Step-by-step: Watch a Florida river scene come to life

There’s a lot I enjoy about creating collaged artworks.

I enjoy the process of discovery – looking through the color-sorted bins of fabric and paper I’ve created to find interesting colors and patterns to put together.

I enjoy the variety of materials, and how they interact with each other. Rice paper, sheer fabric and opaque fabric all take acrylic paint images a little differently, so they are pleasing to combine.

I enjoy the ability to compose by moving things around. Collage work is very tactile.

And, once the parts are created, the actual process of putting a work together goes pretty quickly. I enjoy seeing a blank page turn into a finished work.

I took some step-by step studio photos this past week of a collage as it progressed. This is a Florida Wildlife piece, “A Morning for Reflection.”  It is 16” x 20”, sized to go in a mat that fits a 20” x 24” frame.

If you’d like more information about this work, and other similar collages, you can visit my website HERE.

If you’d like to watch step-by-step as it is created, here is a 2 – ½ minute video that shows the work in progress. I hope you’ll enjoy watching it come together:

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

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Two Unanswered Questions

The rhythm of printmaking by hand lends itself to contemplation. Once I am in printing mode, I find that I am both working with my hands and going elsewhere inside.

December 23 was a printmaking morning for me, and also a day of thinking. Thirty two years ago on that day my daughter was born. How has that passage of time and the accumulation of experience and memory occurred?

I do not write this in the sense of, “Wow! Time sure does fly!”  That, of course, is something we all experience.

I am wondering about the mechanism of memory and time. Are there specific cells in my brain which hold specific pictures and sounds? As all of our body cells are dying and recreating constantly, how, then, do we retain those memories? Where are they?

Thirty two years ago my daughter was a wonderful new being — warm, squirming, fascinating, and, as I realized I actually knew nothing about babies, a little terrifying. Today she is a warm and wonderful young woman. Such transformation, such experiences.

Exactly how all this occurs is my first unanswered question. (Admittedly, a large and vague question. The stuff of science.)

What to do with it is the second. (The stuff of art)

I take my artmaking seriously. I believe I am doing my best, most interesting  and most meaningful work when it digs at least a little below surface and aesthetic considerations and touches meanings or memory and experience. Each of us, when we create, is bringing to the work all that we are, all that we know, and all that we don’t know.

Can my work be both visually compelling and thought-provoking?

Can I create work that touches memory and experience in another person?

Does the work need representational subject matter to do that? Can abstract forms and colors communicate as well?

The unfolding and continuing of this second question is what keeps me interested.

Below: A few works that felt, as I created them,
drawn from inner experience.

“Find Something Real to Remember” (DETAIL) On my web site, HERE

“Where You Have Long Since Forgotten” On my web site HERE

“Neither Up Nor Down” on my web site HERE

“Flight of the Magical Lawnchair” On my web site HERE

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It’s the Little Things – Some Studio Printing Tips

I had a great morning session of hand printmaking this morning. I realized as I looked at the completed images how the rhythm of printing and having a successful session depend on some  little things. These become like familiar friends. As I set up I get in printing mode

Acrylics on my worktable: I set out the colors I plan to use for the prints. I love these quart jars of acrylic paints with the nice wide, easy-access lids. Several years ago an artist  friend told me about Nova Color paints from California. I have been using them since, and they are also my primary source for matte medium and gel medium. (I buy these by the gallon.)  I limit my palette of colors kept on-hand and mix all my printing colors from these basics.

My favorite mixing palette: I tape down a sheet of white paper to the worktable and tape a sheet of waxed paper over that. I mix on the waxed paper. It’s economical and disposable. (And I can also monotype print from the colors on the palette at the end of a session!)

Printing plate: I print by hand from a soft gelatin plate. The plate I am using currently is in a commercial size cookie sheet about 18” x 22”. I mix my own, and use a recipe with glycerin so it does not have to be refrigerated. I have been using this one nearly a year. I also have a commercial gelatin plate I use when I want to have two going at once. Each has its own quirks, and you have to experiment with amount of liquid needed and amount of pressure.

Materials: Generally, I print on muslin, sheer polyester fabric (shown) and rice paper. The more delicate printing materials (the polyester and the rice paper) pick up more nuance and delicate image from the plate. The muslin will print with a more opaque appearance.

Hands on! I use my hands to press stencils and relief materials on the plate and then press my printing surface into the paint. Yes, my hands get pretty messy. But I’ve tried gloves and just don’t like working that way.

Here are a few of the images I created this morning. I’ll be incorporating these into a new art quilt.

While I incorporate monotype printed pieces into all of my large textile collages and art quilts, I’ve also been creating some smaller paper-mounted monotype collage pieces this year. A sample is below, and you can see them on my website HERE    

“Beyond the Thunder” 16 x 20 Framed Collage 2018

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Thanks for reading. I always enjoy questions and comments.

—Bobbi

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Life Unseen – Life Unexpected

I did some studio cleaning last week. And so I rediscovered a newspaper clipping I had saved in 2011.

It has re-appeared in my creative life at just the right time.

I remember being captivated by this little science snippet

“It will illustrate once again that somehow life finds a way to survive in the strangest and harshest places.” True for microbes. True for human beings. True for hopes and dreams.

When I first started creating textile pieces, I focused on natural scenes and images. What was most interesting to me was the concept of life beneath – life unseen – the mystery of what there is beyond the visible.

For the past year, as I have focused on works about home and memory, what interests me is much the same. What one sees from the outside is not all there is. Inner life is rich, textured, vibrant, layered, full of mystery.  It’s my hope that the works have spoken both to the reality of facades and the reality of resilience.

I have just begun the process of thinking through some new works. I am filling pages in my sketchbook. I am interested in images of water, and juxtaposing them with non-organic patterns and abstract shapes. It’s another way to get at the idea of there being more that’s real than what we see.

I have begun some transfers onto fabric of enlarged text from this news clip, to incorporate into the new pieces. Even if it becomes obscured , I will know it’s there.  “Scientists keep finding germs in places where they don’t expect.” We find life even where it does not seem it should be able to survive.

“Living Deeply” explores the unseen world beneath the surface. On my web site HERE

“Sometimes You Can’t See In,” (DETAIL) suggesting life that is hidden within the home. On my web site HERE.

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Monotype Printing on Rice Paper and Fabric… What a great Sunday morning of printmaking!

All week I’ve had some monotype concepts cooking on the creativity back burner. Today was the day to jump into some spontaneous monotype printing — mostly on rice paper, some on fabrics, and all with acrylic paints. Among the many things I like about printing monotypes is that the results are just about always useful, even when they don’t fulfill the vision with which I begin. I can incorporate rice paper into abstract collaged paper or textile works and art quilts. This freedom means I begin a several-hour printmaking session with a nice feeling of enthusiasm.

Today I am inspired by a grey-yellow-white palette. Two pieces I recently created in fabric for my “Home is What you Remember” series used this palette. It’s not a combination I have focused on much before, but I really enjoy it. Mixing yellow and black yields some wonderful olive tones. Adding the white brings them into a subtle range of celery to gold to cream. And the delicacy of monotype printing lets those colors hold detailed textures.

Another thing I like about hand printmaking: it’s very low tech, but not limiting. It is possible to make work that’s gaudy and un-artful printing by hand. It’s also possible to create work that’s interesting and well executed printing by hand. It’s never really about the method.  The same is true, I believe, regarding oil painting, acrylic painting, quilting or drawing with crayons. It’s not the medium alone that dictates the value or content of the outcome.

This morning I ripped to size 8 sheets of rice paper. I am experimenting with creating more of the overall composition through multiple hits of a sheet on differently inked plates. Acrylics dry so fast! It’s not hard to put a sheet back down for a second hit almost right after printing the first.

At the end of my morning I had created a nice stack of images. Now I think I”ll let these simmer for a few days in the creativity cooker to see what mark-making, collaging, sewing — or something else? — comes next.

And here’s a little gift: I am counting down the days till my solo exhibition at Arts on Douglas. It represents a year of concerted thought and artmaking. To celebrate, I’ve created printable note cards using images of some of the quilts in the exhibit. They are FREE and the download is easy. I hope you enjoy using them. Just click HERE.

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Did a bicycle just ride through my artwork?

Just a quick flash – caught in the corner of my eye… Did a bicycle just ride through my artwork?

A small framed rice paper collage hangs on the wall in the dining room. Because it’s under reflective plexiglass, sometimes window reflections appear to be in the artwork itself. When a window reflection included a biker floating down the street through the front window, it added motion.

I like that flash of time and change as a metaphor for growing with a piece of artwork.

When I invite a piece of art into my home, my hope is that it will be like a relationship with a person. There is something new to see and learn each day. My understanding of it may grow and develop with time.

I framed this small collage because it speaks to me. It was one of my earliest experiments with monotype printing on rice paper. When I look at it, I remember the process. I remember the building up of layers. I enjoy again the roots connecting the dark abstract shape at the top and the rocks at the bottom.

When I change, my feeling about this artwork changes. Experiences will move through me day by day, just as a bicyclist moved through the reflected window. Living with original artwork is an opportunity to experience emotion and meaning – as well as how those things grow, move and become something new.

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WATER - POWER - CHANGE - IN THE VERY SAME BREATH

“In the Very Same Breath.” Along with the rest of the country, my thoughts this week have been on water. Its power. Its unpredictability. How it can change everything. So my thoughts for this week’s throwback went to an image of water, and the concept of things changing in unexpected ways.

The physical traits of water are, to me, powerful metaphors of truths underlying so much of reality. A surface that appears serene may hide energy, interactions and swirling forces beneath. From the surface you can’t always tell. And water can change in immediate ways. It can spill over. It can be moved by wind. It can boil.

I am interested in simultaneous events and the way they add depth to our understanding of reality. Just as we are experiencing one scene, at the very same time – in the very same breath – other events are occurring. It may be in another place. Or it may be in the same spot where we are, but inside, or in the realm of memory and dream. This means the visible world holds more layers and richness than just what we can see. Exploring this in layers and textures is the heart of my artmaking.

“In the very Same breath” is in the Layered Nature Gallery: HERE