Monday, January 3, 2011

Road Trip - Collage on the Go!

Peacock in the early stages, started at my in-laws on the kitchen table

Last week I posted "Setting the Pace for 2011" and showed the sketch and underpainting for the 12x24 untitled peacock on cradled birch panel. I took this pre-prepped piece and a couple small dogs, along with my collage papers and glue, on the Nelson family holiday road trip.

hand painted collage papers divided by color in gallon bags, Starbucks cup full of water with paintbrush, plastic container of glue, my husband's leg...he's doing the driving while I work!

A rest stop in Delaware and the collage leaning up against the dash at the perfect angle to work. for the highest point of the top, I had to flip it and work upside down so that I could reach!

We drove from Orlando to Western Massachusetts, to Northern New Jersey, and back to Orlando. We are currently still on the road somewhere in South Carolina and I've managed to complete the Shiz Tsu 12x16 and the as yet untitled peacock.

Shiz Tsu was completed in our room at the Marriott Courtyard in Hadley, MA 

Working in the car and in the hotel room, I took advantage of all the tips and tricks I learned from working on the airplane. I found the glue dried very fast with the re-circulated air in the car, so I added water to my brush between each dip in the glue container, and I tried to keep the lid over the top of the glue as much as possible. We stopped for coffee breaks every now and then and I gave the brush a thorough cleaning in the rest room with soap, peeling off all the excess dried glue over the trash can. My kids were less than thrilled about the strange looks I was getting. What can I say, I hate to sit still!

Nearly finished here, but losing daylight fast


All in all today's 12 hours in the car proved to be very productive for the peacock collage. I even applied a piece of map from Richmond, VA that I found in my blue bag after we passed through there. I thought that was kind of fitting for the trip and would make a good "conversation piece!"

Just before I lost my light, I'm almost finished and will have a completed photo next posting

I am happy to say that just before it got to dark to continue, I finished the peacock. Too dark to take a photo but you can see here that there was not much left to work on. The drips at the bottom were created from discarded palette papers from my friend and fellow artist Kimberly Santini who sent them to me all the way from Oregon!

Tomorrow we'll arrive in Savannah, GA and spend the day. I hope to be able to meet Sasha, the new gallery director at the Grand Bohemian Gallery which shows my work, in the Mansion on Forsyth Park Kessler Collection Boutique Hotel. 

4 comments:

  1. First of all I love your work. You have the eye to make things that aren't real come to life. I wanted to take the lemons and make lemonade.

    I want to know what products besides paper you use in the creation of your artwork? Thanks again for your site.

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  2. This is dedication to your art! I could never do this - can't even read in a moving vehicle so have to drive most of the time. This is beautiful and I like the addition of the map bits.

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  3. As my mom would have said, "you let no grass grow under your feet". I like both pieces a lot. I used to work on my embroidery while driving..riding in the passenger seat, not actually driving, but the downside of working like that with my head down and concentration on my work I don't remembe most of the many trips and that's a shame. Now I take pictures and sketch when we're on a road trip. I wonder what other people do on long boring car trips?

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  4. Well Jo, the return trip was a duplicate of the trip up, and I did not work on the way up. So, I saw the sights the first time. And I am happy to say that I completed the peacock in the car!

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thank you for taking the time to read and comment! :)