...may not be gold, but being this productive sure feels golden!

So after last month, and feeling like I hadn't managed to get enough done to post, this month I feel like I have too much! Though I know there's no such thing. That's what cuts are for...

This image is a detail from the little baby lamp I've been working on. This one is fully my construction--no prefab base. I built the wire frame up around a little LED tap light. The tiny study had been a great place to play with and start incorporating new techniques and materials...though it makes me want to go running back to the big ones and start in on them! As you can see, glitter has made its way in, and I'm digging it. The little extra refraction of the light and additional texture is great. Also, I found this great metallic film tape and bought a roll of Mylar like material that I've started cutting into. I really enjoy the way that those elements are both some of the highlights and lowlights depending on their position and whether they are blocking out or reflecting more light outwards from the piece.

I've also gotten back into a little bit of painting to start thinking about getting color into my lamp structures. Working on a paper covered canvas, (it was an old piece that had a hole in it) I built up 3 dimensional surface with newsprint. It is painted with a combination of gauche and acryla-gauche. I still want to go into it, add depth an linear elements with a combination of drawing and some stitching. Also contemplating adding some tiny lights I have: putting some into the honeycombed structures and possibly playing with some cut outs in some of the flatter stretches. and lighting it from behind.

And then there's the installation I did for the art walk. I added a cut screen and the additional hanging cage structure around the lamp I posted last month (which you can see on the right of the installation photos) plus built another whole lamp (center) which consisted of two Chinese lanterns suspended in a cloud of intersecting wire rings. I then built up around the lamps using cut paper (circles and rings from tracing paper, newsprint, and craft paper), tape (my usual masking with the addition of scotch and transparent), and string which was crochet in and out of the rest of the structure. I'm really excited about where this one is going. And while I felt it was far enough along to include as part of the installation, it's not FINISHED yet.  I expect I'll go back into it with some of these new techniques and materials. You can also see some of the other elements I've started playing with: other types of tape as well as braided and crochet paper, string, yarn and twine, and the globes I've made by hardening fibers around balloons.


I feel like I need the most feedback on the newer pieces and the directions I'm going with other materials and color...but I'll take your thoughts on anything. I have some more things waiting in the studio that I haven't broken into yet but I'm looking forward to experimenting with: Cellophane, several types of gel mediums, and some little tiny hanging lanterns. I also want to look into some resin options for permanently setting the forms. My brain is awhirl with all the possibilities...

Hey ladies! So I have two new little ones to show you. And the first study I didn't post last time. 

I didn't post that first one along with the big cardboard one mostly because I wanted to know what you all thought of that one on its own (it was the scarier one and I think I needed more feedback on it.) Now that this post is about small ones I think I will show it. Cece and Katie saw it already at the art walk. So the little ones are really giving me an opportunity to have a more relaxed experimentation of the subject. While projecting the drawings onto the big ones allows me to have that kind of drawing interaction, doing the small ones gives me a really direct response to the shapes and lines. I think I will keep making these for a little bit. I am definitely finding more questions and more ways to explore my subject. 

Do I want to create some sort of labeling language? How does changing media affect the exploration? How can colors designate certain mechanisms. 

While I look at them together I am wondering more and more about these things...They are fun. I think I want to push a little more outside of my comfort zone for the next ones. Hoping for interesting results.

ALSO: the world's tiniest diptych ;) *not a verified claim.

-Steph

So I save my leftover bits. All the paint chippings, peelings, paper fragments, put them together with some drawing and bam! Mutant children. 

These are continued play for me. All of these drawings are in various stages, though I think the subconsciously Klee one is almost done. They are loosely based on compositions from my doodle sketchbook, but other than that they are intuitive. Also - I am kinda of in love with prismacolor pencils. They glide like butter and feel like velvet on my painted papers.

I also finished the problem child collage from my last post. It’s definitely not my favorite collage, but I am deciding it’s done and that’s that.