Monday, January 21, 2013

The Sketchbook Project Collaboration: Last Round

Last week was the deadline for the Sketchbook Project and although I made it for my personal book, I didn't quite get our collaborative one back to Angie in time for her to make the deadline. We're still going to send it though - there's a good chance it will still make it for the tour and it will definitely still get archived in the Brooklyn Art Library.

Anyway, here are my last six pages. I'll try to keep it to a minimum with the photos - you can see more from the entire book in this Flickr folder and in these blog posts: Part 1, Part 2.1, Part 2.2, Part 3.1 and Part 3.2.

All of the pages I have to show you are inspired by Angie's artwork on the left-hand side. All except one, that is. Here's a left-side page for Angie to work off of:
As you may have noticed, I had started a drawing on the page - the yellow ropes around a pale blue background - but I wasn't entirely satisfied with where it was going. So I decided to cut it up and weave brightly patterned papers through to make an interesting visual. It still feels a bit incomplete to me, but I ran out of time so the neat texture will have to do.

So... are you wondering what the other side of that page looks like?
This time it was a collaged map that I'd started and got stuck on... I think the floral weave makes it a bit more interesting. I finished the "map" off with a compass rose. "If you need direction, I will show you the way" is written twice around the outside rim. I'm quite a bit happier with this side of the weaved page.

Next is a page inspired by one of my favourite's of Angie's pages:
First off, I loved the page before I even started on it - the smudges of paint that had seeped through from other pages were gorgeous. And then, just look at Angie's panther of a kitty! Such a great piece! So I needed to keep it simple. I enhanced the painted edges with layers of stamping, then added a butterfly for the kitty to hunt. The word flourish had been in my head since I'd been thinking of words for the year, so it just ended up on the page to finish everything off.

 When I saw Angie's page here, I just knew that I would make a poem out of a book page as my response. A bit of washi tape and subtle inking finished the page.

When I saw Angie's fun monoprint, I needed to make a collage using similar colours. Once I had laid down the base collage with the butterflies, I knew I needed a word to finish it off - but I didn't just want to write it on the page. So I wrote it out on a piece of yellow card and cut it out, giving it a bit more dimension on the page.

This last page is my very favourite of the bunch:
When I saw Angie's bold monoprint, I immediately thought of Klimt with his intricate gold patterns. Of course I had to draw one of my goddess ladies. I sketched her out in pencil, drew her in ink, then coloured it in with pencil crayons. I'm particularly thrilled with the sky: I drew the spiral pattern first with a white pencil crayon, then drew over that with a red crayon. I wasn't positive the white would show through perfectly but it did! Definitely a technique I'll be playing with again.

I can't wait to see Angie's last couple pages... and the tour is coming to Toronto, so I'm hoping to see this sketchbook (and mine) there too!

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