Embroidered Collage

Two different treatments using the same hand-carved stamp on the complex background that I created earlier.

I like the first one better.  I collaged a little bit of lace paper to the background, then stamped over it in gold.  The butterfly didn't stand out much, so I outlined all the key features in black pen.  I still wasn't quite happy, so filled in some of the areas with colored inks. 

Part of me says - STITCH.  Part of me says - But it looks DONE.  I'd probably add just a bit of gold metallic along the tops of the wings if I did add stitch.

The second one is more fun than the first.  First I added some green lines to spice up the background, then stamped in a muted yellow and then added more colors with liquid acrylics.  This one is destined for a vivid rainbow colors swap so all the colors of the rainbow had to be included.

Kristan Hodge gave me a brief description of her technique and I decided to give it a try, deliberately going for something coarser instead of the fine detail.  I used Golden's liquid acrylics straight from the bottle, squirted onto wax paper, then laid the watercolor paper down and squished.   I turned the sandwich over and manipulated the paints a little bit, then removed it and let dry.  Essentially, I made a monoprint, which I then cut up to make the ATCs.  The surface of my cards is very different from Kristan's, as mine have that plastic acrylic paint feel that you get from a thick application.  I will be sending these in for an abstract art trade in December.  It was a fun effort.  I won't be doing exactly this again, but it did remind me that layering monoprints on my canvases before the embroidery might be worth trying.

The watercolor paints from the pan shaded nicely in my last set of ACEOs so I wanted to try doing just that on the blank paper, instead of over a previous picture.  I painted twice, then added details with Pitt pens to make the cards at the bottom of the entry.

My first iteration of painting I mostly worked directly from the pans.  I had originally been intending to work only in the cool colors, but started experimenting with adding in some of the complementary warms instead.  All of the purple is mixed in some fashion, as there is no purple in my pans.  Much of it was done on the paper, adding a drop of red to still wet blue, for example, but some was mixed on the paletter area before application.

These were very interesting, but they really seemed to be just backgrounds, so I knew I wanted to do more.  I decided to push my exploration a bit further and see what happened if I painted on top of them.  I knew that water was supposed to pull the pigment on the paper back up, at least to some degree and I wanted to see what would happen.

Mostly I tried to add more value contrast.  I was able to see for myself how it was important to reserve the light areas, because trying to add yellow or white did nothing for the value, although it tinted the color already there a bit.  I could also tell that the paint on the paper was mixing into the newly applied paint to some extent.  For a few cards I tried to add details - deliberately using only a little water and just the tip of the brush to draw lines.

The card in the middle left spot actually had some of those lines on it and I hated it.  So it washed over it again.  This time I could REALLY see how I was able to break up those lines and push them around.  But I also came a lot closer to making mud and completely losing any color variations.  It also gave me a chance to see how easy it was to make colors darker by additional layers of paint.

So now I had some more distinctive shadings of color, but most of them didn't look like completed works of art to me, so I decided to try something else.  I pulled out the Pitt colored india ink pens that I had purchased a couple months ago.  The brush tip application method and semi-transparency of some of the colors complemented the watercolor look effortlessly, but with more control.  I primarily enhanced the boundaries of areas in order to add interest.

I decided to keep one of the cards, but here are the eight that will eventually be listed on etsy.  I find I enjoy the feel of the pigment on the paper, or at least this paper.  It just soaks in and it's almost like the paint is part of the paper, which is a very different tactile experience than I've had with acrylics.

These cards started when I was looking for something completely different in my box of paper and stuck in the last layer was some of the work I'd abandoned when I decided to create only on canvas.  I had been working on a few sheets of paper for backgrounds - building up abstract tears of magazine paper in related colors or shapes.  The orange one caught my eye, partly because it was almost done and partly because of the time of the year.

  So I tore out a few more images and finished collaging it.  This technique is also a copyright violation, but if anyone can look at the work and identify where the images came from I'll be shocked.  The actual image that someone else created is not relevant.  They are there for texture and my next step was to paint over them with various transparent liquid acrylics to unify the color.

I ended up with nine 3x4 pieces that I stared at and contemplated for awhile.  Figuring out the next step was far more complicated than I had expected.  I did a search through collage images and did the card with numbers and the one below.  The little kitten was too sweet to pass up, but it will be an ATC since it doesn't fit with the idea thread I want to keep my ACEOs attached to.

  And then I stared at the seven remaining backgrounds for awhile longer.  I think the problem was that there wasn't enough contrast.  There was nothing to trigger an idea.  When I pulled out my papers and started adding blacks, that's when the ideas kicked in about how I could collage this here and add some pattern there.  I had a few failures in the process, which is why there are only six total cards made from the sheet and not nine. 

I'm amazed at the difference that a little bit of color intensity and outlines can make.  I'm thrilled with how these turned out even though I was dubious previously.  I took colored pencils to all of them.  I shifted the color palette on a couple, making the yellows orange or green, for example.  For most of the cards the outlining in dark colors really made the card.  There were even a couple that I thought were lost causes until I added lines to them.  My favorite,which I'm keeping, is the one in the middle.

As an interesting note on mixing media - It was more difficult to apply colored pencil to the light purple areas.  The surface felt as if it was already too waxy.  This was probably because I had taken some white water colored crayon over the purple before I applied water, so there was a greater layer of pigment.  I'll want to remember that in the future.  Also, different color combinations were more effective at either enhancing or changing the underlying color, but I don't remember which were which specifically.

I've found working on the 3"x4" pieces to be useful.  I don't have to worry as much about edge effects as I would if I started out with the 2.5"x3.5" card and I can select the best compostion within the framework I have.  I do end up with lots of little bits, though, which I probably should save. I could make cards collaged out of little strips cut from other cards....

Now I'm satisfied.  I'm setting five of the cards aside for now, as I have plans for them.  I'll likely keep the daffodils, though.  The card in the upper right still doesn't quite capture the aesthetic impression I was going for, but it's a good card in its own right and will be traded somewhere. 

I was staring at the cards from the last blog entry and decided to try adding on new focal points, so I went digging back through my collage images until I found an interesting one for each card.  I wanted the two to go together in some fashion, not just have the card be an interesting background for the image.  They looked a little awkward when I collaged on the image, but then I took colored pencils to the cards to achieve that integration.  By coloring across some images and adding lines in various places I was able to make the compositions looks complete.  I also took the opportunity to enhance the value relationships - making sure there were enough darks and lights on each card.  I have a tendency to use too many mid-tones in my artwhen I'm not paying close attention.