Another World
November 19, 2023 at 9:51 pm | Posted in Art Studio, mixed media collage | Leave a commentTags: abstraction, Egyptian music, Michael Atherton, mixed media collage, music
©Joan Desmond, Another World. Mixed Media Collage, 7"x5"
It’s important to push boundaries in studio work, there are so many wonderful unknowns to explore, always so many new ways to learn and grow. In this case, I’m using an unfamiliar color scheme, neutrals with just some flashes of pure color. I rarely use black in painting or collage. While that shade may immediately create strong contrasts, it can also pull the viewer into a dark hole, leaving the eye stuck there. In the studio, I was listening to “Ankh: The Sound of Ancient Egypt” by Michael Atherton. Using traditional Egyptian instruments he considered how they may have been arranged back then. He created haunting melodies and rhythms, some including voice, with occasional elements of familiarity. I don’t know whether that imprinted on my working process. At the end this abstract, mixed media landscape, brought to mind something extraterrestrial, hence the title, “Another World”. Look closely, it’s there.
Collage Journal
May 2, 2023 at 1:57 pm | Posted in Art Studio, Collage | Leave a commentTags: abstraction, CREATIVITY, mixed media collage
©Joan Desmond, Pages from Collage Journal 2023. Mixed Media Collage on paper, 10″x 7″.
Here’s a new approach for me. Over the years there have been many drawing journals, most included writing, perhaps mixed media techniques. I’m now creating a journal that will consist of collages, perhaps with descriptive narrative, it will evolve as it needs to. My art journals are used to record impressions, feelings, experiment, a place to work out ideas on a smaller scale. They become a reference-some of these images may morph into larger works on canvas.
Small Landscape
April 9, 2023 at 5:39 pm | Posted in Art Studio | Leave a commentTags: abstraction, collage, mixed media collage
With mixed-media works the possibilities are endless. I’ve been working on small collages exploring various compositional approaches.
©Joan Desmond, Cool Mountain Lake With Birdsong, Mixed Media Collage on Ampersand Panel 7″x 5″.
From The Studio
April 2, 2023 at 4:14 pm | Posted in Art Studio | Leave a commentTags: abstraction, mixed media collage
©Joan Desmond, Ancient Voices Roam Here. Mixed Media Collage, 10″ x 8″.
Insert Catchy Title Here
December 27, 2015 at 10:43 pm | Posted in Art Studio, Considering Ideas | Leave a commentTags: abstraction, acrylic on canvas, Art, considering landscape, painting
for this post about a body of work. An unfinished body of work it is. Yet, today I’m having trouble seeing the beginning, and the parts that came after. All because I couldn’t remember when, when, when, I painted this acrylic.
©Joan Desmond, Day/Night. Acrylic on canvas, 24″ x 30″.
I recall the name Day/Night. It’s about opposites in many ways. The visual thinking I see and recall easily. It was a time of exploring tensions between geometric and organic, of the vertical and horizontal, color polarities, all that stuff. When was that? For me, painting is usually a process that morphes into something else with a little of the old, and a bit of a new direction. There are breakthrough works, exploring works and new direction works, it’s always ongoing when the immersion is there. But the dates don’t stick.
You’d think I’d have records. Surely I have records somewhere. It wasn’t the only undated, unrecorded, un-moored painting I found while looking around. This would not be an issue if one documents things. So that’s the catchy title angle. Document, date, ’cause you forget. You forget so much. The sanity you save may be your own.
Rhythm-scape for Blog post 100!
August 11, 2012 at 12:27 pm | Posted in Art Studio | Leave a commentTags: abstraction, digital design, music, rhythm
©2012, Joan Desmond, Rhythm.
Abstraction
April 26, 2012 at 5:33 pm | Posted in Art Studio, Considering Ideas | 1 CommentTags: abstraction, digital design, kayaking
The process of abstraction holds endless possibilities. You can zoom in, zoom out, fragment, isolate, select and emphasize; the idea is to…mmm, even that is up for grabs. When subject matter is abstracted, one sometimes, often, looks for the elemental, the essence of a thing. It’s a bit difficult to describe in words, or do. One level of art looks at an object or experience in the visible world and records it, represents it as most see it. It may teach the viewer to really look, that’s good.
A step beyond just recording is the artist’s personalized impression of a moment or an object. That demands that there is a give and take between the artist and the subject matter, a developed perspective. Abstraction goes way beyond that. I should say, “Could go way beyond that” as some doesn’t. Mostly, there can be so much more for a viewer to perceive with abstraction but there has to be a desire.
Here’s an image from my impressions of the past weekend, the senses engaged in a certain area and then the abstraction of it.
©2012, Joan Desmond, River Journey.
Looking Back
May 14, 2010 at 7:49 am | Posted in Art Studio, Considering Ideas | Leave a commentTags: abstraction, COLOR, line, mixed media, texture
Mountain of Memories – River of Dreams* -J.Desmond
We see letters and shape them to words. Through associations, voice and tongue, we give them meanings that resonate within us and bring us home. They are easily accessed.
As easily approached are visual representations of object around us. Yes, that’s a bird, a tree, a mountain in that painting. Immediate understanding comforts us.
But do we remember how to ken depths of color? How to lose self in blue, when to tread lightly on orange, or get carried forward in red?
It takes time to follow a curved line along its path, responding viscerally when it zigs and springs, curls or flows. To let texture reach out for our touch we have to grant permission.
The language of abstraction is elemental and may be felt in our bones and ancient memory. It can open endless perceptions if we allow ourselves that vulnerability.
But that is the more difficult and nor so easily accessed.
*an earlier mixed-media work
Winescapes- The 6-liter Canvas
April 14, 2010 at 2:47 pm | Posted in Art Studio | 1 CommentTags: abstraction, Bakersfield Museum of Art, benefit auction, brainstorming, CREATIVITY, Daniel Smith acrylics, Exhibition, Golden gel, iridescent paint, painted wine bottle, Winescapes
Until I hefted one I really had no idea how big a 6-liter wine bottle was.
The idea was to “art it up” for a benefit auction at the Bakersfield Museum of Art. I had never worked with a bottle before. When you first brainstorm on an art project, tons of ideas come to mind. You entertain all ideas, from the silly to the fantastic. I considered drilling holes, attaching metal extensions, etching into, gluing onto, putting inside off, shall it be wrapped in grapevines? The whole gamut entertained just to shake loose ideas. In the end the decision was to paint onto. I do love to paint! I’m also painting other landscapes. The idea of a Dionysius ‘scape seemed fitting.
by Joan Desmond 2010
I practiced on a couple of smaller bottles to see the effects of the various mediums on glass. The final decision included some of the luscious interference and duochrome acrylic paint from Daniel Smith. They give the image a rich, reflective quality. I also wanted to keep some of the glass exposed as there is always a relationship between the material and the message, and this was a “glass-see-though-with-depth bottle”. For the main image, which you may recognize as a re-creation of a much larger, 62″, oil painting of mine, a thin application of Yes Paste was used to attach a rectangle of paper. This gave it opaqueness and surface stability. Then a layer of gesso was applied and then the paint. The lettering is in acrylic applied to the glass over gesso, with no paper. Afterwards, for a protective coat it was sealed with thinned Golden Soft Gel.
So just how large is a 6-liter bottle? Here’s a comparison.
“Winescapes -wine tasting and auction”, will be held on Wednesday, April 21 from 6:30pm- 8:30pm at: the Bakersfield Museum of Art, 1930 R St., Bakersfield, CA
Arvin Green Arts Festival
May 16, 2009 at 9:47 am | Posted in Art Exhibitions, Art Studio | Leave a commentTags: abstraction, Arts Council of Kern, collage, design, paperboard, recycling, repurpose
Recycling…considering the process
An 18″ x 20″ collage created from recycled paperboard which is part of the Arvin Green Arts Festival Juried Show in Arvin, California, May 16-17, 2009.
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