The bags are getting packed and the travel journal is ready for use. First stop will be Bacharach on the Rhine. Already inserted are copies of postcards of Lorelai and the painting by JMW Turner of the Lorelai cliff on the Rhine is a centerfold. Turner popularized this area with British tourists by painting and sketching it.
I also included a photo of the placemat from a German restaurant in Berkeley.
The next segment of the trip will be Leiden, the Netherlands.
The ephemera I found on Etsy:
I will be looking for images in the Rijksmuseum by Charley Toorop, a Dutch painter who lived from 1891-1955. I was struck by her style.
While in Leiden we will take a side trip to Bruges…
The reason that I ended up with two boutiques on the same weekend in December was that I had taken a class last fall through Walnut Creek Civic Arts. If you take a class then you are invited to participate in the sale. I had taken a printmaking class and had a great time. The facility has a large etching press that is wonderful, so, along with block prints I made some collagraphs which I fell in love with doing. It is not like I need to go out and buy any textured papers to create these things, right? I ripped of the back cardboard from every pad of paper in the house and set to gluing. Then I coated the printing plates with layers and layers of gloss medium so the water-based ink could be washed off after the printing was done. Once they were printed I could not leave them alone. You know me, they also got some collage elements added on top and additional printing and coloring. Here is a sampling…
These two were printed on Rives BFK paper with two printing plates one for the background textures and the other with the animal.
These were printed on rice paper more like a block print would be rather than with the press. They were embellished with water color and colored pencils along with collage elements.
This had a background made with a collagraph on the etching press but then had silk screens added on top.
These were carving blocks I made and stamped on background paper. In the bottom one some of the paper had been sent through my inkjet printer but the paper tore. What to do but tear it some more and emphasize it.
Had so much fun I am taking the class again so I can use that wonderful press and make more collagraphs!
One of my iPhone collages was accepted into an art show “Expanding Vision a Contribution to Mobile Photography” at The Arts Center, Corvallis, Oregon. The show runs from August 21 until Sept 28. I posted this collage before, but now it has been collaged to a collage. (I was just waiting to use that sentence!) Wish I could visit the show, but if you are in the neighborhood I hope you will drop by! Here is information about the show and a slide show of the works included.
Also, links to most of the photographers are listed.
Here is my collaged work…
My iPhone collage was created from three photos taken while I was in Perugia last October…one of a skyline, one of a gargoyle on the museum, and one of a store with the word Perugia on its sign. Those were combined with Image Blender app and put through some distressing with Pic Grunger app. The original skyline photo was put through Etchings app for a treatment that makes it look like a postage stamp. The printed collage was put on an 11″x 14″cradled board that had been treated with lots of texture. Paper (some I printed myself, some collected), acrylic mediums and acrylic paint were used to finish the collage.
TM has been getting organized for his birding class. This meant finding the right journals for recording what he sees and counts. First he sought out weather-proof small notebooks for the recording-in-the-field. (I happened to have the yellow one in my collection. I think I had collected it not knowing what I would use it for but having fallen in love with its pale-blue grid-ruled pages. I figured I could rip out a few for my needs and he could have the rest. Anything for the cause!) The smallest ones fit conveniently into a shirt pocket.
Also, he needed a more permanent three-ring binder for officially entering each birding-adventure. Set in a specific layout it holds all the data.
I am such a supportive spouse I offered him use of my tools and my experience with journaling. (I thought there could be room for some decoration here.)
I go on trips and I journal about the experience with watercolors…
I alter old books with gesso, titanium white. titan buff, Davey’s grey, and collage papers…(they never seem to close once I am finished with them.)
I slap my printed iPhone photos onto inky backgrounds…
and I make collages from snippets of magazine pictures in books I have made myself. (Mostly because I absolutely love the way Fabiano Artistico paper behaves.)
I offered, I did offer to assist him in any way…tools, advice…but, no, he did not want my pens, my color ideas…he remains the legal pad to my handmade paper. Thus, it will always be…but now we have a fixture at the back door for any spontaneous, unusual sightings in the backyard. You never know who might fly through. Be prepared…
I hung an art show January 2 in the Art Gallery of the Orinda Library. It will be at the library for the month of January. It was an interesting experience deciding what I would include and it was fun including the work of my father. I had to reorganize once I got the paintings to the library. The large paintings behind glass with solid wood frames were quite heavy and I got nervous about hanging two on the same wire so I could not group the paintings by subject. But it got done thanks to husband Terry’s brawn and I only hit him in the chin once with a frame. (Luckily, he is still talking to me!)
Here is your invitation to the artist’s reception on Sunday, January 27, 2013, from 2:00-4:00. If you are in the neighborhood of the Orinda Library please join us for lemonade, popcorn, and peanuts. (Another section of the exhibit space has photographs of the digging of the fourth bore of the Caldecott Tunnel. Quite dramatic!)
My work is in a glass case and many of my father’s pictures and lithographs are framed behind glass, so once again I apologize for reflection but hope you get a sense of the exhibit.
My collages, ceramics from my distant past, photographs, and travel journals…
I included sketch books of my father’s because I find then fascinating…
This is the wall of my father’s art…
One of my friends asked if the walls of my house were bare now…ah, but no there is more, much more…
This link is to an article that was in the local paper The Orinda News. It starts on page 2.
What made an appearance on my work table yesterday?
I do not actually have a work table because the closest thing to a source of water in my house is the top of my washing machine in the laundry room. If I am using wet media that is where I stand. Good news is that sliding doors can hide the mess and supplies. Bad news is that other people in the house have to make an appointment to wash their cloths. The machine vibrates too much for anything to be on top of it during a cycle and I really hate it if things fall behind the washer since they are almost impossible to get out. If you don’t make an appointment or ask me to clear the machine, then you risk my wrath.
On my pseudo work table yesterday were these collages getting some final touches.
I started this collage while I was taking the on-line class with Misty Mawn.
I had always tried making transfers by taking my original photo to Kinko’s and making a color copy of it to use to transfer the image. Misty demonstrated using the image printed on your own inkjet printer. Always hoping to save time and money, I tried, but was not too adept at the method (my inks dissolved and made mud) so in order to save it I took used tea bags, emptied and flattened, and gel-mediumed them on top of the three images of the doll in the back. I did use the image of the same doll (the largest one) printed with my inkjet that I had altered with PicGrunger on my iPhone. The cracks across its face come from that app. I was able to judge how quickly to work before dissolving the ink when I was pasting an image down rather than when trying to transfer an image. Another illustration that there are no mistakes in art, just new opportunities. I was waiting for an opportunity to use those teabags I had dried and emptied a few months ago! My world traveling uncle gave me the doll back when I was in elementary school. This collage done on watercolor paper is quite large for me, 18″ x 22″. Now I have to figure out how to mount it so it can hang.
This collage I had started a long time ago, but the class spurred me to finish it so it was on the washing machine, also. It is on 12″ x 12″ canvas and I used multiple layers of Golden’s tar gel medium to get a really thick coat in order to submerge the yarn. In person it looks like it has many layers and depth and the spots are actually metallic leaf.
I also made two accordion books (each from one piece of paper) in different sizes but haven’t put images in them yet so won’t take pictures until they look more completed. They have internal pockets and are very cute!
Terry went to work on Wednesday so I got a lot done. Otherwise it is two retired people frequently looking at each other with impulsive suggestions for fun excursions to make. Wednesday has now become my official work day so that I can say I accomplished something…
Back to San Francisco on Friday, this time for the American Craft Council Craft Show. First to Greens Restaurant for a view of the Marina over coffee and then two piers at Fort Mason jammed with artists and artisans showing wearable, livable, displayable art. I wait every year for the inspiration of this environment. Just want to go make things…
The blue in this photo is actually from the ClassicPan app (vivid filter). The world was really a “California grey” tint.
And of course a bridge can sweep me into a collage. All taken from a moving car with an iPhone. iPhone pictures are like picking up bits and pieces of the city and putting them together into an art form. You just have to have room in your pocket to hold the camera/phone.
This collage includes two photos of the Bay Bridge as we drove across it, plus a wrought iron gate near Hayes Valley. DXP photo app.
Lois Reynolds Mead 