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.

And to Dust You Shall Return

Here is the finished piece (11" x 14"; 16" x 20" framed)...

I am contemplating using the "marred" frame. I think it adds character to the piece.

Video about emergence of collage

 Hmmm... I searched and was unable to find a post where I shared this video (although there is a long text about it back in 2022... when the piece was made). I think this video is instructive/helpful for those thinking about how composition emerge. So, I will post now.

Transfer update

Well, I am pretty pleased with how the chemical structure transfers ended-up; BUT, the human body transfer images are getting lost a bit on the cratered lunar surface -- I think because the lines were not "thick" enough (too little "weight"). And as I am completing the finished work (which is larger than usual), I'm finding that the lines aren't really visible in photos of the work (I will share the completed image probably tomorrow), but can be seen when viewing the composition live. The subtly is compelling, I think; but it will be difficult to submit a photo for exhibit consideration.

Transfer considerations

So, I won't bore you with completed collages of the sketches I posted previously (although there will be a "dump" coming soon). But, I wanted to comment a little on a technical aspect of an up-coming piece, involving transfers. I'm excited about putting some chemical structure transfers on the piece. When using such a transfer, however, you should keep in mind that the transfers typically come out in reverse -- so if there are "C"s (for carbon), or "S"s (sulphur) or "P"s (phosphorous) in the chemical structure, the letters will be backward. So I perused pages of chemical structures to find ones with "O"s (oxygen) and "H"s only (although I think "N"s (nitrogen) would be 'pull-off-able'). I also found a couple that had "C"s, but that could be trimmed to omit them. Anyway, here are some example pages of what I was looking through...

Details that most people are unaware of, in the process of making cool collages.

saturated blue

 After using the saturated blue galactic element in the collab piece I shared in the last post, I'm doing some exploring/experimenting with the leftovers (and additional) pieces -- there were several pages from an astronomy book I had. I'm really liking the color and saturation and the curvature; and they are complementing some other saturated elements that I have in the studio. None of these compositions have been "put down" (adhered to the substrate), but I suspect something permanent will come out of these explorations. I am in finals week at school this week; so I will soon have more time to spend in the studio -- with collage, or on my guitar!

Collab piece with Eric Whitfield

 I'm SO excited about this collaborative effort with painter Eric Whitfield. Here are the before and after photos of the piece...

The most challenging part in the process of adding collage elements to a painting like this, is that in order to add something that looks like it's in the background (the galactic element, in this case), is that it would really be feasible to cut the canvas and place an element beneath. What that requires then, is cutting a collage element so that it looks like it's actually behind (occluded by) the foreground. I accomplished that by taping transparent paper over the canvas and carefully tracing the complex shape that it required.

Interestingly, my first attempt did not include the curved portion of the element (it would have ended-up being off the painting). It wasn't because I made a mistake, I just simply didn't "see" that the curved portion of the element would have added more aesthetic interest. Fortunately, I had a number of similar galactic elements (part of a series in an astronomy book). 

Here's what the two different cut-aways looked like...

Of course, as another detail process, I had to paint the edges of the elements to cover the white interior (I did that for each of the small dark rectangular images being dropped form the hand too...

And as often happens, good collages usually entails some element (pun intended) of luck/serrrendipity. The element around the eye, was a bit of a throw-away piece (I had previously cut out the planetary portion of it. Not only was the hole a perfect size, but check out the matching color of my collage element and Eric's paint color. LOVE it!

OMG... I almost forgot to mention something about the TV/radio tube element. I had had that element for quite a while. It is an absolutely beautiful element (from the cover of a vintage electronics magazine). But it doesn't really match my typical aesthetic. I had been thinking of trying something new with that element as an impetus. It hadn't worked out in the couple times I tried to incorporate it. But as soon as I placed it on Eric's painting, I was off-and-running! It certainly matches his aesthetic, and it got me excited to work on the rest of the piece. If I hadn't placed that on first, I wonder what else would have emerged. But I can't imagine any other element so perfectly blending in.