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! 

Creating Valentine Card Compositions

So now that 2016 edition of blocks old love are done, it's time to move on to some mail art-Valentines! 

Mail art (also known as postal art and correspondence art) is a populist artistic movement centered on sending small scale works through the postal service. It initially developed out of the Fluxus movement in the 1950s and 60s, though it has since developed into a global movement that continues to the present.

While I was creating the blocks, I threw out some papers, tag board that the print shop below me was recycling, and pages of text saying "love you" in different languages. I  had some fun pouring/ splashing/ spraying on them to use as collage fodder.

When I started screening on text and hearts on the blocks, if I had any extra ink on the screen,  I turned to one of the papers and added it where it seemed best.

this is the poem "how do i love thee?"by Elizabeth Barrett Browning screen in white

This one layers the poem over the pours, then the word love in a different font and color.

Once I had a nice assortment of papers, it was time to turn them into card size collage
compositions.

My favorite ways to do this is to use cropping tools. Even to an experienced eye, it can be overwhelming to select what portions of the piece to work with. I really love creating this way because it allows a very freeing start where you are not necessarily concerned with the overall piece, and are able to totally focus and react to what is going on in the surface. Later you'll evaluate and take what works, and either throw out or rework what did not. I do this on a bigger scale on clay-board and boards sometime. However, it's much easier to work with paper and just cut or tear rather than saw and sand before nailing, gluing and assembling.

At any rate some compositions were very easy-All I had to do was tear out a rectangle, sometimes adding text or a heart, because i had already considered the compositions as i was layering on screens of text,  Others involved a bit of layering and stacking of hearts, and re-working- Il'l go into those next week! 

Meanwhile, you of course want them to arrive in an artful envelope as well- so did a simple spray resist to liven them up. Got some fabulous stamps so just need to address and pop in the mail! 

So here are a smattering of the first batch....

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 Commission Process Step 3-Practicing the Pour....:Shirley and Roger

So while I was patiently waiting for the custom panel to be built  (or maybe not so patiently), I thought I’d start “practicing” for the pour, or the first step after gessoing. I love and hate pours-they can be so fun, freeing, and immediately gratifying once you are done with the mixing and set up. It’s kind of like painting room-many times it takes longer to prepare the room than to actually paint it. This is definitely the case with pours.  They can be really really fun and beautiful with all sorts of different viscosities of paint and pigment branching and flowing into one another, or they can go really really badly, ending up with one big muddy runny mess.   Or you can leave come back the next morning and everything has migrated to a completely different part of the painting than where you put it initially. So pours are exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. It is controlled to a certain extent- and the rest relies on instinct and gravity.  At any rate, the following is a video of me doing a pour.  It was preceded by three prior pours, which were less than stellar. Those could not be used due to the many obscenities uttered in the making :) 

I do want to stress that this is the very first FIRST step of many in the process of making a painting.  The next step requires a lot of sitting and staring, nail biting, fretting, and pacing deciding what to keep, what to delete, and what my next step will be.  That, however, would make less than stellar video, so I’ll just give you the fun part here: