the art and imagination of Jen Minnis
a while back, i posted my experiments with a fusion paper variation. i’ve been playing around with it a lot more.
this painting is a combonation of a 5×7 canvas i had tried out a painting techniques on over a year ago that didn’t come out (i had it out to try out the Try It Tuesdays technique on), one of my fusion paper sheets, and some watersoluble oil pastels. the fusion paper sheet had a sugestion of a door already somewhat there… so i brought it out.
ok, this is my opportunity to brag 
on Saturday, Paul and i had an Art Date. this coming weekend is the ATC meetup in El Ceritto….. and the month’s “theme” is going to be a RR collaborative. we’re all supposed to bring 12 started ATCs. Paul usually comes to the meetings with me and has been getting involved… but he’s still shy and doesn’t jump in too much. so, some warm up and encouraging was in order… hence the art date.
i asked Paul about what kind of backgrounds he would like to make for the swap. gave him lots of easy options (with examples) and let him decide. he decided on a dry brushing technique with lumiere paints on black cardstock. he made 2 random background sheets… then he started playing with patterned brushstrokes (not drybrush). this was the sheet he made and gave to me to use sometime… he decided it was too good to cut up into ATCs, lol.
after that, we took a break (that was a lot of creative exercise for my self conscious guy) and ran some errands. on the way, i offered to buy him a treat… we ended up at Michael’s getting papers and such for HIM to stash to play with later…
then home and a bit of time watching a movie… then on to more art time. in prep for the RR aspect, he practiced working on finishing ATCs. previously, he had made a grand total of 2 finished cards (both drawn abstracts). so, in the process of the rest of the evening, he made 1 card and started to collect imagery and bits for 2 more. this is a big step for him
This collage is my attempt to express the counterpoint balance of rationality/imagination, reality/ fantasy, science/ spirituality. the title is also the title of a poem I wrote years ago.
the base of this collage was my 5th attempt (on canvasboard) at the Try It Tuesdays technique for may 16, 2006. the green stripes and block were cut from a one of my other attempts that was done on watercolor paper.
if you are interested in Try it Tuesdays, check it out at http://tryittuesdays.wordpress.com/
if you are interested, read more about my experiments with the technique…
Continue reading ‘Wonderland and the Boneroom’
this is a quilt top made from an image transfer of a collage I did last year. this quilt top has been sitting in my fiber arts work basket for a looooong time. I finally finished up the embroidery on it. now I’m stuck on whether to make it into a pillow like I had planned…. or to turn it into a mini art quilt to hang.
it’s made to finish 16″ square… and I couldn’t get a very good picture of it. the colors are really off. it’s much brighter in real life.
I’ve been working on this shawl for almost 10 years now. for the first 9, I had only 5 motifs done. now I have all the motifs done through the peach… and it’s just a process of attaching each to the shawl with the last round of cream.
here is a closer up of the motifs. sorry it’s blurry… it is really fighting my camera. also, the cream and peach really don’t show off best against my brown carpet. really, they are very warm and yummy colors. at some point I will get a better picture for you all.
here it is just slightly more than half way done. I have 3 more rows to do…. then the border and fringe. the end is actually in sight!!
this is going out in tomorrow’s mail for Lisa Vollrath’s Postcards 4 Peace project.
this is also more work for the use what you have challenge. i had made these frottage rubbings from my scherenschnitte a while back and never decided what to do with them.
I recently got my first moleskine journal, and I’m just starting to fill it… this is the first spread *in progress*.
this background was created in a method that was inspired by Tracy Bautista‘s Fusion Papers Technique. in her technique, you take dyed paper towels or tissue papers and “fuse” them by gluing them together with a watered down glue mixture on freezer paper and then peeling the papers away after they dry. the resulting papers are transparent. it’s a very exciting technique…
but this spin resulted because I use freezer paper as a protective layer on my work surface when painting layers on collage work. I get sloppy and go over edges… and stamp with paints… and… and make a glorious mess that I often wish I could use for future projects. however, since I work on freezer paper (because of that wonderful plastic surface) no adhesive or new layers will stick to it if I tried to add it to my work (because of that plastic surface)…. this was my dilemma.
then I thought of how you could peel the tissue away from the freezer paper in Traci’s technique… and I decided to try an experiment. I took a square of white tissue paper and glued it down over the most interesting area of my freezer paper mess. I let it dry for several hours (it really is important to let it dry well) and then peeled it up! it worked!! I ended up with a transparent film on which was the paint layers from that section of the freezer paper. I moved it to another section of the freezer paper and repeated the process… and again until I had lifted all the paint from the freezer paper and filled my film up with interesting paint texture. after it was fully dry, I glued it into my moleskine journal and trimmed it to the page edges.
hmmmm,… next up, painting onto the freezer paper deliberately in order to transfer the design onto a tissue paper film…. i feel loads of potential here.
these collages were made with the combined intention of 1. the Use What You Have month challenge and 2. finishing up old projects (the backgrounds) that are sitting around gathering dust and cluttering up my worktable.
both of these are now up over at www.esmecat.etsy.com
