More Little Jo Stories

Little Jo Rides Again...

Little Jo and Her Dolly

You've seen Little Jo before. I used her photos several years ago when I first stated making a collage a day and I ran across some of her prints while preparing for Collage BootCamp which will be this coming Saturday, March 12.  (There are still a few spaces, if you can join us. Click here for more information.)

One doesn't usually find much use for childhood photos, but I'm having such fun with mine. These Little Jo photos are of me at 2-4 years of age, taken by my dad who loved me with his camera, for which I'm grateful.

Now I'm at it again. I won two canvases for the Village Gallery of Arts May show, Art Adoption, and bought two more and am running with the Little Jo theme. 

Little Jo and Her New Trike

Two of the collage processes I teach in my one-day collage class, BootCamp, are used in all four collage paintings which are made on the cradled canvas. The background was built up first, using the inside of security envelopes. I didn't really think much about what I was doing once I chose and trimmed the papers to size.

After the background dried the front and sides got an isolation coat and then I started playing with scraps of brightly colored papers that contrast strongly against the gray ground. 

Little Jo and Jimbo

I call this type of composition, Layer Cake. It's one I teach in BootCamp, where you make a cattywampus paper layer cake. Little Jo was added here and there and then I spent a satisfying evening doing lots of line-work.  I don't think they're quite done but that's okay because they'll hang around the studio for two months before I have to send them out into the world and I'm sure I'll figure out something else to do to them.

Little Jo Joins the Party

I'll remind you about the VGA show later on in April. There will be 180 6x6" artworks on canvas available at bargain basement prices of $25-$50. It's a benefit for the gallery. Long lines form at the door the morning of May 3 at 10am so come early.

Collage Made From Compost



In the Garden
Collage on paper
8x8"
 

My boxes of compost are my most cherished art supply. I've talked before about how I build compost out of colored papers of all kinds and that I call it compost because as I dig through the piles of papers and stir up the mix new and exciting color combinations and compositions happen naturally.  That's what happened here.


The bright orange is the substrate which I painted by smooshing acrylic paint around on the surface. There's a bit of paper napkin, a photograph of maple leaves, a magazine image, and a color copied strip from an old painting. Simple items and a combination of stripes result in a happy piece.

Then there's this one.



Chaos
Collage on Paper
8 x 8"

It's a similar layout and color combination but to my eyes it isn't as successful as the first one, but who am I to criticize it? I'm always critical of my own work; there's always something that could be improved, especially that strip of orange up the middle.

Let's analye it according to the elements and principles of design:

• Line: vertical and diagonal suggest movement.
• Texture: visual texture of printed vs plain vs translucent invites touch.
• Color: Complementary violet and yellow with an accent of blue green.
• Composition: Cruciform
• Balance: yes, in all directions
• Value: ah, there's my problem with the orange strip. It tipped the scale of value toward equal balance of value. Without the orange strip the dark areas dominate and composition is better. But I just couldn't leave well enough alone.
• Repetition: There's plenty of repetition within each color family as well as repetition of line.
• Contrast: yep, lots of that.
• Dominance, unity, harmony: check.

The list is longer but these will do for today.

Do you ever pull out your list of elements and principles and use them to check your work? I find it's helpful when I'm puzzled about why a piece leaves me with a negative feeling.



Fiesta San Antonio

 

Jo was in San Antonio

I suppose I should insert some mariachi music here to set the tone for this post... we've just spent a joyful week in San Antonio visiting old friends and going to some Fiesta events. Let me tell you that traveling from Oregon to South Texas is a shock to the system. The day before we left the temperature at home was 37 and it snowed briefly in my back yard; when we arrived in SA the temperature was a sunny 94 degrees. Believe me, I said a prayer of thanks for air conditioning in the car and in the house. 

What's with the shadow photo, you ask? Sometimes we get home without a single picture of me in our stack of vacation pictures so I've started taking in-situ shadow photos to prove that I really was along for the ride.

Tree moss, similar to Spanish Moss



San Antonio Library



Making Photographs

I've loved taking photographs since school days and though I don't call myself a photographer I own a huge box of old cameras and use two, a pocket-sized Canon PowerShot SD700IS for note-taking and a Canon Rebel XTI. I carefully take photographs as a means of remembering and as a form of sketching when I don't have time to stop and draw. Through years behind the viewfinder I've developed an eye for composition that's translating in a strong way to my collages and paintings. I've learned to frame images... to avoid placing the focus smack dab in the middle of the frame, to let the images touch the edges of the frame and feather off, to balance objects even if it means that I lose some of the actual elements of the scene, and I've learned to shoot photos that will transpose into paintings or at least inform future paintings as far as color, composition, pose, and so on.

at the Alamo

We visited two of the five missions, Mission San Jose and the Alamo.  San Jose was unusual to me because the only others I've seen were in California and this was quite different with its walls enclosing several acres of open courtyard. Rooms were built into the walls making them tall and difficult to penetrate.  On the other hand the Alamo had low walls and wasn't so easy to defend.  No one forgets the Alamo and the great loss of life there and in 1891 a group of women organized the parade called Battle of Flowers to honor the heros of the Alamo, now called Fiesta.

Mr. Bull

We attended a Lutheran church service where Fiesta Princesses in colorful gowns with long trains made a processional down the aisle to a mariachi band, with a silent auction and raffle and picnic in the parking lot. I won a Kindle in the raffle and a metal sculpture of a Texas longhorn bull in the silent auction. Anyone want to buy a bargain Kindle? You can't have Mr. Bull.

Riverwalk is a central SA destination... it's a place where the San Antonio river makes a big loop in the downtown, its route directed by manmade concrete walls and locks to control the waterflow. Riverwalk is where you eat in center city... lined with dozens of restaurants on 3 levels, all with open air dining. We enjoyed lunch there one day and dinner the next at the famed Fiesta River Parade of lighted boats filled with local dignitaries. We were guests of people who had reserved riverside seating.

My husband and I both have a thing for trees... he grows them in our tree nursery and I draw and photograph them.. and we love to visit botanical gardens wherever we travel. The one in San Antonio is quite wonderful, almost too much to see in one visit. One section of the garden replicates a bit of the Hill Country with its rolling terrain and plants.



Farmhouse at San Antonio Botanical Gardens



Texas Bluebonnets

Apparantly one doesn't go to south Texas without visiting the Hill Country and we went, too, hoping to see fields of Texas Bluebonnets, a member of the lupine family of flowers. We saw a few, mostly in patches beside the road, but no fields of blue because of the severe drought.

Live oak trees at Lukenbach, Texas post office

But I was taken aback by the beauty of the live oak trees that cover the hillsides and grow in most yards. The trees are quite contorted and the older ones are majestic.

LaFonda hostess



And on our last day we had lunch on the patio at La Fonda, an excellent Mexican restaurant where the surroundings were gorgeous and the hostess was lovely.

Yes, I was there, too.