Friday night fun

Well, well... once again, I'm starting some new projects before I finish already-in-progress projects. That is not particularly surprising, given my short attention span and my penchant for exploartion and experimentation. This past Friday, I ended-up coming across this small box (meant for microscope slides). I think I came-up with a cool idea for putting this object to use. I am contemplating creating a collage that would be 3" x 25". I will then cut it into 25 1-inch sections, to be placed into this box like microscope slides. I could do 25 individual (independent) 1" x 3" collages; but I thought it would be cool to be able to reconstruct a 3" x 25" collage by placing the 25 individual "slides" together. This is absolutely a work-in-progress. I'll see how it goes (and, of course, post with progress and/or final piece). I'm also adding an image here of a composition that "came together" quickly as another possible project. Man, do I love my time in my creative space!

Side painting, of course!

Plan B

Well... I've never experienced this before with one of my transfers. Usually, the transfer either works well -- all the paper comes off the back; and it is positioned correctly -- or it doesn't. When it works well, I then re-coat the transferred element with acrylic medium and it's good to go, and I can continue with the overall composition. As I wrote previously, the fetal skull transfer looked great... so I re-coated it. When I went into my studio last night, it seems that the transfer had "ghosted" on me. The black lines weren't so black anymore, and you could see a little ghostly residue of the backing paper. DAMN! I was so excited about that particular transfer. A couple folks said, "It looks okay". But I am pretty picky about what comes out of my studio; and just "okay" doesn't cut it (pun intended). So I have decided to cover it up -- changing a significant element in the composition I had been working on. I'm not showing an image of the ghosting here. What I will show is what I think is an interesting excision of elements from an integrated image. My plan right now (which, of course, can always change), is to try to use the sculptural element of the woman. The thing is, I wanted to isolate that element. I wish that I had thought to take a photo of the entire page before I started cutting it; but I think you still get the idea. SO... I am seriously disappointed about the fetal skull transfer. But I am trying to making lemonade from a lemon. Oftentimes, it works out for the best. And it gives me a chance to post photos of an interesting excision of elements.

Graph paper follow-up

VERY pleased with how this transfer turned out (clarity, alignment)! I've also included a couple of sketching ideas. This one is going to be a bit of a departure from my usual "voice".

 

sketching with graph paper

 Oh man... last night's session in the studio was exhilarating. I knew the various graph papers would be fun to work with. I decided to do what I love to do... experiment and explore (even though I have a bit of  "problematic" piece that I should tackle and finish). These photos only show a subset of the combinations I tried. The man and woman shown here, will be transferred onto the graph paper at some point (I think); as will the infant skull (so weird). And I LOVE the geometric abstract sketch.

All of these sketches are "works-in-progess" and may or may not come to fruition. I am just excited that the graph paper has turned to be as stimulating as I had hoped. Stay tuned for what becomes of these ideas!

The impact of subtle changes

Whilst experimenting/exploring this evening, I considered these two versions of a combination of elements. Hat under; hat over. Interesting difference...

Not as subtle as expected.

Beginning of a new year

Well, I didn't do an "end-of-the-year" reflection post, but I will briefly say that 2024 was a great year for me, artistically-speaking. Although I was very disappointed not to be accepted to the National Collage Society annual juried show, I had a wildly successful solo exhibit at The Other Side (Utica, NY) and our collab exhibit at the Kirkland Arts Center (Clinton, NY), as well as the Art Expo at 4 Elements Studio (as I had posted). Sold a bunch of work; so now am excited to work on getting my "inventory" replenished. For this post, I thought I would re-cap my art week. I just returned last night, from a trip to see the Egon Schiele exhibit at the Neue Gallery in New York City. Schiele is one of my all-time favorite artists! The exhibit did not disappoint. Wow... beautiful paintings, drawings and sketches! Photography was not allowed (but I would encourage anyone to look-up his work on the web). This is a photo of me in front of a beautiful Klimt painting at the gallery...

On my way back from NYC, I stopped by The Black Gryphon (owned and operated by my friend and fellow collage artist Anthony Morgan) to see pieces from our KAC collab exhibit, now on display at the restaurant.

And... I was thinking about making a separate post for this (I keep track of the annual count of my posts ;-), but I will include it in this pot pourri post...

I was SO excited last week, before I departed for NYC, to find these gems in a dumpster at school! Yes, packages (multiples!) of various graph papers! Only a collagist (and perhaps some nerdy engineers) would get so excited about graph paper ;-). And I have enough to share with Toeny too! I already have some ideas about how I will use these elements.