Creating Valentines: Accidental Monoprints and more....

So as I was working, thought I needed a heart here or there- so cut a simple stencil.

I sprayed it with magenta and purple, then immediately scratched back into it to get the heart below. 

Then i looked at the stencil itself and thought- I like the stencil image as much or more than the heart itself! so I hurried and placed a piece of tag board on it to take a monoprint, or a one time print. 

Inspired/rewarded by this, I hurried up and slapped a piece of tag on the heart I just stenciled in my journal, and got this lovely slightly lighter ghost print!  

Although not much was needed to finish this one, I screened on love, and spray painted a background to set it off. 

The two below were also done using the same concept- but a bit more layering! The monoprint almost acted like a cropping tool in itself.  

  

The following ones involved a bit more cropping and removing, keeping the lovely parts of the compositions, and cutting out the more boring or blotted parts! Of course- the shape I removed was a heart! I layered it on top of a peach piece of unryu, or a type of very thin rice paper.  Although I liked the combo- I thought it needed more, so filled an ink marker with one of the colors that were sprayed in the center square and wrote "happy valentines day" around the edge, and highlighted some of the edges with some dots. 

 A similar treatment here, with a more geometric composition.  I layered a nice chunk of paper with some regular tissue, but again- didn't feel quite done, and some extra line work balanced it out nicely.

I have lots of friends who share my passion for music, so this was made for them.  The library was giving away books so old the paper was brittle- but worked for my needs! Did some pouring and spraying, cutting/gluing, and have a music themed valentine! 

I invited a friend to play in the studio with me, and she wanted a paw print (we are both dog people!) so we cut this stencil to use.  This one is going to puppy Izzy, a friends long awaited new addition to the family! 

I know, valentine crazy !

Well- I hope you all enjoy an artful happy valentine day! 

Splashy Block O'Love...using water patterns

For my next batch of blocks o’ love valentines, I treated myself to some new acrylic spray paint by Liquitex!

They seem to have a bigger range of colors, and hoping they clogged less frequently than the ones I was using prior-(Montana Gold brand). And since the valentine palette is not my “normal” color range, I needed to add some more colors to my collection (note- any type of rationalization is acceptable when it comes to buying new art supplies!! :)

Anyhow armed with these new colors, I warmed up in my art journal and I pulled out some papers to practice on. My theory is when you are doing processes that require quick 

spontaneous actions, you need to do lots- some to warm up, and then make many so you have options and can be selective about which ones are the best. Picasso said the artist best tool can be the garbage can! In other words- edit yourself. If they suck, paint over them and keep going. But if they work- they deserve to live:) It’s being able to recognize the difference and stop at the right point that has taken years to perfect. So those fun splashy designs you see and think must've taken only a moment to create are are usually the 6th or 7th or 10th attempt, not the first.  Why not just apply with a brush? Because I think naturally derived patterns are gorgeous- and letting water do what it does naturally creates some lovely shapes and patterns. Thus- my use of many fluid processes…

So on with the fun part! I did some splashing, spraying, then quick wiping away before the paint had a chance to dry.  A couple of them I dropped in some liquid inks on, maybe some more water, and let them dry.  Seal them up with a quick layer o clear acrylic once they were dry and they were ready for next step.

 For this one, I liked the pattern created by the water so much, didn't want to add too much more - so I opted to add two little hearts and no text or screens. I scrubbed/sanded off a little more magenta to have a simpler background for the hearts. Then I cut some stencil hearts, but once I sprayed them I thought they were a bit too solid- so to add some texture I scratched back into the paint with the end of a paintbrush. I thought it still needed a little more contrast/definition, so I loaded one of my new ink pens with FW inks in black, and just traced the hearts with playful lines and a couple o dots here and there.  Voila! dry, spray seal,-done! 

This block was bought to give to a mom and her little girl… sweet! 

Spreading the love….

See the rest of the blocks o’ love here….

http://www.cherylholz.com/art/artwork.php?Subject=1760

Making Blocks O'Love

I love the LOVE holiday! Smack dab in the middle of winter, I  need a little splash of color and love to get me through to spring. So around this time every year, I change my color palette to magentas, purples, pinks and reds.  Last year I made batik paper Valentines, this time I had more of an object in mind, but couldn't find exactly the right support, so went to the lumberyard and bought the biggest chunks of wood I could find. I came back to the studio, cut them up, gave em a good sanding

  

 and coated with several layers of gesso.  Next -color palette!  I never allocate enough time for this, or realize how much time it takes because it's fun to pick colors!  but it takes time to make the colors in front of you matched the colors in your head, and then to make sure that each type of sprayer, squeeze, bottle, or applicator is working correctly so I can spray, splash, pour, or drip!

I had decided to incorporate some poems and words of love into these, and figured silkscreens would be the best way.  So spent an afternoon playing with type/text on the computer,  and then with ink and japanese brushes making loose hearts to use for my silkscreen imagery.  

Finally, I got to play! i "warmed up" in my art journal first- a safe place to experiment-
  

Then jumped in!  I spent a very fun afternoon splashing, pouring, and  spraying. I made about two dozen so far, too many to go over all in here, so I'll feature a couple this week.

First layer of inks, spray paint and gesso. 

Then I "audition" which screens i want to use by laying a transparency over the painting. 

i ended up going with Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem "How do I love thee?" for the piece on the right. Once i have it where i want it- i screen it on. 

 

I decided I wanted to obscure the lower right a bit- so went back in with the burst of white. Then I cut a stencil to fill the inside of my silkscreen heart, and spray paint it on, then quickly scrubbed and sanded away to rough up the surface and make it more interesting....

then finally line up the silkscreen, and add the back contrasting heart (painted earlier with Japanese brush, then made into a silk screen) 

Finished piece! 

At this point, this one is still available but they are going fast! 

http://www.cherylholz.com/art/detail.php?artid=1130093

The process behind "Walnut Blues"

Today doing a visual tracing of the development of "Walnut Blues."

Got my walnut inks in the mail, and couldn't wait to play with them. I used the back of an old print, partly because I hate to waste paper, and partly because I though the printmaking paper surface would be a lovely absorbent surface to test out the inks! so used some walnut ink, and also diluted a mix of FW acrylic inks. 

Then I played around with layering some old handmade paper (slightly spattered with ink) and a page form one of my flea market antique books. 

i put the papers on wax paper to save the work surface- and thought that was a waste of ink, so did a monoprint of sorts with the raw wood panel to pick up the excess walnut ink. loved the pattern it created! 

played around pulling together different collage elements..ik

toying around with the idea of adding a willow twig

then gently taped them tougher with painted tape to make it through the sewing machine....

so I had a collage sewn together...

I adhered it to the panel, embellished with some graphite, ink, and wired that willow twig on 

(after coating it with walnut ink and spraying to seal it!)

http://www.cherylholz.com/art/detail.php?artid=129539

Flock o' Geese ATCs

Sometimes while working and focusing on one piece, it will overlap or flow into another.  Sometimes its just a practical thing- using up the end of a palette- but often times its because you didn't say everything you wanted/needed to in one piece.  I think a little bit of each happened here. While working on a portion of the large project I’ve taken on (see Midwest Shrine),
http://holzstudiosampling.blogspot.com/2015/04/planning-for-next-big-thing.html

 I shaped a portion of Aldo Leopold's book, "Sand County Summer” into 2 gothic shaped doorways. As I was carefully screening them on, I was reading the text about flocks of geese arriving in the spring.

 

Totally not planned,  the text ended up on the ATCs because I hate to waste art supplies- and I had a fully loaded screen with ink, took a look around- and found a fitting place to deposit it. But then I wanted to see actual geese, not just the text describing them.  So for the small ATCs I was working on, I made a screen of geese in various sizes and positions to include over the text describing their arrival.  Those led me down its own path and imagery, and now love these little guys.  Two have the text in them- then I went a little “goose crazy” and started flying geese into quite a few ATCs….

the beginning....

 the middle..

the end! 

 More examples- before and after staining....

  

"going with the flow...."

Irish ATCs

( These were scheduled to be posted while we were in Scotland and Ireland- but Blogger had different ideas. So- a little late but the art remains the same)

As you are reading this- I am now in Ireland!!  It is a big part of my heritage, but I noticed that the closer the trip got, the more my choices became Celtic ones.  I am going to show you what that looks like here! 

Ogham ATCs

I first became acquainted with Ogham characters during my first trip to Ireland almost 2 decades ago. While seeing the Book of Kells exhibition at Trinity College, these intriguing writings just grabbed me for some reason I can't completely articulate. I bought a postcard to remind me of the marks, (no photos allowed!) then found many other examples on various rocks and ruins during the rest of the trip. I came back and did a little research, and although I am not a linguist, this is my best explanation: It is an ancient alphabet whose characters are based on 12 trees. Found throughout  Ireland, archaeologists now think it might have been more widespread than that- because they've unearthed examples in north and south America that also contain examples of it.  At any rate- the following pieces have excerpts from the Book of Ballymote, in which the priests during the dark ages tried to record what knowledge and history they could preserve.  For some reason, in my mind's eye, a line of Ogham finished these perfectly! 

Irish music

And then, of course, there is Irish music.  After having just seen U2 in concert a month ago, I am still reliving that concert via their songs while working at the studio!  So this piece once again started with alcohol inks on encaustic board- a lovely surface for encaustic. 

I added some contrasting pan pastel blue, then wrote in the U2 lyrics that were playing while I worked- a favorite song of mine-  "Walk On"

  (All that you can’t leave behind is not just referring to actual luggage :) I collaged on a little strip from an old fossil book, and then waxed it. I then took a photocopy of some grasses, “auditioned” them on top of the piece, liked how it looked and what it added, so made a silkscreen of it. 

Screened it on, added another layer of wax, and stopped before I went to far!!  

Here is Walk on -performed live at Slane Castle in Ireland. Imagine! 

Slainte!