Okay, so this is my second post to my new blog. And maybe I shouldn't start out with confessing to a recent total art slump, for two months, where I did no art at all. Through December and January. It really bummed me out, and I kind of lost my way for a while, as an artist. But the good news is, I recovered from that a week ago, and created an art piece I'm happy with.
Although my "dry time" was for so long, it really had me worried. Who knows why we get into these art slumps??? Why or how? Although it does seem to be fairly normal, or something that happens now and then, at least to some of us. I'm just happy I seem to have come out of it, and have produced some art in the past week or so.
So I'm posting that piece of art, which is a fabric 5x5 piece. I used my old standby, frozen pizza cardboard, as the base, and glued the batik- like fabric to that. Actually I attached the fabric with gel medium, which is one of my favorite adhesives. I stamped on part of the fabric with black acrylic paint and a grid stamp but it's kind of hard to see.
Then I pulled out a piece of rusted fabric, that I rusted myself, and cut out some strips, a rectangle, and a heart. I proceeded to fray the edges of all but the heart, because I love the look of frayed fabric in art, and glued those down. I often use the threads from fraying in my art too, which I did on this. I painted a strip of netting copper, and glued that down, and glued hearts punched out of a paint sample on top of that.
I used a stamp on the heart on the left, and a three heart stamp on the rectangle, outlined with a gold paint pen. Last I glued down the buttons, the rusted wire, and the gold heart.
So that's how I created this piece, and I'm pleased with it. Most especially when I didn't have a clue or any ideas when I sat down to make this. I did have the batik-like fabric though, that I'd just bought at a thrift store, so I started with that. (I was really drawn to this fabric as soon as I saw it at the store. I love the pattern and the colors, and that it's so batik-like.) And once I actually got STARTED, the other ideas just came to me, and rather easily too.
Once I got started, thankfully I didn't have to agonize over what to make. Hopefully, that's a good lesson for me -- that when I want to do art, but don't have any ideas or direction to go in, I should just pull out some art supplies and force myself to start on something, and then maybe the ideas will materialize! At any rate, that approach worked for this piece, and propelled me out of my long art slump.
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2 comments:
These heart pages are to die for, Val!!
I worked backwards on your posts, glad your slump has ended. love the rust work, i will be back in the saddle to give it a try. thanks
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