Collage and Perspective

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Working on another letter-and-number collage, I made a few decisions. Just letters and numbers is tedious. More color is needed to keep the work visually interesting. So I added maps pieces for mountains. But something wasn’t right. The piece looked … Continue reading →

Saturday Dip in Creativity

It’s Saturday, so it’s time for a skip through the interwebs, looking for creative ideas and projects. The Wellcome Collection describes itself as: “Wellcome Collection is a free visitor destination for the incurably curious, exploring the connections between medicine, life and art in the past, present and future. “ Sounds good. I was intrigued by an exhibition called Souzou: Outsider Art from Japan, which talks about identity and the relationship between names and letters.

Rome Rooftops by Isaac Tobin. Details below.

There are many other areas on the site that I haven’t checked out yet, including High Tea, a game you can play on line, in which you try to make money in the teas and drug trade, 10 years before the Opium Wars. Before you wrinkle your nose, there are related articles including one which considers whether or not drug use is a sin, a crime, a vice,  or a a disease.

The Color Of is an app that shows you the color of abstract ideas. It does it by going to Instagram, grabbing photos that mentions the word, then creating an abstract by overlapping the images. Interesting.

The Graphics Fairy publishes hundreds of copyright-free images that you can use on cards or stationery. Sort of online ephemera, printable.

Nerhol is a two-artist collective who uses photography in unusual ways. In this series, subjects were asked to sit still for three minutes, while a camera clicked away, taking a series of photos. The photos were then layered and cut to show the subtle movement and facial changes of the “sitting still” subjects.

Isaac Tobin designs typefaces and works for Chicago University Press designing book covers. But the work of his I love are his minimalist collages. That’s one of them up there, but there are many more, some of them so spare, so not “layers on layers” we are used to loving now, that they are refreshing.

It’s the weekend! Enjoy your own creativity.

—Quinn McDonald is working on a collage of her own. It’s done with letters and numbers. Again.

Tearing Paper for Collage

A few weeks ago, I sent Elizabeth St. Hillaire Nelson some Monsoon Papers. During her collage class, she told several stories about people who sent her papers and how they could show up in a collage of hers. I love sharing Monsoon Papers, so off they went. And then, today, I got an envelope of colored papers back from Elizabeth. Colorful, printed, wild, interesting. And after a week of  doing paperwork and getting the work done, I wanted to play. Perfect excuse! Off to the studio I ran. It’s still got boxes from last week’s demoing I did for Arizona Art Supply. I pushed them aside and got to work.

It felt right to make the same kind of collage we did in class–almost. I inked the backgrounds instead of collaging them. But I did enjoy shading the flowers by using different colors of paper. And I loved ripping into the papers. I still have a little trouble getting the shape right, because I tear left-handed, which can confuse me.

And of course I had to do another pear. I think there are art least two in the book, although I made four. Maybe I’ll frame all the different pears, but meanwhile I have two more loose-leaf journal pages. Now I can use Barbara Abercrombie’s book from yesterday’s review to choose a prompt and fill up the back of the pages!

Hmmm, looking at the pear, I want to take that flower in the center, meant to be a highlight, and push it down one-quarter of an inch. The nice thing about collage is that you can paper over paper.

Thanks, Elizabeth, these papers are already fun!

-–Quinn McDonald is a sucker for collage. She’s still working on white-on-white collages, but a burst of color cheers her up. She still has to clean up the studio, though.

Collage, Creativity, and Copyright

An entire classroom of people bent over their artwork today, placing painted pieces of paper onto an underpainting in the technique we learned from Elizabeth St. Hilare Nelson. Using the paper we painted yesterday, we tore, shredded, and ripped pieces no bigger than a quarter and glued them onto the underpainting. At points in the day, my fingers were numb, coated with glue from pressing the work flat. At other times, my shoulders cramped from the concentration of bending over the work.

And at the end of the day, here’s the apple. Everything you see is paper glued onto a canvas board. No underpainting is showing.

I have a few corrections to fiddle with tomorrow morning. I want to extend the shadow under the apple just slightly on the right side tucking it under a bit more. And on the wall behind the apple, in the upper right-hand corner, there’s a bit too much unbroken blue–a piece too big. It needs to have a smaller piece placed on it to make the blue look more like a part of the rest of the wall.

The parts I like are the words hidden in the collage and the gold threads defining the curve of the apple.  Sheets from my journal went into the work, as well as stamped words, done for pattern. That is going to become the way I make this technique mine–adding texture through words and letters. Tomorrow–on to the more difficult koi image.

While I was thinking of putting this piece on my blog, I was thinking of copyright again. With artists showing their work on the web, and more people caring about speed and less about giving credit and accuracy, it’s hard to own your own artwork and writing.

On one hand, most artists and writers don’t want to be so private that none of their work is seen. On the other hand, no artist or writer wants to see their work claimed by someone else. Not much better is seeing your work on Pinterest or on another blog with no link back to your website or blog. Mash-ups and sampling are popular, giving credit and linking back, not so much.

Copyright won’t protect you from theft, and it’s often hard to find the person responsible for a blog in order to contact them and ask them to give you credit or remove your work.

The DIY Doyenne has an excellent blog on the matter. Margot Potter, better known as Madge has some great ideas. KevinandAmanda will help you discover if your photos are being used on other blogs.  If you are searching for the original source so you can give credit (thank you!), you can use the tips from The Graphics Fairy.

To protect your work with a watermark, Madge suggests using the easy directions at Picmarkr or Stipple. And after passing on all that great information on Madge’s blog, I should mention that Madge has a pdf book out called The Fine Art of Shamelss Self-Promotion. Because unless we promote our own work, it’s a slim chance anyone else will.

—Quinn McDonald may never get all the glue off her fingers.

Creative Link Saturday

Two themes came together happily today–Tammy G’s Daisy Yellow Link Love and the class I’m taking in Sedona from Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson.

Tammy’s idea is simple: “Link. Write something nice. Spread happiness.
I believe that linking will inspire community. Let’s go retro and spread the love. They say that everything comes back in style. Maybe even pastel orange countertops.”

Sounds like a good idea to me. Since I post new links every Saturday (and often throughout the week), it’s easy for me to participate.

If you want to participate, grab a badge and link to at least five new sites in the month of April. You can leave a link to your site on Tammy’s blog, too.

Meanwhile, the Sedona Art Center is hosting Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson this weekend. The class is on collage, and Elizabeth is a peripatetic, fascinating workshop leader. Class started with a talk and slide show in which Elizabeth detailed her artwork techniques and how they help bring a collage alive with depth and personality.

She then demo’d a number of techniques, in a rapid-fire way, constantly moving, constantly changing papers. She moves fast and creates fast, and while I thought it was just me, when I looked at the photo, her hands really were a blur!

Here’s a technique  (above) in which she paints a piece of paper with two colors, one on top of the other (dried in between), then drops alcohol onto the paint. The difference in the surface tension and evaporation rate of the paint and alcohol causes the paint to recede in circles as the alcohol drops onto the page.

When she adds a spray of soap water, the detergent adds a different surface-tension design to the paper. Once the soap was sprayed, she added turquoise spatters. The effect is amazing.

Here’s a page (above)  she made using her hotel room key as a paint scraper to apply paint on paper laid over a patterned texture sheet. She sees patterns in shelf liners, stencils, imprint plates, doilies–anything with a texture.

We then got down to painting our own pages and sheets. Tomorrow we start with gluing–something that requires a lot of planning to get the direction and sequencing right.

Meanwhile, if you are looking for more books for your wish list, Seth Apter (one of my book contributors) posted his list of current favorite art books. I’ve pre-ordered the wabi-sabi book. When I first began to post about wabi-sabi (here’s an article from 2006), I was told that no one really was interested in the concept. Seeing this book come out now makes me smile–the world is ready for an appreciate of the old, the worn and the natural.

Have a creatively exciting weekend!

—Quinn McDonald is typing with paint-stained hands and is ready to continue the class tomorrow.

Saturday Creativity Links

The last week, I have been swooning over those “paper as paint” collages–people who carefully cut, tear, and paste paper pieces to shape images, like Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson, who paints with paper. She creates richly-colored paper collages that are illustrations.

This video shows how she builds the support, does the underpainting and then collages.

Peter Clark does the same thing with his dog collages. He uses a variety of

“Too Precious” by Peter Clark’s garment collection.© Peter Clark.

papers, including maps (maps!) to create movement. I’m in love with the greyhound and the dalmatian. He has other sections on his site, too. I’m not generally a fashion maven, but his collages of garments have huge charm for me, as well. Clark has a book out, too.

“Hidden Staircase” © Ronni Jolles, from her collection of sold work.

Not all artists who use this collage have the same result. Another artist who does paper painting collage, but with a totally different look  is Ronni Jolles.  Jolles  subjects are landscapes, and very different from Nelson’s or Clark’s. The subjects she uses are more textured, so her work seems more like mixed media. (Yes, collage really is mixed media as it uses paint and paper). Some of her work is almost photographic.

Interpretation and execution is one of the interesting things about creativity. The same idea can be carried out in so many different ways.

Saturday Ramble

I wish they’d added a photograph of the product.

When I travel, I love looking at the local phone book to see odd ads. I also look at the business listings, reading the top of the pages, where the alphabetical listing is. They use words to show the range, so you get odd combinations like: Donut-Draperies. Or Hot-House. Importer-Insurance.

This is the ad I found in the phone book of my last trip. I am still laughing at the last line.

OK, on to Saturday rambles. Time to have creative play–maybe with your kids or grandkids. Here is a fashion collage site where you can combine tops, bottoms, and accessories. Beats having to try clothes on your own self while standing under fluorescent lights.

Need photos or textures to download to make your own collage? ImageAfter will help you with a selection of choices. Check the rules to make sure you know the difference between royalty-free and copyright free.

Have to write your own bio for a show or presentation? It’s hard to write your own bio without sounding like you are bragging or being so modest that people don’t know what you’ve done. Copylicious helps you out with some questions and tips.

Woolgathering is the blog of a woman who does a drawing a day. She’s done it for years. She draws ordinary things and it’s beautiful.

—Quinn McDonald is never bored. Even in a hotel room with only a phone book.

Stencil Play

Stencils are a simple and interesting way to add a layer to a journal page. But they can do a lot more. Used with different colors, stencils set a theme, create a pattern, help colors blend in interesting ways. They can also be used as a resist.

I love this stencil of numbers. I have another one, too, with numbers as a positive image. Both are from The Crafter’s Workshop.

In this straightforward use of this number stencil, I put the stencil down on a blank sheet of paper and sprayed inks onto the stencil, let the paper absorb the ink and removed (and cleaned) the stencil. In this case, the stencil acted as a resist against the white watercolor paper.

I then sprayed the paper first, then put the stencil down and sprayed over the first color. Blending two colors gives the numbers a softer look, but it also creates a background for anything having to do with measurement, counting, or money.

Collage is my favorite medium, so I used both the positive and negative stencils, created some gel-transfer butterflies, then collaged some “magic words” from the box of interesting words I keep. Using the words as major focal point, I discovered a John Ciardi poem fragment that used those words.

You can  create pieces of paper that suit you, no need to torture yourself looking up poems. I had to memorize hundreds of poems in school, many of which are stuck in my brain and surface randomly.

I wrote the poems between the word blocks. While I like the mix of words and numbers, this piece seems a bit busy to me. The gel-transfer butterflies are interesting and I’ll make more of them.

Finally, my favorite collage of the series. Using color and geometry as the vocabulary, there are no words. There are some incongruous elements–Monsoon Papers, ribbon, and the pieces from a hole punch. The combination works. I could add words to it, but for right now, I’m satisfied.

–Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach who will be teaching One Sentence Journaling at the Great American Scrapbook Convention in Chantilly, VA on June 22 and 23.

Books on the Nightstand

Do you have a pile of books someplace–a waiting list of books that you want to get to in some order? My pile is balancing precariously on the nightstand. Some of them are partially read, some new and waiting.

We read for many reasons–to learn, to relax, to satisfy curiosity. I belong to Goodreads, and you can certainly categorize and chat about book choices there. But I’m curious about that stack and why you are reading what you are reading.

Here’s the top seven of my stack, along with reasons:

Refuge, by Terry Tempest Williams. About half read. Just started it. A book about the loss of a wildlife habitat combined with the loss of the writer’s mother to cancer. The balance of loss in nature and in family is carefully written, never mawkish. I’m a naturalist, and this book is a natural for me.

A Thousand Names for Joy by Byron Katie with Stephen Mitchell. A gift book and one I’m curious about. After discovering “the work” that Katie does, I’m interested in this topic: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are.

Creating Time: Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim Your Life by Marney Makridakis. An interesting collection of essays on re-imagining time and how to make it appear to slow down or speed up. Lavishly illustrated by the coaches Marney trains. I love other people’s perspctives on time and how time controls your life.

Stung by “B”s by Theresa JK Drinka and Jeni Synnes. A survival guide to help identify and overcome the damage of the disruptive people in our lives. When you are a coach, reading books about people who push your buttons is an excellent idea. Just ordered it, but am delighted to know it’s on the way.

The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry. The workplace is taking on creativity as a desirable trait, and I can see it being pushed into little cookie-cutter shapes already. I’ve heard of “disruptive ideas” and it makes me roll my eyes. I also read a lot of books on creativity so I can listen knowledgeably to people who speak about it.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman. Suspense novel. Lippman worked for the Baltimore Sun and her novel takes place in Baltimore. I’ve lived there, so it’s interesting to hear the details I recognize about the city. This novel is a page turner and I’m hooked. The woman who should be a protagonist is not likable, and may be a narcissistic liar or an innocent victim. The male protagonist is a cynical cop. I’m almost done and have no idea who did what. I like the Tess Monaghan novels, and I like this one.

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston. A fascinating collage book. Preston collected vintage (1920s-1930s) ephemera and then created a story around it. You turn the pages of the book like a scrapbook, get caught up in ticket stubs, photos, photos of old cans and labels as well as the story of Frankie, a young woman with a wandering heart and a Corona manual typewriter. Great concept.

What is in your reading stack? What’s the one you are choosing next?

--Quinn McDonald is a writer and creativity coach who loves to read.

Kits, Directions, and Being Perfect

Last Saturday I was de-stashing at a local craft store. There were about 40 people, taking their online store onto the sidewalk, or selling the items they make at classes taught in stores and online.

Typical collage kit: magazine pages, map stickers, cards, stamps, handmade paper, mulberry duo-sided art paper, butterfly transfers, sage burlap fabric, and the wonderful "Don't Throw Me Away" sticker from a package.

People wandered over–it was a great Saturday morning, sunny and mild. I saw a lot of purchasing, so I was cheered. The first person stopped at my table looked at the collage packs I had made and said, “Whose are these?” Not understanding the question, I said, “Mine.”

“No,” the woman said patiently, “Who made them?” I knew now what she meant. This was going to be hard to explain. “I’m not selling brand name kits,” I said, “These are made up from papers and ephemera I’m not using anymore, so I’m selling them. De-stashing my art stash,” I smiled.

The woman picked up a collage pack. “Where are the directions?” she asked. “What’s this going to look like when I finish it?” I needed to be brave, here. “There are no directions, you can use the material in any way you want. No directions, no sample. It’s a collection of color-coordinated papers you can have fun with,” I said, hoping I was encouraging.

The woman was not to be fooled so easily. “Well, you can’t just put papers together and call it a kit,” she said, sternly. “It has to make something. It has to have directions, otherwise you won’t know what to make with it.” I was filled with ineffable sorrow. There was no spontaneity, no curiosity, no joy of experimentation here. Just determination to complete a task.

“Do you like to work with kits?” I asked.

“Well, yes, real ones,” she said. “I have some cards I’m selling here. You should come see them! They are perfect!” she said proudly.

And they were. I wandered over to her table and saw stacks of boxed, perfect cards. The Thank You cards  were stamped and embossed on scrapbook paper. All had perfect bows tied, each with a rhinestone in the center. The Congratulations cards had bands of perfect glitter perfectly applied. Not one flake out of place. She beamed at me. “See?” she smiled, “This is what a kit looks like when it’s done. These weren’t easy.”

“They are perfect,” I agreed. “What do you think about when you are making them?”

“Think?” she said, looking puzzled. “I create a little assembly line, and watch TV when I’m doing them,” she said. “I know the steps by heart, so I don’t have to think, I can watch TV,” she said.

A vision of thousands of croppers, caught in front of their TVs, each in a confined craft sweatshop passed through my mind. “What do you do if you make a mistake?” I asked.

Her face froze. “I don’t make mistakes anymore,” she said. “I make the same cards over and over, so I know how to do it,” she added.

I smiled, “Never, ever? That’s impressive,” I said.

“Well, I wouldn’t tell you if I did. I rip them into a thousand pieces and burn them in the barbeque,” she admitted.

From the movie "Norma Rae," Sally Field, as Norma Rae, holding up the sign to break the sweatshop tactics.

I’m sure that there are thousands of happy croppers in the United States, doing what they need to do to turn out perfect cards. They are satisfied with their exactly lined up ribbons, rhinestones and glitter. But my heart aches to climb up on their worktables and hold up a sign that says, “Create what you want!” or “Do no-rules art!” or even (my favorite) “Make meaning, make art!”

There is so much more to creativity than watching TV while you roll glue runners next to a ruler, completing kits. I’d like to gather those people up and take them to my messy studio with very few rules and see if they remember how to play, how to drop into the wordless creative joy that makes rich meaning and lights up your soul and makes you want to get up every morning.

I’m happy to say that I’m teaching a class in May that bridges the two worlds. I’m teaching Postcards from the Other Side of Your Brain at Valley Ridge on May 5 and 6 of this year. There will be directions and samples. But we will start the day by walking outside and breathing deeply. We will work individually in an environment where mistakes are welcomed and worked into the art. We will share our thoughts and work privately. If you want to work differently, you can. Because we will be making meaning. And that always yields the most amazing art.

–Quinn McDonald is a creativity coach who teaches art projects that start with meaning making and include heart-deep writing, and exploration into satisfying results. If you haven’t played in a long time, really played, come join the class.