Collage to fused plastic

 Pauline Manders, author and my neighbour, comes into my studio regularly, so she sees what I'm up to and occasionally I show her things that others might not see. I am interested in versions of things and how to translate between media.  Colour studies became mail art books and pages of books become fused plastic collages. Pauline likes to see the progression.  It helps her to understand the end result.

To see what Pauline is up to, visit her blog.  I make her covers! http://paulinemandersauthor.blogspot.co.uk

Drawing Erin inpsires me.

I've only drawn Erin once before and that time I had a satisfying life drawing session too.  There were about 15 of us in the group today and it's customary to wander around in the break and look at each other's work.  I had a few compliments about this one, a ten minute sketch (5.5 X 6").  Sue wondered if I was inspired by one of the other artist's outfits, chartreuse and black.  It might work that way…

Sue asked Erin to do a 15 minute sequence of movement and we drew it.  We do this sometimes and it takes more concentration than anything.  The 'chartreuse' Erin was drawn shortly after that sequence.  I think drawing movement does something to your brain.

My 'style' of drawing doesn't really lend it self to movement drawing so results are never really anything, but the process seems to help, even more than a series of quick sketches.

This was my final drawing.  I think I managed to loosen things up again.  I think the other two are less successful, but they may have something for later.

Fused plastic response

Following on from drawing the Somerset space, I used the drawing to inform this larger (6x8") fused plastic piece, mounted onto cardboard and then sewn.

Trashquilt portrait

In Maine my making was mostly limited to cooking.  However, at both ends of the day I found myself in the kitchen bursting with the need to experiment in some way and an hour or two with everyone in bed.  I carved stamps and combined them with coloured markers and zentagle-like black and white patterns. I carved figures and lobsters, butterflies and flowers. 

The only things I brought back to England were some walnuts, a few plastic bags and some wonderful cheap shaped erasers as well as a stack of adhesive foam.  You can press into the foam to create stamps and the figure in this stamp is made with that. I cut out the shape of a figure I glanced at in a magazine and decorated her with patterns. The way the stamp prints is determined by the pressure - each print varies quite a lot.

Tonight I decided to sandwich a couple of the prints in some fused plastic.  This is about 4X4.

Enough inspiration to last 'til summer...

Maine in the off-season has a different kind of light.  The colours are different, surprising, more fleeting. Some trees feel positively asian as they bud.  The houses need painting. 

It's quieter and there is more time, fewer people, more rain, a different pace altogether. 

When most everything was done, I spent far too much time hovering over images on Pinterest, my new toy, but I also went out to the barn, quite cold in the off-season, and arranged my supplies.  

There was a tatty piece of shelf liner that made it into my plastic stash and in a frenzied moment I tried it out. It is the melon colour and did you know a straw can be ironed flat?

There's some travel ahead and I have the sad feeling that the summer is over when it hasn't even arrived yet.  I have the sense that perhaps that prick of loss is a good thing and will inspire me, along with the light and the colour and the beautiful objects that are so familiar but that I forget in between. Spending time with my artist mother will stand me in good stead for the next few months.

Painting by plastic

In a whimsical departure, I was inspired by my plastic to paint a larger canvas 15 1/2 X 20). As I worked from the plastic I tried to let my love of Milton Avery and Richard Diebenkorn (and of course Pierre Bonnard) guide me in interpreting the little cardboard sketch with sewn plastic. The cardboard pieces (in the previous post) began as a series of 'free' colour studies.   When I began painting, my colour study mind went out the window. 

The thing is, for me this was a satisfying experience. So, I know I'm not finished with this idea and I think I can see what to do next. The title of this post 'painting by plastic' alludes to painting by numbers.  Working from a little image is a bit like working from a photograph and in my mind you have to be careful not to 'paint by number', copying what is front of you without thinking about what the painting needs - a challenge.

Before I take this idea forward, I need to do some more little things and after my conversation with potter friend Caroline, I think I'm ready to let go of a few things in the mail this time!

Fused Plastic Interpretation 1

One of the things about fused plastic and monotypes that I enjoy is that there are surprises sometimes, and how even though these surprises haven't been intentional, sometimes they are believable and often the result has a particular energy I long for.  

Making a completely abstract painting has always felt like something I don't do, mostly I think because I don't understand what is believable in my own non-representational work. Not sure why, because I can be moved equally by abstract and figurative work of others.

That's why I decided to interpret a fused plastic landscape today. 

Fused plastic collage

I have decided to do a series of these, to take them beyond their mail art potential. It turns out with careful handling most plastics can be fused and incorporating paper as a layer gives me even more possibilities. Yesterday I found myself asking for a bag, even though I had a cloth bag... some of the flimsy bags produce a different kind transparency.  Heavy duty bags are absolutely opaque. 

using life drawings in a large painting

This is a painting that is certainly not painting itself, but am enjoying the challenge of trying to juggle lots of ideas and experiments at the same time. Beginning with a life drawing I painted over another painting that had been painted over another painting.  If I think about it I can see traces of each. Somewhere along the way I decided the nude needed some clothing.  I will go and do a colour study and see if I can figure out what colour I need on the cloth over the chair and then I will decide about the shape of the clothing that it needs to become... I also need to find the life drawing that I filed somewhere and can't find so I can think about those feet.

When to stop?

The struggle over how much to say, the memory, in my ear, of Dorothy Eisner telling me not to model.  The way people like a particular painting that painted itself ... I took my pastels into the room with the loved painting and drew on top of a scan of where I'd got to on this painting in the hope of finding what should happen next, wondering if the loved painting would offer answers. Back in the studio I didn't look at the pastel result as I worked, but it had warmed me up, probably. Later I compared and took from the pastel what seemed to be missing. Still not sure if it's finished.

warming up with a new material

Whenever I take a break from painting and drawing, (and these breaks are always about making space for something else - in this case a family holiday and experiments in plastic), I always find it difficult to begin again.  I can't remember where I left off, what I was thinking.  This time I took a look at what I'd been doing and the barrier was that I wanted a bit of time to warm up before entering into that space because I liked some of the beginnings. I have never really used oil pastels, preferring chalk, and I wondered whether using an unfamiliar material would result in something different. This 16 X 24 cm drawing is a response to one of my unfinished paintings.

Bottles and Snowlight

What with all this talk of snow again in the forecast, I got into a snow mind, rearranging some landmarks from my studio and beyond.

Snowlight in Maine summer

Woke up to white and the pink light of sun on snow.  Not sure why I took today's big blank canvas and painted summer in Maine but the snow colours were definately on my mind.  I think Figgy calls them 'sweet' colours.  I worked the same way I had yesterday, inventing a scene in charcoal from drawings, memory/imagination and  parts of a few photos.  My challenge was to use some yellow green and make it believable.  

New beginning colour and shape

Working from drawings, imagination and parts photos I began today with charcoal. It is drawing group Monday but what with the snow and not having the regular car I decided to stay home.  
I began drawing because I wanted to consider the light and shapes. When I finished I realised I'd done what I often do, put a line down the middle of the space.  Not sure why but I thought an ironing board would unify things, create some more complication and create a reason for the woman on the chair. 
This is only a few hours of painting so will come back to it again, and probably again.

Working in all directions

My preferred wayof working with pastels has always been plein air, or from life, anyway.  This is a departure. I decided to draw from a painting that began as a drawing that I abstracted and invented.  This is not as abstract as the painting, so more invented. I like the painterlyness of it.

Figure with Deckchair

This painting was stalled for some time.  I wondered what would happen if I collaged some pastel drawing motifs onto it.  It was obviously Maine so I found a few drawings and attempted to translate the energy to the painting. I put one of Rose Hilton's catalogs at my feet and began.

Oriental lillies

This is my painting response to my earlier post, Notwithstanding Local Colour.  This painting has layers of paint under it, a tree painting a very loose vibrant overpainting over that and this which has tightened up but has some interest for me anyway.  I hope I can return to it and resolve it, but for now I'll turn it towards the wall.  It's mysterious the way you can paint many different ways  in a short space of time...

A few drawings

Life drawing every monday.  I've been going to the same group since I moved to England 13 years ago. When I was teaching full time it was impossible to get to Sudbury, but mostly I go now. There is the occasional new model, but Blue has been modeling for the group all along.  I missed it  but apparently she modeled when nine months pregnant, years ago. The sessions have a loose structure.  Sue, a model herself, started the group 20 something years ago and is in charge.  Usually I am in a rush in the morning and it's lucky if I remember everything but yesterday I decided to prepare something different for the session.  I rubbed pastel into paper that I'd outlined with masking tape.  I treated the pastel in three ways: I brushed mineral spirit on two rectangles, clear gesso over another and brushed fixative over the final one.  Each was a different colour.  There were two on a page.  I had no idea what would happen at drawing or even if I would feel like using them.  In the previous session I only used charcoal.  I never really know which tool I'll grab when Sue says, 'this will be a three minute pose,' or whatever.

Sue strucutred things in a way she never has before.  She asked Blue to pose three different ways and to hold each pose (in rotation) for 1 min, 5 minutes and 10 minutes.  So, we would have three opportunities to draw Blue in each pose. The top drawing is one of the three ten minute poses.  The other two are 20 minute poses (which is the routine) after our break.  

Revisiting old territory

It's always exciting when you breathe new life into a painting you've put aside. Still not sure where this is going, but like the energy so far.

How do I use life drawings?

The barrier of reproducing something REAL from a brief life-drawing experience has meant that I have avoided using my life drawing in my painting and printmaking work, except to get the gesture of a figure to use in a monotype.  Patrick thinks this is untapped territory. I think I am sensitive about being branded 'nostalgic' or 'romantic' too, so hundreds of sketches languish in folders and sketchbooks.  
But this morning I decided to try to put all that aside and to do something finished with a life drawing.  
I can still remember Keith Boyle, one of my painting teachers, and our discussion about my love of Bonnard.  He used the word 'decorative'. I suppose Mattise, Modigliani, Gaugin they might be branded with that same word.