Michelle’s challenge this month over the GPP Street Team site was to make colour copies of the backgrounds we scraped together last month, and finish them a few different ways. Today was a rare day for me; aside from the washing, there was *nothing* I needed to do. No paperwork, no artwork due, no anything!
So, I did a pile of colour copies, grabbed some supplies and ripped into it. I used stencils, Sharpies, transparencies, foam stamps, bubble wrap stamping, hand writing, collage, stickers. With some of the pages I then re-scanned and added text in Photoshop.
All up, I did around 20 pages. Here are a few that I particularly like (I’m showing a couple of the original backgrounds too). In some of them not all of the writing is visible. This is because some of them became like journal pages as I worked and the messages on them feel reasonably personal given that I’m quite introverted. If you can read it all, go for it. If you can’t, never mind!
As always, thanks so much for the inspiration Michelle. If you enjoy looking at these, you’ll find links to other artists who are playing this month on the left hand side of the GPP Street Team home page. And if you want to join in – cool! Can’t wait to see what you create 🙂
Back in May of this year Tony and I went to Italy where I exhibited at the LEGATO exhibition in Cassino, along with 40 or so other New Zealand artists. The exhibition featured paintings, mixed media, sculpture, textile works, glass and drawings; all around a theme of peace and remembrance. Organiser Kay de Latour has a blog where she is documenting the ongoing story of the exhibition.
I did quite a lot of fundraising in order for us to travel to Italy. One of the main things I did was offer $35 shares in my trip. In return each share holder got a share certificate, handmade postcard mailed back from Italy, a full colour newsletter after the trip and, by Christmas of this year, a 6×6″ painting around what we saw and learnt while away. In total I sold 57 shares, so took 60 or so handmade postcards in my suitcase and mailed them home from Cassino.
Once we got home and the dust had settled I wrote a newsletter and mailed off 57 copies. And then started on the process of creating 57 little works of art. I wanted them to have real meaning both for me and for the recipients, but at the same time I didn’t want to do something so complicated that my every waking moment was spent on them from now till Christmas Eve. I thought long and hard about what had most touched me, and how that could be represented. I came up with a work method that means each work is individual but part of a large series, so that I could create them in batches of 10 or so at a time. When each work goes out to its new owner it has a letter with it, and part of that letter says:
The enclosed mixed media work is based on more than 70 photos I took of poppies growing wild in the Lazio region, including around Monte Cassino Abbey. Many of the photos were blurred, taken from cars and trains as we sped through the landscape. For that reason the background is blurred; with a final large, in-focus poppy symbolising the way poppies became a focus for the artists. The large poppy is the same one used on the artwork I created for either my father or my best friend’s father, and so has special meaning to me. In addition, the poppies are important to me because they are such a strong symbol both in Italy and in New Zealand.
This weekend I put the finishing touches on work number 54; the final 3 works are going to be quite different and very individual for a number of reasons. This has been a huge journey for me. I am pleased to have fulfilled my obligations to all my shareholders with plenty of time to spare and continue to be amazed by how wonderfully generous people are. I also learnt a lot about how I create works by doing such a big number of works with one essential theme. Things I would not have discovered any other way I suspect. What a journey this has been…so, here are two of the final batch of ‘Italian Poppies’.
There’s no denying that our trip to Italy and Dubai was inspiring; I will be looking at the photos for years to come. Sure exotic people and far off lands are exciting as an artist, but we can’t be forever on holiday (not with my luck at Lotto anyway!).
Much of my inspiration comes from the land around me – the buildings, paddocks, the distant view of Mt Egmont, the waves crashing into Mana Bay at Patea Beach. Places that are accessible and affordable to get to. I try to have a camera with me most of the time so I can take a photo when something grabs my attention, often because of the light. I have a semi-organised filing system on the computer for my photos and also save some to cd in case my computer ever dies.
These two images are a digital combination of three photos; Mt Egmont, the waves crashing into the sand at Mana Bay and a cabbage tree at sunset. When I play round with the images like this I’m not necessarily wanting to achieve a particular end result. It’s more about knowing the subject, feeling comfortable with the shapes and just letting them seep into my brain. I know that I paint differently – better and looser – when my brain really knows the subject and can let go of some control.
As part of my deal with shareholders in the trip we made to Italy for the LEGATO exhibition, I now have to make 56 6×6″ paintings. They all have their newsletter with its full colour photos, so that’s a good job done. I want the works to all be individual but at the same time do not want to create unnecessary work for myself. My intention is to work on the paintings in batches, probably six at a time. I have ideas for the first 3 or 4 batches and am mulling over the rest, making notes as I go. The first batch, which I am going to start on later today, involve digital art printed out on rice paper, glued down with gel medium and then worked over with more collage and probably some oil pastels.
Below is the digital work I have done so far. It’s made up of four photos initially. Then I have taken a photo of some poppies in the field and removed all the background so I have a field of floating poppies. I have layered this over the original digital collage for a sort of dreamy surreal effect. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when I start adding a few more collaged poppies over the top, then working in with the oil pastels.
As part of my ‘art share’ offer to raise money for our trip to Italy, for the Legato exhibition, I have to make 60 postcards. These will be mailed back to shareholders once we reach Cassino. I am working on heavy weight watercolour postcards; they come in a little silver tin and the lovely to work with. I have made a digital montage of images of Italy and the Cassino area, the artworks I have created for the four men I am honoring, photos of the men, and words about the trip like Italy, Legato, WWII, peace and the men’s names. I’ve printed multiple copies of this A4 montage.
I decided to work in two batches of 30 postcards each. I put a very light wash of Nickel Azo Yellow on the postcards then quickly blotted with a paper towel to get some texture. Once that was dry I added splashes of Cadmium red medium and again left them to dry. Once they were really dry I added runs of the same red, quite dilute, as I had done on the original artworks; it brings a sense of blood without being too obvious. Once they had dried, I tore the digital collage sheets into strips and have adhered a strip on each one that is about a 1/3 of the width of the postcard.
What comes next? Tomorrow I’m going to hand-cut a stencil of the main lines of two different poppies, using acetate and a tiny soldering iron. In the meantime, here’s the digital collage I made.
Cath Sheard Art 