Embroidered Collage

These haven't changed much from the original post where I experimented with painting with a palette knife.  I added a little colored pencil and a little whipped backstitch to the white and purple one.  I added whipped backstitch and a few lines of beads to the textured orange one.  But in both cases it was these additions that made the piece complete.  I really like the way the couching and beads look nestled between the highly textured globs of paint and am considering doing a piece like this as a footstep.

I thought I knew where I found most of my inspiration - in texture and in materials.  And this may still be true, but Dakota Mitchell framed the question in a different way.  Am I inspired by primarily by what is outside or inside of myself?  I think the answer is pattern, no matter its source.

I tried sketching my shoe, looking for inspiration in external sources and I grew frustrated with the detail.  Even if I had fully developed skills for realism, I think I would have still wanted to concentrate on the pattern that the holes and laces made and let the rest be distorted and abstracted.  I tried sketching a memory of a feeling to check for inspiration from internal sources and was using basic shapes in repetition.  I looked at the images of art provided to select from and realized that the three that I liked best had clear elements of irregular pattern.  The ones with the simple subjects or the greater amount of disorder didn't appeal to me as much.  I remembered what I chose to sketch in Europe, from gothic window tracery to the arrangement of buildings, and how much I enjoyed just building patterns from theory with fly stitch.

My ideas come from finding and developing patterns, albeit in an irregular fashion, whether purely theoretical, built from the materials I'm using, or extrapolated from something I see.  I can't say that I'm suprised by my conclusion, but I never thought about it that way before.  And by thinking about my inspiration in this way, it might change how I approach future pieces. 

I'm definitely interested in what the next four sections of Finding Your Visual Voice will bring.

These are the four atcs that I had managed to cut out of the one textured painting that I also cut swap paintings from.  I liked the red line effect that I used in the paintings and continued it here, but with less room for the composition, I felt they needed more to be complete.  So, I stitched in another red line and drew in another with colored pencil.  I still think they're a little odd, but like the repetition and will be sending them in for a swap.

I wanted to find a way to use this small sampler in a footstep.  I had a piece of sheer patterned fabric in greens, which included some rectangular swirls in white.  So I started painting on a canvas with the idea that it would support these two elements.

  This was my first attempt.  It was much starker underneath the sheer fabric than I was looking for.  You couldn't really see the subtleties of the pattern.  I had painted it without thinking much and that one swirl straight through is plagueing me a bit as I try to figure out the final composition.

  But for my next step I toned it down with a smeared on layer of bright green mixed with a transparent white.  It's a bit disturbing looking at it straight like this, but it looks much better with the sheer fabric on top.  However, now it needed more patterning, so I added the small squares and the fern like marks.

I'm happy with the effect I'm achieving, so I will glue on the sheer fabric next.  I'm thinking I'll go straight to stitching - boxes of backstitch, most likely - but we'll see.

I have completed the footstep with the little squares and I can't post it because I can't photograph the finished work because I can't mount it on the stretcher bars because I can't find the staples for my staple gun!  I can't find replacement staples in the right size either.  This is ridiculous.  I only used one bar.  Somewhere in my family room is a box with more.  It's also ridiculous that the brand of the stapler and the alternative brand of staples that it lists as fitting in it are not available at either the store I bought them from or any other similar stores nearby.

I'm about ready to give up and buy a new staple gun at the hardware store.  One that it is quite obvious that they have multiple replacement staples for.  If I don't find the staples in my house by the end of the month I am going to do just that!

In the meantime I started the background on another footstep piece, another one with a geometric basis,  and I'll post that next.

How do you find your style is a question that keeps popping up on art related email lists and forums.  I'm not too worried about, because I believe it will come with time, but I was still interested in Dakota's book, written with Lee Haroun, which has the full and lengthy title of Finding Your Visual Voice: A Painter's Guide to Developing an Artistic Style.  I was curious as to what she would suggest.

The book asks questions, but in a way that gives you the support structure to answer them.  I have only read the first chapter, since I intend to work my way through the book, and I already have thought about some parts of my art in ways that I hadn't considered before.  I especially like the selections of art chosen to look at and consider in regards to the questions.  I've heard the advice before about looking at other artists' work and figuring out what appeals to you, but by providing a specific group and a specific thought it is easier to pull self-knowledge from the mixture.

The five sections are about finding your sources of inspiration, your subject matter, your art elements, your composition style, and your painting process.  I am going to be writing a post about my reaction to each as I work my way through the book.