The Test (Avaricious Transgressor)

I was cleaning house the other day and found a little test piece that I made back in 2008 when I was doing an acrylic painting of one of my Feng Shui Mishap collages. This post shows the finished acrylic painting. I was playing with techniques to slightly obscure some background lettering. I'm really glad I saved this. The palmistry hands were leftovers from another project. I added some circles in photoshop and changed the background color to orange, cropped to accentuate the diagonal, rotated and repeated to make a little quilt.

Venus Star Cross

I looked for the basic shape in my Dictionary of Symbols by Carl G. Liungman and the closest match I could find was to the "Venus Star." I started with just the green outline repeated and overlapped a little, then filled in colors with the bucket tool. Here's an array of various manipulated versions.

Book Cover Pinwheel Design

When I saw this beautifully worn-out book cover from 1932, I knew right away that it would make something interesting. The volume had been withdrawn from a lending library where the dust jacket had long ago been trimmed and glued to the cover of the book.

Masquerade Thumbnail

This morning I started playing around with a thumbnail detail from one of my first collages called Masquerade. Rotating and recombining causes a nice pinwheel effect. The array features the original square surrounded by various modifications achieved with photoshop gradients and artistic filters.

There's a Primary version and a Gray version over on my tumblr. I've had a very productive month--102 posts if you check my tumblr archive--and I still have five days to go!

Malcolm Tarlofsky Photo-Collage Postcards

I have been hoarding these marvelous collectable Photo-Collage postcards by artist Malcolm Tarlofsky long enough. They are now available for sale in my collage gallery at Anita's Beads. Mail order available for folks who cannot travel to Wakefield, New Hampshire.

Notan and No Cross II.

I was inspired to do a series with my second "No Cross" today after reading Notan: The Dark-Light Principle of Design by Dorr Bothwell and Marlys Mayfield.

 

I've had this book for such a long time but it's been a while since I gave it any serious thought. Check out my Tumblr for more versions of No Cross II.

Hammerdots No. 3 Revision

 

I started playing around with one of my old collages called Hammerdots No. 3. This was a piece on watercolor paper that I never got around to framing. Someone saw it in the gallery and bought it. Luckily I had made a scan of it right after I finished it.

 

 I played around with brushes to add concentric circles and X's over the orange dots. Then I inverted it to result in the lovely turquoise blue on a black background.

I repeated the design four times at different rotations:

Then I switched back to the red/orange and replaced color to darken the background to get the one displayed at the top of this post. I even made this hard-to-look-at color halftone version:

First Stencil

I'm done thinking about fabric now and I am back to considering collage, back where I left off a while ago with my Dorje on Gray piece consisting of a mandala of quarter-dots. Playing around today in photoshop I decided to go back to basic shapes and make my own colorforms. This quickly led to a quarter-dot array that I decided to use as a mask over a photo. Then I randomly applied effects to overcome a poor photo choice. I really need to play around more with this concept.

And I must admit I love that "target" brush even more than the "Spiral" one!

AnitaNH at Diattaart

Dan Diatta over on the Diattaart Blog did a write-up on art and home decorating as a follow-up to a post on Julio Le Parc where he attributed one of my drawings to Le Parc. Le Parc has been a big influence on my work so I was flattered by the mistake! In the follow-up he compares my work to Op artists Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley. Another artist included in the article is Rex Ray. I have been a big fan of his work for years.

Felipe Jesus Consalvos: Material Culture

I've written about the fabulous collage work of Felipe Jesus Consalvos here before, four times in 2008, but not recently. I was reminded of his work by a two-page advertisement in this months Art in America. Material Culture is auctioning off three pieces by Consalvos: a collage titled "Young America," a decorated guitar, and the fabulous octagonal piece (front and back pictured above). Their inaugural auction, "New World Orders: Art Furnishings, Collectables, Decorative Arts" will be held in Philadelphia (home of the Fleisher-Ollman Gallery which represents the artist's estate) on May 5, 2012.

The jester says: "Do Not Storm the System." Indeed.  He's standing on the Ten of Clubs, and under that are the words: "Normal Academy." I love the background pattern. The title for this piece is "Medicinal Torpedoes Tabletop" and it is dated circa 1920/50.

Dots Another Way

I found a little drawing I did a while ago with a circle template and a fine black sharpie, done before I started doing the colored outlines. I tend to stay away from black outlines so I flipped the drawing over and scanned it from the back since the paper I used was thin enough to allow the color to bleed through. 

I kept adjusting the colors until I got the combination on the rich blue background. Then I applied different filters to change the look even further. I'm totally in love with my last version that looks like it was printed on some type of silk. My mission today is to figure out how I did that because I sure would like to be able to do it again at will.

The No Cross

I'm starting the day with something beautiful. I drew a cross last night which started with the symbol for number: #. So I am calling this the No Cross.

A lovely teal results when the design is inverted.

Star Cross Triangle Blocks

 

I'm not sure if either of these will become fabric but I had fun playing with the colors today.

One More Thing

The beginnings of this were used to illustrate a rant on my Temporary Blog. I applied a "Sponge" filter and then inverted. The second one on black is a glass filter I think. I worked so fast I can't remember now. I'm still learning so results are a surprise which is what makes it so fun.

Still Playing With the Star Cross

I really like this one in primary colors against the dark background. Amazing effect. When I stare at it for any length of time it starts moving like one of those animated GIF's. I need to try more drawings like this with radial symmetry. Photoshop is magic!