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I’m a member of 8 That Create, the brain child of artist Sue Bleiweiss.  Part of our mission is to encourage our individual artist journeys.  Our first joint journey is the creation of a piece under the theme, “Empty Spaces.” Because of my darn back woes, I haven’t contributed as much as I should have. However, I have finally finished the digital end of my piece which I am calling “Faith.”

"Faith," ©2012 Gloria Hansen

This is the piece prior to being stitched. You can read about the process of how I went from a very basic idea to this finished digital collage.  The post is called, “The evolution of “Faith” – my empty spaces piece, and you can find it here.

I’m behind in posting. I did these around the 22nd-23rd of April, but I didn’t have a chance to post until now.  Each are primarily watercolor, but they each also have a bit of acrylic and gouache in them.  This past weekend, I was in NYC for the Parkinson’s Unity Walk.  I’ll post more on that in the coming days.

I’m also a member of 8 That Create. Our first group theme is “Empty Spaces,” and you can learn more about the art created for the theme by reading the blog here. Once my Unity Walk work is finished, my next priority is finishing and writing about my piece. Unfortunately for me, I’ve been battling a bad back which has been knocking me for a loop and zapping my creativity and energy.

I decided to take the original watercolor I painted into Photoshop and play around with it. Initially I was going to redo his snout. Instead, I decided to see what type of funky things I could do with it. In the above, I brightened up the colors.

I changed him to black/white.
And then gave him more texture.
Here he has half tone dots going on.

And here a warp glass look.

Here’s I amplified the colors, making him computer dog.

I like this one.

Here I duplicated the image, reflected and overlapped it.

Here I duplicated it, flipped it, and repeated a couple times.  Yes, it’s has a hokey kaleidoscope effect. Even so, I like it. I thought I might print it out. Upon closer inspection, some of my overlaps are a bit off and messy. If I do anything with it, I’ll need to redo the steps and take more care.

Here’s the latest of Bud-Z. I started this one yesterday, but I could only work on it so long as my back was still bothering me. I’d paint a little, leave it, return a few hours later, and so on. At this point, I’m going to call it finished.

I photographed Bud-Z while he was outside on the deck. Something caught his attention, and he looked like he was ready to pounce into action. My hope was to capture that feel. It was also very sunny out, so the deck looked bleached out and there were lots of shadows.  The above is how I started — that is, with a pencil sketch and then working on the background and some shading. It’s what I mainly did yesterday.

Today I added more detail, but I also managed to change the angle of his snout which was annoying/disappointing, and I was unable to correct it. Frustrating, but so it goes. I also ended up using gouache in areas of his neck fur because I struggled to get it as I saw it.

While I am enjoying the process, I have a bit of a dyslexia issue which can be a source of  frustration/aggravation when it creeps up. It’s something that doesn’t just happen with groups of letters, but I notice it can happen with shapes and shadows. I can get stuck as I wait for my brain to process something because I just don’t see it as I should. It’s humbling stuff. I try to recognize if it happens when I’m tired, trying too hard, or what. I cannot find a pattern to it. Rather, it just happens and it leaves me like I’m stuck in a record scratch and need a shove to push the needle forward (I’m dating myself with that reference). The good thing is that, at least for now, I’m being patient and not beating myself up too much about it.

Tonight I did yet another drawing of Bud-Z. This is watercolor, but I made a mess of it so it’s now a hybrid with acrylic paint mixed in. There are some areas I like. For example, the fur coloring on his back, which ended up close to his actual coloring (happy accident). There are other areas, like the white on his face or areas on his hind leg, that I’m not crazy about. However, before I go right through the paper in trying to fix it, I’ll stop. I could digitally fix it, but it’s just a sketch (I keep telling myself), leave it alone (I keep telling myself), move on. I can get so crazy obsessed in fixing one more thing, one more thing, one more thing.  Oh the stories I could tell about stitches put in and stitches taken out. No wonder I like Photoshop so much, with all of the multiple un-dos (and painting on the iPad has un-dos, too!).  Even now, looking at it, I want to fix this and that (eyebrow isn’t thick enough in one area, face is. Nuts, I know.

Jerry’s Artorama in Lawrenceville, NJ is having a sale tomorrow and Saturday. 30% of brushes and paints. I should get some new brushes. The majority of my brushes are for painting fabric. They are wide, not particularly good quality, and I go through them quickly to cover large areas. While I have a some good brushes, I find myself struggling with getting a fine enough point to do things like putting a hairline curve of a highlighting color on his eyeballs.  Yes, I think I’m going to get some new brushes.

I seem possessed with drawing/painting lately. Here’s yet another of Bud-Z. This time watercolors on 140 lb cold-pressed watercolor paper.  I generally like the smoothness of hot-pressed, but I thought I’d play around with the roughness of this paper.

Another watercolor that I did of Bud-Z. It’s painted on a base of acrylic and gesso on paperback book pages hand sewn together (part of The Hours journal below).

The new cover

This is an extra copy of one of my favorite, albeit somewhat depressing, books, The Hours by Michael Cunningham, that has been used as a kind of sketchbook/journal. Many of the pages are stitched together to give more support for paint.  Other pages are left alone.

Although I started this book some years back, I haven’t worked in it for a while. However, a few weeks back I rediscovered it and (as my bad back is preventing me from doing anything too much these days) decided to work in it again.

I made a new cover for it that’s based on a digital collage I made using a photograph of a clock I took in London and a drawing. The image seems particularly appropriate being the book’s title and my ever-awareness of time ticking by. I scanned the collage, recolored it (the original close is blue), printed it on fabric, added some paint and stitch to it, and collaged it onto fabric/paper to make the cover.

The following are some of the pages in the book.

Some of the pages are plain, some painted, many are stitched together using either a running or a blanket stitch and perle cotton thread.

These pages are dated 2007.

Also from 2007. This came with me on a trip to California, hence the bag from In N' Out Burger.

Recent sketches of Bud-Z

Another recent sketch of Bud-Z

He looks like a cutie here, but ...

This expression gives a hint of how he can be a handful.

Some of the pages are stitched on the top and bottom.

Filmaker David Shiyang Liu created this typography-flowing piece from a video entitled Ira Glass on Storytelling Part 3.  Be it storytelling or quilt making or artwork or music, the message is the same … to be creative, you must do the work. Let’s get busy!

At a Wells Fargo bank

Washington, D.C. building

Washington, D.C. building

Washington, D.C. building

Notice the reflection of the Washington Monument in the bottom row of windows.

Washington, D.C. building

Metro station

Metro station

Metro station

Metro station

Union Station

Union Station

Union Station

I like the title, Reflections and Perspectives.  It sounds like a good name for an exhibit or a book.  Hmm … mental note to self.  In any event,  I’m hoping that some of these photos provide inspiration or even end up in future artwork.  We’ll see!

I took these pictures in and around The National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.

The White House

The Jefferson Memorial

The Courtyard of The National Portrait Gallery

The Air and Space Museum

The Potomac River

The Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

The Butterfly Pavilion at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum

The Washington Monument

The Washington Monument

I’ve been away in Washington, D.C. to attend Photoshop World. I’ve been going yearly for more than a decade, but it’s fun. I’ll talk more about Photoshop CS6 in a future post.  Derry and I arrived by train early on Thursday, when the weather was very warm (in the 80s). The pre-conference didn’t start until Friday afternoon; thus we had all day Thursday and a good part of Friday to take in the City. Over the weekend, while we were busy taking at the conference, it rained and was windy. By Monday the rain cleared, the conference was over, and we were able to take in more of the City.  However, by then, nearly all of the Cherry Blossoms were gone!