Abstract Lanscrape Class

I am in the process of experimenting with landscape collage and here are acouple of my attempts. Our assignment is to go further and add more color but to keep the background ..light, dull, or muted.  I know it's only an assignment, but I really like these and don't want to mess then up.. but then I have done a whole lot more and will continue to do more .. so what' the big deal?  eh?  We will see.

These are our warm up exercises to begin to focus on horizons..  I did a number of these but decided to only publish a couple. I like the vibrant colors and the gesture of something peeking over the horizon.

 What a week!!!

I spent this past week in the Machine Embroidery class at  Gail Harkers  Creative Studies Center.  We first dyed/painted a variety of fabrics with DynFlow dye.  Then after heat setting these dyed fabrics we began to experiment with combinations of fabric and backing, testing out our sewing machine learning how to make them do what we wanted.  Kinda.  We tried different stitches and threads combinations.  We did "cut back" work and even burned out some fabrics.

Below are couple of  samples completed in class

              Amazing what can be accomplished with the simple zig zag stitch on dyed fabric with  the right combination of  thread and  backing.

Here I layered different fabrics and burned back layers.

                       

It was a great week.  I learned a lot and am inspired to continue working at home with my stash!

Color Class Lesson 6

Just a couple of landscapes I wanted to post before I leave for the week.

I spent the day putting together a variety of landscapes and found that as I was playing around with my stash of paper I wanted to make more.  Just didn't have the right colors, texture, etc.  This thing can be addictive.

The left one seems to be overpowering RED.. don't know if I should do something or just be happy with RED.  Sorry about the glare but the glue wasn't dry and I didn't want to scan it wet.


Below I started with shades of orange using a brayer for the  background then cut a stencil of freeze paper and brayed on the purple and pieces of orange painted tissue paper...

I noticed on both pieces that when using the credit card over tissue that has been put down with matt or gloss gel medium I get color transfer which helps dull the colors a bit.  I like the effect.

 I found it very difficult sometimes to determine warm and cool colors  .. As Jane points out color temperature is somewhat subjective. ... such as the 2nd row of colors she presented in the lesson.  I waffled back and forth trying to see the difference.  I felt stymied.

In selecting colors for the project I gathered together sets of colors to work with but continued to change my mind as to temperature, wondering if this or that color was really warm.. or cool.   So back to the subjective aspect.... at this point it seems to me that color temperature most often is determined by the surrounding colors.

That's it for now.  I won't be posting for a week.  I hope to be sketching and thinking of ideas for the rest of the projects.

Color Class - Lesson 5
I enjoyed this process playing with all the S's.. stencil, stamp, scrap, spritz, scribble using what ever I laid my hands on.  I think you all are familiar with most of the implements are but should you want more information let me know.

I have made notations under each just as a reminder.

carpet stuff, stamps, comb and end of paint brust

water drip on acrylic, jar lid, carpet unlayment, brayed, commercial crackel

water spritz on damp acrylic paint, commercial crackle (Dick Blick matte acrylic under, acrylic top)

water spritz on damp acrylic paint, insert commercial crackle, rubber stylus, stamps, brush strokes

stencil,  bubble wrap, hand carved stamps, floral spray paint on black, stamps

comb, stamps, brayer

spritz water on acrylic paint

I did a lot more but thought these were enough to remind me of what can be done.  I wanted to try the paper scrunch, but ran out of time because I wanted to post before I leave for the week.

Color - Lesson 4 - BJ

Color - Lesson 4 - BJ

Moving right along.. I am playing with paints and collage.  Love paint but collage is a challenge for me... but I just blog along hoping someday I will look back and see improvement!

More or Less - Monochrome.

That's what this started out to be, but I only had green tissue paper and some how it just jumped onto the page.  I have to admit using magazine tear outs and pasting them on is really not my thing.  But I was able to put down a couple magazine pieces and I am kind of getting the hang of it.  I added a few pieces of material..

And to tell the truth I pasted very little down because I liked what was under all the paper pieces and am hoping I can do something else with this piece later on.











Analogous Collage - Painting

I work from purple to blue with a tiny bit of green.  My torn piece where painted sprayed with alcohol, then occasionally stamping here and there.  I did paste down all the pieces in this one.   I kind of like the original better because the colors are more muted.  Scanning it seems to intensify the colors.

Self Portrait - Lesson 4 BJ

Self Portrait - Lesson 4 BJ

Collage a Figure as a Self-Portrait

My classmate have been having way too much fun... they really knocked themselves out.  I on the other hand just barely made my posts.




I have to admit at first I really didn't want to do this exercise but after I found a few fashion magazines and viewing all their fun posts I began to tear out body parts in frenzy.  You would think I didn't find much from what I am presenting, but I have a Hugh envelope filled with my paper dolls.

As usual I had to many pieces and began to become overwhelmed and thought I would just skip this one since I am up to my eyeballs getting ready for our local artist coop opening next week.   So I decided to limit myself to a couple and work on the background next week which I think Jane said we would be doing.  This is soooo unlike me.  I usually like to do a lot more than assigned.. Oh well.  I think this might be a good sign that I am giving up my over achier status .. at least for this week.

That's it for now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Self-Portrait - Lesson 3 BJ

Self-Portrait - Lesson 3 BJ

                   Here are my watercolor attempts.


Left:  White crayon with water color wash.
     After a few attempts I was finally able to get a darker wash which then allowed the crayon drawing to show.



Below:  Damped  paper with watercolor drawing
    It was hard to get the right amount of wetness on paper to able to draw.  I found my first attempts to be too dry and sketchy looking.  Then as I experimented more I was able to loosen up the drawing.  I like the fuzzy look, but there is challenge working with watercolor.