At the beginning of the weekend, this work was a lot of individual pieces and sections that I like glued down to a natural-edge canvas. Good start. (Note: How I got to this point is described in last week’s post.)

More to do.

This weekend my goal has been to make it an integrated whole. That means I want to pay attention to some transitions and connections.

First, a TRANSITION

This edge between the section that suggests sky and the section that suggests water is pretty harsh. A straight line. Sometimes, I like that. Here the abrupt line doesn’t have a purpose. I want to soften it up a bit.

I had some nice scraps of monotype printed tissue paper from another project. The colors will blend well with the new piece. And thin paper has that wonderful characteristic of ripping with unpredictable ragged edges. That’s what I was looking for.

I collaged the tissue paper in place. It will be complete encased in acrylic: medium above it and on top of it and through it. It will become a part of the fabric. But it can be scary at this stage to look at one’s work-in-progress and see all the ugly streaky matte medium. Fear not. It dries clear.

Now Some CONNECTIONS.

I’m unifying the top sections with the bottom third with some screen printed trees. These will have the same character as the screen-printed limbs that fill the bottom section.

I’ve determined the placement for my images and made masking tape corner marks to mark where they go. Now I’ll pour out acrylic paint onto the screen to print.

1-2-3 print.

It goes FAST! (And – an important reminder – working with acrylic paints means the screen cleanup has to happen really fast too. The paint dries in the screens and would clog them up in just a matter of a minute or so. I use my white plastic tray to walk the screen outside to the garden hose to get them rinsed out just as soon as I’ve pulled the print.)

More CONNECTIONS – with stitch.

The stitching on this collage is more a design element than a construction element. I’ve used three stitch patterns to unify the elements within each section. Long straight intersecting lines on the bottom third. Curving intersecting line in the middle. Meandering curved lines that follow the image of the sky elements in the top third.

One more CONNECTION – spatter

I can’t help myself. I love spatter. It just about always accomplishes what I want it to do. A subtle all-over bit of energy, going across the different sections, connecting all the parts.

Doing the spatter outdoors, I experienced one more delightful and spontaneous connection as I used a dish of rainwater to dip my spatter brush. This has happened before. I recorded my thought about it in a poem.

So, just for fun, I’ll close out this blog post with that poem. Cheers.

If you enjoy poetry, you might like to take a look at my collection of visual artwork and poems, “It was There I Believed.” It’s on my website HERE.

For all the artmakers: Happy creating
For all the art lovers: Happy appreciating

Thank you for reading.
I always enjoy questions and comments.
--Bobbi

bobbi@bobbibaughstudio.com

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