Getting in a groove with #100daysofcollage

So for those of you out there who haven't read my blog before, I just wanted to say welcome, glad you stopped by. You have found me in the midst of the #100dayschallenge where I have dared myself to complete 100 collages in 100-ish days (you can find other participants on Instagram by searching #100days). 

While I am still in the first quarter of this challenge, I thought I would begin to cover some of the basics about my process so far. For starters, the paper. I knew that I wanted to work in a relatively small scale because my studio space is rather small and a lot of artists will tell you that the scale of their work is often informed by the size of their work space. 

This 6x8" pad seemed like it had the perfect dimensions for what I had envisioned. Ideally, I would have purchased Arches paper and cut it down, but I was looking for something more low maintenance. I then made myself a view finder so that I could have a better idea of how my finished piece would look while I'm still in the layout phase.

Here is my rough draft of a collage. I can adjust the layout, change proportions and switch out papers before settling on the final design.

Already, I'm accumulating quite a stockpile of scraps. Think I'll have to start using these up soon before they totally take up my work space!

Any of you big Snap chat fans? I just joined up and am posting there on a somewhat regular basis. I'm rachelloewen with no spaces if you wanted to add me!

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When life gets crazy, I collage

The past nine months have been kinda crazy for my extended family medically speaking. Biopsies, cancer diagnosis, myasthenia gravis, feeding tubes, hospice care, heart transplant, infection, DNR, DNR repeal, DNR again, more biopsies, no cancer but abnormal cells, autoimmune responses, vitreous detachment, and on and on.

This week my grandfather-in-law finally passed away. He was a dearly loved man and left behind an amazing legacy of love and family. We are all taking comfort in the fact that he is no longer in pain and was fully ready for things to end. That being said, is is just hard and sad right now.

As we run around trying to get ready for the 10 hour drive that awaits us, I stepped away to have a little time in my studio to collage. It is what I do when I need to work with my hands and engage color but am a little bit of a mess inside.

What do these textures look like next to each other? How does this color relate to that one? This is my favorite kind of therapy. 

Prints of these and others are available here in my shop. 

What are your favorite creative coping mechanisms? Would love to hear your stories!

In my studio: ten minutes at a time

As a wife and momma, I sometimes long for extended times to spend working in my studio. As Herman Melville wrote in a letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, " I am so pulled hither and thither by circumstances. The calm, the coolness, the silent grass-growing mood in which a man ought always compose, --that, I fear, can seldom be mine."

This notion that I had to have at least three hours to work if I was going really make art was all fine and dandy when I was young and had fewer responsibilities. Now, that just isn't going to cut it. I would never make anything if that was still a requirement for art making.

Ten to twenty minute spurts are how I seem to best operate now. Washing machine cycle is almost over... Run!! I can glue down those collage pieces before it is finished! 

The kids are about to wake from their naps. Can I get those canvases primed in time? Yes!

Sketching while simmering soup for dinner? Of course!!

The couple of pieces I am currently working on have been made in short increments of time. 

(Still in the beginning phase)

Here's to making it work while still getting on with life's work!!

Surviving #snomahog

Snomahog? Yes, snomahog! The Mayor of Omaha accidentally dubbed our most recent blizzard after some sort of snow/ city in Nebraska/ porcine creature. Really. I'm not clever enough to make this sort of thing up!

Anyway, my kiddos informed me last week that they were done with snow. All being to young for school, the prospect of a snow day held little appeal. That is until I mentioned that Daddy would stay home all day, that they could stay in their jammies and could pick out new art supplies at Dick Blick to keep them busy during our confinement. Instant attitude improvement!

Now while my kiddos were super pumped about their creative enterprises, I was not so excited. You may recall that I am working on this massive garter stitch blanket and should, therefore, be thrilled at the prospect of being snowed in with knitting to be done. However, I accidentally spilled hot sugar (like 300 F hot sugar) down my hand. I'm not really in any pain, but the bandages make knitting super awkward! 

I am still able to draw so I've been making some patterns on tissue paper for future collages and been playing around  with two-tone pen and ink designs in my sketchbook, too. 

Hope all of you that were snowed in, too had as much fun as we did!!

Trying something new!

When I collage, I have a tendency of using small pieces of paper. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this method, but I wanted to try to maintain some larger areas in these pieces.

In an attempt to be more organized, I've already uploaded these to my print store for sale! 

Happy making!

My process: quilting with paper

So, I thought I would talk a little bit about my process today. Specifically, how I select the papers I use in a particular collage. Most of the papers I use come from magazines because they are convenient and are otherwise headed to the recycling bin!

My stash isn't too big, but I do have the goal in the back of my head that I should try to use it all up by the end of the year. This helps me avoid hanging on to "favorite" pieces or treating them as precious. The second I start being concerned with "ruining" a piece by cutting it up, I know I'm going to get stuck!

So, I'm sitting on my couch with these piles of paper before me thinking, "Where should I start?" The easiest place for me to begin is to grab the first piece that really jumps out at me. Then I start flipping through the stacks pulling out other pieces that I think would go well with that first piece. In the picture below, I started with the page that is on top.

If you are a quilter, you will probably think that this sounds quite a lot like the process you use when pulling fabrics at the store because that is really how I view a collage, a quilt out of paper. 

I try to find an interesting balance between warm and cool colors, semi-solids and patterns and so forth. Sometimes I'm really successful at this and sometimes not so much!

Often I go and pick out paper for multiple collages at once with the intention of doing all the cutting and pasting in the very near future. This has lead to multiple "What was I thinking?" moments when I look back at what I've previously assembled. :-)

Anyway, selecting the papers I'm going to use for a piece is one of if not my favorite part of the process. Would love to know if any of you work this way as well!

Happy making!

More naptime making and interruptions!

Well, it looks like all these "Naptime Collages" might become a series since I keep making them! I've even toyed with recording myself making one until I realized how many times I have to stop and check in on one of my sleeping kiddos. (going to pause writing now to do just that!)

The one from the previous post and the three pictured above are all made on these pressed wood boards that I purchased last year at a school closing sale. They are a nice size and make an excellent substrate! You can see in the one below where I used a thick paper as a substrate how it curls up on the left side a bit. That won't be noticeable if I scan it in for prints or frame it for my own wall so I'm not worried! 

If anyone knows of any amazing tutorials for how to record yourself making art, please put a link in the comment section in case I decide to try it anyway!

Happy making!!

What I'm Making: a naptime collage

I really needed to make something. I mean, REALLY needed to make something. As much as I love having my living room painted, the loss of making time over the past two weeks was really taking a toll on me. 

Past experience has taught me that one of the easiest ways to get back in the creative mood is to piece some collages. There is something rather meditative about cutting up paper and you can always glue over the parts you don't like. For example, I thought for a little bit that the piece was complete as it was below. 

But then I thought that the proportions were a bit off so with a little bit of tweaking I ended up with this! 

I wish I would have used a gel medium  instead of a fluid medium so the wrinkles wouldn't have been so bad. Live and learn!

Friday night foraging finds

My husband has an upcoming bike race at Platte River State Park and was needing to head out there for a few practice laps before the big day. Being in desperate need of some solitude and fresh air, I quickly volunteered to go with him.

I really love how you can still see some of the original art on the coins even after the train flattened them. Also, they remind me of some of the forms that I like to experiment with.

I'll keep changing up this arrangement until it feels a little more right. If I don't get this glued down by 4pm today my daughter will probably take a few of these items for her own collections so I had better get to work!

Weekly update

 I would love to post some sort of "in my studio" weekly update, but this has been one of those weeks where I'm not sure if I really have much to post. My 11m son decided that his afternoon nap should be optional for a few days so that meant no painting for Mama!

Today he figured that a nap was a good idea so I was able to catch up on laundry and write this post.

Those of you who follow me on Instagram would have seen this post. I drew some flowers with Tulip paint on a transparency sheet with the hopes of making an acrylic skin by covering it with gel medium and then peeling it off. 

Unfortunately, I used the matte medium instead of the gloss so it was a little more opaque than I would have preferred. I've made some more with gloss, and they look much better. Hope to finish this piece up sometime this week and get back to my other starts. 

Sunday was nice because I was able to churn out this sketch while all three of my kiddos enjoyed their post-church naps (Sunday school wipes out my very social yet introverted children.).

And once they woke up, we all headed to a local single track park for little picnic.

We found this nice little spot to enjoy our PB & J's and carrots before the mosquitos started to drive us crazy. The little ones enjoyed saying, "hi" to all the cyclists that passed us by (none of whom probably every saw people picnicking there). :-)

In my studio: getting unstuck

It has been a long time since I've been able to paint on a regular basis. Last week the withdrawal symptoms I felt from going off my arthritis medicine finally stopped so I have been able to find a little time each day to get out my paints and brushes and have at it!

But something odd kept happening. I would be going along just all fine and dandy and then get stuck. This is nothing new for me, in fact, this is something that plagues most artists. The odd part was that I couldn't get "un-stuck", I couldn't move forward no matter how long I looked at a piece.

Then last night, I took my latest pieces outside to work on. Since my lap was my work surface, I brought along my little collection of pens, markers and pencils that I've been using for the last year or so in my sketchbook (you can see those pieces on Instagram). 

All of a sudden, I was no longer stuck! Once I had that white gel pen in my hand my brain immediately told me what to do next. There was just something about having those familiar tools at hand that moved me past my artists block!

These pieces still have a ways to go before they are finished, but I hope to have prints available soon!

What I'm Painting: beginnings and middles

I'm in the middle of several pieces right now and thought I would share them with you!

We will call this one slightly past middle...

middle-ish...

almost to the middle...

and just begun (threw down leftover paint from previous one)!

Think I need to come up with some better terminology to explain how far along I am in a piece. :-)

What I'm Making: more magazine collages

I went through my stash of magazine papers to create this collage. There is something so satisfying about repurposing paper! Also, I like the challenge of using colors, designs and patterns that I did not come up with myself. 

What I'm Making: the latest collage

Thanks for stopping by!

What I'm Making: collage beginnings

Warm colors for a snowy day!