Forgotten Places

Last November I participated in an online workshop given by Deb Prewitt that she calls Forgotten Places. I find random markings to be wonderful inspiration and have been looking to try other methods to create artwork 'starts'.

We began by consciously creating ugly things using watercolor, fluid acrylic, drips, spatters, and more. The uglier the better said Deb! Here's what I ended up with.

The first piece I finished - immediately following the class - is the one below. I was recalling the New York city subways when we were there for our youngest daughter's graduation from NYU.

Oddly, the photo I recalled that inspired this is completely different!

I was rather taken with Cherryl Moote's new tangle Morrisseau, so I did that on the next ugly start. 

The ugly start below called to mind mountains in the upper left, and windblown pink flowers in the foreground, so I developed that idea.

How "Windy Valley" began

"Windy Valley" completed

Crusade is a square grid tangle that I quite like, so I developed it on the next ugly start that already had a few gridlines on it.

The ugly beginning.
(In this photo the paper is really crooked!)

Art finished!

More to come, for sure!

Slowly, slowly

This is one of those things that was supposed to be something else. But the something else didn't work and it became Something Else.
It was supposed to be patterns left by film wrap and paint but the paper didn't like that idea and it was just nondescript blotchiness with a lovely copper wash in a few places.

This page in my Book developed sloooowwly. I left it for a while as I was quite disappointed in the wash result. Then I noticed a few things at the edges and drew them.

From time to time I added a little more.

I'd noticed the small darker circle and triangle left of center and eventually decided to do something with them. I added a square for three shapes, and decided to use the three primary colors. Originally I was going to use some sparkly paper but yellow looked too gold so I found some leftover bits from other projects.

Tangles thus far: Bosch, Crescent Moon, Doodah, Paradox, Pearlz, Seljuk.
And in the colored squares: Finery and Prestwood

A little more...

Tangles added: Parabola, Tipple (sort of), Y-not (Etcher variation)

...and the finished page.

Tangles added: Icanthis

Or maybe not. I might add more.

7-circuit labyrinth

During the decade-plus that I focused on mandalas, one thing I investigated was labyrinths. So, of course, one page in my Book had to be a labyrinth. I chose a 7-circuit one as they are simple to construct and way easier to skew to fit a space than the Chartres variety!

I had done two pages intended to be cling-wrap patterns, but this paper doesn't seem to like that idea at all! I had two rather unappealing pages so I decided to use them for subject matter I want to include.

This is the beginning wash with the penciled lines of a labyrinth.

I expanded the labyrinth design to fill a wider space, and to work with some of the lines in the wash. Then I outlined it in copper ink.

I drew the dividing lines of the labyrinth and tangled the background.

A few more details, and shading with various colors of pencil, and here is the finished page.

If you're interested in labyrinths I've done a couple of other posts about them here and here.

Progress, with color

You can see my first post about how some ZIA tiles progressed as I worked on them here.

I had again started four tiles with gray washes. Here they are. You guessed right if you think the top left is likely to be houses! Can you see a shape that looks like a bird in the top right tile?

I had just watched a video demo of some paint pens I have and I wanted to try using them for making washes, so I added color to three of the tiles. Not sure why I didn't do the fourth; I think it looked as if it should be simply black and white.

At this point I'm thinking:

• Houses: I like the houses but I'm not sure how to develop the background.
• Bird: The phoenix is kind of cool but too gray. I might tilt it 45 degrees left so it sits diagonally and the bird is going straight up.
• Tree: The oak tree trunk I like. The border is adapted from Michele Beauchamp's tangle Oke but I'm not happy with it yet. The tree is pretty darn bright but I'm thinking of tangling it in brown.
• B&W: The grid border doesn't go with the trees and clouds I see in the center. I'm not sure where this will go.

After more work:

At this point I'm thinking:

• Houses: The background is coming along nicely. The buildings really need shading.
• Bird: I like where this is going but some of the flames are too gray. I think the bird is too upright but the flames are better this way. I like the white on the bird's tail and wings.
• Tree: I like the border much better with the orange and yellow wash I added. The blue sky is good too. It's become some sort of hybrid tree with quite a variety of leaf shapes!
• B&W: Nope. Not inspired by this one. Yet. We'll see.

Aaand... finished:

Finishing, fine-tuning, and what I'm thinking:

• "Night in the Old Neighborhood" -I added many small details: pen lines, colored pencil, white ink. This will be mounted and painted.
• "Peace Phoenix" - I prefer it at this angle after all. I whitened the bird and un-grayed some flames using colored pencil. This will be mounted and painted.
• "Splendiferous" - I love the leaves! And the border. The blue was an excellent idea. This will be mounted and painted.
• If I were going to give this a title I think it would be "Space Junk". I decided it wasn't going to be anyThing so I went with non-representational and just drew what I felt like. Success is in the trying.