The colour of hope

I’m doing two #100dayprojects, and am up to day 84. One of them is about making a collage a day, and I’ve been playing along with Froyle, as she inspires us to try different colours. This week she asked what colour represents hope for us. My initial thought was orange but, the more I thought about it, that’s not true. I love orange, it’s about fire and passion and danger, not hope.

For me hope is a mix of blues and greens; the colours of nature and the sea. The land and waterways being healthy is what will give me hope for earth. I particularly love the colour of the Hokitika Gorge, and the greens of the land as it meets the blue of the distant hills on the West Coast. When I’m there I create lovely gelli prints inspired by the land around me. When I get home I stop. Not because I’m home, but because – as beautiful as it is – the land around me doesn’t inspire me in quite the same way.

Here’s the first of this week’s collages inspired by the colour of hope.

Circling back

I’ve been learning to draw faces. Today is day 50 of this #100dayproject. I can draw a recognisable face with no real effort now. What I can’t reliably do is convey a specific emotion, but hopefully in the next 50 days that will come.

I’m also doing #100daysofcollage with Froyle Art and loving it. We’re doing a different colour each week. These are in a small Dylusions journal, so not overly time consuming. I’m using up some of my stash of gelli print and hand printed papers.

But I’m also circling back to my earliest art journal love, Tim Holtz and Distress. Sometimes I put it away for a bit, but I always come back. I just got some new paper dolls, transparent wings, and some other bits and pieces. Heaven! Thanks to Fiona at Create for having great stock.

Using my new Tim Holtz supplies, and some Finnabair rub ons.

The first face I tried, and some of my most recent. Centre top is today one.

A few recent collages from the series.

Influences

Is my art original? Yes. Am I influenced by others artists? Absolutely. There’s a core group I’ve followed for years, including Tim Holtz, Teesha Moore, Traci Bautista, Dina Wakley and Dyan Reaveley. Some of them are designers with Ranger, so I’m influenced by both their art and their new products.

Artists whose work has influenced me include Jasper Johns, Richard Serra, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell and Cy Twombly. I was fortunate to study some of them at The Learning Connexion during the four years I studied art.

Teesha Moore, whose work I love, has been sharing some of her older art journal pages on Instagram. She’s had some health problems, so I don’t think she’s creating much at the moment. I’ve made her style of journal before, and often use her collage style in my journals.

Tonight I hunted round in the cupboard and found a blank journal I’d made from Fabriano paper, based on a video she did of her process back in 2010. I’ve started colouring the pages using Golden Fluid Acrylics. Once it’s fully dry I’m going to use magazine images and downloaded mixed media papers to create my pages. I’ve just bought some of Denise Lush’s new collage papers and think they’ll be perfect for this project!

Gelli collab

Penny and I spent a few hours playing with our gelli plates today. We talked about processes, colour/pattern likes and dislikes, and so on. Some really useful things happen when you work alongside someone you trust.

Watching Penny work reminded me of processes I’ve used in the past, but have moved way from. I’d forgotten the sheer joy of putting colour on the plate and pulling a print – there’s no other way to get the serendipitous spots of colour and texture.

Penny had stopped using stencils with gelli printing and rediscovered her love of a particular circle stencil. We talked about how I like quite complex, layered prints, while she likes the clean, clear lines you get from a good ghost print (second pull).

I’ve been watching a lot of Elizabeth St Hilaire’s videos and tried to replicate her process. I didn’t get it quite right, and suspect I’m not starting with a dark enough base, need to think more about value / opacity, and do more layers. I’m sufficiently invested in the outcome that I’ll keep trying.

Here’s a selection of papers I made today using tissue and tracing paper, and one piece of Hahnemule sumi rice paper.

Cute new journal

I bought myself one of the small 6×6 Dina Wakley journals, which have lovely thick watercolour paper, and the new Art by Marlene Artsy Arabia paper elements. Love them! I’m having so much fun playing in this smaller format with the Dina Wakley gloss sprays, DWM acrylic paints, a few stencils and the paper elements.

Making windows in my journal

I’ve been inspired by Niamh Baly on YouTube lately and she’d been making windows in her Dina Wakley art journal. Ok then!! I’ve just got some new Dina Wakley MEdia paints and stencils – okay okay – and collage tissue and glass sprays – from Fiona at Create in Auckland so was all set for some playtime. It was fun linking the three pages together by making sure the window on the burlap page worked with the layouts on either side. It’s something I can see me doing more of, especially with the burlap pages.

#cjs20 day 26

Today’s artist is the lovely and talented artist Mary Beth Shaw, creator of StencilGirl Stencils. I own a *lot* of their stencils, and love them, so was delighted to see Mary Beth’s name pop up. Most of the work I do for #cjs each year is in a cheap A5 journal; today’s piece is one of those times when I wish I’d worked on better paper. Damn it!

#cjs20 day 19

Today’s #cjs20 artist was Marsha Valk, whose colourful work I’ve seen (and liked) before. Her entire project wasn’t something I wanted to tackle in an evening so I used elements of her style to decorate a manilla folder. I use plain brown manilla folders for storing collage elements, painted papers, gelli prints etc so this was a useful project and a lot of messy fun.

 

#cjs20 day 13

The day 13 #cjs20 artist was Mystele Kirkeeng – I love the textural quality of her work so was delighted to see her name pop up. I decided to concentrate on her mark making and background style so did the dress but skipped the face. (I’m also playing catch up with posting as Tony has been away so I got a bit behind)

Music of my life

I have music on most of the time – at home, in my car, in my office… music keeps my brain busy so that I can concentrate on whatever I’m doing. I know that sounds odd – but it’s common with addicts, including food addicts like myself.

I listen to a wide range of music from opera to rock and hip hop. Favourites include HIM, Queen, P!nk, Meatloaf, Kiss and Nickelback. I often record the lyrics in my art journals. Why? Because my journals are about the things in my life and in my head – and music is a big part of that.

Dylusions – Paint: After midnight, Calypso teal, Mushy peas. Stencils: Diamonds in the rough, Shutters, Squares. Stamps: Dy’s alphabet. Other – Pitt big brush pen, Ranger collage medium, Distress black soot ink, black Archival ink, white gel pen.