Colors and Lines

Recently, I was doing some collages and wanted a way to add a fine dark line element to them. Something that looked like it was drawn but not so…controlled…as a line drawn with graphite or pen.

So, being a former seamstress, I fired up the old sewing machines and ran some free-form lines of stitching across them. See “March Morning” or  “Surf” for examples. LOVED it.

However, I’ve been wanting to work larger, and I couldn’t figure out how to make a larger artwork fit in the sewing machine. Besides, how would a stretched canvas fit? It has wooden stretcher bars, after all. Hm…

My art is contemporary but usually has a nod to something from the past. Modern and nostalgic. My paper cutouts are a nod to Matisse and his cutouts, and also to the snowflakes or paper dolls that I used to cut out as a kid.

I made a paper snowflake for my 4-year-old nephew this summer, and when I unfolded the wadded up bit of paper to show him a snowflake, his eyes lit up like I’d just done magic.

Maybe I had.

So, as I was thinking about what I could use for a random dark line, the weather got chilly and I began to think of Autumn. Halloween. Those scary little trees that kids make by dropping ink on paper and blowing it around with a straw.

Oh, hoh!

Car keys, stat! I need to run to the store for a bottle of India Ink.

These two little paintings are about 7.5 inches square. They’re painted with acrylics on lovely watercolor paper. Then, I dropped India Ink on them and blew through a drinking straw to push the ink around. I tried not to direct it too much but just let it go where it went.

Hm, this has promise. Stay tuned; I think there may be more of these in the works.