Here is a link to an interview I recently did with a local art professional, Kelly Alder!
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This week I worked on the next two layers for my piece. They don't look like much now, but when both of them are fully stretched out and layered, they look much better. The tulle was definitely harder to work with than I had imagined, so this step took quite a while - but overall, I am pleased. Now I pretty much just have to put my layers together.
For this project I decided to not make a book, and instead make a more layered circular piece. This week, I worked on the first/back layer. I cut out my board into a circle that matched my wooden circle, drew some larger overlapping circles, gave them a more organic appearance with varying line quality, and lastly, added my small hole punched dots of varying sizes. My next step will be to work on the next layer, which will be tulle with embroidery.
I finished my book and am pretty happy with how it turned out! Although it is fairly minimalist, I feel that it is one of my more thought out and coherent pieces. I also think that reallly focusing on craftsmanship throughout my whole process really payed off - of course I always try to do this but have struggled in the past.
The basic idea behind this piece is the relationship between chaos and order, and complexity and simplicity. When you first flip through the book, the pages appear blank, but then when you unfold each page it is filled with randomly spaced colored circles. The cover ties into this same idea as well as although it seems like just a white sheet with a few circles at first, it is actually pretty detailed with small fibers making a texture that creates the circle pattern. Overall, I am really happy with how this turned out. Of course, there are things that could have been better and that I would do differently in the future, but for now I am satisfied. This past week, I spent a lot of time continuing to punch out paper circles, and then pasting those paper circles into my book. I filled the inside flaps of all the pages with the circles, so when ou first look through the book it appears as practically blank, but then when you take the time to actually unfold the pages they are full of colored dots.
I am finally done with my quarter one home project!
I have mixed feelings about how it turned out, but am definitely glad i pushed myself to work with more of an unfamiliar medium. I like the overall look of the piece, but wish I had found a way to add a bit more depth, as I added many layers and don't think they necessarily achieved this. For awhile I worried the piece lacked interest, but at the last minute decided to add a new color and some dots to tie in the paper scraps. I think this definitely helped, but still I think the piece could be a bit more interesting. Although I like the content of this piece, which ties into some of my other work, I don't think it necessarily shows through this piece. However, it was never my intention to make the content obvious to the viewer, and I did keep it in mind throughout my process. To me, this is about the balance of chaos and order, or simplicity and complexity (ideas I have played with before) within the thought and experimentation process. Clearly, there are a few things I don't love about this piece, but again, overall, I am really glad I made it. It was fun to step out of my comfort zone and work with paint, and to be able to go back to the piece week after week adding more and more layers. I like all of the texture in the piece, and hope to use some similar techniques in some of my future work, paintings or not, as I did in this. Above is a slideshow showing the steps I took in order to make the cover for my book. It was a very tedious and long process, but I am happy with how it turned out. I first added some strength to the spine of the book with some cardstock. Then, I cut the main structure of the cover. Next, I focused on the visuals of the cover, layering a few types of paper. I then attached the structure of the cover to the the sheet of layered paper. I had to cut the corners of the sheet to prevent any issues or bumps when I was "wrapping" the cover. Lastly, I attached the entire cover to the pages of my book.
This past week, I first added some thick splotches of paint so I could add some more of the texture that I had added at the very beginning on the project. I thought adding more of these squiggly lines would add some more continuity and interest to the piece. I did not worry too much about the colors I added to this layer, because I knew they would be covered up. Next, I added some paper dots to the whole piece. I plan on adding even more later. Then, I did another layer of gray, still keeping some of the color, dots, and texture exposed.
This week I continued to prepare my pages for binding by doing some measuring and poking some holes in the spine, and then I went ahead and completed the binding. I think it went pretty well, except for one loose area on the right. I didn't realize that there was extra string tucked into the book until I was done, so there is no easy way to fix that right side. Luckily, I can just tie it off and then it will be hidden by the cover of the book, The pages all have a flap that folds out, making the non binded side of the book appear to be folded, as all of the pages are. Below is a picture of one of the interior pages.
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