A Leap from Simplicity to Complexity

Artist Claudia Holland has an eye for color combinations!  I need to look at her art more often, for this very reason.  (Artists do well to develop a habit of regularly looking at others' art and asking themselves "What makes this work?")  Today's post starts with a new print that Claudia has made using 9" x 12" Twinship L268.....

Here is Claudia's print --

Above:  Notice the way Claudia has placed the warm color of brown in key areas that beautifully accent the areas of cool blue and aqua.   Beauty happens when you choose colors across the color wheel, or nearly across the color wheel, from each other; these are complementary colors, or near-complementary.  

 

Now I'll shift gears to trot out a recent collage of mine that uses paint-stained masks as collage elements --

Here's the same collage without any labeling --

I like to think that pieces of paint-stained stencils or masks  lend a unique look to collages.

And something needs to provide that unique look, because despite my ongoing efforts, I find myself continuing to build cruciform compositions.  Other compositions continue to appear awkward in my eyes.  Maybe that's only because they're different.  

As my favorite TV show tells us,  "Get used to different!"

Thanks for stopping by today!  To scroll thru my pages of stencils and masks at StencilGirlProducts.com, please start here.

Kelp-Inspired Masks in a Variety of Roles

 How to finish my daily posts about my kelp-inspired masks?  With what used to be called a "variety show."  (Do those exist any longer?)

Above:  This multi-layered print was made using "liberated" pieces of 9" x 12" L963 Kelp Forest. (The "liberated" pieces had been cut free from the original rectangular frame.)  The background had been watercolor paper coated with blue and orange acrylics. In adding top layers with sponges, I used acrylics in zinc white (lower far left), Titanium White (upper far right), and yellow faintly tinted with orange (across the central area.) 

Above:  A paper towel used for cleaning 6" x 6" s955 Bulbs and Banners; good enough for a future collage???

Above:  Foreign newsprint had first been painted with 9" x 12" Fantasia L450 (the heavy black lines); next, with 9" x 12" Tangled Pods L344 (white and green); and a top layer had been added with L963 Kelp Forest using pale, translucent green acrylic paint. 

Above:  A painting with orange dot collage elements.  Printed at the top using 6" x 6" s955 Bulbs and Banners and at the bottom using 4" x 4" m339 Seabed Greens.  Both masks have been cut free from their outer square frames.

Above:  At the top rests the mask itself of 6" x 6" s955 Bulbs and Banners and at the bottom rests 4" x 4" m339 Seabed Greens, likewise the mask itself.  Both masks have been cut free from their outer square frames, and both are stained with white and yellow paints.  The background is watercolor paper splashed with assorted acrylic paints. This is a work in progress with the idea of adding the two faintly stained masks as collage elements.

Above:  This started with a print made using 9" x 12" Winter Berries L678 with red acrylic paint.  Over that, with pale purple translucent acrylic paint, I made a print using L963 Kelp Forest. The background is gold foil giftwrap.

9" x 12" Fantasia L450 

9" x 12" Winter Berries L678 

9" x 12" Tangled Pods L344

Thanks for coming to see my blog today! To scroll thru the pages of my stencils and masks at StencilGirlProducts.com, please start here.

6" x 6" Bulbs and Banners s955

 My new 6" x 6" kelp-inspired mask, Bulbs and Banners s955, served as my art-making tool of choice when I used it to make similar prints to be cut into interesting shapes for collage.  In most of today's art samples, this mask has been cut free from its original square frame.

Background papers make for variety.  Today's background papers range from old picture calendars to previous prints with stencils or masks.  Most of today's samples were created with a sponge brayer loaded with high-viscosity (heavy body) acrylic paints.  One exception:  Today's topmost art sample was made on a sheet of stained Yupo, using Brusho watercolor crystals and Golden High Flow Acrylics.

Thanks for coming to see my blog today! To scroll thru the pages of my stencils and masks at StencilGirlProducts.com, please start here.

Similar Yet Different

 Making a series of prints with stencils and masks is always fun, especially for those who like to use Gelli Plates.  I feel the same way about the prints I make using a sponge brayer loaded with heavy-body acrylic paint.

To my eye, multiple prints that are similar would be mostly pointless by themselves, if it weren't for my next step (not yet shown here) -- whacking away with scissors, creating interesting shapes to be used in collage someday.

Below are some multiple, similar prints that are waiting for the scissors.  Altho similar to one another -- since all were made with 9" x 12" Kelp Forest L963 -- each of them leans toward individuality because I have varied the  backgrounds.

My next post, tomorrow, will continue this theme, but with another of my three new kelp-inspired masks.  To scroll thru the pages of my stencils and masks at StencilGirlProducts.com, please start here.

Brand-new Kelp Masks Meet the Scissors

 For a long time I've used paint-stained stencils and masks as elements in collage, and almost every time, those have been scissor-customized.  Today's post starts with an example from the past, then moves forward to show examples of it with my newly released set of three kelp-inspired masks. 

In the example above (a close-up of one area of a larger artwork), the background has been created using 6" x 6" Kaleid s085 (with watercolor and colored pencil.)  In the foreground I've glued two pieces cut from that mask; these pieces were stained with acrylic paints in earlier art projects.  (This photo shows them as darker than they actually are.)

My newly released designs are 9" x 12" Kelp Forest L963...

6" x 6" Bulbs and Banners s955 ...

and 4" x 4" Seabed Greens M339.

My new masks had already become stained with acrylic paints when I took scissors to them.  In the smaller two, my only change has been to remove their outer frames.

However, my 9" x 12" kelp mask, Kelp Forest L963, contains within its design three smaller designs, each with its own unique visual identity. These 3 smaller designs begged for individual freedom from the bigger whole.

These three appear below, where I'm auditioning them on  watercolor paper printed with my Abstract Composition Backbones Masks.

Below:  Joyce Chen scissors and the remaining pieces from 9" x 12" Kelp Forest L963.

Below:  Part of 9" x 12" Kelp Forest L963, stained with acrylic paints in the blue and green families, has become a collage element on a background painted in orange, white and hints of blue.

Above:  Another two parts of Kelp Forest L963, stained with acrylic paints in the blue and green families, are now collage elements on a background painted in similar colors.  The original substrate was a thick paper printed with one of my old designs.  This older design is what provides the background rectangle, which I think adds interest to the overall piece.

Above:  Another two parts of Kelp Forest L963, along with  Seabed Greens M339 (upper right) -- all stained with acrylic paints mostly of the blue and green families -- have become  collage elements on a monoprinted background.

Above:  Two parts of Kelp Forest L963, stained with acrylic paints mostly of the blue and green families -- are now collage elements on a different monoprinted background.

Above:  Cut from its original 6" x 6" frame, Bulbs  and Banners s955, now stained with acrylic blue and green paints, has been used as a collage element on yet another monoprinted background.

Above:  4" x 4"  Seabed Greens M339, stained with acrylic blue and green paints, has been cut from its outer frame to become a collage element on a background that had been drizzled with purple paint.

Note One:  In today's projects, I have used more than one set of these new kelp masks, so you may've noticed a few of the stained, customized masks appearing more than once.

Note Two:  These are art examples still in progress.  The stained mask pieces are glued to their substrates as the first step in further developing each piece.

I hope these collage-starts will spark ideas of your own! Thanks for visiting my blog today.

Combining Designs

For me, a big part of the fun with stencils and masks comes from the surprise-results of using one design atop another.  

Many artists using more than one stencil or mask tend to blend each printed design with the others, as they go.

Those results are lovely; I'm a big fan of that approach.  

However, I myself don't usually work that way.  I like to start a project by printing with one design while striving to make that print closely match the design on the stencil or mask that I'm using.  Then, after the bottom layer has dried, I like to add new layers using new prints.

Both approaches reach the ultimate goal -- which is to create richly complex images.

Another thing about layering prints is that you can continue adding more and more layers, as long as you're using thin art-making media, such as pencils or watercolor or liquid acrylic paint.

When I have what I consider a finished print, today, may tomorrow strike me as a piece that needs another layer -- often with new colors and a new stencil or mask design.

My newly released masks inspired by Bulb Kelp include pods that have prompted me to combine new prints using 9" x 12" L963 Kelp Forest, with earlier prints I'd made using either 9" x 12" Dangled Pods L490 or 9" x 12" Tangled Pods L344.  I like the visual complexity of one and shape size of bulb or pod with another.

The paper below was first printed with both Dangled Pods L490 and Tangled Pods L344, in warm reds, yellows and oranges.  The topmost layer was made with green acrylic paint, a cool color that sits across the color wheel from those warm colors of the earlier layers.  For this print I used translucent acrylic paint (so the bottom layers would remain somewhat visible) and I used 9" x 12" L963 Kelp Forest....

Above:  In this multi-layer print, the original layers continue to dominate, despite having been covered with a blue kelp print.  The blue print is most visible in the upper left. Elsewhere across this piece, it timidly hides.

Above: A large sheet of watercolor paper, initially printed with my 6" x 6" Abstract Composition Backbones Masks, has now been covered with translucent yellow acrylic paint applied thru L963 Kelp Forest.

Below:  A sturdy sheet of silver foil had been printed using my 9" x 12" Boxed Vines L247 in dark green acrylic paint.  (The paper shown here has been cropped so that only part of the Boxed Vines L247 print shows.) Atop that I used L963 Kelp Forest.  This time, as before, I paired a layer of a cool color (green) across the color wheel from the warm color orange. I did this to create high contrast, with the goal of visual drama.

Above:  This print appears here and in another post, to help illustrate two points that I see as important.

My go-to method of print-making is to use a sponge brayer loaded with heavy-body acrylic paint, as detailed in earlier posts over the past several days, starting April 27. Somewhat similar results can happen with Gelli Plate prints.  

Featured in today's post--

Abstract Composition Backbones Mask 1 s864 (6" x 6")

Abstract Composition Backbones Mask 2 s865 (6" x 6")

Abstract Composition Backbones Mask 3 s866 (6" x 6")

Abstract Composition Backbones Mask 4 s867

Dangled Pods L490 (9" x 12")

Tangled Pods L344 (9" x 12")

9" x 12" Boxed Vines L247

Thank you for coming to see my blog today! To scroll thru the pages of my stencils and masks at StencilGirlProducts.com, please start here.