Recycling a Bad Painting II- Collage!

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art, art experiments, art help, art ideas, art instruction, art lesson, artist, collage, creative art, demonstration, fine art, Patricia Allingham Carlson, watercolor, watercolor and collage

Many artists I know use this method, tearing or cutting up a failed painting and re purposing it as a collaged creation. The painting you have spent hours on has textures, colors and patterns that may come alive when re positioned or combined with pieces from other failed paintings. And the paper and paints are not wasted material if recycled. Collages can be beautiful textural creations.

“Betwixt” was built from pieces of many discarded artworks. I assembled it much like a jig saw puzzle, then added to the collage with additional watercolor for shading and color.

My Tiger collage was created in much the same way. The beautiful textures that were not working in one failed painting worked wonderfully for a tiger’s fur.

I am a person who tries to make order in my life by writing down lists of tasks. During a very busy time in my life, planning my daughter’s wedding, my lists took over for a bit and I had no time for painting. The planning and lists became extensive and my frustration grew with the lack of creating time! I saved the lists and vowed to make a person out of them to express my frustration through art when I finally had the time. This painting is titled Listperson, and is made of those lists torn up, collaged and painted on.

I enjoyed this process very much, eventually creating a series.This is Listperson III.

Another process involves collaging torn sheets of crumpled rice paper over a failed painting. The rice paper is semi transparent, and shows the colors through from the underlying painting.  These colors can be used to inspire a new work, hopefully better than the one you covered. The creased paper provides wonderful textures that carry the watercolor paint into folds and lines. This is called “Tree Poem”.

Isle of Avalon was created in much the same way, but I added concentrated color to the rice paper while it was still wet from being collaged. This allowed for some very interesting textures to develop. which I then enhanced with more paint when the paper dried.

Moth Collage

Midnight Falls

Moonlight Sonata

I would encourage anyone to try this fun technique, find your own textures and save your costly materials for another use. Maybe start a bag of torn up discards, pull it out when you have the time to  art-dream and start a puzzle.

Next week, one more way to recycle artwork-

Have a fine week!

Fountain of Youth?

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art, art and emotions, art as a time machine, art help, art therapy, artist, artwork, collage, creating art, creative brain, fine art, fountain of youth, get objective art ideas, imagination, jump start your art, muse, p allingham carlson, psychology of creating, watercolor, watercolor and collage

“Most of the time I feel every year of my age,” said the retired adult art student, “but when I am here doing art, I feel like I am sixteen again.”

and

“Is it time to go already?! I can’t believe and hour and a half have passed!”

Life has a way of wearing down your edges. Some edges are well gone; the  wisdom gained over years can increase your kindness and and tolerance toward others.

But the fresh perceptions and excitement of youth and new experience are truly a sad loss. And the dreams you had and allowed to drift away can take with them your passion for living and make you feel old and tired.

But the act of learning new skills, processes, and using them to create ideas unique to yourself, ah, seems to be magic. Time stands still, your aches and cares can disappear, and you become immersed in your own creative world.

How did you actually get into this place where time stands still and the real world goes elsewhere?

from

The Brain and Emotional Intelligence

New insights in EI

by Dan Goleman

 Psychology Today

“…Brain studies on creativity reveal what goes on at that “Aha!” moment, when we get a sudden insight. If you measure EEG brain waves during a creative moment, it turns out there is very high gamma activity that spikes 300 milliseconds before the answer comes to us. Gamma activity indicates the binding together of neurons, as far-flung brain cells connect in a new neural network – as when a new association emerges. Immediately after that gamma spike, the new idea enters our consciousness.

 

This heightened activity focuses on the temporal area, a center on the side of the right neocortex. This is the same brain area that interprets metaphor and “gets” jokes. It understands the language of the unconscious, what Freud called the “primary process”: the language of poems, of art, of myth. It’s the logic of dreams, where anything goes and the impossible is possible.

That high gamma spike signals that the brain has a new insight. At that moment, right hemisphere cells are using these longer branches and connections to other parts of the brain. They’ve collected more information and put it together in a novel organization. What’s the best way to mobilize this brain ability? It’s first to concentrate intently on the goal or problem, and then relax into stage three: let go. The converse of letting go – trying to force an insight – can inadvertently stifle creative breakthrough. If you’re thinking and thinking about it, you may just be getting more tense and not coming up with fresh ways of seeing things, let alone a truly creative insight.

So to get to the next stage, you just let go. Unlike the intense focus of grappling with a problem head-on, the third stage is characterized by a high alpha rhythm, which signals mental relaxation, a state of openness, of daydreaming and drifting, where we’re more receptive to new ideas. This sets the stage for the novel connections that occur during the gamma spike….”

Cool. The place where the Muse lives.

When a person is sixteen, their physical state may be at a peak. Many feel healthy and strong, fearless and invulnerable. But they may also have feelings of personal inadequacy as they navigate the turmoil of adolescence.

With years of living can come development of self, of faith in what you have done and know how to do.

A creative activity that can transport a person to the state of feeling young and excited and capable of depicting something beautiful on paper is a wonderful activity indeed!

Art Muse

And when the activity time has drawn to a close, a person can rise slowly, stiff in muscle and joyous and full of wonder at how the time that stood still for hours has indeed passed on the clock. And that they feel so good about how that time was spent.

So – yes- art can be a fountain of youth, an insular time capsule that transports, stops time and feeds the spirit.

Becoming

And can make you feel sixteen again.

Hope you have a creative week, to all!

 

 

 

Do You Have Artist’s Eyes?

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Do you have artist’s eyes? Born or developed, cultivated, grown, artists see the world differently. I think this is a blessing.

Artists look and look and look. They draw to figure out what they are seeing, then enhance the sights to show what they are feeling.

They look at the everyday, mundane parts of their environment and see the extraordinary.

As a craftsman sees a piece of wood and envisions a cabinet, a musician hears three sounds and creates a song, an author hears a tale and writes a book; an artist can extrapolate an artwork from a bunch of junk.

 

To some a pile of TRASH.
To an artist- Possibilities!

 I was cleaning my studio and had gathered up this pile of scraps… but I could not throw them out.

I arranged them on a piece of paper, and imagined the headdress for a woodland fairy. Ok, let’s go!

Sketched the fairy face in-

established a light source and began to paint in watercolor-

attached the paper scraps and developed the subject-

Painting detail- trying to show a glint of the eye through the lashes-

And here she is completed, Norwegian Wood-
watercolor and collage

From a pile of pretty paper scraps to a finished artwork, the imagination interacts with the sight to see what could be. The creative spirit makes you wish to do so.

You know yourself if you have these artist’s eyes, this way of thinking and seeing differently- you are the one who as a child was drawing better than your peers, taping odd pieces of stuff to paper, building doll houses out of cardboard. Drawing your jeans into a work of art, sculpting mud or snow or sand or metal objects into awesomeness!  Lucky you!

Today’s shout out goes to my husband, David C. Allingham, who has the vision to see a piece of wood and turn it into an exquisite piece of furniture-  CIO at https://www.facebook.com/decallingham.maker

Have a good and creative week.