Top: Orange Tart
Bottom: Red Tart
collage
These are the latest two collages for the Vessels book. And, the inevitable finally happened. I knew I would eventually goof up and make a page upside down. Damn! I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it. It’ll drive me crazy to bind this into the book with wonky pages, but the alternative is to not use it. I guess that’s what I get for paying more attention to Fawlty Towers than to what I was doing, eh?
I slept in this morning and woke up just in time to catch the tails of the sunrise. The sky finally cleared sometime last night and should stay clear until sometime tomorrow. It’s nice to see the sun again.
The tiny pale splotch at the center of the photograph is Harriet.
I was suddenly struck by how the bleached photos below look like they’re enveloped in flames. Very warm and toasty looking on what has turned out to be yet another gloomy grey day.
Vessels: 3 by 9 (with detail)
mixed media on paper
This is the latest installment in the Vessels series. It’s a combination of Pitt pen, Koh-I-Noor watercolor pencils, Neocolors II water-souluble wax crayons, and collage on yummy Cartiere Magnani paper. I’m much happier with this piece than #17–not so much because I think the final image is all that much better, but because the process of getting to the end result was more satisfying.
I’m especially happy with the leaves. I usually don’t enjoy the process of cross-hatching. It’s a bloody pain in my behindermost parts to get the sort of result I want. It’s a little difficult to tell, even from the detail, but there there are layers upon layers upon layers of cross hatching, which gives a velvety depth to the drawing. The paper held up very well to this sort of abuse.
I’ve been meaning to scan these for awhile. These were all altered with just bleach. I used Q-tips, a syringe, and my fingers to apply the bleach. I used both diluted and undiluted bleach. Caveat: if using undiluted bleach, I recommend having a tub of water handy or do your altering in the kitchen sink with the water running. You’ll need to act quickly or the bleach will completely eat away the emulsion. I found that using a syringe filled with a 50/50 bleach/water solution, pre-wetting the photo with running water, and running the photo through the water as soon as the bleach was applied worked best.
I really like the way the squarish photo of the snake turned out. That effect was gotten by filling the bottom of a lunch plate with a 50/50 bleach/water solution, dipping the center of the photo in the liquid, then immediately running it under water.
El Papa
acrylic, Faber-Castell Pitt pen, and gold leaf in composition book journal
There was a segment on the evening news about the Pope. He’s been hospitalized again, so I thought I’d do a little drawing in his honor.
I’m having my mid-morning snack (actually, since I get up at 4am, it’s more of a mid-day snack). I’m still on a radish bender. Yesterday’s radishes were hot and slightly smoky tasting, but they were nice and crunchy. Today’s radishes are sweet and garlicky. The flesh is crisp and delicately veined with red and pink. Mmm.
In artings news, I started on another drawing for the Vessels book last night. It’s Pitt pen and watercolor pencil on paper. Oh, and such paper!–140 lb Cartiere Magnani hot press. It’s yummy stuff, soft and silky and perfectly balanced. I don’t normally like the finish on hot press papers, but I think I’m in love. The act of putting pen to this paper is a joy.
I’m getting ready to begin a journal round robin for the Art Erratica group. Mail out date is March 15, so I need to get started on binding this puppy. (Who? Me? Procrastinate?) I’ve been putting it off because I couldn’t decide what materials I wanted to use. I guess I can check paper off the to-figure-out list. And binding (I’m going with coptic). Now I just need to decide what I want to do for the cover and whether or not I’m going to wrap the spine edge of each signature with a decorative paper or, hmmm, maybe ribbon?
There are a few blogs I’ve really been enjoying lately.
Vitriolica Webb’s ite, observations and drawings from a British woman living in Portugal. It’s updated daily.
Madwoman’s Lunchbox, writings about “fibers, photos, and stream of consciousness.” It’s updated regularly, but not daily. That’s unfortunate, because I’d like a daily dose and, after all, it is all about what I want, right?
On the Banks of Bay Creek, about composition book journaling. I really enjoy the feel of her journals. She has a nice touch and a knack I haven’t mastered for balancing words and images. Plus, Dawn’s blog helps keep me motivated.
I, drawing letters to twist thoughts
letters to feed the slackening storm
letters sewn on the sleeve of a good man
letters to direct the dissection of stone
I, drawing letters to define and inform
letters to hone the slivering bone
letters drawn from an unobjectionable pleasure
letters to tether the thought to the form.
And, he imagines the place where the letters began
farther away now and not by his hand,
For I was a fire in some clever imagination
but I, drawing letters from what I could find,
I thought of the ideal: six things I did bind
made of felt, made of bone, made of water and thread,
made of hide and of wind and of all things dead.
Vessels: Tesserae
collage
This is another in the Vessels series. I’m not completely happy with it, but that’s how it goes sometimes. The title comes from the central image–the interior of a mosque dome. The tiny tiles that make up the mosaic are called tesserae. A Latin word, it also was used by the Romans to describe small plaques of bone or wood that served as tallies or identification vouchers. A multitude of tiles creating a larger picture; a multitude of people creating a larger society. Each tiny piece is important to the whole, but in becoming part of the whole, the pieces cease exist as individuals. The understanding that there exists an unending conflict between individual identity and society as a whole is at least as ancient as Homer’s Akhilles. Yeah, he was a whinging mamma’s boy, but he did have a legitimate complaint.
There was a recent-ish discussion in one of my groups about old family photographs. Someone said that, after she was dead and gone, who would care who those people were? It’s probably true, and I find that incredibly sad. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so obsessed with getting all the Letters to Esther transcribed. I hate to think that no one cares. I’m not particularly religious. I don’t believe in an afterlife. Once we’re dead, we’re dead. The only way we continue on is in the consciousness of others and in the marks we make on this Earth. If we leave no marks and are unremembered, we truly go back to the dust and ashes from whence we came–just one unremarkable grain of sand among millions of other unremarkable grains of sand.
red paper boat 