Chocolate And Play

My artist has been acting like a rebellious teenager all week, pushing my buttons and trying to get me to lose my cool. Since I'm not going to do that, I need to change the channel and work on something else until I can come back to the coat with the right energy. That may mean packing it along on my trip to finish there. Either way, I'll write about the saga when I'm truly finished but for now...

... this is the latest pocket variation and the current collar. I hesitate to say final since who knows what's up for a change next. It's close to finished. Ideally, I'll stitch the hem in place and figure out a closure that will work - since the one I had planned didn't - and then I'm done. We'll see.

It's noon as I'm writing this and I'd hoped to be finished the coat and posting about it and that's not happening. Instead, the sun is shining and I'm curled up on the couch in a warm puddle. As soon as I post, I am going to eat a piece of chocolate cake, do some painting in the studio, and maybe go for a walk. Or not. I need chocolate and play more than exercise right now. 

Yesterday, I went back to where I used to live to see my hairstylist and get my hair cut for the trip. I wish I could find someone as good as her here, especially with the way gas prices are rising. They went up eleven cents a liter between leaving and returning home. Wow. I was early to my appointment so I wandered around the dollar store and found some really vibrant and colourful elastic bands - not neon but almost - that are perfect for my scrap bundles. 

Along with collage paintings, I've been looking at textile collage or mixed media collages combining  paper, paint, fabric, and embellishments. Shelley's book - Fragmentation and Repair for Mixed Media and Textile Artists - is full of ideas. It's not all hand work but some of the examples are or are a combination of methods. In the past, I haven't been drawn to hand work only I've decided to embrace my frequent love for labour intensive as a way of avoiding overwhelm. Viewed in that light, working by hand is beginning to become more attractive. 

My son took pictures of his pieces after our play day a couple weeks ago but he didn't take them home with him so I've been using them as starting points for smaller pieces - 6" x 8". The edges had to be trimmed because we had covered the work surface with brown paper and left the pieces on top to dry and wherever gel medium had gotten under the paper, it stuck. The colourful spots are dried paint on a deli paper palette that I collaged over top. 

My cousin commented on Instagram that she thought the piece at left looked finished after I'd added some collage papers and white paint to create more contrast. When we were talking earlier this week, we discussed knowing when to stop as in not stopping too soon and about creating contrast. I think the only way I'm going to figure that out is by pushing forward to see what magic can happen and what chaos looks like. I added different collage elements at right and this is more interesting and it also looks like a blob floating on the paper. There is most likely more I can do only I've put it away with the other pieces and I'll re-visit it again later. 

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - knowing when to take a break