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″.
Bloom
February 16, 2020 at 5:24 pm | Posted in Art Studio | 2 CommentsTags: collage, collage on paper, printing, serigraph
Here is a collage created by cutting up one of my early serigraphs. I didn’t start out thinking “botanical”. It just came together like that as I started placing the pieces.
One Of My Favorite Colors Is
October 16, 2019 at 3:02 pm | Posted in Art Studio | Leave a commentTags: collage, collage on paper, color-wheel, magenta
Collage In Earthy Tones
August 11, 2019 at 8:42 pm | Posted in Art Studio | Leave a commentTags: collage, earth tones
My Mom would have loved these colors. She used variations of them in her surroundings and wardrobe. It’s what I kept thinking of while selecting papers, arranging them, and gluing this collage. For me not so much love, as these are colors that I rarely focus on, like the greens, using them mainly as accents. But periodically I revisit and explore hues that challenge me in art to get out of that familiar comfort zone of the known.
When I was 22 my Mom died. At the time I was immersed in crafts, weaving mainly. It was also before I returned to school for an art degree. Aside from the drawings I did as a teenager, she never saw my later paintings or knew that art became my life’s passion.
Ironically, my Mom was awarded an art scholarship when she was 17. However, she went to work in an office instead to support my Grandparents.
This image is joyful in its circular movement. It could represent a melody my Mom played on the piano. I think she would have liked this.
Winter Collage: Red Tree
January 27, 2017 at 9:33 pm | Posted in Art Studio | Leave a commentTags: collage, quail, rocks, tree, Winter
Recently there was a winter storm and white completely redefined the landscape. I walk out to new visual discoveries. Parallel lines of forked quail prints cross the oval tracks of a lone rabbit. Snow sits fat, frosting dollops on green sugar bush branches and pine needles. Feathered crystal patterns reflect from a puddle.
Mostly I am breath-caught silent by the space around objects, the negative space. It is that tree, that boulder, that view that is now silhouetted and distinct within the whiteness, each is highlighted and suspended for a moment, a day perhaps.
Then it all melts.
and then…
February 10, 2015 at 10:06 am | Posted in Art Studio | Leave a commentTags: collage, digital variation, heart, valentine
The Collage Process Explained
October 19, 2013 at 7:21 pm | Posted in Art Studio, Considering Ideas, Mail Art | 1 CommentTags: collage, CREATIVITY, design, Halloween, Mail Art
- First there’s a rough idea for paper collage design, or two or three ideas.
- Scanning your immaculately organized studio, you consider the backing/support. Heavy watercolor paper, Bristol board, museum board? Rummaging through a drawer, a file, a cart, you pull considerations out onto the desk.
- You bring out the stored decorative and handmade-papers. Seeing the colorful bags sorted by type and size, you feel so TOGETHER.
- You plug in a Mozart tape.
- Tear. Cut. Snip. Hey! Let’s make four different collages at once, or more!
- At the counter, arrange, and rearrange the paper shapes on the backings. You vaguely notice that there’s an equal amount of bits and pieces on the floor.
- They need something else, pop the lid off that other bin of collected oddments!
- By now, every studio drawer should be hanging precariously open.
- You didn’t notice that the music ended long ago.
- For the fifth time you’ve misplaced the small and large scissors, and can’t find the Xacto-knife.
- You bring out more scissors. Plus you consider a yellow silk ribbon; 5 inches of orange cotton cord; 1960’s stickers of a chicken, a t.v., a hula girl, and a rubber duckie; a vintage matchbox; a soap wrapper from India with elephants; and textured metal buttons. None of which you’ll use.
- Right about here, every surface in the studio should be covered with collage materials. The purple papers are in the orange bag, and the tans have disappeared. You feel, MMM…words fail.
- It’s time to glue: with paste or acrylic medium depending on the paper’s weight.
- You glue in layers, covering each in pieces of plastic drop cloth, so they won’t stick to the big art history text you weight them down with to dry. There’s likely a place left on the floor to put them.
- Another layer, more stuff.
- If you did it right so far, the palette knife for the paste is glued to a CD cover; the acrylic medium brush is best friends with a paper towel; one shoe is stuck to the floor, and the other is trailing a bit of Thai pink mulberry paper; there is unexplained ink on your hands.
- Then, suddenly, you are finished- can’t remember when you started, but it’s dark now. Looking around at the chaos, you feel GOOD.
- That’s right, collage had its way with you.
- The next morning it takes an hour, or two, to reorganize, put back, wipe down …you find the scissors, and the bag with the tans under the canvas cart.
- You arrange some of the collages for a photo shoot.
- Hah! such a clean and tidy pic.
- Collaged, mail art postcards, ready for messages, addresses, and stamps. For the Grandkids. Sending some art through the mail.
Composition In Red: Art from Trash
February 28, 2012 at 8:07 pm | Posted in Art Studio, Considering Ideas | Leave a commentTags: collage, recycling, red, repurpose
This art piece uses only two things: Styrofoam from a take-out container, and cut magazine paper. While the previously posted fish mobile is much about organic shapes, this one is about geometric ones, and numbers. Since these four works will be displayed at a school I kept in mind the various curriculum subjects. Art can be created in any class to enhance learning.
Echoing Color
May 3, 2010 at 10:30 pm | Posted in Art Studio | Leave a commentTags: collage, COLOR, digital design
Rolling color
2 mixed-media collages – May 2010-Joan Desmond
and enough texture to fall into- from the studio.
Cardboard, cds, old mags, bubble wrap, fruit stickers, wood scraps, cereal boxes…
March 13, 2010 at 1:42 pm | Posted in Art Studio, Considering Ideas | 1 CommentTags: collage, CREATIVITY, Living Green KRV Festival, recycling, upcycling
Collage “Bird Mask” by J. Desmond- recycled mags & other papers
What discarded items are lurking around your house waiting to be transformed into art? By brainstorming, considering possibilities, anything can become a medium for creative expression.
There’s a freedom in it. Recycling and repurposing bypasses the need for purchasing specialized materials: canvas, paint, special paper, and such. Plus it alleviates the oft seen, beginner’s intimidation when confronted with an array of expensive art stuff.
You just plunge in—imagine, conceive, pile up, cut, tear, organize, design, glue, hammer, and lose yourself in the process. Sometimes it’s just about the process, about voicing your expression, and sometimes you will come up with a thing worth keeping.
Starting Wednesday evening, March 17through March 19, 2010, there’s an art exhibit featuring such recycled art at the Odd Fellows Hall,50 Tobias St, Kernville, California.It will highlight a display by local students answering the theme ofHow Do You Green at Home, Work, or School?
This is part of the 2010 Living Green Kern River Valley Festivalto be held March 17 thru 21, 2010 in California.
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