
Next came several shades of Lumiere.

Four days of curing turned out to be
the key to getting good paint layers
down. I had to use a runny wash
to do the body of the vessel
so that it would streak and look
like the jar had been overfilled
frequently.

Not sure how to finish this. Like I
said it was on the table drying
when I was told to leave. I packed
up an got out like it was Volcano
Day in Pompeii.
Fortunately I had never completely
unpacked when I moved in.
Uncovering the canvas feels a lot like I've dug through the ashin that famed city and found the remnants of someone's last day.

And in the timeline of my life it was a last day for
me. I am the artist and I should be able to finish it. Yet there is something in me that says it belongs in the past and should be left as it is. A testimony to a time and place that does not exist.

Box Number 4



 

Among the blanks stands a few gems:

 

 

 Three: in numerology three signifies a communicator. One of the defining numbers or my life, communication is essential to my overall well being. I must speak. If I cannot speak I must create. If I cannot create I must write. If I am left without an outlet then I become disconnected with reality. I begin to die inside.... it's very much a Holmesian problem.

One of the things I was exploring before the chaos that ensued after dad's passing: textural pastes. I really love how this layout lead from one thing to another. The amphora as a desert traveler needs something dark grounding it in that lower right hand corner to balance the 3 purple dots. And I need to wash the background colors smoother.... there is no transition between orange and yellow. It wasn't finished before it was boxed so I am not upset that it lacks some important details.


And another collaboration. I wonder where the rest of his art is that he did leave me before he left.

The eyes don't always have it

Sometimes one encounters problems with art that are subtle and easily overlooked. And sometimes they are glaringly obvious.

Meet the glaringly obvious:

 

 

 

 This is my first attempt on the Italian vase. I saw this and remembered how excited I was to have successfully captured the painting on the vase, the dimensionality of the fruit and branch and the reflection of the vase in the whites. The whites are so hard to capture. But then when I stepped back I saw the gloriously epic FAIL!

The left side of the vase is squished and again the cherry right next to the vase is competing for the same space! Agh!!!! IT's a thing!!!!!!!!

Oh plus I hate the bright azure blue. It is too lapis. and the green doesn't even begin to match the intensity of the blue and none of them are the right tone for the colors in the vase.

Meet Artie: the inscrutible Miss Tessa

 
 
 



Because every warehouse has to have a supervisor stuck in the dark ages of technology to keep an eye on the minions, keeping them close but not too close, making sure they don't screw anything up... there is this gem of feline superiority.

My roomie's cat, Miss Tessa. Sometimes called Bugs, mostly she avoids me. I am not her favorite person only because, in true cat fashion, she only likes her human. And I am not her human. When I am in the basement she is always there. I think to make sure that I don't mess up anything that she has gotten accustomed to. And today.... I messed up her life.

I've moved a few things that I think she might have been using as cover to hide from the kitten. He is still a furry ball of furious energy and likes to torment her as all little brothers do. But he doesn't like to be where the action is. He'd rather critique after the fact than supervise during. Anyway, it took me a while to realize that I was being watched. For the longest time I thought that uncomfortable stared at feeling was coming from the lone window to the outside world. But no... it was a cat.


She was watching me unpack and photograph box number three.

The unfinished (obviously) start of a watercolor from about 2002 or 3. And a page from a block of water color exploring the technique of multiples on a theme. I think that it could be a successful trick for people who like to work in miniature. This learning experience taught me that I get distracted by the other blocks when I am working in another one. I do like the one top left. It is my color way. The bottom right is too jarringly bright. The red block? I got bored drawing those sunflowers.

Oddly though.... I don't get bored with stargazer lilies. Of course I grew them for my reference materials. But again... stargazers have a special meaning. And the sunflowers were to be marketable.

My great take away from this set.... I wonder if the masking tape will ever come off. It's been there for a decade.

A DECADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!! Really where does the time go?

Heart Chakra

 snippet of acrylic/mixed media assemblage

Another series still in the works. I have no doubts that it will be finished. There are only 7 paintings to this series to illustrate the chakras. This is the first one that I did because it was the first one I needed to work on. Odd how that works.

I've updated the photography since I have a camera that is way better than the first one that I started posting with. And slowly my camera skills are sharpening. Photo editing software still has to help me soften up the rough spots  and compensate for some limiting lighting issues. And I really wanted to be able to do macro shots of the "cool" parts like they do with Somerset Studio. So this is a macro shot.

This is one of those things that I know I won't finish without Photoshop which is *mumblecough months away from happening. I have a very specific project in mind with the set. So while I am saving up for the software I have plenty of time to figure out what the other 3 Chakras have to say to me about their nature.

Unresolved

When you set aside a painting for a long period of time to be able to come back to it with fresh eyes you gain perspective. When you set it aside and years pass the chance of gaining perspective or insight diminishes. What you end up with then is more like an artifact dug up from the depths of an Egyptian sand dune.

Each work is an archive of the time in which you are creating. Who you are in the moment, what you are feeling, the tensions or joy that are a part of your life inform the work and every stroke involved in creating it. Step away for a few days to let a problem resolve itself. Step away for years and there may be no resolution at all.

I look at this vessel and see where I was going with it. I see that I did learn quite a bit about how the pigment floats through the water and settles itself. I learned how to let things manifest organically within a structure to essentially let the medium do all the work for me instead of tediously nitpicking each grain of solid within each molecule of liquid.

And I see an artifact. It is part of the past. It is a part of self discovery within the theme of the human body as a vessel of the spirit, human clay molded by experience and divine influence. I see something that I do not want to finish.

There are many bits from the past studio experience that surface as I excavate the vast amount of supplies in storage. I almost feel like I've cracked open Tut's tomb. But really, I've cracked open the resting place of an older version of myself. I think that I would like to collect all the bits, trim them down to size and arrange them somehow to be a cohesive display. Tut's treasures ask as many questions as they answer of the inquisitive mind. The bits in the studio seem to do the same with me.
What was I thinking? What were my influences? What was the grand scheme intended with all the pottering and producing? Did I have a goal in mind or was I going to work until I was done feeling the need to explore the theme? Were these works a statement on my life as it was or as it would be? Or... as I hoped it would be and knew it could not?

Ponderous. And unresolved.
For now. It could very well turn out that what I think is too much time to begin again is not enough. Only when I get to the End of Everything in My Life's Work will I know if this represents a thing that is resolved or forever a mystery.

And that it the nature of the artistic life.