Art – Page 66 – red paper boat

Book Binding Tutorial

February 27, 2006October 13, 2015 Shelly

Someone in one of my art or journalling groups (I can’t for the life of me recall which one) asked about hand binding her own journals. She’d tried following a Coptic binding tutorial, but couldn’t make sense of it. I told her I liked to use a bastardized version of Coptic binding to make my own journals, and that I’d try making an illustrated tutorial showing how I do it. So, that’s how I spent my weekend. I don’t know how successful it’ll prove to be, or whether it’ll be any clearer than some of the other tutorials out there. If anyone wants to try it and give me feedback, I’d welcome it.

Single Needle Chain Stitch Binding Tutorial

Now, if I could only recall which group the discussion occurred in…

Art

Instant Reviews

February 20, 2006October 13, 2015 Shelly

Instant Review #1: Brokeback Mountain

I haven’t, as yet, seen it, but I’m happy to report that my word-challenged friend really enjoyed it. She pronounced it “a little slow, but very, very good.”

Instant Review #2: Some Art by Some Dead Guy Named Odilon Redon

Red Boat with Blue Sail, Odilon Redon, circa 1907, oil on canvas

My boss just returned to work after having surgery. She received a gorgeous bouquet of flowers, which reminded me of how much I adore Odilon Redon’s work. If you aren’t familiar with it, I recommend checking it out. His still lifes are beautiful. He painted more than still lifes, though. His Red Boat with Blue Sail is one of my absolute favorite paintings in the entire world. His portraits are lovely, too. They remind me of Medieval icons.

Instant Review #3: The Kumars at No. 42

I’m not even sure how to describe this gem. It’s part scripted sit-com, part ad-libbed talk show, and 100% hilarity. Sanjeev Kumar lives at home with his parents and grandmother. They’ve converted their back garden into a television studio, where they interview celebrity guests (Minnie Driver and Grant E. Lee, among others) for their chat show. Dear God, is it ever funny.

Instant Review #4: The Iron Giant

An animated film about a boy and his giant robot from outer space, set in the 1950s. It’s truly beautiful–funny and sweet and sad, and it made me cry, all without being at all sappy or over done. Now that’s entertainment.

Art, Photography

Easy-peasy Monoprints

February 13, 2006October 13, 2015 Shelly

I sometimes use this method to create backgrounds. It can also be used to create full-blown works of art.

Start by laying down a sheet of freezer paper, shiny side up. Secure it with tape. Then, apply acrylic paint to the freezer paper “plate.” You can move it around with a brush, fingers, etc. This time, I used a credit card to smooth the paint and mix it slightly. When you have the paint where you want it, lay your paper face down onto it and burnish gently with your hands. Be careful not to move the paper, or the design will smudge and smear. Gently pull the paper away and lay it flat to dry. You’ll need to re-“ink” the “plate” with additional paint between pulls. If you want to change palettes, you can scrape and wash the remaining paint off the “plate” or you can just toss it and start over with a fresh sheet of freezer paper.

Art

The Raising of an Old Hope

February 13, 2006December 29, 2015 Shelly

Vessels: The Raising of an Old Hope
oil pastel on 90lb Stonehenge paper with bones, hair, brass brads, and copper wire
11 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches

I meant to play around with making a pinhole lens for my 35mm camera, but I didn’t end up getting to it. The weather turned kind of gross–cold and grey and snowy–so I stayed inside and made art. Not that it was terrible out or anything, not like what the east coast is experiencing (25 inches of snow?!), but I just didn’t feel like doing much of anything. Instead, I spent the day drawing while watching some awful movie about a 16th century Venetian courtesan on WB (ah, apparently it was called Dangerous Beauty) and a biography of Anne Boleyn on PBS. That was an odd juxtaposition!

And, now, the weekend is over. Hrmph. They always speed by too quickly, and there is never enough to show for the time spent.

Art

Vessels: Six Secrets

February 12, 2006October 13, 2015 Shelly

Vessels: Six Secrets
Prismacolor and Caran d’Ache Neocolors II on 90lb black Stonehenge paper with vertebrae and copper wire
11 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches

Someone in one of my art groups asked about drawing with Prismacolors on black paper, and I remembered a stash of black Stonehenge paper I’d gotten a while back. My intention was to use it for oil pastels, and I will, but there’s plenty of it to play around with. It’s been years since I’ve played around with Prismacolors. They’re fussier and more time consuming than oil pastels, which is probably why I don’t use them much. And, while they’re somewhat finger blendable (I just cannot seem to keep my fingers out of whatever I’m working with), once you’ve built up enough layers, they aren’t as easy and fun to move around on the paper as oil pastels.

While I was working, I watched the last DVD of Freaks and Geeks. Good grief! I laughed, I cried, it was way better than Cats. Truly. It reminded me so much of the preppy high school I went to in 9^th grade.

Art, Bookarts, Journals, Photography

A New Book and a Happy Accident

February 4, 2006October 13, 2015 Shelly

The ink and paper I ordered still haven’t been delivered (they should’ve been here on Friday), so I’m sort of stuck for journalling. I’ve got pens a-plenty, but I’m really preferring working with a dip pen. Hrmph. So, I worked on some backgrounds. The first one is just plain old stamping, using a carved eraser and a wine cork with cheap acrylic craft paint.\r\n\r\n

The second one was less involved, but I think more interesting. I started with diluted blue acrylic paint. After it dried, I sloshed on some super diluted gesso. Because I was working on a slanted surface, the gesso ran all over the place, including onto the carpet. Yikes! So I grabbed my roll of paper towels to blot the mess, and noticed that they left lovely basket-weave lines in the blotted gesso. I like the pattern, and it should provide guidelines for writing. I can’t write level to save my life, so I’m happy. Yay for serendipity!

I also bound another book this morning. It’s small and chunky and terribly cute: 3 x 3 3/4 inches and 48 pages (12 signatures of 4 pages each), Coptic bound with linen thread. The pages are Cartiera Magnani hot press watercolor paper, which is yummy.

The covers are made from denim from an old pair of my jeans, cut twice as wide as the width of the pages and a little taller. I ran them through the wash cycle a couple of times so the edges would fray. I was careful to keep the original seams at the centers of the fabric pieces, so that when I folded them in half around the boards, the seams would be along the spine edges. I then glued them to the boards (actually, two pieces of watercolor paper, because I wanted flexible covers), weighted them, and let them dry overnight.

Art

Making your savior behavior look evil*

February 1, 2006October 12, 2015 Shelly

I started watching the SotU address, but just couldn’t stomach it. Like a good horror movie, I think it’s best to watch our fearless leader speechify in the company of others, so I’m going to do so Friday. I’ve already had enough bad and bizarre dreams lately. There’s no reason to deliberately ask for trouble.

About those postcards Dawn mentioned in comments. I need to pick up some ink at Wal-mark**. I hate shopping there, but sometimes it’s necessary. Hopefully, they’ll have what I need. One word of caution (well, two, actually). First, there is a huge difference between how images look in print and on screen. The luminosity won’t be the same in the printed versions, so I’ll have to do some test printing to see if it’s even worth pursuing. They may end up looking like total crap. Second, I suck at getting things mailed out, so I won’t guarantee to get anything in the mail in a timely fashion. I’m just sayin’…

So, Dawn (or anyone else–here or abroad, as I don’t mind mailing overseas–who would like a postcard depicting rural Indiana), if I can make decent prints, which images are you interested in? I also might also be persuaded to do some postcards of artwork (same caveats apply).

Oh, and Denise, if you’re out there… That silly voice you do? The little voice in my head has adopted it, which is equally entertaining and disconcerting. Yesterday, in a staff meeting, it kept talking to me, and it was all I could do not to laugh out loud. Make it stoooooop!!!

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* My current stack of car CDs includes a large sampling of questionable ’80s music (as opposed to the unquestionable kind, of which I have yet to see any evidence indicating the existence). My apologies if this has given anyone big hair and skinny tie flash backs. Just be thankful I wasn’t a Wham! fan, or you might really be sorry.

** The local patois is truly a marvelous thing. I think, culturally and dialectically, southern Indiana is not entirely unlike Appalachia. That sounds like a stretch, until you consider how close we are geographically to northern Kentucky.

Art, Journals

Soul Mapping: Chapter 4 Finished

January 31, 2006October 12, 2015 Shelly

Chapter 4 was much shorter and less involved than the previous chapters, so it went really quickly. I finished it this evening, along with the visual exercise. The chapter’s theme was re-creation, in the context of rebirth and synthesis. Most of the exercises dealt with exploring the things that feed the soul and recharge the body and mind.

Many of the exercises seemed to be geared more toward people who have trouble discovering what to do with their free time–something that has never been a problem for me! I don’t know the meaning of the word boredom. I can thank my mom for that. When we were kids, if we complained that we were bored–or even if we just looked at loose ends–she’d find us something to do. Something usually involved cleaning, so we learned at a young age to occupy and entertain ourselves. That sounds like such a simple thing, but I’ve been surprised at the number of adults I’ve known who’ve had no concept of how to make use of and enjoy their free time.

Soul Map, Chapter 4
acrylic, anatomical illustration, dictionary page, ticket stubs, and magazine clippings

The symbolism of the elements in this piece is tenuous. The book suggested perusing a bunch of magazines for imagery related to our responses to the written exercises. I had a hell of a time finding anything useful, and what I did find, I really had to massage to turn it into what I wanted it to be. Because of that, most of the elements are doing double, or even triple, duty.

Now, on to Chapter 5!

Art, Journals, Ladybusiness

Femme de Chambre

January 25, 2006October 12, 2015 Shelly

acrylic, oil pastel, and collage in composition book

I finished another spread in my composition book, this one in the Vessels theme. It started with blue paint that was left over from one of the Soul Mapping exercises. I couldn’t let it go to waste, so I did some finger painting in my composition book. The checkerboard stamp–made from an eraser–came from the same place. The pattern is supposed to represent institutional floor tiles–the sort found in many US schools–but I’m not sure it translates well, given the color scheme. I like it, though, and I think the concept of pattern fits well with the general theme.

The theme and title come from the fragment of dictionary page. I was struck by the juxtaposition of femur with female, and the inclusion of “femme de chambre” (chamber maid). There was certainly a lot to work with there: vessels, chambers, women’s work; the idea that women are empty receptacles, awaiting the indoctrination and training that will allow them to conform to the traditional female role (mother, wife, living loving maid, if you will).

And, just because I can, I thought I’d include a current photo of my work space. It’s actually pretty clean, here. Usually, I leave piles of stuff sitting out, which Pandora sleeps all over and shoves off the edge of the table.

Also, because I can, I scanned and uploaded a real photo postcard I found at a yard sale last summer. It’s not in very good shape (creases, and some pencil marks on the front, and the corners are all bent), but it was really cheap, so I bought it. The back is inscribed in pencil with several names. It also bears the inscription “Norfolk Neb.”

Recto

Verso

Art, Artist Books, Poetry

Hemp Bound Journal: Three Things (reworked)

January 24, 2006October 12, 2015 Shelly

I really didn’t like the way this page originally looked. It was nothing but silver, which worked better conceptually than visually. The only parts I ended up keeping were the coin, mirror, and key. Everything else was gessoed and collaged over. It’s not perfect, but it’s a huge improvement.

collage (fragments from old patent book, key, coin, and mirror fragment) with oil pastel, Neocolors II water soluble wax crayons, instant coffee, gesso, and india ink
8 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches

Three things
Are not four things.
Three things
Are sharper than knives,
Silent famines of thought that
Shine silver like moons in the dark.

Three things are perfectly cold
By intent
By design
By the deadliest scheme.

Three things are ancient wheels
That turn in the night,
Near misses and reflections.

Three things
Are stitching thought to flesh to deed,
Bone drawing blood slickened sinew.

Three things are problematic monsters
Ministering, waiting, and watching.