Embroidered Collage

I was reading Luann Udell's blog entry on artists statements a few days ago and it started me thinking about mine again.  I had revised it about a month ago to work on the "I stitch.  I layer." concept, but it still felt weak to me and certainly didn't fit Luann's suggestions. 

So I've tried again.  This time I think I may have finally gotten to a "why" that matters to me.  I can see it in a number of my recent works and believe it will serve well as an additional focus for future works as it helps define a common thread between some format and technique choices I'd made for them.  I'm sure I'll reword and rework, since I've got little related scribbles all over right now, but here's the new version.

I believe that we are like the blind men with the elephant, each only able to describe one aspect of the beast.  It is important to me to remember this; that there is always more than one point of view on any subject and that they do not necessarily contradict, but often complement, each other.  Therefore, I seek to present multiple viewpoints in each piece of my art, either by the visual impression of the finished product or else by the process used to create it.

Whatcha think?  It even meshes with why I became interested in materials engineering and business, although it leaves out how the aspects and viewpoints are interconnected.  Maybe I'll put that idea in later. 

On Saturday I visited the Hugh Moore Park in Easton, Pennsylvania with my husband and parents.  It features a restored section of the Lehigh Valley Canal, including a lock and a locktender's house.  I loved the look of the old machinery used to open the dam that was a way to let up some pressure when the river flooded.  I took some good pictures, including the two shown above.  It was also interesting to see the old stuff in conjuntion with the new hydraulic lifts, as the gates are still serving the same purpose.  There were also geese. :)

I finished running through my watercolor paper sampler.  Three of these are Lanaquarelle 140 lb, going from Rough to Hot Press to Cold Press.  All of them are successful, but I like them for different reasons.  The very rough papers give me a more distinctive difference between the print and the finished painting.  The very smooth papers allow for more detail and a closer reproduction.  Next I want to try printing onto different types of paper, and maybe even seeing if I can do it onto a collage.

I have acquired my very own domain name!  If you type in www.artbybethrobinson.com it will come right to this site.  It's really cool seeing that up there in the browser.  The www.pumpkin12pm.squarespace.com address still works and will continue to do so.  Squarespace still hosts my webpage.

However, if you have my blog bookmarked or on blogarithm you need to check that it points to either www.pumpkin12pm.squarespace.com/journal or www.artbybethrobinson.com/journal because sometime in the near future I will be putting in some sort of splash page as the front page of the site.  When you type in the domain name by itself the browser won't send you directly to my blog anymore, but to that front page.  Just wanted to give everybody a heads up.

I still like the first spread best (previous entry), and feel like the second is not quite done, but it will do.   I could add more to the third as well, but somehow it looks done.  I just played with the blues and the ocean theme to go along with the sailor boy.  The third spread is an acrylic painting with a few collage elements and some journaling on focusing that I've been doing lately.  It follows, in part, the steps of an online tutorial I'm participating in.  It's odd, but I like it.

I'm finding these calendars so frustrating.  I just don't feel I'm doing the quality of work that I want to be.  But I know I'm learning and growing by pushing through it.  I'm certainly not bored, and I do enjoy the creating, I'm just not satisfied with most of the results.  Ah well, it will most likely get better.

Ha!  It looks like fruit, it looks like fruit!  *happy dancing*  Okay, maybe that's going a little over board, but I'm just so thrilled that I (me me me!) drew that picture.

 Backing up a bit  - the picture to the side is my favorite of the contour drawing before real drawings that I did from last time's assignment.  Everything I did, the upside-down drawings and the drawings from life, were a little off, not quite right, but closer than I would have thought I could get without trying.

Tonight we discussed shading.  Amanda set up an old volleyball under a directed light and turned off the overhead in that part of the room.  And she demonstrated for me how she picked which graphite to use where, how to hold the pencil to shade and move it around the contour lines, how to blend with the stub, and how to lift out with the kneaded eraser.  It's like magic, watching that.

The way the drawing was constructed was a revelation to me.  I'd always tried to get everything in, putting in a bit of shading, trying to leave the light areas light.  But this, this is more forgiving because you can work backwards and forwards.  Lay down the graphite, blend it together, pull some of it up, repeat as necessary.  I enjoyed doing it; first on the ball, and then on the fruit.  Though the eraser was harder to knead and work than it looked like when she was doing it!  I need to go buy a stub and kneadable eraser of my own for practicing.

Near the end of the evening we returned to the topic of what do I want to draw.  For use in my other art I want to be able to do architecture and cities and castles.  And for myself I want to do my cats and I would do very much love to do a realistic dragon someday.  Well, that last set Amanda off with enthusiasm!  Seems it's something she like to do as well.  She did a quick sketch of an animal and showed stretching and distortion and how to make it into something else.  She suggested looking at and drawing horses and lizards and bats and spending time with my fantasy art books and trying to see where the artists get it from, maybe making some tracings.  She sent me home with a couple horse photographs to play from. 

I'm kind of viewing the whole thing with trepidation.  It seems like too far to leap and for something that is a personal indulgence to boot.  But I've certainly proved to myself that trying anyway helps in making it work right eventually.  So I'll play a bit before I go back, probably sometime next month.