I almost named my post "Master Pieces And Bought Art" all in humor of course, but then I thought, well, I AM mastering something, I'm mastering FUN!
I have a whole list of ideas for art to try. One of them was to make several B & W pieces. I have made one or two before and I love how the details stand out, like when you change a B & W photo from color to black and white. So many things you see that you might not have noticed in color. I'm all for bright colors, that is for sure, but I can still appreciate black and white.
When I began this piece last night, I still couldn't quite leave it all B/W. Even before I started I had some collage papers that were dark orange with black markings and I knew I'd have to put at least one tiny piece in on it somewhere. Well, as you can see there is more than one tiny piece included. All of this is papers I have painted in some way except for the door. There nearly center you can tell on the orange part that it is a door, but actually that is the top of the door and the lower part of the door is mostly black and blends in. I didn't care that the door did not stand out though, I only used it because it was floating on my art table and the colors were right. I guess the black and white only ones will have to be done later.
It's odd, but I suppose that is not unusual for me 😄 After it was done, on the upper left, it sort of looks like a profile of a woman's head. Only a woman I think because of the massive black hair flying around, but I admit, parts of the face aren't too feminine, so I may be wrong about the gender and the "nose" maybe be a clown nose.
You never know what is going to show up.
This piece was started night before last and finished last night. I did not start out to only make it B/W, but the beginnings were still more on the dark color side. It has some interesting pieces I think and a lot of open space, "negative space" the other artists like to call it. For some reason, I like it too.
I realize it makes a difference that I love the papers and the designs on them, so I know I see it with different eyes. Not just because I have an artistic eye, but because I made those papers, so they have a deeper feel to me. It simply can't be different on that.
I actually almost stopped when the above piece looked like this. Minimal, but for some reason I liked the different shapes and the way the 5 pieces played with each other. I had not glued down the piece with music and black circles when I took this photo.
I made this one a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't sure if it was finished. I'm still not sure. I thought it might need a disruptor. Maybe one will show up one day. Again though, I love these papers, the colors, the designs and how some have many layers of paint.
I watch multiple collage and mixed media artists on youtube. I like seeing what they do and their thoughts behind it. Last week, one of them said that it doesn't take talent to make a collage. She said that it's like when you pick out the clothes you are going to wear for the day, what items, what shoes, what jewelry. She said it's like when you decorate your house, you know what you like and choose how you want to put things together and to her, it was just like that. I understood where she was coming from on it.
Of course after you seeing my art, you may wonder just how DO I dress and what my house looks like.
🤣
I almost didn't include this one. It has been around for a while with it's mostly pastel colors accented with a few bold. Since it still lives here, I decided to throw it in. It might be a little quiet, but it has a few good bits here and there.
I bought this little piece from an artist on DPW (daily paint works) It's a small 5 x 6 piece. I know... what on earth?? When I saw it, it made me giggle. I thought "Who paints the hose pipe hooked to the yard spigot??? Then I decided I was going to buy it and I laughed as I thought "and who would buy it???"... ME!.... that's who. From more of a distance, it looks more realistic and not so fuzzy and the light playing off across the ground makes the spigot pop a little.
It's amazing how many little dab, dab, dabs of paint there are on it. So many layers of color to present this painting of an every day thing that you use, but never give a lot of thought too. The artist is Mitchell Freifeld.
Here's another little piece of art I bought recently. It was created by a process called Canotyping. I have seen some before, but have not studied any details on creating these, I just know that it uses inks or paints and some chemicals and whatever you want printed on them and they are put out in the direct sun to make the designs appear. This was made by artist Cindy Reed, also on DPW. She has some lovely ones there, but this is not the only type of art she creates. I chose this one because of the leaves and it is now Fall here. The actual art is 6x8, but Cindy mounted it in the black mat making it fit an 8x10 frame perfectly. I happened to have one handy that I picked up at the thrift shop, so it worked out well. I actually love it and may have to have more.
I saw a piece of art that looked like buckeyes to me, but turns out, that's not what it was. Thinking of buckeye seeds though, it reminded me that when my Dad had a stroke, many years ago, one thing that had been found in his pockets was one of these buckeye seeds. We thought it was strange! So later, when he was in the hospital, someone asked him why he had it in his pocket and he said he had read that carrying one in your pocket would bring you good luck and then he said, "I guess it's not true".
Now my Dad was just carrying it in jest really, he was retired living a fairly content life. Thing is, I'm not sure where he got it? Did he buy it from the garden market? I never remember seeing a buckeye tree here, although when I goog'd it, I did see that they can grow on North Carolina, so.... I don't know, but for sure this was never a tradition I was taught growing up and never really heard anything about it.
Funny how one little thing can bring up a past memory like that.
Ok... that's all the hogwash I have for today. Time to get dressed and go to the pharmacy to pick up my megadose of Vitamin D. Seems my vitamin D tank is quite low and my doctor wants to pump me up. LOL !! That sounded funny.... didn't it? I am sure it is because for some reason, my skin became very sensitive to the sun this summer and it would eat my skin up, red blotches, itchy for days! So.... I didn't get enough of it. Gah.....
Hope you are all doing well and that your hearts are happy.
Love you!
Jacey
That negative space one at the very start is awesome. So crisp!
Vitamin D eh? It's that the one we get from sunlight? I will be sorry on that myself soon!
Yes! ... Vit D is the sun vitamin and I have to confess (you are a Priest, right???) Once I realized I couldn't go in the sun or I would turn to dust like a vampire in the daylight, I should have been taking some Vitamin D3 supplements to be pro-active. I actually bought a bottle a few months back, took 1 and put the bottle away (eventually) in a place where I keep things I rarely use. What ?? So I actually have some here, but for some reason, they don't help if you don't actually take them. LOL... D'uh Me!!! Sheesh.... I'm getting old! I almost did the right thing. 😂
Say 10 "What tha hells" .... and carry on.
Crisp art is the goal !
Thanks for stopping over! I appreciate it.
You never stop to amaze me with your collages. I love them all and I'm preparing to create my own, once I get home. It amazes me how you select the pieces, how you color them and how you decide their place on the paper. The story that comes with each of them is lovely and funny as well.
Congratulations!
Hi Erikah!
Thank you for the compliment!
I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do. I love painting/stenciling/printing the papers. Sometimes I take a weekend and spend hours just painting up papers. It's crazy fun. I make all colors and designs and textures. The only pretend problem with that is where to put the wet papers till they dry. I used to keep a huge piece of cardboard, lay it in an open space on the floor and put wet paint things there. Someone commented in group one time that she used an old shower curtain on the floor and I thought that was so simple and easy and would fold away nicely in-between times. Soon after I was in a Dollar General store and they had summer fun stuff out that included not only a colorful summer shower curtain, but also a colorful summer vinyl table cloth which would work as well, so I bought one of each. My washer and drying are in a nook in my short hallway and I fold the table cloth across the top of both and it makes a perfect place when my desk gets full, to transfer some of the papers there while I fill up my desk again. After a round or two some of the papers dry and I make a stack of them as I go.
Once I have a lot, I store them in plastic containers, but how they are stored is not so important. For me though, I keep them loosely divided between warm colors, cool colors and mixed warm/cool colors. I like to have a lot to choose from, although that is not totally necessary, it is just how I do it. Then when I am ready to make something, I have a lot to choose from. That doesn't mean if I don't have a color I want, that I won't stop and paint up a few at random times. There really are no rules unless you make them for yourself.
I few times I have actually made a fun piece because some paper pieces fell randomly on the table together and I liked how they looked, so I created a piece around them. Funny how that can happen.
Thanks for stopping over. Can't wait to see what fun stuff you come up with.
The process you described here is interesting and honestly it's very different from how my mind works. I have a few pieces of paper put aside because I see something in them, or better yet, I see what I could do with them. I see you're painting the pieces in advance and then select them to see what you can create with them. Very interesting.
Using shower curtain and table cloth to dry the paper on is a very good idea. Unfortunately my flat is not big enough to have a separate space for this, but I can still find a solution to spread the pieces till they dry.
I must confess, whenever I see your posts I'm thinking of how you could sell these works. Most likely you're attached to them, which is understandable, but at some point, when they start piling up, you'll need to make a decision. But the reason I'm saying this is to test the market, or better yet, to test if there's demand for it. I'm not an artist but for me it would be huge satisfaction to see someone willing to pay for what I create. Obviously this is not so simple as you have to consider shipping costs and the platform's cut, but still, it would be interesting to know 😉
Thank you for the nice reply and I wish you a productive weekend. I'm heading home towards the end of the week and then I'm sure I'll find time to start creating something. 🤗
To me, that is the beauty of this medium, it is done so many ways. With all your art exposure I am sure you have seen that some folks nearly only use magazine and/or book photo bits and arrange them different ways. Lots of folks include markers of many kinds to add fun details to whatever paper arrangement they have made. The majority of collage artists that encourage folks to play in it, often say "use what you have", junk mail, any papery art supplies you already have, tissue paper, bits of wrapping paper, receipts, anything you clean out of your files if you still keep paper, anything really, if it is paper, it counts. Lots of folks also include things like twine, ribbon, bits of leftover lace and the such too. There just really are no boundaries. So whatever you have will work, because ... it just will. I didn't start out full blown like I do it now, I started out using what was here. It just grew to what it is now because I play in it every day.
I am not sure at this moment what I might choose to do on the selling side. Before collage, I sold some paintings that I have done for years, but I never ventured to sell online. I wasn't sure when I started painting that I wasn't supposed to give my art away. I have done some of that too! I just make it up as I go along, but there is a half a thought about taking it further one day. Like you said about the packaging and shipping and the such, there are many things to consider before staring something like that. I don't know if you have ever looked at the DPW site or not. It is not the booming place like the big sites are, but for about $13 a month, you can put your art there and sell or directly folks to your Etsy account or wherever you sell if you sell on another site. There are lots of kinds of art there from very good artists to not so great. You can put in "collage" and see what some folks have put there. I don't know how successful of a place it is for artists, but it's and inexpensive way to show art while you learn to test the waters.
Hope you have a good week and a safe trip home.
Thanks for coming by.