The Traveler Goes Trick-or-Treating

Well, not really, but it sounds a lot better than "The Traveler goes Halloweenish"- though the second one does sound like something I'd say.  I'm starting the 5th piece in The Traveler's Tale, a series of large collages I've been working on intermittently since the spring of 2009.  Maps are the main material used in the series, which is somewhat narrative, as each piece "tells a story" about the same character.  And this one is, well- kind of spooky.

 This is an old monotype that I started re-working.  It's actually a "ghost image", so called because it's a second impression, made using only the ink that's left after the plate has been printed. 

I started re-drawing the figure; I'm not finished yet, and you can see that many of the lines and shadows aren't really in the right place.  But this is just the preliminary stage of planning for me- like thinking aloud on paper.

This drawing of a model inside a piece of stretchy fabric was transferred onto frosted acetate so I could see through it.  Somehow it will have to be transferred onto the monotype, but at this point I haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to do that.  I think I'll need to enlarge it a bit so that both figures will be closer to the same size...








It still has a long way to go, but here's the general idea:

And a detail:

It is rather Halloweenish, you see?
















If you're not familiar with the series, here's a look at the first four.

The Traveler's Tale: As the Crow Flies

The Traveler's Tale: Balance

The Traveler's Tale: Once Upon a Time

The Traveler's Tale: Self-Birthing

I'd really welcome and appreciate any comments, criticisms, or suggestions about the new piece.  Have a blessedly spooky Halloween!

One More Time!

Like a dog with a bone, for some reason I just couldn't let this one go.  Maybe it's stubbornness, or, put in a more positive light, persistence.  I guess there was something I liked about this piece, enough that I thought it deserved one last try.  If you'd like to see some of its past incarnations, here is the first version:

 After getting some advice, I tried to fix it, but still wasn't satisfied with it, here.  So I decided to use Photoshop to do some experimental cropping, here.  Ultimately, I was unable to make a decision.

After putting it in my "scrap works" drawer, I came upon it again last week while re-organizing my studio.  I'm a big proponent of recycling old artwork anyway; most of my collages include pieces of my work that I have "scrapped", so to speak.  Call it what you will: reusing, recycling, thriftiness, or just being a plain old pack-rat.  Sometimes it works beautifully, and sometimes, it doesn't, but my motto is: It's worth a try.

I've also been inspired by Jeane Myers's recent series of gorgeous re-dos at ARTIT, whose motto is similar to mine: "What's to lose...?"   That's only one of many great examples, so please do check out her blog for several others that are just as awesome- as is all of her work.  In fact, I just noticed that her newest post is also about a reworked piece!

Here's my final (I think) version of this piece:

Exile

Ingredients: multi-media art board, vintage maps, vintage book pages, handmade papers, joss paper, graphite, watercolor pencil, Pitt artist pen, metallic paint pens, eyelet, vellum, PVA glue, acrylic gel medium, kitchen sink (ha!).

I have cropped the top, bottom, and left side, and added more book pages and a few other bits.  Of course, the main difference is the addition of the raven.  I felt it needed a focal point to pull everything together, but it had to be something strong in value to hold its own against all the bright colors.  My solution was to go with black, which seems to work.  It's entirely possible that this piece is way overworked, though I think some of the compositional problems have been resolved.  What do you think?