Noticing (Found Art)

Last weekend, I went to the giant Tempe Art Festival. Lots of tents, lots of people, lots of art, food, sunshine. It was cool, but perfect weather. Hot is not as good as cool for an art festival.

Out of habit, I parked in the shuttle lot and waited in vain for the bus. No shuttle. Cutbacks. I decided to walk the mile and a half to the show. I joined a stranger who looked at her Blackberry most of the time. Meanwhile, I watched planes lining up for landing at nearby Sky Harbor,  noticed you could see Tempe Town Lake from some places and not from others, that an old bridge had been repurposed for the light rail, that the sidewalk changed to blocks that fit together.

The entire walk, I felt like I was picking up information, feeling my internal GPS system adding information, feeling centered and rooted. My walking companion was fussing and texting. Finally she said to me, “This is a long &*%! walk, I should have taken my car.” She was easily 10 years younger, and a good deal slimmer.  She was doing too much work, and it was wearing her out.

It that very act of being OK with doing nothing, with “noticing” that lets you make great discoveries. I call them Found Art, because they are a lot  like found poetry. You notice something, look closely and there it is.

I saw this petrified jelly bean on the sidewalk, worn shiny from being scuffed over by many shoes:

Stepped-on heart. Photo © Quinn McDonald

It looks just like a heart. It IS a heart. And that made me think of all of our hearts, unseen, scuffed over, but made all the more beautiful for the discovery.

I stopped my companion and pointed, but she showed me the hand and continued to talk into her phone.

The moment was exquisite all by itself. I felt happy and light. Over what? Seeing a squished, petrified jelly bean embedded on the sidewalk. Yep. That sums it up.

Taking photographs of perfectly ordinary items helps me create a world I inhabit out of noticing. It is a very different world from the one my walking companion inhabits.

Here is a photo of a block wall with a big, top-heavy climbing plant. I’m interested in the hard-water stain, though. At the bottom of the photo. It’s not a chalk line, it’s chemicals from the water that have been sucked up into the block wall. To me, it looks like a mountain range, the plant could be a big thunder cloud.

Chemicals in the hard water make a mountain range.

This one is even more ephemeral. It’s a spot on the sidewalk–some stain, coffee, maybe, that someone splatted down. At first glance it looked like a dragonfly. Later on, I could see a dove in it. It’s a little hard to describe the dove, so below it, I’m including a drawing of a dove I did. You can sort of see the relation.

Found Art: dragonfly? Dove?

What’s the purpose in all this? Exactly nothing. It’s simply noticing. It doesn’t make money, it simply pleases me. I find it fun, interesting. I find it part of meaning-making. Seeing one thing in another can come in handy some day.

Flight. Reductive charcoal drawing © Quinn McDonald

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–Quinn McDonald is an artist and writer who teaches writing and journaling, including raw-art journals for people who can’t draw.

New Class: Explore Your Creativity in 2010

Thinking about New Year’s Resolutions? Nope, me either. There are still a ton of holidays to bake for, shop for, decorate for. New Year’s seems a loooong way off.

New Year’s Day is 26 days away. Less than four weeks. New Year’s usually means resolutions. I’ve been against that idea for a long time. Written about it several times.

Julia Cameron's book "Walking In This World"

No sense complaining unless you come up with a solution. What I don’t like about New Year’s resolutions is that they are too vague, too general, aren’t planned with support, and are forgotten in a week. I also think that when we make a resolution we fear the change. Change is hard. Change alone is even harder. So here’s my plan:

1. Do something to explore your creativity. Something focused. Something that gives you support.

2. If you’ve heard of Julia Cameron, you know that she wrote a book called The Artist’s Way–the beginning of creativity coaching. Cameron also wrote a book called Walking in This World–The Practical Art of Creativity. Like The Artist’s Way, it is a support guide for creativity. You don’t need to have read one to get something from the other.

3. I’m going to run an online reading group on Walking In This World. The book has 12 chapters. We will cover one chapter a week, starting on January 12. We’ll read the chapter, do the exercise at the end, and discuss what happened, what we thought, how we progressed each week.  As a creativity coach, I can also tell you that it’s a good way to experience one kind of creativity coaching. It’s a group coaching, but you’ll discover the kind of support for change you’ll find. You don’t have to be an artist, simply want to explore your creativity. Or your fear of your own creativity.

4. I’ll form a Yahoo Group for the class and open a PayPal window so you can pay on my website. The class will meet through the Yahoo Group. You’ll be able to discuss,  post images, ask questions. The class will cost $30, but I’m donating $10 of each registration to the Craft Emergency Relief Fund, a fund for artists who have met with some disaster and need help getting back on their feet. Everyone benefits.

5. After you pay, I’ll send you an invitation to join the group. Be prepared for 13 weeks of work. If your first reaction is that you don’t have time, it’s a perfectly normal. We don’t want to do things for ourselves. We don’t want to commit. But this is not about a grinding class. This is about your creativity and finding some support for it.

The only thing you need to do is buy the book–there is a link to amazon.com on my website. (Or borrow it from the library, but you’ll want to write in it.)  Still think it’s too hard? It’s your gremlin or negative self-talk. Gremlins kick up and tell you what not to do for yourself. You’ll come up with a thousand reasons not to do this for yourself. There is only one reason to do it: it will help you make meaning in your life.

This class also makes an excellent holiday gift. Combined with the purchase of the book, it’s a wonderful jump start gift for a friend’s  creativity.  (To keep it simple, give them the check or cash and the link to join.)

Please join us starting January 12 for this exciting, meaningful work that honors and supports your creativity.

–Quinn McDonald is a life- and creativity coach who trains businesses how to communicate effectively with their clients and helps people who don’t draw or write to keep art journals.

Raw-Art Journal Cover-to-Cover

After years of keeping a journal, I decided to try something new–to make an art journal from the ideas, sketches, and fun parts of my journals. Instead of keeping notes, images, sketches as I do in my journal, I made this one deliberately, cover to cover.

Here are some of the images.

The front cover is made by covering Arches Text Wove with gesso, writing in it with a corner of a credit card, then adding India Inks in black and brown. After drying, I used purple pastels and another coat of gesso. When it was completely dry, I rubbed it–hard–with a cloth. It looks like leather. I’ve never been able to make purple come out well with a camera, and this is no exception–the band looks blue, although it is the same purple as in the cover, which is a good deal more subtle than it looks.

Book Cover with buttoning closure band © Quinn McDonald, all rights reserved, 2009

Found Art starts as a photograph. It’s of something ordinary, that I can see something in. I then print the photograph and alter it using colored pencils or watercolor pencils. You can see the after and before right under it. On the right is a great way to keep your journal writing secret, if you aren’t keeping a journal for fear someone will find it. Write, cut into strips, weave the strips into a design.

Found Art ©Quinn McDonald, all rights reserved 2008-9

This is what the original photo looked like.

Photo of vine on brick wall, © Quinn McDonald, all rights reserved, 2009

The second spread has raw art on the left that serves as a pocket for an accordion journal. The opposite page has found poetry on it.

Raw art on left, Found Poetry on right © Quinn McDonald, all rights reserved 2009

The next spread has found poetry on the left and a gate-fold page on the right.

Found poetry on left, gate-fold mountain page on right, pierced and inked

The gate-fold is pierced so there are patterns on the front and back. It is also inked, raw-art style and one of the lines serves as a guideline for journaling. The image is done on both sides.

The next spread is another version of found poetry. I cut a page from a book, circled the words that created the poem, colored in the rest of the page. I then cut holes in the page and applied it to an inked and painted journal page.

Found poetry on left, Rorschach on right. © Quinn McDonald, all righs reserved 2009

The right side is a Rorschach-like paint blot. I cut out the sides and placed them next to each other. There is a fire-like design in the interference gold and the blue part.

The closing band is held onto the back with a button that I attached while sewing the binding into place. There are two buttons sewn into the paper of the band. To keep them from pulling out, I lined the ends of the band in Tyvek–an polypropylene paper used in Fed-Ex envelopes and house insulation.

The fun parts were the gate-fold and the accordion-fold book that make up the entire book. The whole book isn’t shown, but you can see it on Flickr.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and artist who works at the intersection of words and illustration to create raw-art, available to people who think they can’t draw but want to create art journals.

Judy Melvin: Class in Mixed Media

Judy Melvin, a mixed media artist, taught a class to the Calligraphy Society of Arizona this past weekend. Judy is a calligrapher with a big portfolio. She has a 12-year career with American Greeting Corporation where she designed and lettered product, invented new fonts and painted and designed cards.

Radish bird, bleach, pastels on Arches cover stock © Quinn McDonald 2009

For members like me, who aren’t calligraphers, the class was still rich in opportunity. I used mark-making, found poetry, and hand lettering in this class and had a wonderful time.

Judy demo’d “Sink Art” –you start by using sumi ink on white paper, then rinsing it under running water. Sumi ink is tenacious, but the running water washes some of it off. With careful manipulation, you can run the ink to other parts of the paper and develop a marbling effect.

We also used brushes and calligraphy pens to write on black cover stock with bleach. The stock was black all the way through, so the result looked like batik. We then went back and added pastels to incorporate color into the positive and negative spaces.

We worked with gesso and walnut ink as well, creating several pieces. The class ended with an art show. One of the delights in a class of creatives is seeing the results of people who have received the same instruction. None of them are in the least alike.

Judy’s friendly, easy-going style and encouraging manner is a big plus in making the class interesting and fun.

Below: Detail of a bleached  piece of cover stock, colored with pastels and then collaged with found poetry.

Bleach and pastels take away and give color

Rebels & Radicals

Dangerous women
Fight to build clarity, creativity and courage
Demonstrate How we are connected
in a world gone mad.

Below: Detail of a bleached piece of cover stock, colored with pastels using hand-cut stencils.

Detail of Radish Bird, showing stenciled pastels

Different Journals, Different Jobs

Keeping a journal is not a formal work for me. I have several journals, some larger than others, some with handmade paper. As long as I date the work, it doesn’t matter which journal I work in.

As most people who juggle different projects, I have to keep track of voice mails, make lists, and jot down notes to find directions. I tried keeping the information on 3×5 notes, but discovered I often needed information on notes I discarded. So I began keeping the information on rollabind-punched 3×5s.

Then I noticed that I have a hand-brain memory. I would remember on which side of the page certain information appeared, and about where in the book. So removing pages confused me and threw the whole book into disarray.

Another fact floated to the top of my brain: these notes, phone numbers, movie names, books someone recommended–all form a weird map of my life. They are as much journal information as the stories, artwork and posts in my more formal journals. I refer to them to find out when I saw which movie, or to draw a map to get me from the bookstore to the art class.  These pages form the real pieces of my life, the daily patchwork that makes life interesting, gives it color and texture.

And now I’ve decided to start keeping those scribble journals.  Instead of loose cards, I’ve moved the whole thing to Moleskine Cahier bound-books, the 5×8 size. They are thin and flat and fit into my paper calendar that keeps my appointments straight. (Yes, I have an iPhone, and it keeps many things, but I need a paper calendar to show me what I’m not doing as well as what I am.)

This is a whole new direction, and piques my interest in mapping a life through journals. It may be a whole new kind of journal.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com (c) 2007-9 All rights reserved. Cahier notebooks by Moleskine.com   Image: “Solstice” by Quinn McDonald. Watercolor, pencil, on handmade paper.

Art Tutorial: Found Poetry Collage

If you like found poetry, you can take it one step further and create a collage with it. A few days ago, I used raw-art techniques for found poetry. Today, I’m using a different method. It’s the journaling version of NaNoWriMo –National Novel Writing Month.

While the “rules” of found poetry say you underline the words, then copy them, I like the idea of cutting out the words and pasting them down. This can get a little tricky if you are using catalogs or magazines. It gives it a visual and textural feel, as well as a heightened realism in the cut-out words.

Here is my most recent venture into found-poetry journaling, a two-page piece, including cut-out. Directions are below the photos. Words of the poem:

Sanctuary

In a seaside town
two minutes from the beach,
you grow up with nothing–
Winters hold razor-sharp edges.
Pearl moon makes the most of its small space
Still big and empty enough for
human-scaled dimensions.

Overleaf (page 1) with moon cutout backed with parchment. You can see part of the poem through the parchment.

Next page. Moon repeats--this is the piece from the previouis page. The letter "M" is large to emphasise the word "moon".

Directions

Materials: Several magazines, catalogs, old books and. . .

• Scissors, craft knife (small box cutter or X-acto knife)
• glue
• tweezers
• parchment paper, cut into 5″ x 8″ pieces.

Method: Read through catalogs, magazines, or an old book that you don’t mind cutting up. When you find a phrase you like, cut it out carefully. Leave a margin around the words you want. It makes it easier to change tenses or capital letters if the new piece overlaps, rather than butts up against, the cut-out piece.

Don’t worry too much if you don’t have perfect sentences. Right now you are gathering. It’s also a good idea to cut out a few extra words. You don’t know yet where this is going, and that’s part of the fun.

In this case, I had drawn a fancy bottle on the page, intending to make the poem about memories–the bottle was a perfume bottle, the idea that scents evoke memories. That was my idea. Poetry’s idea ran away in another direction. That necessitated the cut out page and re-thinking of the design. Leave yourself open till you have the poem. It’s much easier.

Put the strips of paper together, using lines to create phrases.

In some cases, you may want big or fancy letters for the initial capital. You could write them in, or use rubber stamps, but I find the search and cutting method to be more satisfying for this collage.

Trim the larger pieces you have to make just the words you want visible. Now use tweezers to place them as you would collage pieces, to see where you want them.

The glue choice is important. I tried a glue stick, but it doesn’t deposit enough glue and often the paper rips. Thin glue makes the paper too fragile. I like to use a PVA glue and a thin paintbrush. Put the strip face down on the parchment paper, use the tweezers to hold the paper in place, and stroke the glue over in a thin coat. This keeps the glue from oozing out underneath the paper and leaving marks on the page.

Use the tweezers to place the piece of paper, face up, in place. Pat over the entire surface, including corners, with the tweezers. You can use the paintbrush, too. I use plastic instead of painted wood paintbrushes. The paint flakes off the painted wood when you are working with glue and gets in your artwork.

Keep your journal open until the page is completely dry.

––Quinn McDonald is a writer who stands in the middle ground between words and illustrations, believing they both make meaning and create art. © Quinn McDonald, 2009 All rights reserved

Tutorial: Found Poetry, Raw Art

Found poetry is the discovery of hidden words and phrases in text that was written for another purpose entirely–a catalog or magazine article, for example. The poem is not found all together, you’ll find a word here, a few more six lines down.

I find this accidental discovery a perfect match for raw art--which is drawing abstract patterns that are pleasing, exciting, soothing, or engaging. Both are a discovery and both result in the creation of something new.

You can make up a variety of rules to make found poetry more challenging–mine are simple: You choose a set number of pages from a catalog, book, or magazine and find words or phrases that, when cut out and placed next to each other, make poetry. No fair using song lyrics or pieces that are already poetry.

Be careful to cut out words that are grammatically correct in the place you want to use them. That might mean cutting out extra letters. Because you are creating a collage  the words can be different typefaces, sizes or colors.

Then you add raw art–in this case a repetitive topographical pattern, with a suggestion of plant life, to match the seasonal theme of the poetry and to emphasize the word “freedom” and the tribal feel.

Horizon Dust

Time around us moves faster.
The seed that was sown 20 years ago
sweeps into the season raw-edged and tribal.
New growth, striped in rich autumnal hues,
moving to a new feeling and a new freedom
blossoming forth.

All the words in “Horizon Dust” comes from a variety of clothing descriptions in two pages of the Sundance fall catalog.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer who stands in the middle ground between words and illustrations, believing they both make meaning and create art. © Quinn McDonald, 2009 All rights reserved

Tutorial: Easy Travel Journal

The journals I like to make best are ones that are multi-purpose and not too big. That way, I can use them in creative ways, fill them up quickly, and make another one. Like most people who make things, I often enjoy the design and creation more than using the actual finished piece. So I always leave room for the possibility of altering my work some more.

Travel journal made of #10 envelopes. You can fill the envelopes with airline tickets, menus from interesting restaurants, receipts,  whatever you want to keep from your trip. You can use one envelope for each day, for each country, for each town.

You can draw or write notes on the envelopes, describing how you got the content of each envelope. Make it before you go, and you won’t lose those small pieces of paper. Make a few, and you won’t run out of envelopes.

Materials: This tutorial uses simple things you already have: cardboard for the cover (I used mat board), number 10 size envelopes, masking tape, bookbinding tape (it’s expensive, you can substitute gaffers tape), cotton thread, a pointy awl and watercolors.

Purpose: This envelope journal has room to write in and room to keep mementos, but that doesn’t mean you can’t draw on it, too.

Assembly: 1. Cut black (or another solid color of mat board) into rectangles slightly larger (about one-fourth inch all the way around) than the envelope you will use. Put them next to each other, long sides together, but about one-quarter inch apart. Cut a piece of gaffers tape* about 2 inches longer than the covers. Center the tape over the covers and place it down gently. Lift the covers, turn them over and smooth down the piece of tape at the top and bottom. Cut another piece of tape to cover the space in between the top and bottom overlaps. Cut it long enough so you have all the sticky part of the tape completely covered.

2. Lay two envelopes, flap side down, in front of you, side by side. They should be about one-eighth inch apart. Tape them together, the long way, using one piece of masking tape. Create three sets of these. If you want to have the envelopes face in different directions, take into account that these pairs of envelopes will nest.

* gaffers tape is the special tape electricians use in theater productions. Not as gooey as duct tape, it makes a cheaper alternative to bookbinding tape, which you can also use.

3. Nest the pairs of envelopes and line up the top and bottom. Place them in the center of the open book covers.

4. Using the awl, or a self-centering screw punch (you get them from a hardware store) punch four evenly spaced holes in the tape between the envelopes and book covers.

5. Thread a tapestry needle with cotton thread. It should be thick enough not to tear. Starting from the back of the book, come up through the top hole. Go down into the next hole, come up through the third hole, and down through the fourth. If you want to make your book sturdier, come back up through the third and work your way to the top. The needle should exit out of hole # 1. Tie the thread off and trim the ends.

6. Decorate the cover. Paint geometric figures on the plain side of the envelopes. Leave enough space for writing.

–Quinn McDonald is an artist, writer and certified creativity coach. She teaches journal making. Images: Quinn McDonald. (c) 2008-9 All rights reserved.

What Did You Leave Unsaid?

You know the feeling. You think of what you should have said hours after the opportunity is gone. Or you missed the chance to say “Thank you.” Or you should have said “Yes,” and you said, “No.”

Now you have a chance to say what you should have said. What you wanted to say. It’s another chance to get it right. Put it on a postcard–any size, any way–if the post office takes it, it counts. Sign it, keep it anonymous. It’s all up to you to get it right this time around.

Mail  postcard to:  P.O. Box 12183   Glendale  AZ  85318

Here is the first batch.

“Right Words” © Peg C.

Blank, anonymous

“Thank You” fabric on paper.©, A. Esqueda

Silence © Journey C.

Making Meaning With Your Decision

The earth heaves forward and you see the place where dawn will polish a hole in the sky.
You are the creator, this is your doing. You can call up the dawn, or you can step into the shadow.
Or you can step into the light and cast a shadow, falling in front of you.
You can wait until the sun is in your face, your shadow falling behind you.

You wonder if this creation is good, will sell, will become viral and make you a success, famous, a celebrity, rich beyond belief. You aren’t sure you care.

Genesis. Pitt Pen, watercolor pencils © Quinn McDonald 2009 All rights reserved

So you ask your committee to speak up.
The “Devil’s Advocate” who warns about the thing you haven’t thought of yet.
The Critic who says the public wants it smooth and cool, and you feel hot and sweaty.
The Marketer who says your portraits aren’t of pretty people, they are raw and ugly.
The Expert who says that people don’t like  hard edgy words now, they want it soft and easy.

You love this work, this scooping out of meaning from the blood-sponge of your heart.
You love it, but this Committee seems to know. Who is right? Who knows enough to advise you?

Sun pushes up the dawn. It’s time to know. Either you or your shadow will step into the shoes that leave deep marks and walk across the face of the earth.
This is no one else’s decision.
This is yours to know.
This is your creation.
For this one heartbeat, you are the Creator.

© Quinn McDonald 2009 All rights reserved