Michelle Ward's Green Pepper Press Street Team Crusade No. 28 is "Portion Control." The idea is that a portion of an image, obscured, embellished, or cropped, etc. is much more interesting than the plain complete image in the center of the paper. Some of my supplies are shown above...
These are my Art Journal pages created with the goal of "portion control." My previous post showing the exploration of the primitive shape of a bird is continued...
I used crayons & watercolor for a resist, portions of poems in my own handwriting, hand-carved stamps, black acrylic paint, and both the positive and negative portions of my stencils.
A chipboard tag from a clothing purchase recycled into art through mixed media collage... it was laying on the table with the Sale sticker still attached...
The silver background on the tag and my supplies still laying out from a previous project just begged to be made into a quick collage! Thanks to my friend Elizabeth, I have some lovely handmade papers that she gifted to me, and I want to use each tiny scrap, because I know they were so time-consuming to make! Used: painted fabric, acrylics painted brown paper bag (gold) hand-made paper (peach) vintage sheet music scrapbook papers fibers
"Azaleas," Dianne Bishop Carey, 2009 watercolor, pen & ink Artistic inspiration comes from many sources... and generations of artists have fallen in love with a particular geographical area or culture...the way the light falls on the architecture or plants-- the colors and shapes of the countryside...the exploration of traditions... the atmosphere of the place. Georgia O'Keeffe found unending inspiration in the light, colors and shapes of the desert...
Hills--Lavender, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico 1935, Georgia O'Keeffe
Frida Kahlo's images of pain and self-examination nevertheless often reflected the bright colors and culture of the Mexican folk art traditions. The environment that artists find themselves in, or choose to respond to... can have a dramatic impact on their work.
Self-Portrait "The Frame" 1938, Frida Kahlo That is not to say that artists must travel to exotic places to create--- on the contrary, it is vital that we create wherever we are and whenever we are able. But, a change of scenery can inspire just because it is different from what we usually see... Palm trees, white-capped waves, cream-colored sand and sun-bathed colors; as opposed to gray skies, the sparkle of 'diamonds' on snow, intricate patterns of leafless trees, and graceful spruce laden with heavy snow. One isn't better than the other--just different-- and each inspires in its own way!
