Life is not without it’s surprises and seeming failures. Almost daily. Even when the day is planned to the hour, in some cases the minute. And just like the famous Biblical quote in Romans, paraphrased here by me, God weaves all our daily entanglements and urgencies and oopsies together for good if we love and trust… Okay, so I’ve taken that verse loosely. But I live by it. Because if he can do this for the biggies in my life, surely I can take some of my small blunders and play them into something good.
For instance, one sunny morning I laid out a large sheet of Arches 300# paper, white acrylic gesso, acrylic paints, inks, and several doo-dads for creating visual as well as dimensional textures. My goal was to throw it all together somehow and create a masterful abstract while watching Pat Dews’ video “Designing Great Starts with Texture and Form.”
What I ended up with was a colorful mess. So I put it away.
Some days later — on another let’s-do-something-off-the-wall day — I put the sheet back on the table and ran a black mat around it, hoping to salvage a piece of it. And I did… cut it out and went to work with more acrylic paints to bring out what I saw.
I named it “Impromptu Lunch at the Vineyard.”
At the same time I was putting together a purple collage I’d been requested to do. I named it “A Walk in the Vineyard” — the larger one.
Scrolling through Wendy’s blog, Quirky Artist, I stumbled on this wonderful post on creating small texture paintings. I think I’ll try that next…
Do you have a drawer full of blunders to rework another day? What do you do with them? Feel free to post your blog or gallery page in your comment for us to see.
Oh yes, help yourself to coffee… 
Barb
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Ooooooo Barb! I love you’re “Walk in the Vineyard”. It looks like it was done with fabrics i have.
Thank you Patty. These are all papers. I made a slew of them in preparation for this piece. I had been asked to create something around a mosaic theme. You can see my meager reference to mosaic in the marching tiles above the arch.
There are pieces of masa paper, colored with acrylic dyes, and mulberry paper glazed over watercolor smatterings. The leaves and grapes are from a stencil, then negative painting. I cut, tore, and pasted. Then arranged until the vineyard popped up. The people were a happy serendipity I exploited with only a hint of form and shadow.
No fabrics.
Thanks so much for coming by — I’m wondering what abstract you have running off your brushes today…
Barb
Those are both beautiful! I’ll confess to being completely lost after reading your explanation though! lol
I create in Bryce and have lots of unfinished/unsatisfactory ones. I seldom go back to them. I’m obsessive about it when trying to recreate my vision, will do crazy things like work 30 hours straight, but once I lose that momentum it’s a lost cause.
Here’s the one I probably obsessed over the most : http://www.sliloh.com/brycefiles/archifiles/corridor.html I was very pleased with my result. One day I’m going to find the Bryce file (lost amongst those 100’s of dvds) and render it big enough to put on a Zazzle poster.
I saw this, Alice — the first time I visited your site. I didn’t know what Bryce was. Finally figured it was software that allowed you to build… when I saw the trees demo. There were many of yours I liked — this was one of my favorites, though lots of landscapes ran close. I thought I left a comment somewhere — but I don’t know where.
Thirty hours? Yep, I’d say that’s obsession. But what beautiful results.
Barb,
I love the purple collage. I can just picture this in a frame hanging on the wall in my living room (but in shades of green). Never having done this sort of a thing, I would be very appreciative if you could see your way to writing up some sort of a step-by step tutorial. Also, could something other than Arches watercolor paper be used as the base?
Love your scroll theme…..
Hi Nightshadow. A tutorial on either one of these will be interesting. Hmm… how to reconstruct the thinking. When class is over, I’ll make another and keep steps written and scanned. Thanks for asking — that should be fun.
Meanwhile, I began this process by painting several watercolor sheets, and pieces of sheets, with shades of blues and purples and burgundies in textures. Then I started cutting pieces, tearing others, and placing them until I found something I liked. I found and used a piece of rice paper I’d dyed deep teal earlier and stuffed in the to-be-salvaged-later-maybe drawer.
The people walking away from the arch are just accidents of the paint, which I defined just a little once I figured out what they were.
(No, the paper does NOT have to be any particular brand or weight — whatever you have on the shelf, even bristol board. Just select a base paper that has enough weight to support your added pieces.)
Thanks…
Barb
I did a collage using cut up or torn pieces of paintings I wasn’t particularly pleased with in our watercolor class. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of it and it sold, which is not a bad thing. I saw a beautiful painting in a plastic surgeon’s office of a portrait, which someone had cut out and then placed back together … it was very striking.
I’d love to see the torn paper portrait… have you seen those portraits done with mosaics of little paintings? When you back away, it’s the values that make the portrait, not the images themselves. I find that concept fascinating…something to grow toward.
So you sold your painting-collage before getting a photo of it? Good for you!!!
Thanks for your comments Bunny…
I love Impromptu….and your take on that wonderful verse in Romans…put a smile on my face with both of them this morning….brava! I love purples so first viewed your other work, but this one took my heart and filled it with joy!
Thank you Susie! Both for liking my painting and the way I reword the great Biblical wisdoms to make them practical in my life.
I can thank my mom for teaching me to think this way… she helped me through math story problems as a child, teaching me to reduce everything to simple terms until I could SEE it. I’m still doing that…
Barb
Wow. These are wonderful. So vivid. I have been hankering after Pat Dews’ book for a long time, but it seems to be out of print now and expensive. I didn’t know there was a video.
We are pouring paint at the moment. I’ve written a post & will publish it when the sun comes out & I can take a photo. Or maybe I should get the tripod out.
Pat Dew’s DVD can be found at the link above. I looked too for the book — I’ve had it awhile. Maybe your library consortium can get it for you???
I’ll watch for your new post — I love the idea of pouring paint. You can get some wonderful results — do you use a mask to protect areas, or just wet areas where you want the paint to flow?
Thanks for commenting on my two textures pieces.
Barb
I love it…..”God weaves all our daily entanglements and urgencies and oopsies together for good if we love and trust…” Your interpretation is easier to understand than King James!
So, so true……weren’t we lucky to have parents who instilled that understanding in us……but I admit I went into it kicking and screaming. It’s been a slow process to be able to truly and fully believe that without the self-deprecation one experiences until she does believe it.
I love these ……which never would have been so beautifully created without the “failures”. Oh, yes…..God is indeed a “knitting artist”!
Thanks Nita… you should recognize the “Walk in the Vineyard.”
I understand the kicking and screaming part — truth is sometimes hard to see, but it actually does work. Wayne Dyer says things change the way they look when we change the way we look at them. How true that can be in art! And in all life.
Yes! Of course…..”Walk in the Vineyard” is hanging over my reading chair in my bedroom……I love it.
I LOVE your blog! AWESOME!!