A Very Special Commission

Step Two: The Under-Painting

Here is the level of detail I do in an under-painting. Sometimes I get carried away and give the painting more detail than I need, but this time I stuck with my own advice. I always tell students "Don't fall in love with the under-painting, or you will NOT want to glue paper on top of it!"

A Very Special Commission

Blue Bunting Sketch

A few days ago I received an email from a woman who asked me if my small bird collage "Blue Bunting" was still available. I told her it was with a gallery, but I could do another one for her. She told me that she had come across my collage art while searching for Blue Buntings for her sister. Her sister had lost a son, her only son, and she said that when she visited his grave, there were always Blue Buntings there, as bright blue as little jewels, which gave her some peace in her heart.

I was so touched by this story that I wanted to do a custom piece. We agreed to also incorporate a small southern style church and the name "Michael" into the collage.

I thought this would be a good piece to do a step by step process on. I have not done a piece from start to finish on the blog in a while and this collage is going to be so special that I think you will enjoy taking the journey with me.

Road Trip

 Art In Progress

Finish Your Veggies, 15.5x15.5, preliminary sketch and underpainting on panel

I am headed out with my family (husband, 2 kids, 2 dogs) in a 30-foot RV for a trip from here in  Orlando to the Grand Canyon. We are going across Route 66 and estimate we will be gone a little over 2 weeks. I am taking collage supplies, some prepared and some blank panels with me. I hope to document art made on this trip via my blog. Highlights will include work in progress and how to work with a limited amount of supplies. I also hope to come home with some decent work, because I have a show in Melbourne, FL in mid July and the work will need to be finished, framed and ready early in the month.

Remember when I said I was looking for inspiration? Travel and a deadline should just about do it! Stay tuned...

Blueberry Progress

Blueberry Branch

24x20, collage on wood panel, in-progress

Here is the under-painting and the in-progress shot of the blueberries again, in case you missed the under-painting posted earlier. In this in-progress piece you can see that I have started with the background, as usual. All that is left here to be completed is the blueberries themselves. They are the center of focus, so I want the papers that make them up to be overlapping the background. I also want to be sure I use a good textured paper to draw even more attention to them as the point of focus. Stay tuned.

Work In Progress

Think Spring!

Untitled, 24 x 20, collage of hand painted papers on panel

I am working on this piece for Juxtapose Gallery in New Jersey, they are experiencing a harsh winter up there and Gerri and I are thinking that some images of spring would be nice featured in her gallery window next month.

Gerri has just added Robin Maria Pedrero and me to the Juxtapose Gallery website, we are very excited about this new partnership. As many of you already know, Robin and I have shown together in Florida many times, and in addition to Juxtapose, we are also at Celebrations Gallery in CT together. 

Day Two

How Now Brown Cow?

Here is day two on the cow front. I have started to fill in the cow face and nose, which is my favorite part next to the eyes. The nose has been totally created from handmade paper by local artist Judith Segal. Her paper has such wonderful bumpy texture with bits and scraps of glitter and lint and colors, it's perfect! My next post will show a closeup larger photo of this and other highly textured areas, per a great suggestion by WW.

Building the whites with magazine print, book print, old book print, maps and Connor's workbook pages is a challenge in creating highlight with bright white paper, and shading around the side of the face to a more yellow white, which is old book pages. Keeping in mind all the while that the glue darkens some papers more than others.

Barnyard Friends and Fowl

How Now Brown Cow?

Here is a snapshot of  my latest cow in progress. I am feeling under the weather, so I have stopped working today at completion of the background in this piece. This stopping point is a good thing because it has prompted me to take a photo in progress and explain where we are at this point. After all, I promised to keep you in the loop on the progression on these new pieces.

• The Cow is still in the under-painting stage, she has been quickly painted with acrylic (directly on unprimed panel) to give me a color sketch to adhere my paper over.
  
• The background is the first part of the Paper Painting I work on, this way when the edges of the cow meet the background, they are laid on top.
  
• Since I am not feeling up to all the details of my cow, the background sky was something I could work on for a few hours this afternoon while I watched the kids bouncing on the trampoline from my studio in the back yard.
  
• I have used my favorite free art medium, Starbucks bags, in the green foreground
  
• My daughter's school sent home a great damaged book from the library for me to use for collage materials, you can see evidence of it in the small branch art at the top left

Stay tuned to see how the cow and her nose (my favorite part!)  progresses, her friend in the pasture has just enough detail that we know she's a cow, without making her a focal point. I chose to darken the pasture underneath the cow so that the part over to the right stand out more. Right now the contrast might be too much, but I will wait until tomorrow to decide for sure.