Making Marks

Mixed Media Rocks

We are back from a week-long vacation in Mexico where I absorbed the sights and took pictures. It was odd to not make any art for a whole week, but I came home with lots of ideas.

I'm often inspired by nature and was amused when we saw this "mixed media rock" in Baja California. The combination of textures and colors are a great reminder of what I could be doing in my own work. The rock also just makes me smile because it reminds me of something that might be made at a gourmet ice cream shop where different ingredients are mixed into the ice cream customers select.

One of my obsessions on this trip was to spot blue-footed boobie birds, and I succeeded! These two birds are courting, and the behavior included "sky pointing" with their beaks and "kissing". I was completely charmed by these birds.

Button, button

I adore old buttons. They make me think of clothing styles through the decades and the ladies who carefully selected the right button to go with her garment. These ones may have been chosen and then a better button was found to use on the project. (As I've done many times.) Or maybe they were purchased and then the garment was never finished. (Me, too.) Or maybe times got tough and the material was not made into a dress but it was used for a quilt. In any case, I can rarely resist buying buttons. One of my most precious finds were in Alaska at a fishing village where old shell buttons were available. They have one hole instead of our common two (or four) hole buttons. I'll be incorporating more buttons into my work.

To be completely honest, I love all vintage sewing supplies, such as these snaps. The graphic is adorable, and I can imagine how many snaps were needed to make the clothing on the card. My fingers get tired just thinking about sewing them.

I recently found this great silk cording/thread that I can easily incorporate in my collage work. It's thick enough to be distinguished from regular thread. The texture is wonderful - a shimmery cord. I brought it home and used some right away.

Big messes

I often end up working in a very small space. It doesn't matter what size table I start out with: by the end of the process, I've filled all of the space up and am working only in the amount of space I need to set the project down. Sometimes I'm stacking things and that gets to be a problem when I'm working with paint! In any case, I don't think this is a habit that I'll be able to break, so I just need to limit the damage that can be done.

I think the reason I work this way is because if something is out of sight, it's out of mind during the process. If I wanted to incorporate burnt umber and it's not on the table, it will more than likely be left out of the final product.

The in-progress pieces above are designed to be hung together in a friend's kitchen. I sliced artificial pears in half and attached them to a collaged background. I'm happy to report that the end product looks better than the messy table!

What is beautiful. . .

The beautiful is everywhere; perhaps more in the arrangement of your saucepans on the white walls of your kitchen than in your eighteenth-century living room or the official museums. - Ferdand Leger

Finding the spark and inspiration in the ordinary is a delight. A pile of coats on a chair catches my attention and encourages me to use a new color combination. The silhouette of a few spare leaves at the end of a branch inspires me to create with a similar motif (see the branch clock photo in Oct 1 post). At the beach, waves leave patterns in the sand that I see as textures and backgrounds for paintings. Leger is right - the beautiful is everywhere, and when I see it, my day is a lot happier!