n. a conversational hint that you have something personal to say on the subject but don’t go any further—an emphatic nod, a half-told anecdote, an enigmatic ‘I know the feeling’—which you place into conversations like those little flags that warn diggers of something buried underground: maybe a cable that secretly powers your house, maybe a fiberoptic link to some foreign country.
Created around 3-13-16
Strathmore art journal
glue stick
scissors
art paper
I spend part of May in the Blue Ridge mountains celebrating my wedding anniversary. The view from Grandfather Mountain (in Western North Carolina) is like this – when is it a mountain, and when is it a wave in the ocean? It is overwhelming, especially at sunset
This is composed of cut up cardstock tests of Distress Ink – the edges of the main test. Reassembled like this, it looks like I’m trying to take pictures of the mountains, and putting captions underneath.
Card stock
Distress Ink
gold paint with glazing medium
Tim Holtz Idea-ology quotes.
(Click on the image to see it larger)
Card stock, Distress Ink Stain, water, toothbrush, scissors, glue stick, Tim Holtz “idea-ology” words, Strathmore visual journal.
A way to use up tests of the Distress Ink Stain. Cut up and reassembled, along with words, makes for a visual poem.
The base of how to do this was inspired by Nick Bantock in his book “The Trickster’s Hat.” My library system did not own this so I used the “suggest a book” feature and they ordered it as an e-book for me. I read it on my device and enjoyed being able to copy the exercises I was interested in trying onto a Note so that I could save them for later. This particular exercise involved tearing out color images from magazines (I used a travel magazine from AAA) and gluing them down. Bantock recommended using only blue and green (with no yellow-green), and then using blue paint to cover up the torn edges. I did this, but wasn’t happy with it after looking at it for a few days. I dabbed titanium white mixed with glazing medium to it to soften it. I like how it looks like fingerprints, because I usually use my fingers when painting, but not this time.
The “filler” paint used was a mix of acrylic – light blue, permanent green, phthalocyanine blue, and white. It was just too bold to blend in with the existing images, but the color mix was excellent so I’ve used it in two other projects I’m working on. I learned in a project from about a year ago that I get excellent and random results from putting the paint blobs on my palette right next to each other but not blending them. I dab the brush between them, picking up random mixes of color. I also enjoy doing this with a brush that is a little beat up, with some bristles missing. This produces unexpected shapes in the painting, depending on the angle I hold the brush.
(detail)
I then added words from Tim Holtz’ “Idea-ology” line along with and paper pieces I created. They are from a previous experiment, using card stock, Distress stains (vintage photo, peeled paint, mermaid lagoon, cracked pistachio) that were then sprinkled with water from a free toothbrush from my dentist. I added gold paint mixed with glazing medium. Once dry, I cut up the art into strips. None of that was intended for this project – I was learning how the stains worked (not like I thought or hoped) and I’d needed gold paint for another project and had some left over and didn’t want to waste it. I picked the best card stock test and added the gold to it.
Projects are not linear. One influences another. Sometimes to complete one, you have to stop it and learn (or discover) an entirely different technique on a separate project. What seems hopeless or at a dead end often just needs to sit aside for a while and be looked at again later with new eyes. Keep working. Keep experimenting. Also, art materials don’t have to be expensive. You can be a “starving artist”, but still be a good one. In fact, a little difficulty/disability/oppression/resistance helps with making art. Contented people don’t make art, because they are happy with things the way they are. Artists show how things can be, but they often have to do that from a place where things aren’t great.
Created 3/7 through 3/11 2016 Base is a Strathmore Visual Journal.
What is it like to move to another country?
To leave everything you’ve ever known behind?
What if not only is it another country, but culture?
What if even the language is different?
How would you find your way?
How would you know when you have inadvertently stepped over a line?
As if land were suddenly water, or you must suddenly live in the sky.
Alienating. Fear. Excitement.
Like learning to walk again.
Is this what paraplegics do? Are they unexpectedly immigrants?
(detail)
I found this slip as I was trading cars (always stressful) and while meditating on how I long for community but have a very hard time maintaining it. So many people have violated my trust. The idea of all my ancestors cheering me on came to me just shortly before I found this. It helped validate my message.
Here is the legend from a map used as part of this. I like these – you need a reference point to know what you are looking at.
Here is the definition of the word –
Keyframe
n. a moment that seemed innocuous at the time but ended up marking a diversion into a strange new era of your life—set in motion not by a series of jolting epiphanies but by tiny imperceptible differences between one ordinary day and the next, until entire years of your memory can be compressed into a handful of indelible images—which prevents you from rewinding the past, but allows you to move forward without endless buffering.
Ingredients:
Strathmore visual journal
Glue stick
Magazine photos
Fortune cookie message
The distance key from a map
Created 3-2-16
The pictures were taken with my phone. Maybe I’ll remember to scan this and switch them out. This gives you an idea, at least.
(edit – here are the scanned, and thus brighter, images)
I like “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows” because it explains ideas that I not only didn’t know the word for, I also hadn’t even thought of the idea. New words help us see in new ways. This is part of why it is important to not let languages die out. Each language (like each person) has a unique perspective on the world. Without all perspectives, it is like looking at the sky through a straw – we miss so much.
I’m randomly picking these words from an envelope and using them when I play with art paper. It is kind of a two-for-one deal. I want to work with both things, so I’m doing them together. These are fairly easy to do in the morning before going to work. I like to think that I’m an artist first and that my paying job is a second job. Or, I think of making art as taking a vitamin or a supplement. It nourishes me in unseen ways.
Here is the page from my art journal –
Note the disconnected feet. They are from another piece I did that I have not posted. I didn’t need them for that, but they are really interesting so I kept them. Also note the “you are here” stamp. This is my favorite thing right now. I misplace myself sometimes and the stamp helps. Also, Queen Elizabeth shows up – I sure like the amazing assortment of colors the Brits use in their stamps. Not a whole lot of other variety, but they have color down. I have whole embroidery box bin full of them, sorted by color.
Here is the detail with the definition of the word.
Now to find an online dictionary of obscure joys.
Things are progressing. It is approaching done.
The whole thing
Top left
top right
bottom left
bottom right
middle
Detail, at an angle, of the top
I added
artist-quality gold paint mixed with glazing medium.
More (photocopied) pieces of foreign money and stamps.
art paper
gold oil pastel pencil
white gel pen
Distress Ink crushed olive stain (painted on)
white chalk pen
decoupage glue
I’d started another project and used a bit of paper towel to take off and blend some of the paint on it. I then used that (now paint-blurred) paper to dab on bits of paint to this one.
The gold paint makes the picture change color and tone if you look at it in different angles and lights.
Other paints I have used during this –
a blend of cadmium yellow/ olive green / copper
payne’s grey
deep violet
yellow deep
magenta
manganese blue
burnt sienna
I’m reminded of zen gardens and the ripples on koi ponds on the top area.
I realize there is no focus – it is all interesting. I’ve not tried to draw the eye to just one area, but all of them separately. This is a piece that takes a lot of time to explore.
There are now three to four layers on this. I’ve added more stamps and map bits and parts of money. Gold foil was added.
Part three, whole
whole, enhanced (the colors aren’t quite as bright in real life, but this shows off the gold foil)
Details –
top left
top right
bottom left
bottom right
middle
middle, enhanced
I worked on it this morning and will share those pictures once that layer has dried. I used gel medium and gold paint to glaze over some of the darker areas. I’m still not happy with the dark olive green at the top, even though I think it needs some contrast.
I decided that I wanted to try to make art like Nick Bantock does. I still don’t have image transfer down, so I’m using several of his other techniques in the meantime. You can learn a lot about collage and layering art from many other sources, but Mr. Bantock has two different books that will give you an insider’s look into his personal process. They are “Urgent 2nd Class: Creating Curious Collage, Dubious Documents, and Other Art from Ephemera” and “The Trickster’s Hat: A Mischievous Apprenticeship in Creativity”.
Here is the first bit, which actually has two layers – paint and ephemera such as foreign money, stamps, and maps.
Closeup of top left
Top right
Bottom right
Bottom left
Middle
It took two days to get to this point. Then it took a few more days of looking at it to start painting over the areas that still needed work. I wanted to darken it at first, but then I decided to work with the colors I had. I mixed together copper and olive paint with some watered down white and got a mix kind of like camouflage and worn American dollars. I started to apply it and then added more of yellow and black to adjust it. It wasn’t the colors I’d used at all, but it was a nice alternative than just painting black.
This is what I got.
When doing the cropping of the photo I decided to enhance the colors a bit digitally to see if I can show what they really look like in person. This is a little much, so you’ll have to kind of imagine that it is a little less than this, and a little more than the previous.
The idea of continuing to work on it is to make it all good. There are always areas that are better than others when you work on a collage or painting. Keep those, and add to the areas that aren’t so good. Keep editing until it is perfect.
I’m not enjoying this process as much as I’ve been enjoying the art journaling. That is faster, certainly, but it also seems to produce strong emotions and memories while I work. That in itself is the reason to do it. This is not producing many feelings, other than a desire to stop working on it to preserve it as is.
I’m learning that I feel very attached to the layers as I make them. I’ve not wanted to paint over any of it, even the so-so parts, because I don’t want to lose anything. This is the mindset that makes some people keep old things stored away in their basement with the idea that “one day” they will need it. I’m trying to work with and around that, so that is why I decided to take pictures as I work on this.
Here are the detail photos from the second set. There are two to four layers in each photo.
Top left
Top left (enhanced)
Top right
Top right (enhanced)
Center left
Center middle
Center right
Bottom left
Bottom center
Bottom right
I’ll add further pictures in a separate post as this progresses.
—-Materials used (so far)—–
Stretched canvas
gesso
Acrylic paint
tissue paper (some with Distress Ink on the underside)
matte medium
stamps
Asian map
photocopies of foreign money
“crushed glass” glitter
tools – fingers, paintbrush, sponge brush, tissue paper
Inspired by the layered art of Nick Bantock.
Angry that crap art is seen as art, like McDonald’s is seen as gourmet.
The Emperor has no eyes. Jealous. Where is my recognition?
Telling my husband that he cannot vent on me. He cannot tell me just the bad that happened to him that day. I have my own burdens to carry.
The beauty of a circuit board, replicated. What is real?
(Details)
top right corner
middle left
bottom right
Ingredients:
Goldleaf.
Stamps.
Map.
Paper towel to remove paint.
Gel pens.
Art paper.
Decoupage glue.
Liquitex basics acrylic paint – Phthalocyanine blue, deep violet, copper, cadmium red deep hue
Strathmore art journal
Created 2/15/16
betsybeadhead 
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