Cutting Out Cuties

I have to admit it's been hard to get my mind to focus on anything besides our new house. But we don't move in for months so I have to think about other things. Monday I had the day off work so I did tedious studio things that have to be done eventually, like cutting images out of books and magazines. I find it's so much easier to have a library of images on hand when I'm ready to work instead of being in the middle of a piece and then trying to find something to collage into it. So I cut... and cut.... and cut....

And then I put this sea anemone on this geometric-like shape and I felt pretty satisfied.
Today I'm going to go exploring for inspiration. And I may eat my first macaroon. Fingers crossed.

Another Shop Update...I'm on a roll!

Hey guys! I just added this new collage to my shop. Go take a look!

Yummy Art

After having a lot of critiques last week I found an artist I really loved thanks to a teacher's suggestion. I'm using a lot of collage in my work right now and I was told to check out Michelle Wasson's work. When I looked up her page I realized I'd seen her paintings before in New American Paintings. I love those but I also love these collages. I like how she uses different elements to build each image. It's so hard for me to not want to fill a whole page with information. These are a lot more stark and pretty powerful. Check out her page for more work.

These paintings below were part of a collaboration Michelle did with one of my faculty members Nina Rizzo. I really love these.

Diana Behl

A few years ago while looking through a New American Paintings I discovered the work of Diana Behl.  I loved her mixture of drawing and collage and her sense of composition. I found her work at a time when I was desperately trying to figure out my own collage aesthetic.  It was a way I always wanted to work but for some reason it was making me too nervous to just dive right in. I carried around that New American Paintings so much it was practically like a baby blanket.  I looked at Diana's work for motivation.  So at Frogman's I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Diana and she's an absolutely neat and lovely person.  She was on my bowling team and it was so fun getting to know her.  That's one of my favorite thing about frogman's, you just never know who you are going to meet.  I've been a fan of Diana's work for so long so to finally meet her was very exciting.  While looking for images to show on my blog I found an interview with her here.  Check it out.  Diana's website is here.  Go discover more of her work!

Coffee Stained

Here's a tragic story... At the beginning of the summer I spent a lot of time coffee staining a bunch of papers and envelopes. I had all these amazing collage materials and couldn't wait to get started making stuff.  Since I was taking monoprinting classes at frogman's I figured I could take all my collage materials with me so I packed them all up in a grocery bag.  The day before I left I was frantically trying to load my car and clean it out at the same time.  Short story short, I threw away my whole bag of collage materials!  It makes my stomach hurt to think about it. Not only was it my stained papers but it was also a ton of wallpaper patterned paper that I screen printed myself.  So many things I threw away!!  

Needless to say I've been spending the last few days staining more papers.  The pictures above are the papers in the casserole dish and then laying out to dry.  The picture below is a collage I was working on before the tragic incident.  I'm trying to view this positively.  Maybe I can push my work in a new place and get out of my wallpaper pattern comfort zone... at least for now. Next up, screenprinting patterns!

Etsy Feature Wednesday!

So I've still been a little M.I.A. in blogland. I've been trying to catch up on everything in life including reading all my favorite blogs. My awesome houseguest left yesterday and I was terribly sad to see her go but my tears soon dried when Obama won the election! Can you believe it? I'm afraid to think about it too much and it turn out to be a dream. I feel the intense energy that's being put out all around the world and it feels good. I'm exhausted today but so happy I can't even complain. I won't even yawn. I swear I won't.

But I realize today is Wednesday and I'm very excited to present this shop to you. It's another shop I found almost immediately after opening my own shop and I loved the work so much.

Pinkshirtsncarwrecks is a neat shop that has an assortment of art and vintage goods. There aren't a ton of items in the shop but what is there is nice quality. I love collage art and this is a good shop to find it.

You can learn more about Pinkshirtsncarwrecks on their blog here.

This shop is so awesome. Go take a look, give it a heart, and have a great day!