Saturday, July 21, 2012

A Fascination With Abstract Art

   The last few months have had me desiring to dabble more and more with a style way out of my comfort zone. I have been so inspired especially by several artists who have been sharing their art and techniques on their blogs:

   There's my friend Lenna Andrews who took classes with Bill Buchman and shared some photos and videos beginning with this post. It looks like it was such a great series of classes full of freedom and color! Lenna's examples are gorgeous!

   Then there is Jane Davies who so generously shares not only her art but also many of her techniques with downloadable PDFs and mini videos on her blog Collage Journeys. She's also a very popular teacher! Jane has a book out which is the same title as her blog and it is one of my go-to books. She has been a huge inspiration in my attempt at creating some abstract designs-especially after first watching this video. Waaaay outta da box for me since I'm SO into color-and lots of it. But I've been playing with the B/W thing and am really enjoying it. Once I decide what I'm going to do with my papers I'll share some projects.

  Next up is Jo Murray, my latest inspiration! I only  "met" Jo when I launched my blog back in March of this year. It didn't take me long to become a follower. Jo is a very talented collage artist who is gaining more and more recognition every day. You must take a look at her blog-her accomplishments and works are amazing!! I recently won one of her pieces of art in a giveaway and cannot tell you how happy I am to have this piece (more on that along with a pic at the end of this post)!

  Needless to say the art journal spread I'm sharing today and linking to Julie Balzer's Art Journal Everyday project is the first completed attempt at some abstract art in the form of a grid design which I created thanks to Jane Davies' great PDF tutorial on the subject which you can download for free by clicking on "PDF tutorial" which I linked to her post containing the download.

   For the basis of my color choice this was my inspiration/jump start:



  This is a top I bought last summer at a  Chico's Outlet Store ( I LOVE that place!). I had just worn it and it hit me that I needed to play with yellow and grey in my journal.





   And this is my finished abstract grid. I used yellow acrylic paint and Sqeezed Lemonade and Iced Spruce distress inks for the background, along with some stencils and the teardrop stamp I carved recently. It was a dark and rainy day and the spread was reminding me of a sky that gets a strange tinge of yellow just before a rip roaring storm comes thru with its lashing winds and hail. Ok, the yellow in the sky isn't this bright but you know what I mean :) I then grabbed some scraps of a variety of papers within a very limited color range and cut a bunch of shapes. I like how some of the papers although squared had a pattern of circles making them more cohesive with the background. The cool thing about this too is that I rotated it every way and although I still like this way the best the other ways weren't so bad either. One last note about the colors-when I was allowing it to completely dry I checked my emails and found this lovely post from another artist I admire and follow, Becky Shander. The title of her post? "A Buzz of Yellow". Check it out. You immediately feel Becky's warm, loving, giving and spiritual nature in her words, her photos and her art. She blesses us with her talents on her blog and in numerous magazines published by Stampington and Company.

   I will definitely explore the world of abstract collage further and try other color combinations. If anyone has any suggestions, critiques or tips please lv. me a comment-I don't profess to know what I'm doing, it's all play.

  I mentioned above that I won a piece of art by Jo Murray and here it is:



   This is an ATC (2 1/2" x 3 1/2" ) but as you can see it is FULL of perfectly placed textured papers and bits!! I loved it the moment I saw it as it reminds me so much of the ocean and beach, and that triangle immediately brought to mind the trinity-of Father,Son, Holy Ghost, or even child/woman, goddess, crone. Thank you Jo!!!


 It definitely was a very good week for me as I also won a prize package of my choice of 6 collage sheets from Retro Cafe Art for this collage (one of three I entered on their FB page) chosen by a guest judge!! You can see the other two here on a previous post..


  A heartfelt thank you all for your glorious inspirations. Please take a moment to visit the artists blogs I mentioned above and you'll be inspired too-I dare you not to be!

  Have a beautiful, restful weekend. And thank you for sharing a kind word or two. It fills me with joy and gratitude.

                                       "Half of doing is believing that you can."
   

11 comments:

  1. What a great post. Thank you for sharing all of these links and your inspirations. I really like your work and have been trying to be more abstract as welll. If you can ever take an in person class with Jane, I highly recommend it. She's a wonderful teacher and quite entertaining as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really like your delicious world of abstract collages. magic. Excellent compositions.

    ReplyDelete
  3. First of all, congratulations on winning a prize for your amazing wall hanging! I love it too, you did a fab job on it!
    Secondly, thanks for all the great ideas of who to visit. I will enjoy checking them out.
    It is all play isn't it : )
    I do love to experiement!
    I too, am glad you are in Lenna's swap! Yay for us!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm totally amazed at how generous artists are- such a supportive and encouraging group of people! I love how we are able to travel to their studios, learn from their techniques and be inspired again and again! Thank you for sharing links of those artists who inspire you! It is much appreciated! Patsy from
    HeARTworks and
    papemelroti

    ReplyDelete
  5. The page you produced really speaks to the quilter in me, who is always fascinated by grids.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Linda. Thanks so much for posting this. Glad my blog videos and stuff were inspiring. I'm a big fan of Jo Murray's too! Hi Jo! And hi to Jessica Sporn, who commented above. She and I just met the other day at CREATE in NJ, and it was such a pleasure to have Jessica in class. Hi to Julie of Balzer Designs, whom I also met just the other day at CREATE, and whom I will see later in the summer. You really are a network creator, Linda! Thanks for the post. Keep up your fabulous work!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Your abstract journal page is wonderful Linda. All the collage elements are well-balanced and I love the color combination too.
    Thank you so much for sharing some awesome artists' blogs. I am going to check them soon.

    ReplyDelete
  8. CONGRATS for winning that fab top :). Your journal pages are so stunning! Love the colors & layers. Such a great post today as there are many links to great artists, thank you!. Hugs.

    ReplyDelete
  9. How to make your pretty shirt even lovelier...
    adding turquoise!!! your pages are brilliant

    Congrats on your lovely wins too!

    Jo certainly is a talent and such a very nice person too.

    She has me looking at abstract art like I have never been called to in the past. I too am the proud owner of a piece of her art that I won awhile back.

    Off to check out your links...thanks for sharing always!
    oxo

    ReplyDelete
  10. Love the color combo you used on this Linda! Hope you are staying cool your way!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Dear Linda, I just found this post, I am behind in my reading! Thanks so much for your kindness in mentioning me and the abstract art classes I took with Bill Buchman. This link (Bill's name) is the correct one. For some reason the link in your post went right to the home page of my blog. Using the link here it's easy to choose a post related to what I shared about Bill & abstract art classes, especially with the dynamic views blog I have set up now. You'll see the posts are all on one page -just click on what you want to read . . . . Just in case someone wanted to peek at my writing about his classes and the inspiration I found! : )

    Anyway, this is a fantastic post full of all kinds of wonderful information -thank you!! p.s. I love your Chicos top and seeing how it inspired your journal pages : )) we leave for Canada, wolfe island on the 3rd!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for your comments; it's a pleasure to connect with you!