I am basically in the analysis stage of my recycle piece. I’m never a person to jump right in without thinking about how I plan on doing it. The theme this year is Dreamworld. So I decided to work with a photo of an art exhibit that we had seen several years ago.
Here’s the original photo….ghosts in a forest.
For some reason I wanted to use lightning bugs (fireflies) because they seemed very dream like from my childhood. So that means it has to be a night scene. Plus I wanted to use my husband’s used worn out jeans so that means it has to be blue. So I edited the photo. The orientation and sizes of the ghosts are still up for debate.
I edited it as a square because I have a used square 18 by 18 canvas from a failed project to use to mount it.
I’ve done a rough sketch to use as a pattern. I thought about just winging it, but then I that’s not how I work.
The trouble with my husband’s worn out jeans is that they are all light colored jeans. That means I have to try out paint colors to paint the dark stuff like the tree trunks. I started trying that out. I think I will have to add some black to my blue paints to get the dark nearly black trees.
The ghosts will be made from used dryer sheets and I will paint them with a transparent paint like Setacolor before cutting them out. They need to be semitransparent and made of a recycled material.
So I think the plan is to create a background from the jeans, add in the trees and foliage, sew things in place, paint where it needs to be painted, add in the ghosts, stitch the ghosts, and then add in the lighting bugs. The lightning bugs will be French knots. The entire piece will be put on a pellon stabilizer then adhered to the canvas. This stabilizer is like a stiff batting and will give a quilted look to the piece. I think I will sponge paint the background and foliage to get a better effect than using a brush. The trees will be painted with a brush.
You know when I put that all down it sounds like a lot of work!!!! I guess I better get started.
Do you think about your projects like I do or do you jump right in?
Thanks for reading.
Chris
I tend to be a planner but improv pieces have made me somewhat of a jump in and just get started sort of artist. Your work has lots of structure so planning is more of a requirement.
ReplyDeleteI do a lot of planning, and a lot of thinking outside of the studio. The thinking can be during a walk or as I'm trying to go to sleep. Actively trying to think through steps often leads to frustration and getting nowhere, where as when I let that other side of my brain work on it subconsciously, solutions magically arise. And even though I plan in the beginning, it is often during the making that solutions arise as well. So I plan, but I also stay open to changes in the original plan. I think in your case it is good that you have thought all this through in advance and have done a bit of testing.
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