Journal Page - The Difficult

I got out the gelli plate the other night - monotype with a press is my "thing" - years ago I had an artist residency at MN book arts for my monotype work.  It's completely different without a press, but I think I'm going to enjoy wrestling with this little silicone blob until I like the results.

 Her crown and dress are some very subtle mossy gelli printed papers. Collage, watercolor, stamping, drawing - other than the water color washes almost all the paint is applied with a tsukineko fantastix foam stick. I'm still crazy for those things.  I should keep a running list of supplies I find "worth it."

Mixed Media on Loose Fabriano Watercolor

I am trying not to go ape and throw poo be bummed about YET MORE SNOW. Enough. Any time now.

Well, even if I'm kept indoors at least I can play. This is like the rainy day activity that never ends.

In GOOD news, it is the anniversary of Paint Party Friday! PPF has introduced me to many talented and friendly bloggers/artists, and it's one of those nice blog parties that makes a self-employed freelancer feel just that tiniest bit less like a cave dwelling hermit. YAY PPF. Here's to many many more!

29 faces day 1 - 4x6 with crumpling

For 29 faces - a face as the focal of a small painting. This is 4x6 and about as small as I can get comfortably, more power to the people who rock original ACEOS!

Experimenting with trashing my cardstock before painting on it.  Honestly I only halfway like it here, but it's worth playing with. Used distress inks, a Tim Holz lettering stamp, my own painting in acrylic, inktense pencils victorian butterfly collage cutouts (courtesy of justsomethingimade)

The butterflies were made into an acrylic skin - everyone familiar with that technique? I might do more with it in future posts.

After I was done I wasn't loving the surface, so it's nothing my quilting iron and wax couldn't enhance. It's a little crazy to put wax onto paper rather than a hard surface, but I think it worked.

I draw him so I can talk about you without talking about you - Art journal Every Day

Acrylic, acrylic ink, poscas, washi tape (a little)

I used a wooden embellishment from Michaels as a mask, and went over my background with Tattered Angels spay in "cork."  Also some distress ink around the borders.

The sparrow is a print and cut from my own work - I drew him freehand from an 1860 or so ornithological reference picture. Then when I liked the stage the sketch was at - you guessed it - scan and print onto computer paper, cut and paste and paint over the sketch, used as an underpainting.

New Art Journal Page - Also Available as ACEO

Got to play again the other night - I'm not a huge fan of cold press paper, but she was done on cold press. You can see the texture of the paper. Undecided on whether I like that.

It's going to get cold again, after a balmy couple of above-30 days. Blergh.  This is me, trying to cheer myself up.

She's available as an ACEO for now @ my etsy shop. 
You can request a full size print if you want!

Mini Print Quartet

I have all of these 4x4 masonite coasters, which I love using as a small format. They have rounded corners.

I made a suite of collages directly onto 4 of them, then printed the collage - and then applied the prints to more coasters - voila, miniature prints.

Not content to stop there, a coating of misty looking beeswax and a little german glass glitter makes these a little more special.

I like propping these up in random shelf spaces - they're so cute, and I had such a good time painting, stamping, image-transferring and inking these into existence!

Oh - these also are available in the shop. You can get them with wax only, or no finish if you want. Only $21 for all four.

Image Transfer - Hawk Image Transfers

I decided to play with some image transfer possibilities. I recently came across this magnificent page from a 1914 book on birds - my favorite raptors all on two sides, under no copyright (I researched.)  Natrually, I had to scan.

it's about to get messy

I covered some wood rounds in some decorative paper,  and augmented with pen, gesso, paint and distress inks. 

Then I used the wax paper method of transfer with my printer. Many many failures, one just about perfect, distressed but still legible. Boy that's not as easy as people make it look in the tutorials.  You really have to experiment with wetting and not wetting your surface, and different settings for the inking. I think I like the gel medium method better - it's still plenty unpredictable but legible more often.

Any tips for a better wax paper (label sheet with labels peeled off) inkjet transfer experience?

More Hybrid art blocks - analog and digital collage

If this snow doesn't quit I may lose it. They're threatening us with more of it at the end of the week. Sometimes I think the Minnesota art scene is a result of cabin fever. People tend to have one of two relationships with nature here - we're in the land of 10,000 contemplative landscape painters, and 10,000 quirky introverted screenprinters who never leave the studio. And one and only one Scott Seekins, goes without saying.

I've been meaning to get into some camera walks, but sadly my body is not being very helpful lately, and the only visually interesting views I've been getting are doctor's offices. Blah.  I'm not one of those people who's going to blog illness a lot, and no, I'm not going to keel over imminently, but I'll summarize it all with a hearty this sucks and get on to the art. 

Yes, it's my Calgon, my shrink, my transportational key outta here when things are dark.  I do see the work taking a more serious look on, but I'm trying to stay upbeat more often than not.  I'm also wondering how many people would be interested in possibly a course, or a swap or a blog hop or a challenge or some kind of social coming-together around what I'm choosing to call Hybrids (though my sweetie likes "digilog" or "origlicates")

 

More fun still with the hybrid technique.

 

This one is a work in progress, though almost done, I think.

Recognize her?

 

Unique Editions: Paperyum @ storenvy.com

I found some wooden shapes with some dimension, and started playing with decorative papers.

Then I started thinking about treating my own art as a collage sheet, using the epson to output different sizes of images from my work and my journals, and treating these as underpaintings.  Wow! This has really had some great results. Deco papers and hand stamping and embellishment, acrylic surface treatment and careful hand alteration and hand painting!

The best part, is that the result is a low cost way for my fine friends and fans to own UNIQUE art that is handmade! Fun!

 

Let's have a look at what's been added:

includes 7gypsies papers, my own art, acrylic, TPC studio stamps.

Cut and paste - when bad things happen to good drawings

So I had this rather good drawing that got completely overdone. This happens. I'm very bad at knowing when to stop sometimes. 

This collage, too, is overdone, but I think that works out more OK than not in this case. Overall I think it's a nice artistic save. I want to push my color palette a little bit into less comfortable territory.  I'm enjoying working with decorative papers, also, and I'm thinking about other approaches to patterns.

So, what do you do when you botch it? I also digitized the figure before I glued her in, so I may work with her again in the future. I'm beginning to truly love my printer!

Postcard Art - Now He Knew What Shalimar Knew

“For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.”

― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon 

Over at Collage Obsession, the theme this week is "I can Fly."  I was doing some online digging and this young man's image really grabbed my attention, suggesting a less whimsical interpretation of the theme. I don't remember exactly how Song of Solomon bubbled up through my consciousness, but I'm glad it did - it puts everything here into the perfect context. If you haven't read it yet, do so, certainly.

Images and patterns are from The Graphics Fairy and Vintage Printable.
My own collection of vintage millinery flowers.
Decorative papers, walnut ink, distress stain, white posca, doily.

6"x4"

For:
Collage Obsession I can Fly :  So Artful Shades of Brown

Shabby Chic Hedgehog ACEO cards

So, in the interest of getting over my stamping weirdness, I entered a Shabby Chic challenge over at Simon Says Stamp and Show

Some fast fun - these shabby chic hedgehog cards are digitally collaged (vintage nature illustration and papers from The Graphics Fairy) , hand embellished with inks and with a vintage millinery flower.

I'm leaving them blank mostly - but I added an example of how they can be made more awesome.

and yes, these are available at the paperyum shop.

Print and Process - using the epson for hand-altered art variations

 

Here's one of my first prints - a mini print on a four inch MDF panel with rounded corners and hand-aged edges. Sweet huh?

Even sweeter is the way she came to be.  In this case, the evolution is right to left.

On the right, my original. Gouache and collage on a canvas, 6x8.  I know I want "more" in this image, it's not a finished piece, but if I had a dime for every time I added "more" to something I like and killed it, I would be a rich lady.  Now, with the epson and my stash of Somerset Velvet papers, I can experiment with much less potential artistic fallout. Whee!

In the middle: a hand altered print. This is a test print that misfired actually, cutting off part of the image. Waste not want not. I went back into her with more collage, more acrylics, intensifying and brightening -  and some stamping, even.

 (I'm such a hypocrite, the wide world of stamps opens before me, yay.)

Last, to the left is the mini print you see above.  The color fidelity is pretty good - I'm actually not a huge stickler for that, as long as it looks good and consistent among the final print outputs.  The only alteration here is a little distress ink aging and some light sealing. My original lives on to play another day and another way - let's see where else she goes!  

 Anyone else use their printer this way, not quite digital art and not purely analog art either? Comments are always welcome below!

Journal Page

I'm starting a surface driven journal. All the pages in this one, I think, will start with surface treatment and build from there.  I've been restless for spring, tired of getting slammed with all the winter weather in one month. That's what I thought this little entry was about.

After adding the text, I realized this has nothing to do with seasons at all, rather someone dear to me who was lost out of the blue.  It's interesting how the mind and emotions have their way with you when you let them open up.

New Art

This one hasn't gotten its resin top layer yet, but I couldn't wait to post her.



And a couple of journal pages - I've been drawing while listening to songs and the words make their way in - I'm sure this will morph again in the eventual painting if there is one

Listening: Keep the Car Running, Arcade Fire

Listening: At Last, Neko Case

printemps

printemps, originally uploaded by paperyum.

6x6 vintage paper, transfer from vintage paper, japanese paper, inks acrylics, etc.

I might do the other seasons, we'll see how motivated I am in that direction.

I'm listening to this - oh is it good. If the TV on the Radio one doesn't come up for you, scroll down and grab it. It's a good listen, and the interview made me laugh a lot, too.

They do drop the f bomb a lot, so if you are squeamish you won't like it, but you're missing out, really. Provinces sounds amazing.

lonesome/crowded

lonesome/crowded, originally uploaded by paperyum.

vintage barkcloth ad, greeting card clipping (40's 50's) and sixties kid's book clipping (her swallow brooch)

Acrylic, ink, goodies, lots of Modest Mouse listening. she's 6x6 inches on cradled board

Gingersnaps Random Redhead challenge

This is for this Gingersnaps challenge

I've been working hard and saw this challenge and could not resist playing along - the theme is "growth." This is a 4x4 on canvas - vintage papers, a clipping from a vintage sixties placemat (yes the sparrow's registration was very poor) clippings from 60's kid's book, ink, acrylic, an ad for barkcloth (also vintage) and brass wings. The only new paper is some Japanese chiyogami and my text. Which I'm not sure about. I love the font Nashville though.

Just a quick little down and dirty piece. I'm unsure if I'll resin coat it.

chicago

chicago, originally uploaded by paperyum.

Washi, Victorian/Edwardian scrap and sheet music (I use actual sources) ink, acrylic, pencils - the look is soft overall because I resin coat and sand my collages - a nice unifying surface effect. 8x8 inches.

my heart dances

my heart dances, originally uploaded by paperyum.

a response to this week's created by hand challenge - cutting stuff up makes my heart dance - vintage papers and rickrack - 50's and Edwardian.

Artspiration

I haven't done anything with collage in the longest time - but all these great papers got me interested. There are a lot of papers that simply aren't suited for pendants, or only part of them are.

I set myself up with the following parameters: only vintage papers. Only my hand alterations. Vintage trims as much as possible.

No reproduction, no scanning, no xerox, no new stuff, no "artists papers" no stamps.

The finished collage is coated with sanded resin, for a more opaque and smooth surface.

Have you ever given yourself parameters like that to get out of a rut? Does narrowing it down from totally infinite help you or hinder you? I find it a huge help to have a few things pre-decided for me. I plan on doing more challenges for this reason.