Here are the two collages I made for this short workshop. The under-layer is random scraps of ‘stuff’ to make a decorative base. You can’t see a lot of it remaining in the first one but the scraps are outlined with smudged pencil. The second one was done with coloured papers by Lynn but I didn’t have any so I used pictures torn from a Food magazine from Waitrose.
I have been participating in this: 10 artists’ lessons and a Facebook page to show my results. Not everyone who was signed up posted their work which was a shame as it was nice to see what other people made of the demos. Here are the pieces I posted which I did in my A4 concertina sketchbook to keep them in one place. One demo was intended to be folded into a minibook and another was to make a triptych but otherwise it was okay done this size and the paper of the book is surprisingly resilient to gesso, ink, glue etc.
I’ve been following some online workshops with Karen Stamper using these books. So far I’ve found the smallest too small, A5 just about right and A4 too big as it takes so long to do a spread and I can’t fit many pages on my table at once. I could turn each book over and complete the other side as well but I think I will just start a new book.
A picture with a looming factory waiting to gobble the workers up. Hope they enjoy the musical interlude!
This painting is for sale.
I think the world is cockeyed at present so this is pretty normal!
For sale.
Allotments come in all sorts of sizes and states of tidiness! There are ancient gardeners who can grow anything in tidy rows with no visible weeds, crazy plots where chickens grub up plants inside huge homemade wire cages, and the sadly neglected plots where, among the docks, nettles and couch grass, raspberries and blackberries struggle to see the light. (The currants have been gobbled up by pigeons and the lettuce by rabbits!)
A recent painting for sale.
Mammoth pigeons to carry missives or provide a meal for a big family!! For sale.
A recent painting developed over a random collage of hand-decorated papers. For sale.
Detail from a new picture.
A cheerful flower picture.
In rich dark colours this is a kind of version of the marina at Brighton! It would not recognise itself.
Pretty colours!
I love this gloomy piece which evolved under my eyes. My visual memory was jerked by the beginnings of the hunched up figure and I found the image I recalled in a book about Gauguin (hero!) with a photo of a Peruvian mummy. I have always loved the poem by Stevie Smith – hence the title.
Maybe all the horrifying stories of drownings in the Mediterranean influenced me as well. We can never know all the subconscious themes.
Image 10×8 inches (25.5×20 cm).
and for my last series in the year (the 3rd series) I have been working on aspects of Eve, the apple and the snake (or variations).
All images are 8×10 inches (20×25.5 cm) and are in mixed media. They are not intended to illustrate the bible story accurately!
Thank you, Carla, for another free Kids’ Art Week! (Last year’s lessons are still available here.)
I’m posting my efforts here this time:
Go, Picasso dog!
She holds her dummy close even while she isn’t speaking. An unlikely subject which appeared out of my collage. Image 10×8 inches (25×20 cm).
Sadly I started this 10×8 inch picture on too many varieties of oriental tissue so it was impossible to flatten it out – hence the wrinkles that persist! Otherwise I was pleased with it!
This is just the beginning of the piece. At lesson 23, the year’s work is nearly done. It’s been brilliant! Year of the Spark has followed Year of the Fairy Tale – both with Carla Sonheim. This year Lynn Whipple has provided half the lessons. Super mix of talents.
I kid myself it now looks a teeny weeny bit like an Egyptian tomb wall – I shall call the bathing belle Nefertiti.
Next year it will be Y is for Yellow. Watch this space…
credmayne 