Collage Transfers Class - Week 1

This wasn't quite what I expected, but the idea grew on me. 

Black and white images made with copier toner can be transferred to absorbent paper by applying extract of wintergreen oil to the back and then rubbing with a sharp implement.  You can get a very dark sharp image if you tape the photocopy down and rub hard with something sharp.  You can get a lighter or blurrier image depending on how much the paper moves and how hard you rub and with what.  Unfortunately, it seems to require an absorbant ground, so I likely won't be able to use this technique as a top layer.

The teacher, Erin Zelley, brought a collection of photocopied images, which we all used.  I had time to do more than the three above, but ran out of interest so started working more on the queen with some materials I had taken and taking notes on future possibilities.  I expect the faces will be cut out and incorporated in another collage. I don't have a clue what to do with the time piece.  I did the focal images first and then thought it needed more texture, but after it was done I realized I'd erased all my value contrast for no good reason and am now no longer pleased with it.

Erin uses this technique, combined with drawing, for her own work.  Some of her larger, complex pieces were gorgeous.  She'll be entering the senior year of her BFA in the fall.  The other five ladies in the class seem to have taken the class because they thought the topic was interesting, four not really having done collage before and one elementary art school teacher.

SDCC - Two Purchases

I enjoyed walking through the small press and individual comic writers/artists area of the San Diego Comic Con.  Some works are different because of the stories they tell, others because of the way they are presented.

I was taken with the gallery style comics of Mark Gonyea.  Many many little squares telling a story arranged as a poster, usually with a touch of humor.  Try this evil little bit.  Unfortunately we are already rotating the art on the walls, so I bought a less attractive summary book.  But his work was definitely distinctive.

I kept picking up and putting down The Fate of the Artist by Eddie Campbell until I finally purchased it - and then was directed a few booths over to get it signed.  :)  I was definitely pleased after I read it.  It's humorous autobiographical fiction where you're not sure where the boundary between those two concepts are.  It's told in a fascinating mix of verbal and visual styles.  Cartoonish comics, photographic series, sketches, and more.

I also enjoyed hearing Scott McCloud discuss his upcoming book Making Comics.  It was his graphic novel style books about understanding and reinventing comics that really got me thinking about the sequential art and dependance of words and text on each other that the format holds.  The whole concept intrigues me.

July Calendar Pages

I'm amazed at the results when the project was so intimidating! 

I've completed my pages in Cece's calendar for July.  When I first received this one I was just agog at the gorgeous work in it.  Everyone's work in this round robin has been great so far, but this one seemed to have more than it's share of "good art days".  And it was a theme I was unsure about to boot.  Cece gracefully included some pictures and bits, which did help, though, and the original calendar was Klimt, so it had a richness all it's own.

I just glared at it until after vacation, then I seriously took to going through the bits and all my paper resources, looking at the pictures in the July section as well.  The scenery made me think of travelling and I knew I had maps and other journey related pieces.  I could use a gypsy picture to jsut do a generic beautiful spread...  As I was scanning some of my quote and definition pages I realized that a general theme of time , which I still had some stuff for, and predicting the future would fit in nicely.  The themes helped immensely as I moved forward.

I worked the pages in layers, first putting down the base color or paper and a couple elements I knew I'd want to only be partially showing through.  I went back over the next day, working primarily with my fluid acrylics and adding some more collage elements.  That was when I put the wagon on the first spread.  I also used partial bits of stamps and three different pigment inks on the third spread.  It just didn't look like it had enough to bring it together and I didn't want to do a full color wash.  As it turned out I didn't wait long enough before covering the design with acrylic medium and a lot of the lines smeared, but it looked good anyway.

The next day I added color to the first and third spreads with marker and colored pencil.  There's a HUGE difference in how sophisticated that first page looked, which is what I'd been hoping for, but had been a little worried about at first, seeing how simplistic the wagon looked when it was just paper.

The second spread took a little more work because I wanted to use stitching to embellish it.  The red rectangle on the right was done as a separate piece, to make it easier to attach and embellish the earring, and stitched on later.  The ribbon came from my stash and was a matter of sorting through what I had in my hands with the unfinished page in front of me, just sort of letting my mind drift through possibilities.  To finish it off I stitched the pages together, having deliberately left blank spreads in between for that purpose. 

I'm very happy with my results.  I feel that I really pulled together some of the things I've been thinking and learning about with this set of pages. 

SDCC - Creative Process

One aspect of the San Diego Comic-con that surprised me, but shouldn't have, was how often questions about the creative process came up in panels and on the floor.  Where do your ideas come from?  How do you develop them?  How do you prepare to act as a specific character?  Two particular moments stand out.

It's still art and the same concerns apply.  I went to one panel that had Stan Lee answering questions.  He was the creative force behind Marvel comics introduction of Spiderman, the X-men, and other highly popular characters.  He said it always amazed him that these little stories that he wrote became such big things when all he was concerned about at the time was if he could make them good enough that readers would buy the next one and he could pay his bills.  The ideas come because they have to, because you're looking for them.

I went to a panel on the third Spiderman movie and one fan asked Sam Raimi, the director of all three plus other fun stuff, how he could become a successful film maker.  Sam's answer sent me straight back to reading Art and Fear or some of Robert Genn's letters.  Every weekend go out with a camera, get a couple actors, and film a short movie, asking them to do scenes different ways.  Every week sit at your computer and edit the scenes, put in the music, and add the special effects.  On Friday evening, show the movie.  Did the audience react as you intended?  Did you like what you did?  What worked?  What didn't?  And start over again on Saturday.  In other words, paint one hundred paintings.  Do the work.

Beginning a Needle Lace Sampler

I've finally begun a needle lace stitches sampler, although in an atypical fashion.  I'm using cardstock as my substrate, since most of this stitching will be on top of and integrated into my other art, and working with a #8 perle cotton.  I chose ATC sized pieces so I could slip them into the card pages and view and rearrange and play with, when necessary.  I'm starting by working my way through Jill Nordfors-Clark's earlier book, "Needle Lace and Needleweaving", and then I'll check to see if there are variations in the newer book and my other books that I want to add.

Last night I did the basic detached buttonhole, a buttonhole with a straight stitch return, then the latter with the next row of loops going through the eyes, then using it to couch.  The first two didn't hold surprises for me, as I'd used them before, but I was interested in the basketweave effect of the third.  The couching didn't hold my attention at first - why not just use regular couching if you're not making transparent stand alone lace?  But then I realized that in my applications it might be nice to not have to pierce the surface of the substrate very often, depending on how thick and layered I had made it.

It felt really good to start on this process instead of putting it off. :)

San Diego Comic Con - Overview

This year's vacation was a trip to the San Diego International Comics Convention, the largest and the industry standard for debuts and new releases, more than five times the size of the Philadelphia Wizardcons that I've written about each May/June.  It was more my husband's vacation than mine, although I do read comics as well, but I certainly found plenty to interest me and had a good time.  For one thing, it was visually overwhelming.

The exhibit hall was huge and in the central area were the most dramatic booths of the larger companies.  The Sci-Fi Channel had this twisty sinuous plastic structure with inset tvs and display areas lit by blue lights.  To see the Snakes on a Plane exhibit you had to walk through a very very large snake.  Banners hung from the ceiling over many booths.  Gentle Giant, which makes statues and busts based on characters from movies, had a multi-pronged set of displays, little windows in walls and rocks displaying the rotating pieces while above were mounted huge replicas of some of the popular pieces.

A significant percentage of the congoers wore costumes.   Some were purchased, some were obviously hand-made, both not so well and extraordinarily well.  It was interesting to see the variations on a theme of the most popular characters, as each creator used what they had available.

Comics are, at their heart, sequential art, a merging of words and pictures.  There were booths and panels on the expected superhero comics and the huge movies made from them.  There were smaller booths for individuals making their own small series, either with a traditional look or a very untraditional one.  There were panels ranging from the academic side of the experience to the most mainstream.  I'll be adding some more specific comments over the next few days.