VD pages

It's been a while since I used my Visual Diary so the other day I reacquainted myself with old works and read the notes I'd written my self. Feeling inspired I spent some time doing prep work for the next ICE series. These are 3 pages from my visual diary, the collages are unrelated to the ICE collection I just mentioned. I  created them quite a while ago, at the time of my circle and dot experiment.s They've been floating about in a drawer for far too long and it's good to see them glued into my VD. I had intended for the bottom 2 collages to be part of my 4 weeks in Autumn series but they never got there because life 'getting in the way' instead!

Sometimes it is a struggle to evolve my work while keeping it true to me. I can't tear myself away from the nests, birds and ripped papers ( I love these ripped seeds!)

The map pieces are a new addition and I like the vertical lines in the top collage. I think I will explore the use of them a little further even though I naturally go for curves.

Speaking of the ICE series...Dale Copeland is currently in Bulgaria where she attened the opening ceremony for the exhibition of our collages in Bulgaria. She said that the collages are either framed in groups of 6 or bound together in books. How exciting!

Here's a copy and past of part of Dale's email to the group telling us where the collages are... "apparently they were excavating for an underpass and discovered an ancient street with huge paving stones. And the remains of a very luxurious house with mosaic tile floors, a fountain in the guestroom .... this is from Roman times, at the peak of luxury in their empire. What to do with this find? They built an art gallery around it! Your collages look superb there. And Bulgarians take art as seriously as they take history."

I can hardly believe one of my collages, created on my lounge floor is now in such a place!

Quite a few visitors have said they want to do the collage exchange next year and I really hope you do. Put some time aside and commit to this project because it really is worth it!

Last but not least, the fabulous Donna Watson of "Layers" has put together a wonderful post featuring collage artists, nests and poetry. Perfect! Donna even did me the honour of featuring one of my collages...thanks Donna! You can see the post here.

Leaf Lino Print

I hope you all like leaves and Autumn as much as I do! I've been playing around with a new lino cut which is a realitivly simple leaf design and I've introduced a 'new' colour to my prints- burgundy! It's a wonderful delicious colour which goes perfectly with coffee and Autumn. I've also been playing around with a few different methods for colouring my prints and taking them. A print straight onto paper still wet with coffee dye for example.  Here's a pic (below)  from my visual diary, the handmade book I made several months ago now. I hadn't used it for a while so it was quite nice flicking through and seeing the old entries. Click on the photo if you want to be able to read the notes below the images.

Below: The linocut itself, I often think these are little works of art in themselves and I think I will make a few 'lino carvings' at some point so that the lino itself is the work of art and the prints a by-product. I love the texture and the way the ink holds in some places but not in others.That fabulous background is the coffee and acrylic paint nude I used for my books cover. I am so inspired by these warm shades!

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Last but not least...it occured to me that the leaf print didn't have to be square just because the lino block was! I love these ripped and sissor cut leaves! The background it sits on just happens to be a sneak peak of the design idea I have for my next lino cut...I'm playing with the idea of seeds and ripples.

These prints, as you may have noticed, arn't perfect. I made the first few prints in black and didn't like the fat 'colouring book' lines that I had so I trimmed them down...and accidently cut off a line I didn't want too! Too late once it's gone! I was quite annoyed with myself but didn't want to throw away the block for the sake of a line and I think I will be able to save myself a little bit with some strategic colouring and water dripping.

I'm planning a new collage for the "Take it and Run" project I mentioned a few posts back.These prints are for it and I am quite excited about the design I can currently see taking shape in my head!  

More next posting!

My first hand bound book!

Front and back covers of my book. I plan on using this as a visual diary. I taught myself from tutorials on You Tube. You've gotta love You Tube!
I did 6 signatures, 4 A4 pages folded in half so that's 48 pages A2 in size. I was originally planning 4 signatures but as I discovered book making is addictive!

The back spine, a wee bit quirky because I ended up improvising but that's ok!

At the risk of sounding incredibly vain...I have to say I am feeling very pleased with myself today! Isn't it great when you create something that you even manage to 'wow' yourself with? lol. Ok, so I do sound a little vain now. Serioulsy though, I am incredibly chuffed at the way this book turned out. It has it's little quirks of course but for a first attempt I am, as I mentioned, feeling pretty good.

The painting below became the cover for my book. It was done on paper around the start of 2008. It's painted with acrylic, indian ink and coffee. The assignment I was doing at the time was about life drawing and the environment. You had to combine the two so that the person became part of the environment...so really what you are looking at is a nude on the beach!

A mixed bag of collage (mostly!)

I thought I would share a few visual diary pages, the first one being the results of the marigold dye that I made with the kids. The first two samples shows the dye colour at 5 minutes and then 1.5hrs. Both were taken prior to boiling and there was no difference between the 2 shades. The middle sample shows the mix after it had been boiled for an hour (much stronger as you can see) and the last 2 is the dye 3 days after boiling. It lost it's intesity and developed an 'organic' smell so we watered it down and fertilised the celery plants with it! The brown paper is coffee dyed computer paper and only added to the page to compliment the yellow. If I were to do this again I would probably make sure I used the dye soon after boiling then cooling it as the dye was at it's richest then. I think it would be quite easy to over-power the much paler shade I got after several days. I will be interested to see what happens to the colour of my samples over time. I have saved some yellow paper for future collages!

Above: Marigold dye, coffee, gesso, recycled encylcopedia pages.

Above:Bird houses "zetti" style collaged onto a painted background in my VD.

Below: Painted page from my VD. Getting warmed up and practising an idea for painting backgrounds for my collages. Acrylic paint applied using a plastic credit-type card and bubble wrap. No brush:)

The Cherry collage below is for a recipe tip in swap. I wouldn't usually join a recipe swap but I need the motivation having a project where I am working with others can give me. This is a 12 month swap, a different food type each month and we each make 8 pages the same and recieve 7 different pages back. The recipe I chose is for a Chocolate-Cherry Fudge chosen because I wanted to collage cherries!

Recipe card 4"x4". Gold serivette, pink and cream card, cherries made from painted paper and magazine pages. The card is sitting on a VD page for the purpose of this photo!

Incase you want it to here's the recipe: 400g tin condensed milk, 400g chocolate, 100g chopped red galce cherries, approx 20 chopped pink marshmellow. Melt together milk and chocolate over a low heat, slowly mix in cherries and marshmellows when melted. Line a 26 x 16 cm tin with paper and pour in fudge mix. Allow to firm in fridge, cut into fingers and try not to eat all at once!

Visual Diary Pocket

Diary Pages- January

I was playing with the idea of this book being a time capsule when I created this. The collaged page has several layers, starting with the entire alphabet stenciled on the blank page and then a selection of images collaged over top. The images/papers are random, chosen because I like them. Birds, seed heads, clay dolls, an apple, plastic, raffle tickets., a note from my son,even a groccery shopping reciept. Then I added paint and finally a layer of tracing paper (also known as baking paper, lunch wrap or waxed paper.) The idea of the paper was to trap the contents of the page underneath, sealing it like a time capsule. This day archived for ever.
The calander page is for January...some days written in Maori, some English. As you can see I have made no effort to keep my writing uniform, it's haphazrd. That for me is part of the appeal of hand made things.
I've got a couple of pockets to make and then January is done....starting next year as I mean to continue!

Diary Pages

I've had a mental health day! I've had the house to myself for the whole day for the first time in ages and after whipping around to do the domestic stuff found myself totally free to create!
These pages are from my home-made calender journal. I am a piler however piles people can easily take over whole houses (and one of my children is a piler not a filer too) apparently it's to do with being a 'visual' person. Apparently I am genetically inclined to actually keep all these things AND have them where I can see them. I'll go with that!
However, piler or not I don't live alone (thankfully) and every now and then come up with a good idea for keeping stuff tidy as well a available. This is one of them.
I bought a blank visual diary and made a pocket every other page and divided it up into months so I can use it as my art calender..keep track of swaps, exhibition dates, to do lists etc, the blank pages give me something too collage or paint when I'm in a 'feel like creating but don't know what to make' mood and the pockets somewhere to store the 'little stuff' that tend to fall out of piles and get lost in baskets. Images, postage stamps, notes, art bits and ATC's, feathers, leaves- that sort of stuff!
I started in September and did a really good job of actually using it, October I wasn't too bad, November and December...what diary? So the trick is obviously too keep the whole diary where I can see it! lol and create month pages in advance because theres nothing like a bit of procrastination to kill a good idea!

This is for the record the divider for 2007/08 and I have all good intentions of doing Janurary's on my next home alone day!

Art is not for respectable woman!

This is a visual diary page and as such it is just a draft for a much bigger idea.
I would love to put something like this onto a canvas! It was inspired by ARTSVILLE last week where they did an article on an elderly lady who was just so inspiring. In brief she wanted to be an artist but as this wasn't deemed to be a 'suitable profession for a respectable young lady' in her day she was encouraged to become a nurse instead. As a young child her father who was an architect used to bring home paper for her to use and she spent her days drawing and as a nurse she used to take her visual diary with her. Art has always been a part of her and she over come many social obstacles (and later physical) to be able draw and paint. Her pages are full of people, they are a pictorial story of her life and she made me realise just how lucky us modern woman are free to be able to express ourselves through art- and if we are really lucky make a profession of it!
To put this on a canvas would mean fine tuning the rawness of this one, which I kind of like and sometimes it is enough just to get an idea out of my head and into a form I can see. That is why I love working in the VD! It doesn't matter if it's rough and sometimes the lack of 'responsibility' I feel when I take an idea to an expensive canvas actually frees me to paint more emotively and when I paint like that I get a lot more satisfaction from it! ARTSVILLE is on again tonight, channel one at 10.20...be sure to tune in!
Lisa :)