Day 248 - 365/2014

Day Two Hundred Forty-Eight

As expected I was in pretty bad shape this morning...usual treatment plan made things more tolerable.  I made a dash out into the horrendous heat and humidity to do three errands...go to the framing shop, get Bootsy's cat food, and grab a few essential groceries...then make a beeline for home and air conditioning...and back to the treatment plan.

I got a set of three 16x20 frames for three collages I purchased a while back, an 8x10 one for one of my collages (below) and chose 2 frames for custom sizes.  I am not feeling like I could do a very good job with the assembly of the frames/hardware/etc. so I will leave that for another time (soon).

One of the custom frames will be for my collage called Pup.  I have wanted to add a bit more color to his background and chose a blue frame, so tonight I added blue to Pup.  I started out by mixing some acrylics until I got a color I liked...but man...what a mess.  Luckily I was able to wash off most of it.  Then I switched over to the "artistic blending chalks" and used cotton swabs and my fingers to apply the chalks.  The colors turned out pretty cool over the various background papers, especially considering how much matte medium and spray fixative is over the whole collage (because I originally thought I was done with it...ha ha ha).  But so far I think it looks much better with the added chalks/blues.  I may want to add a bit more white to Pup's sleeves...not sure yet.

Pup "before"

Mixing some acrylics.

Yikes!

Yay -- it washed off pretty well.

Switching over to the chalks.

Yeah...much better...I still want to see the papers underneath the added color.

I like the differences in various places on the collage...still the two same colors of chalk as above and below...

...just sits differently on different papers.

I like Pup a lot better now.

And here is the 8x10 collage...I can't remember right now exactly what I called it...something along the lines of "like a fairy" because of the lines from a children's book that are buried in the background of the collage...but I may have called it something else...I don't know.  I liked the collage as it was (without a frame) because the collage spills over all of the edges.  But what a difference with the simple black frame -- I like it even more now.  It's like the black frame really makes all of the black in the collage pop...or something.

Day 159 - 365/2014

Day One Hundred Fifty-Nine

This afternoon I put hanging hardware and wire on the back of the fairy/cat collage.  I tweaked it one last time and then hung it up in the kitchen.

Ha...I didn't read that edge of the canvas before today.

Later this afternoon and into this evening I worked on new placards for my Animal People series for Art-o-mat.  Man, I really wish I still had the use of my old photo program.  I understood it better than the workaround(s) I have been coming up with.  But these results will work out okay.

The difference between matte card stock and glossy photo paper.

The two placards -- the dog one still needs a little work to get it sized better.  I know you can read the dog one better, but I prefer the cat one...with the black edge.  I can't seem to get the dog one to brighten up w/o distorting.

I really dislike making labels and placards.  Mostly because I don't know how to use (or care to learn more about) the current photo program I have...too many steps to the workaround(s) and they aren't as good as the old program.  Oh well.  After all of the fussing around with the computer and printer, I am pretty much fried for doing anything else even mildly creative tonight.

Day 158 - 365/2014

Day One Hundred Fifty-Eight

I am feeling better today than I did last night, but still not 100%.  I am finding "sitting down/working, but not too hard" things to do.

In my head I really want to get started on some plaster cloth work but in reality I just don't have the energy and doing too much starts the headache up.  So I settled for reinforcing the legs on the new from scratch guy.  I made a mix CD and took it to the basement (along with the Bose clock/radio/CD player) and put some little L-bracket/corner braces on each leg.

I put the wobbly-legged from scratch guy up on the table to work on the reinforcing brackets.

It turned out that they really only needed on bracket each to tighten them up.

The appropriate spot on this leg was split and I didn't want to make it worse...

...so I cut a piece of that softish coppery metal strapping material with holes in it and bent it into the shape of the leg...sort of.

I don't know how much this is actually helping, but I feel better that it is there.

This guy is sturdy enough to pick up and move around now -- I could probably even bring him upstairs to Studio B...but not just yet...I need to make room in there first.

But now this guy is sturdy enough to be picked up and placed on a Rubbermaid storage bin to keep him off the floor and out path of water on the floor finding its way to the floor drains after a rain.

This evening/tonight I have been tweaking the fairy in the fairy/cat collage a bit more.  I finally figured out something else to add to it without making it visually too busy -- at least at first glance.  I added more circles in various size with my circles template in really light pencil marks.  Then I used the heavy duty poking tool to make the holes.  This time I put an old book underneath the canvas and pushed through into the book...it worked pretty well.  I still need to get some sort of grip or something to use with that tool or -- better yet -- use a tool more suited to poking holes to begin with.  I think the tool I have may be an old(ish) dental tool that my mom had in her tools stash...not sure.  A side benefit to putting the old book underneath the canvas is that the holes went through into the book and maybe it will be the push I needed to try altering the book (like I had planned in the first place a long time ago.)

The back cover of the book I was using.

Ha -- the holes pierced through into the pages...and actually pretty far down into the book.

A sample page from the old book...it is from the nineteen-teens.

I like all the textures in the papers of this collage and I like the added stitching.

Looking at the light through the pierced holes.

The back of the canvas -- it is easier to see the three colors of floss here.

I used the pale green, the dark yellow and also a medium yellow for the stitching on the circles.

I think this is a lot closer to being done...not quite, but almost.

Sewing the stitches into the fairy reminds me of the old sewing cards I used to love to work on as a kid.  I was looking at images of vintage sewing cards but I couldn't find any images of the sort of cards I did -- all the Google images were pretty toddler-y like baby animals, etc.  I can't remember what was on the cards I had but I do remember really enjoying sewing them and pulling the yarn back out and doing them over and over again.

Day 156 - 365/2014

Day One Hundred Fifty-Six

That fairy/cat collage has still been bugging me for "something else" -- I thought I'd give hand stitching a try.  In the end, I think I probably overworked it a bit (I should have left off the light green stitching that goes across the fairy's neck -- I should have just stuck with the two sizes of stitched lines) but oh well...I like it fine.   I like the stitching around the dot a lot.

This afternoon I scanned the fairy's head and cut-and-paste it into my Pages program so that I could try drawing  the stitched I wanted to add -- to see how it might look before actually piercing the canvas.  It turned out to be a little more challenging that the stitching on the postcards from a few weeks ago. 

Ready to get started.

The back of the canvas after the first bit of stitching.

Making holes for the stitching -- I used a regular sewing needle...oh, my hand.

It is working just fine.

The back of the canvas...I got the dot stitches pretty darn even!

But now it is time to call in the big guns...the piercing tool I used for the postcards.  I should have started out with this but I couldn't locate it earlier.

I wanted to add just the shorter stitches (pale green) but then I talked myself into it not being "done" enough -- now it is a bit overworked...live and learn...I still like it, though!

It is hard to see the stitching, but here it the "finished" collage...I think.

Earlier this afternoon I played around with making labels for the back of my Animal People collages for Art-o-mat by using a template in my word processing program.  My good 'ol trusty photo program is no longer supported in my computer with the latest update of the operating system so I've had to find a workaround for myself.  I am not very computery and once I learn how to do something I like to stay with that method as long as I can.  I no longer know how to print things in the sizes I want and I can't seem to get the hang of it in my newer photo program...oh well.  This is a big part of what has held up me with finishing this one hundred block set of Animal People.  

So this is a page of the "business cards" that I came up with to use as a label for the back of the Animal People collages.  At least I think this will be what I use.

This is enough for tonight -- I half-thought I might try working with some plaster cloth tonight but no.  I need to go to bed early and re-try doing the sleep study that got messed up last night.  I have things to do in the morning/early afternoon tomorrow and then it is the opening reception for West of Center.  Wow.

Day 155 - 365/2014

Day One Hundred Fifty-Five

Today was hanging day for West of Center.  I printed out the labels and took them to Joanne at the NAH and Kurt was working on the hanging.  I made a trip out and back again and towards the end of the time I was there hanging out with Joanne, both of them needed a much deserved lunch break and I went home.  I can't wait to see it all finished -- it looks great so far!

This evening I tweaked the fairy/cat collage a little bit more, it has been bugging me.

How the collage looked "before".

The fairy tweaked a little bit...stripey socks and mask.

The cat tweaked a little bit...darker lines and decoration all the way around the dot.

Adding some more color with blending chalks.

"before"

"after" -- it is a little bit hard to see in the photo, but the cat is much more colorful now and has pink cheeks...the fairy is a richer yellow.

The changes -- for now.

Next I took the collage into the bathroom in the studio to spray it with matte varnish...the fan works really well in there and I use it as a sort of spray booth when I can't spray outside...it is rainy/humid today.  I am not sure what exactly else I'd like to do to this collage but it feels like it needs a little something more...it will come to me eventually.  But I'm good for tonight now.