The Restart of the Commission

So I began again by initially stamping words that reminded me of her and of the great time we always have when we meet her - usually for knitting at her beach front cafe. This I knew would be covered up by images but they are important to me to put them as the first layer, the underpinning of the painting and of a life well lived.

Then I added pictures I'd collected in a collage format. So you see the roses, the coffee and treats, the balls of yarn, the hands in the mandela remind me what she does for the young people and old people in our community here at the beach. People that need a friendly word of encouragement, recognition, personal attention, in a word-help.

I wanted a picture of her cute little dachshound to put front and center so I got her husband to hold Copper and I got a great digital picture which I adjusted in Photoshop, printed out on Japanese rice paper and then added to the picture though as you see here I removed it because it was smearing and I had to find a better way to fix the ink before incorporating. Thus began some research about how to do what I wanted to do.

I tell everyone that art is creative vision but it's also at least 1/2 problem solving.

Here's the picture

So, here's the picture that wouldn't get done, but is now! Along with a closeup of a section on the right. You can see in the background where the dripping paint flowed sideways but I've put a whole new twist on the original. Oh, and it was 10 X 10 not 8 X 10.

Incidently, I don't know what these will be when I start out. I may have a picture from my picture stash that is arresting or a series of words that bring on thoughts or memories and sometimes as I work things just pop into my right brain and I choose to add it. Like I had some paper towels that I had used to sop up old acrylic and this is the center that I collaged over. I also included a piece of rug backing that I frequently paint through to it - stuck it on with Golden Acrylic Soft Gel which does a good job holding bulky things to paintings. And I've used some parts of my own old paintings that were part of the theme and have meaning to me though not to anyone else and that's ok. In fact, if I don't include things that have meaning for me even if other people don't know then the painting is less satisfying for me.

I think how this theme came about was musing about global warming initially and then came the words Eden at the end and then came the snakes and a part of a picture of my feeling on 911. This reflects then taking the global warming issue as a human responsibility to it's worst case scenario ending and relating it to a widely held belief of humanities initial curse.

So what do you think? My friend Sharon now says I have 2 readers that follow so I'm challenged to keep posting.

Below are 2 of the close up's I took to show parts of the painting that are not easy to see.

Eater Up of Art Making Time

Yes, I too have just set up (hurried for sure) my new blog. I usually spend way too much time thinking about these types of things..the name of the blog, the look, the pictures, the titles and everything else. But this time I decided to wing it! Because I want this to be about having and working with interesting ideas and/or what creatively is happening in my studio or inspiring me to new work!

Also, I want to start putting up what's coming out of my studio each day as a way to make sure that something is coming out each day. Yes I know, I'm building a house, putting in a landscape, helping my friend Sharon put in her landscape, querying my husband about his latest trip to Home Depot and walking my dogs on the bay or the beach but hey - for me the thing I long for the most is getting into that studio and doing something creative.

So Collages are on my radar right now. Made directly on canvases and likely to have words and fabric and threads and interesting papers and lots of color and acrylic paint. Mostly smallish like 8 X 10 but going up to as big as 16 X 20's. In other words I just got my order in from Blick and I'm ready to go. Now I just have to figure out how to post my pictures to the website. Hmmmm and then next it'll be twitter!