I have finally finished my layer on Annette’s Collage, I have been waiting until I finished before posting the ‘before’ and ‘after’. It is a bit long and thin but I quite like it. Here’s is Annette’s ‘before’, it looked really yummy and edible. I think she said she used Adirondack colour-washes.

Here is my layer, I did a magenta wash around the edges and then a pthalo blue (green shade) wash over the whole piece. I framed it all with a quinacridone nickel azo gold wash. I think the blue wash and to some extent, the magenta wash sort of tones down the colours a bit. I then rubber stamped a ‘city-scape’ using alphabet stamps. I like the overall effect.

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I signed up for an alphabet ATC swap on KCUK and there were times I thought I’d never make it - ha! ha! We were each allocated a letter of the alphabet and had to make 27 identical ATCs, and send them in, we would each then recieve 26 cards back, each representing a different letter of the alphabet.

I had real problems with mine, first with finding a suitable design, initially I thought this one would be perfect with ‘F for frisky’, but realised it may be too difficult to see the image.

I then did quite a few cards using this image and really liked it but then realising that my tiny ink pads couldn’t do that much stamping and then came up up with another design, only to find that my hands didn’t want to do the detailed work that was necessary.
A lot more work went into these than at first anticipated, ten steps all together, but I think it was worth it.  I got some really nice comments from Cath so I was pleased with a job well done!

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Someone at my art class told me about an art shop in Kentish Town so I went off on Saturday to investigate. Unfortunately they are only open until 11am on Saturdays so that meant no lie-in but it was well worth it!  Bird & Davies is an ‘artists manufactory’, they make artists canvases and sell loads of art materials, at what ook like reasonable prices. I didn’t realise there was an art shop so close to me so it is a real find.

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I had great plans for a collage on movement for this week but I had an awful day with hospital appointments and a student not turning up (nothing new there then! ), by the time it was time for me to leave home I was exhausted and in a horrid mood. The last thing I wanted to do was attend an art class, and to top things off, my transport situation made me rather late for class - again.

I wanted to re-visit the Heraclitus quote and do a piece on the movement of water in a river. I planned my piece and took a load of materials with me including watercolours, Lumiere paints, foam, tissue papers, cellophane, and angelina/crystalina fibres, there was going to be several layers in it. Instead I made a collage using only my watercolours. tissue paper, foam sheet and Galactic paints. It turned out really well and I felt to add more to it might detract from it so I left it at that. Rupert suggested that I make a series and use the rest of my materials to make another piece, which I think I might do next week.

I have the colour red in my mind, an orangey-red I think. Inspired by the volcano that is threatening to erupt in Indonesia. But then I’m also considering a red vortex of some kind, avery fast and uncontrollable movement. I will have to think about this and see where it takes me.

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Went to my art class on Wednesday and was really pleasantly surprised at how good I felt by the end of it.

Got there over half an hour late because I couldn’t get a cab, can’t understand it because it was a glorious day so you would’ve thought people would been taking a stroll rather than getting cabs willy-nilly. When it’s raining you can expect to not get a cab but not when it’s blistering hot! tsk!

Aaaanyway… when I arrived I had already missed Rupert giving next weeks project and I meant to ask him about it but from what he had written on the board it was something to do with movement, water, dance… or something, I then of cours promptly forgot to ask hime - doh! (I have just a message for him to call me back so I could clarify it with him) I remembered a quote by Heraclitus, the great pre-Socratic philosopher who proclaimed everything is in a state of flux, and thus you can never step into the same river twice. Rupert mentioned I should look into Haiku and stangely when I searched for the quote I found it on a site about Haiku *note to self - find out more about Haiku*.

Rupert gave a demo of creating different textures an effects using paint and various household materials; washing up liquid, hundreds & thousans, bicarbonate of soda, lentils etc. We were asked to make some sheets for use in our collages.

I finsihed my collage on a walk in the garden. My aim was to express something on the formal and informal in gardens, the structured and the organic. I took in some text from one of the books that Jenni got me about Scottish taxes, the pages were on parlimentary taxation and I made a straight path through the garden with the text - the metaphor. Thinking about it now I could have torn the pages up and made a meandering paved path. The rest of the collage was the organic slightly unruley garden, made of tissue paper, floral napkin and stencilled sequin-waste (punchinella). I really liked the effect *note to self - take in some S-W for S & S* and felt quite satisfied by the end of the class. Funny how my mind and mood have changed since my last post of the subject, am looking forward to the next class and perhaps even the rest of the course.

Unfortunately my collages are at the centre, I’m guessing that some time I can bring them home and put them on here for you to see.

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I think this post kind of leads on from my post last week about my experiences at my art class. Today I read an article about Art by the Inch, and another on the Myth of Getting it Right, on Lisa Vollrath’s site and could really relate to it.

I think I’ll start with trying to ‘get it right’. Lisa wrote quite eloquently on how from a young age we are told what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ with regards to the art we make, the colours, proportions, shapes etc., therefore as aduults we are overly critcal of ourselves based upoon other peoles’ expectations of what we produce. Funny, as I was reading the article, I was thinking of Miles and how he always loves my work even when I absolutely hate it. I dismiss his comments out of hand, thinking that he is biased because he loves me, therefore with the implication that his thoughts don’t count. I think if I just created without the idea that there is a right and a wrong way to do things, maybe I would truly find my muse.

I think I am really deadline driven, if I know something has to be done by a certain date I get it done - usually at the last minute - but with no deadlines, nothing gets done at all. This is something I worry about for when I withdraw from all the round robins and othe collaborative projects; will any art happen? With no deadlines to work towards I wonder if I will spend endless hours wondering what to do, stagnate, and never set brush to paper again.

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I received Annete’s background and after some initial confusion and a slight panic over measurments of the piece, I can say that it is lovely! Annette used some spray colours (Adirondack I think) and her paper looks really scrummy, almost edible. I will post a before and after pic of her sheet.

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Went to college last night and from ten minutes into the session I felt like I wanted to get out. I signed up for a Collage & Painting course on the understanding that it would cover things like design and composition, I guess I was looking for something quite structured and directed. What I found was that the classes are quite ‘free’ and it feels a bit like a couple of hours for me to ‘play’ which isn’t what I signed up for. I was in a totally lost state, unable to fathom what to do or how to do it. I just sat there for near enough the whole class looking vacantly around the room at other people diligently arting away, cutting, painting, gluing and re-arranging their collage elements whilst I felt completely overwhelmed by the freedom to do my own ‘thang’. How can I break the ‘rules’ if I don’t first know what they are?? Perhaps this is the reason that there are only 3 people in the class that have been on it for the rest of the year whilst the rest of the group are all new. Maybe my feelings of being trapped, panicking and wanting to run away and never going back are about my expectations of the class and not having them met. As an educator my philosophy has always been ‘you might want for me to give you the answers, but you need me not to’, but from the other side I can see how frustrating it can be not to be told what to do.

Talking over my feelings with Miles after the class he poiunted out that this type of ‘learning’ was making me feel so panicky because it is outside of my comfort zone. Ordinarily I would say that going outside of one’s comfort zone was a positive thing but now that I actually have to do it I feel terrified. When I explained to Rupert how I felt and why I thouht I was feeling like this (expectations, wrong head-space etc.) he suggested that I change course but I am determined to see this through. I think it would also be good for me to finish something. Miles pointed out that I am forever starting things, (like diets) and letting them all by the way-side. Perhaps it will be good for me to just do my own thing rather than be told what to do all the time, I could use class time to explore all the things that part of me wants to explore but never gets around to. I think I’m going to take with me the paints and mediums I am comfortable with and the materials that I never use, and use them.

This week I am taking in my Arteffects book and some spaghetti and some lentils to use in making different paint effects. We’ll see where I go from there, I have some ideas for my ‘Walk in the Garden’ collage too.

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