Playing With Rusty Nails

 

To stay fresh, constantly experiment.

Jim Pallas

For the past couple of days I've been experimenting with rust marks on paper and on fabric. I tried first on fabric without any instruction and had a little success but nothing really worthwhile.  

While the first batch was sitting in vinegar water I did some sorting of magazines and articles I  had saved.  Some got pitched but some were saved and what to my wandering eyes should appear -- an article on rust spots.  Aha -- I had been doing it wrong!  

Armed with instructions I started over using tea for rust on paper and vinegar for rust on fabric. The vinegar on fabric worked beautifully.

First I put the fabric in vinegar, rung in out and layed it on my waxed paper.  I have a stash of rusty nails the were perfect for this piece of fabric, they were layed out on half of the piece, then I folded the other half over the top and carefully rolled it up.  Once rolled I wrapped string around it to secure it then placed it on our kitchen radiator.  Once it was dry I unwrapped it and ironed it.  Happy with this so I did a few more pieces.

The tea -- well it didn't turn out like it was suppose to but it wasn't a total loss.  Here's a sample --

For this I used paper in two different sketchbooks.  One with heavy watercolor paper and the one above is paper that has a smooth finish and is not as heavy as the watercolor paper. I placed the rusty items on the paper and then covered with wet teabags.  Waxed paper was placed wrapped around the page so the water from the teabags didn't run all over when I closed it up and clamped it closed.

I used the same process for the other sketchbook and this is how that came out --

But the teabags -- those gave me some interesting collage papers --

And I used one for today's daily collage --

A Few More Daily Collages

 “Far better to live your own path imperfectly than to live another’s perfectly.”

–Bhagavad Gita

Well, I've done the imperfectly part -- but haven't we all!  Some of my daily collages are certainly not perfect, a few challenges but not all bad.  

Some were more challenging than others.  For this one I decided to see what I could do with one teabag.  The two little pieces at the top were all that was left of the bag when I got done.  These collages are 4"x 4".

And some offered advice

 one attempt at an image of something

And today's --

Do you have a favorite?

I plan to keep doing these to the end of the month, then I'll decide about continuing.  But the end of the month is also when the 100 Day Challenge starts this year and I'm still thinking I may do that again.  Not sure yet but I'll have to make up my mind soon.  Anyone else doing it?

Goals: working on some, still setting some

 One of the advantages of being disorderly is that

one is constantly making exciting discoveries.

A.A. Milne

One of the discoveries I made while looking for something else is one of my collage sketchbooks.  It's one I hadn't used it since February of 2019 and there were still several pages to fill.  So yesterday I decided to add a challenge, a rather simple one since it's a short one, a collage a day for the rest of this month.  That's not to say I won't continue but I like the idea of 30 day challenges or goals.

I have some major goals for the year.  One is ongoing -- become a better artist.  That entails more painting and more collage.  In that vain I've joined two organizations -- the National Collage Society and the International Society of Experimental Artists.  Both offer workshops and sharing of ideas. 

And my word for the year is FOCUS.  That applies in so many ways and seems to make everything else clearer.  Focus and becoming a better painter brings me to another practice that I've started.  There is no end time for this one, for now it's simply a layer a day because I want one layer to dry before adding another.  I'm experimenting with color; seeing how they react with layering as well as trying some color combinations or colors that I rarely use.  Here are some the first couple weeks.

This one is Quin Gold, Manganese Blue & Shading Grey

This one is Quin Magenta, Ultramarine Blue and Green Gold

The colors that were new for me in these two, Manganese Blue and Green Gold. I've used a scraper to apply the paint in these which is a way of applying paint that I don't normally do.  

And I still work in my art journal and my grunge journal but those aren't daily.  I may decide that one of those becomes a daily for one month sometime during the year but for now they are every now and then.  Here are the latest entries in those.  Some from December and some this year.  I don't finish these all in one sitting... they are works in process.

And one last goal -- post something here every week.