RED

My entry for this week has no inherent logic in being red, except that I have been wanting to try papercuts for some time. I saw some magnificent red ones at the APT-5 and when the topic came up I knew immediately this was my chance. I have also to thank the lovely Anita and Mark for the gorgeous red paper - it is part of my birthday present of a packet of beautiful Japanese papers. You'll probably see more of them featured in future posts (the papers I mean).

The imagery is a further exploration of the life cycle of the butterfly as a metaphor for transience. This piece isn't really finished, but was nearly running out of time to submit, so this is just a rough mount.

Buzz

As soon as I saw the topic, I knew that I'd be doing something to illustrate the dulcet tones of the whipper snipper. If I was even slightly paranoid I would believe that there are people out there armed with whipper snippers whose aim in life is to haunt me. I really hate those things. Gone are the days when gardening was a peaceful pasttime. Why can't people just let grass creep erratically over their edgings, as God intended? Well, that's enough of a rave about this topic - believe me I could go on...

About the painting: I know it isn't technically very good - I've had one lesson in watercolour several years ago and only used them a couple of times since. On top of that, it's on canvas that I had gessoed roughly meaning to do some mixed media work. Totally wrong! Nevertheless I know I can't blame my support totally. Plus there is a huge compositional error - the shadow from the tree and the whipper snipper should not cross like that. I can see now why artists sketch out their paintings and do studies first.

So...Why did I do this? I just really love using watercolours. I love the translucency and the way the colour floods onto the paper, (well mine does, anyway!) Maybe it's time to do some practice and develop a little technique!

Phoenix

I have used this week's challenge as part of my "Painting-a-Day" month, which is being documented on my other blog. This work is my first attempt at using sgraffito to create a whole work. It is a really enjoyable technique which I've brought across from my ceramics days and I love the way you can create such fine lines. It does place a heavy emphasis on drawing skills, and need to practise these to develop a style I am happy with. I don't really like the look of background, but it does seem to express the chaos of "rising from the ashes".

Peace...in our time?

I hope people don't think I'm being cynical or making a joke about peace with this artwork. I just find it hard to believe that with our history of warfare, that mankind will ever achieve peace for long. I still think it's a worthwhile aspiration though.

This is my first digital collage. Well, the first I've actually finished. I've started others before, but never finished them because they just weren't working out. The Photoshop Support Group on Flickr has taught me a lot recently though. I now realize you need to know more than just layers and opacity to get a digital collage working.....

It may seem presumptious to be offering tips at this early stage, but in case anyone else is stuck making a start on digital collages, here's some of what was useful to me today:

1. I made heavy use of the magic wand to remove unwanted background - even if you don't get it in one go, it's still really fast.
2. I took frequent snapshots so I could easily revert to earlier versions. This meant I could merge layers and get rid of that annoying checkerboard effect.
3. Rather than relying on the opacity control, I worked with the adjustment layers.
4. I found a warming photo filter helped bring out the helicopters from the background.
5. I created lots of layers and played with different effects to really work each area of the image.

There are still a few things I would like to change but it requires going too far back. If I was going to use this image for anything else I would like to tighten up the composition and crop a little.

For the images, I mostly relied on online government sources, and believe they are all in the public domain. I discovered the US National Archives is a great source of images for this type of project and most are in the public domain.The image of helicopters were sourced here - http://tinyurl.com/ymrz8o. I was unable to find any information on the original copyright owner.


If I have breached copyright at all, this is completely unintentional. This artwork will not be used for any other purpose than as an entry in IF. If you are a copyright holder and request your image be removed, it will immediately be done.

Ghost

This is an altered version of the wraith I projected in my last installation in July. I like this one with the colour all sucked out a lot, but it didn't fit with the installation. It's nice to have a chance to use this for something. To see the installation go here. I'll also be writing about the installation in my other blog later this week hopefully.

Smitten

This is a photoshopped image of me and my Burmese cat, Claude. I thought I owed it to him to show him in a better light, after last week's entry (see it here).

You can see I have started a separate blog for my IF entries. The reason is that they are a completely different direction from my usual art practice. I think they are excellent exercises for broadening my skills, especially with photoshop, and working on paper in general. I really want to keep doing IF but I felt they didn't really flow with the rest of my blog content, so... Amanda IF was born. I see quite a few people have separate blogs for IF.

If you're interested in checking out my other "life", go here. Anyway, thanks for looking and by the way, I LOVE comments!!!