A Pastel Project – Work in Progress

Photo of stems in a vase

My contribution to Studio Shots – Tuesday for this week is a pastel work in progress. The inspiration for it came out my post for last week when I showed a page out of my sketch book and  the supplies I use in my portable art studio, which consists of a plastic box full of colored pencils. The project I was working on was a vase of flowers, which was wilting before my eyes, way before I was through with the sketch. I took some pictures so I could still draw before its condition deteriorated completely, and one of those pictures was of the vase with the stems only. It was an interesting subject to me and I decided to do a pastel painting of it.

Pastel drawing of a vase with stems - in progress

I have the bare bones of it established. Next, I will add  some unexpected color, shape or texture to make it a little more exciting. I also think it needs a curled leaf or two in the lower right hand corner. I’ll post a photo of the finished painting soon.

I found some storage/carrying cases for pastels a few years ago that have worked out very well.  A layer of rice in the bottom of each plastic case keeps the pastels clean. I thought I would add a link to the cases, and although Artbin, the maker of them, is still in business, a thorough search of the website did not turn up the cases.  Perhaps they don’t make them any longer?  There were some other cases, however, that looked like they would be useful.

Storage/carrying case for pastels

Get Ready, Get Set, Make Art

I’ve prepared the following post to be added as this week’s contribution to the new collaborative blog Studio Shots – Tuesday.  The topic this week is artists’ tools and materials.  Anyone with an interest in art can participate.  Visit the blog to see various artists’ studios that were added during the blog’s first week of existence, tools and materials added this week, and the easy instructions for joining the fun.

Portable Art Studio

This is my portable art studio – an art journal and a box of art supplies.  I can pick it up in a moment and be ready to go with it, to a park bench, on  trip, or just to my living room chair.  It contains: the prepared art journal, a ROYGBIV assortment of Prismacolor pencils plus black, white and gray, a plastic eraser, an electric eraser with spare inserts, a pencil sharpener, a burnisher, a set of Derwent sketching pencils and charcoals, a set of micron archival and waterproof sketching pens ini sizes 005 to 08, a 2B pencil, a mechanical pencil, a fat sketching pencil and some “magic pencils” that contain variegated colors in one lead.  Pretty minimal, but I’ve never needed anything for sketching yet that wasn’t in my portable art studio.

Sketching subject deteriorates before my eyes

This is my current sketching project, or, rather, a picture of the sad remains. A few days ago, I thought this bouquet was too pretty not to be preserved in a sketch. Today, it’s going to take all my imagination to record its former glory, in spite of the blocking in I did when it was still in fairly good shape. An example of the peril of procrastination!

Art journal with blocked in bouquet sketch and blank page

My notebook, like my box of drawing materials, is always ready to go. When I get a new journal, I paint each page with acrylic paint (or watercolor, or whatever) to prepare a background for sketching later on. The background on the right hand page above is similar to the one on the left , which I chose for my vase of flowers. I love this stage because it is so free-form.  Sometimes I tear paper pieces and paint them onto the surface, or paint over paper pieces and then remove them. I might add some metallic paint, interference powder, or paint a page with many layers of glaze, diluting the paint and holding the journal upright while it  drips down the page. Nothing can happen that can’t be used as a background at some time or other.

Finished colored pencil sketch

This is the finished colored pencil sketch. Pencil was heavily applied on the flowers and vase, then burnished so the waxy pigment would fill in the paper texture.

The paper in this journal is an unnamed, general variety, not the best for colored pencil work. I enjoy working with pencils in my portable studio, because they’re light, there is no mess, minimal smearing on other pages in the journal, and no set-up time. Oh, and I love the bright colors, too. I think I can find some paper more suited to colored pencil work.  There will be a web search coming in the near future. Maybe this afternoon.

My (Art) Space

Looking toward the north-west corner of my art studio

I am participating in a new collaborative blog, Studio Shots – Tuesday. Anyone with an art studio is invited to participate by creating a blog featuring their studio, as I am doing here, and then adding the link to it in a comment at Studio Shots. More details may be found by following the Studio Shots link above. Other topics, such as tools and materials, will be added, and it should prove to be a valuable resource  of information, knowledge and sharing among artists, photographers and craft people. Nothing like having company to inspire a thorough cleaning, so rattle those cleaning supplies and join in the fun!

My work table, in this view looking toward the north-west corner, holds some molas that I am making into pillows to sell in a local shop. I’m too used to assembly-line production to ever make just one at a time. I laid all the molas out and chose fabrics and trims from my stash to use to finish the pillows. It’s so hard to wait for the project to be finished so I can see what they will look like. This desire to see how things will look when they are finished is a form of illness, more, actually, like a syndrome. The cause is mysterious, and it seems to be part of you no matter what you do. In my case, I self-medicate by making more and more things in order to see what they look like when they’re finished. It’s an issue of circular proportions.

Four years ago this space was filled with a nine foot by five foot table, rolls of lining and interlining, sewing machines, a serger, a grommet machine, bins of threads, an iron and ironing board, and all the various notions needed to make draperies. Nothing that was not drapery related was allowed, because I was completely involved in keeping up with drapery orders, and had no time for anything else. The art that I wished I had time to do had to wait for another day.

Then I retired, although it took me about three years to completely accomplish it. I shortened the drapery table and added shelving for art supplies. Chain saw sculpture is not on my list, but nearly every other medium is: oils, watercolor, printmaking, pastel, colored pencil, collage, photography.  It seems the list is endless, and I just cannot eliminate anything! Then I had to take up framing because I had all this finished art that I had to do something with! The sewing machine is needed from time to time, so that still occupies a shelf. I use it in my art projects. Don’t try to get me to make a drapery, however, for that is out of my system.

Looking toward the south-east corner

Looking toward the south-east corner is my table with the molas laid out on it, a drafting table holding a mat cutter, some mat and frame samples, and an unfinished oil that I started of my grandson. I don’t ever want to finish it, but I can’t gesso over it because when my grandson sees it he always points out with pride that it is of him.  So, I’m stuck! I could do another one of him that he might like, then maybe he wouldn’t miss this one if it disappeared.

Looking toward the south-west corner

The view of the south-west corner shows more shelves, and a photograph on the drafting table waiting to be framed.

All in all, the photos in this post are not examples of an art studio, as much as a feat of organization.  Every square inch of wall and floor holds a box, shelf, or bin full of art supplies or fabric samples. If I hadn’t needed the space for my drapery business, I’m sure this room would have become a bedroom, or something more useful to other members of the family. Possession however, is nine tenths of the law, and so, it’s mine, all mine!  Besides, no one would want to take it over, because they could never figure out what to do with all the stuff!

Taking Stock

 

Looking at the big picture.

 

In art, whether in story or on canvas, one generally starts with an idea, then sketches, develops and completes, although it’s rarely a straight line in effort or in time. Typically there are periods for taking stock and testing the direction your creation is taking, when you go a distance away and look back with your eyes squinted, or you turn your story pages face down and go away for a day, a week, a month. Upon returning with a fresh perspective, you can decide to continue, gesso over what you’ve done, or save the parts to use in something else. You might also decide to go and sell shoes instead, I suppose, but if you make art, you probably won’t do that.  You have to make art, like Salmon must swim upstream. That might not be the prettiest analogy, considering what happens to the Salmon at the end of the journey, but it does make my point.

I have several art projects in the works, not the least among them, my blogs. It has been a spring full of travel, broken bones (now fairly well healed), and good intentions that have been interrupted by life, all in a good way. Projects have languished, as has the spring clean-up of the yard, because of all the above, and rain, rain and more rain.

Spring clean-up tools.

Three days ago I could not put the weeding off any longer.  It was the fifth of May, and it is my rule to be finished with spring yard work by June 1.  This is not an arbitrary rule. On June first, the mosquitos are more than I can stand. I’m a magnet. So, I went out in the rain with the Move n’ Groove, the clippers and the weed digger, and lost myself in the job.

Next best thing to a mountain stream.

It was cool. Of course it was, it was raining! The ditch in the front yard, which usually gives me fits because all the new construction on our street has increased run-off and makes it flood, was gurgling like a mountain stream, providing music as good as any sung by Willie, Lucinda or Etta. There was nothing in my world for a little while except the sound of flowing water, the satisfying removal of chickweed and violets, and my mind refreshing itself, taking stock. It was a productive time, part meditation, part therapy.

Weed be gone.

I have been mulling over my blogs, and as I weeded, I picked up on the thought about what I was writing, and  where I was going with them.

Last October I held the opinion that blogs are a fad written by people who have nothing important to say, and read by probably no one. Everyone writing, no one reading! Last October I received two emails from people I slightly knew that contained links to their blogs. One was on photography, the other on art. I read and enjoyed them, noted that both were written using WordPress, checked out WordPress, set-up an account (I LOVE the computer!), and wrote a blog entry.  I couldn’t say how that happened.  It just did.

My first post was personal, a sweet remembrance of a tender moment between my daughter and grandson, and a tribute to my mother, whose birthday was coming up. My grandson loved it because it had a picture of him.  My mother was very touched.  Then I posted a story about Halloween that contained pictures of every costume ever worn by my grandsons, which was not too hard as they are only  five, two and two.  They loved it and wanted me to pull it up and read it to them whenever they came to my house. I was hooked as a blogger. What I was writing wasn’t important to many, but in my world it was a success.

My next effort was an art post about blind contour drawing. It’s a good thing I liked the result, as my family wasn’t interested in the slightest, and I was my only reader. I posted a link to it on my Facebook page, and started to get some responses from people who were interested in blind contour drawing. That sounds crazy, even to me! It was clear I had two distinct audiences. My solution was to create a second blog. One would be for family, one would be for art and photography. The problem since then has been, in addition to it being a little stressful trying to keep up with two blogs, that often the two subjects are the same.  

My mind played with my blog issues, helping me take stock of the situation, and I came to some conclusions.

I’m going to return to making one blog. Art and photography are intertwined throughout my life, in what I choose to do, and how I see the world and people in it. It never worked, and it never will work, to try to separate them. I learned this from writing a blog. I have changed from thinking of myself as a person who sometimes makes art, and sometimes takes photos, and the rest of the time does the important stuff, to realizing that the art I make and the photos I take speak for who I am.  I have always filtered everything through these two mediums in order to answer for myself the big question of what is my place in the world, but I didn’t realize it until I tried to compartmentalize them into a blog that separated them from the rest of my life.

I also learned that even if everyone is writing, and no one is reading, there is a great benefit in blogging. I know mine showed me some important things when I stepped back and squinted my eyes for the bigger picture.

The Difference between Life and Art

One of the good guys

William has it all figured out.

An old-fashioned Western came on TV the other night, and William was cautioned that there would be a lot of shooting, but it was just a movie, and none of it was real.  William assured his parents that he knew that.  In movies, he told them, the good guys always win, and the bad guys always lose.  In life, well, you just don’t know.

Too bad life doesn’t imitate art.

As for me, I’m still going by the hat color.

Elemore at Abshire

     A visit to Abshire Cemetery is not included in the itinerary of most people who visit southern Louisiana. It would not have been part of mine a year ago, before it became the final resting place for Elemore M. Morgan, Jr., son, husband, father, grandfather, artist, teacher, student, native son of Louisiana, lover of people and life itself.

 

 

    Elemore was my husband’s cousin, and so I was lucky enough to know this remarkable man. I last saw him when we went to his art opening at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans in spring of 2006.  The opening had been scheduled for September of 2005, but Katrina changed life for many. Elemore was greeting and chatting, giving each person his complete attention, asking questions he really wanted to know answers to, and remembering details of past encounters without prompting. How he could do that with the hundreds and hundreds of people he knew will always be a marvel to me. His curiosity about places he visited and interest in the people he met was so great that he would become wrapped up in the moment and forget about time. Stories about his tardiness to family events (sometimes by days, not just hours) are legendary, but no one got angry.  That was Elemore. When he finally got to you, he would be totally present.

Rice Fields by Elemore M. Morgan, Jr.

     Two years later in the same spring season, Elemore traveled from his home in Louisiana to Baltimore for heart surgery. I always seemed to be in my garden when a phone call reporting his progress came. He was fighting for the life he loved, but he was losing the battle. I would sit in silence under the trees for a long time after these calls, loath to pick up a trowel and begin the mundane task of pulling weeds as if nothing were happening. Then I would remember that Elemore had more of a connection to the land than any person I knew, and that getting back to my task while thinking of him was entirely appropriate, even if that chore didn’t have the atmospheric sweep of one of his landscapes. My thoughts were about his capacity to love life, and how, as a teacher, his greatest lesson and inspiration was the example of his own.

     We visited  Mary on our trip to Louisiana this spring of 2009 and we all went to the cemetery. We loved the sculpture with the paint ball in it that his children had placed on his stone. It was one of hundreds formed when he cleaned his palette after a day of painting out on the prairie, transporting his easels, canvases and paint in his iconic truck.

Elemore’s portable painting studio

     Mary told us it was Elemore’s wish to be buried at Abshire Cemetery. It was rural, Cajun, and of the Louisiana Prairie, so, of course it would be his choice. Then she told us that the family of every person buried there had to agree to sell one hundred raffle tickets each year toward its upkeep, and we knew that probably sealed the deal. So typically Cajun, it would have appealed to Elemore’s love of Louisiana culture and to his sense of humor.

     Elemore’s grave wasn’t the only one decorated with a personal gift. Most graves, and some of them were a hundred or more years old, were tended by families and the gifts left there ranged from tender to creative to humorous.

A crayfish mound

 

Always the beads

 

A bucket filled with the things he enjoyed in life?

 

A bouquet of food – bon appetit!

 

Always the beads!

 

Small, sparkling marbles embedded in the cement of a child’s grave

 

Ingenious grave marker

 

Guarded by angels

 

A baby – never forgotten or alone

 

     We can think of Elemore there in Abshire Cemetery with the Cajuns and the crayfish, the prairie and the families who keep their loved ones in their hearts. Sunrise, sunset, afternoon thunder clouds, and the changing seasons pass around him, and time is in the moment, as it always was.

Framed

Framed Suzani Embroidery

I got myself into this. It turned out to be one of those things where once into it, the challenges kept escalating, but it was too late to say, oh, wait a minute, I’m not liking the direction this is taking. Plus it all started with a miscommunication where I thought I was going to do something far different from what it turned out to be. Couldn’t we all write a book on that subject?

Several weeks before Christmas my daughter sent me a link to a Suzani embroidery listed on eBay and asked if I thought it would look good in her entry. I thought it would look fabulous, and went even farther and offered to buy it for her as a Christmas present. So, not only did I get into a mess, but I paid to do it! The dimensions of the Suzani were listed as 61-1/2″ W x 63-1/2″ H, so I went to measure the narrow wall she wanted to put it on, and, at 66″ wide, reported that we had plenty of room. Four and a half inches IS plenty of room if you are inserting a rod into a rod pocket on the back of an embroidery and hanging it up.

What was not mentioned at this time was that she didn’t want it hung on a rod. The revelation that she wanted it framed in a shadowbox wasn’t made until after the Suzani had arrived, hand delivered by the postman, all rolled up in brown paper and string addressed with looping penmanship, and foreign words and stamps, in a shape that looked like it might be a Christmas ham.   It makes me laugh out loud that I thought at the time that I could have it framed and hung in time for Christmas.

On the sixteenth of February my daughter said she was having company for dinner on March 7, and she would love to have the suzani hanging by then.

Time to unwrap the Christmas ham and ponder my attack. The wall was 66″ wide. Never mind for the moment that the wall is made of drywall over plaster over brick. That would be an installation problem, and I was a long way from that. The suzani was 61-1/2″ wide, and nowhere near square.  It was a guess what size it would become once I stitched it to the backing and stretched it on to the stretcher frame.  There was no choice but to make the outside of the frame 64″ wide and then make everything work inside of that dimension. We had to choose the narrowest  shadowbox frame available so it would fit in the 2-1/4″ I had left on each side and still leave some room for the embroidery to ‘grow’.

The measurements turned out to be the least of my problems. The frame supply store didn’t have plexi-glass big enough to cut a five foot square piece out of. We could not use glass because of the weight. I called two  more places before I found a piece big enough, and, oh joy, they would deliver! Neither the frame nor the plexi would fit in any vehicle we owned, so always had to be delivered. Not so fast on the delivery there, lady!  No deliveries to residential areas. Something about the toxic materials they carry on their trucks.  The frame place graciously, and for a fee, agreed to accept delivery of the plexi, and would then deliver to me. Before they could make delivery, however, someone in the frame shop warehouse dropped it, chipping it, so the frame shop had to buy a new piece.

The delay didn’t matter, though, because while I was seated on the floor unwrapping the foam and tape from the shadowbox that the frame place had already delivered, it fell over my head and landed on a wrought iron bench. One corner was loosened, and a big gouge dug in the side. Derek, from the frame place, came and got the frame. They tried to save it, but couldn’t, so they made a second frame and delivered it at the same time as the second piece of plexi-glass. I have lost track of the number of deliveries, but each time they come they put a new invoice on the growing stack on the entry table, so I’ll be able to talley it all up when this is over.

Over.  There’s a nice ring to that word.

While everyone else was working on the second installment of frame/plexi-glass, I spent my time making tiny stitches through the back of the mounting fabric and into the suzani to hold it in place. I figured a stitch every three inches might defy gravity for the next hundred years or so, and I could make them closer together in the areas where I needed to gather a bit to take up some slack, bringing the piece a little more into square. As I stitched, my mind idly wandered to the possibility of applying for stimulus money. This was turning into a sizable construction job, and was keeping quite a few people employed, so, why not?

Derek brought the second frame and plexi, added the latest to my invoice pile, and announced that I would not be happy, but the new plexi-glass wasn’t a very tight fit in the frame.  Where’s the surprise in that?  I gave the measurements to two different companies who each, without the ability to test their measurements against each other, cut part of this assembly at different times and places, TWICE, and it doesn’t fit together like a hand in a glove? Imagine.

There was now an entirely new aspect to deal with. The pieces were all here, ready to put together, but they didn’t fit. I filled in all the sides with foam core and mat board strips to hold the plexi-glass so there wouldn’t be a gaping hole from it being too small.  That was easy!  Good thing this is a shadowbox frame! Next, wait for someone to come home, as this is a two person job, and drop the mounting frame with the suzani now stretched over it inside the shadowbox frame and we’re almost home free.

Not so fast. With shimming and packing I had made the corners fit the stretcher frame, but five feet of a narrow piece of wood will bend, so I had to figure out a way to keep the sides from bulging outward. The next picture is the only one I took of construction progress. Once the dust paper was put on the back of the frame, one would never guess that ten tension wires were strung from side to side to keep the blooming thing from bowing out. I thought the proof should be recorded.

Unfinished back of Shadowbox

Nothing left now except to put the dust paper on the back and hang it on the wall. I put adhesive on the back of the frame, placed the dust paper on it, trimmed it, sprayed it with water so it would shrink up nice and tight, and went to bed. It must have been the devil that wouldn’t even let me get a night’s sleep before making me remember that I forgot to put the framer’s points all around inside to hold the stretcher frame to the shadowbox frame.  All that nicely stretched paper would have to come off the next day!

Derek was also scheduled to arrive the next day to make the final delivery of the completed shadowbox from my house to my daughter’s.  He, and everyone at the frame shop has been so helpful. I’ve promised them that I have a new set of dimensions for things I will frame that does not exceed the dimensions that will fit into my car. Next week I’m delivering a thank you basket to them. Maybe I should have it delivered.  They might lock the door and hide out in the back if they see my car approaching.

The installation went smoothly, if not quickly.  My son-in-law knew what he was doing, and the frame shop, in a parting act of kindness, had given me an assortment of hardware that might work on the job depending on what we found when we drilled into it.

It really is beautiful hanging there.  It transforms the room in a dramatic way.  I am proud of myself for meeting the hurdles one by one, and refuse to think about the disaster that was waiting to occur at any one of a dozen points. I plan to put a copy of this post in plastic to attach to the back of the suzani as part of its provenance, in case someone in Antiques Road Show ever puzzles over the unorthodox framing methods used.

There is an excellent description and history of suzanis by Maria Mallet in her article, Contemporary Uzbek Suzanis. It’s an informative piece, with excellent pictures. If you decide to buy one for yourself, you know who not to call about framing it.

In Stitches

This morning I enjoyed looking at some artwork posted on BPLStudio with stitching incorporated. I tried this technique back when I was in my pastel period, but stopped because I was having nightmares over the mess I might make of my sewing machine. Pastels, for all their beauty, do not stay put once applied, even with plenty of fixative.  I’ve been out of my pastel period and into photography, colored pencils and collage for awhile, but I feel acrylics coming on, so maybe I will revisit stitchery. First, I have to get the oversized Suzani embroidery that I’m framing off my work table so I have some room.

While waiting for the van that is coming to help me transport the Suzani, I found some pictures of two of the pastels where I added some machine stitching before framing.

Coffee Cup - Pastel and stitching on fabric

Coffee Cup started out as a piece of scrap paper, about 6″ x 6″, which I was  using as a palette for matte medium. Instead of throwing it in the trash when I was finished using it, I let the matte medium dry and then rubbed some pastels over it. Sometimes fun things happen when you do this. Sure enough, a shape that looked like a coffee cup appeared, which I then developed further, placed on a piece of striped fabric from my fabric storage bin, and then began machine stitching around it. I ran the stitching off the paper onto the fabric to make the two look more integrated,  finished with a little embroidered steam flourish, and then matted and framed it. Strips of foam core placed between the mat and the fabric left some space for that errant pastel dust to fall into without making a mess on the mat.

Fruit Plate - pastels on paper with stitching, mounted on a fabric background

On Fruit Plate, there is stitching around the plate, the bananas, and some of the individual grapes, although it may be impossible to see in the photograph.  This was much harder to do because the paper was 9″ x 12″ and I couldn’t reach the inside areas with the needle. Rolling the paper would have cracked the surface, and the pastel dust would have fallen into my machine.  I decided in the future to stitch on small pieces of paper and apply those to the art work with some matte medium, AND to do it on anything other than pastel. I also didn’t think the stitching integrated well on this one. It looked like it was added  for no purpose, unlike the coffee cup where the stitching added elements to the design.

The van is here.  It’s time to load up the Suzani. It put me on notice early in the project that it was going to present one challenge after another, so I’m nervous about this two mile ride in the back of the van.  I didn’t take any pictures of it in progress, but I will get a picture of it after we hang it this evening and I’ll post it here.  It’s 65″ x 67″ and going on a drywall over plaster over brick wall that is 66″ wide. What could possibly go wrong?

Earth Secrets – Torn Paper Landscape

 

Earth Secrets - Torn Paper Landscape 11" x 14" ©K.Grace All rights reserved

I had no concept for this abstract landscape exercise when I began.  It was one of several I worked on at the same time using the happy accident process.  There is so much ’stuff’ to pull out of folders and boxes for torn paper collages, that it seems inefficient to work on only one at once.

Some of the collages I begin end up on the incomplete pile, but this one named itself the minute I added the square shapes. It became a visual statement about the vast, unseen part of Earth that is beneath every step we take. The squares could be lockboxes, treasure boxes, or even caskets.  The leaf and the writing, though, remind us that life and knowledge are part of the cycle of Earth time. Water is received, sunshine warms, trees grow, and if we don’t trash it beyond its ability to sustain itself, then it will sustain us.

Too philosophical from a matter-of-fact girl? OK, then it’s an abstract linear representation of trees, a field and the earth below.  The colors are warm and natural and there seems to be the softness of spring about it, or maybe of a summer day after a shower. If there are unknown mysteries in places we can’t see, we can ignore them and just enjoy the beauty of the world that is within our vision.

I began with a piece of watercolor paper that I had washed with burnt siena and white. The papers I tore and applied with Matte Medium include handmade with fiber and plant inclusions, and some stamped designs leftover from some other project.

I think about earth secrets. Those crocuses by my porch are continuing their journey to the light despite the fact that it is still freezing, snowy  January. Earth Promises would be a good name, too.

End of Day – Torn Paper Landscape

 

End of Day 11" x14" © K.Grace '09

End of Day is another torn paper collage exercise where I began with the idea of creating an abstract landscape, but allowed the specifics of the design to evolve as I worked. There are usually moments with this approach when some element that has been added signals a definitive direction.

In End of Day, when I placed the dark brown/gold paper at the bottom, I thought of a rocky shoreline, and that led to the creation of what looked like a body of water. I already had the beginning of a yellow sky with the sun in it  (a paper circle stamped with a metallic ink design), so it seemed right to add drifting clouds in a sky lighter  at the horizon and darker as it traveled to infinity.  The water on the darkening earth is in shadow, with a few highlights of reflections from the golden sky.

This is the ‘happy accident approach.’ When I am in the mood to do this I start with as many as a dozen backgrounds and begin to work on them all at once.  The backgrounds have all been washed with different colors and are layed out around my worktable.  From my collections of paper, fabric, and trims, I pull out some that I think look good on each of the various backgrounds.  I begin building and gluing from there, using Matte Medium as my adhesive. I do not stress myself out by trying to make something work if it isn’t, but usually whatever is happening on a few backgrounds seems to come together and gives me an idea for completion. Often there is something on a blue support that I move over to use on an orange support. I wouldn’t even have seen the possibilities if I wasn’t working on so many different pieces at once.

Using this approach prevents the artist’s equivalent of writer’s block, sets up the possibility for happy accidents, and provides several pieces of finished art in a short amount of time. There isn’t usually any particular need to produce art in  great quantity, but I like the feeling of accomplishment it gives me.