A Little Tease, Works-in-Progress

Turned on its side outside, drying in the sun this afternoon, is a four-drawer chest I'm working on for a friend. I completely stripped it and primed it inside and out with a nice bright white to give myself a clean slate. I'm going with all the flaws in this old wooden piece, highlighting each and every repair someone made to it through the years. The main color is a grayish green, inside and out for a beachy look. This side is rather Harlequin-like, with the diamond-shape segments of the checkerboard a new motif for me. I was analyzing an antique afghan my grandmother made and then decided to use those diamond "pieces" in my next piece of art. More to come as I finish it!

My newest painting is on industrial-grade grooved plywood. I found a bunch of pieces of it at a construction site, cut in various sizes and thrown out next to a dumpster. I walked home with all I could carry under my arms! This is a first layer of painting. I'll sand this down and then do as many as 12-15 more layers of paint and glazes. The right edge will get some gold-leaf paint, evocative of a frame as none of my pieces are ever framed.

WIPs—Cardboard Quilts' Early Layers

M Y   A R T — I've begun the "painting and papering" phase of my next series and thought I'd post a few of the works-in-progress, or WIPs, as the kids say, lol. These are all of my "trademarked" cardboard quilt construction. The pre-cut cardboard squares are assembled in three overlapping layers for strength and texture. I'm covering these base layers with pre-printed patterned paper that was originally meant for scrapbooking. I've mentioned on this blog before that this huge book of patterned paper reminds me of those large books of wallpaper I loved to peruse as a child. These pieces will probably eventually receive top layers of vintage portraits. My typical pieces might have 7-8 layers of paper images and 10-20 layers of painted stripes and squares, all mixed with layers of polyurethane and wall joint compound. These pieces will be in the 15-25 inches high x 25-36 inches wide range.

The "theory" behind these pieces is just to show how I see things. By using pre-cut cardboard squares—culled from boxes of advance books where they're used as packing spacers—and preprinted paper, I'm using mundane everyday items. I'm using these colors and textures next to each other, on top of each other, some relating to each other, some standing proudly alone. When I view the world, I tend to see most everything as simplified colors and shapes and how they relate to the simplified colors and shapes around them. I'm always cropping sights I see—editing them, adding to them—it's just an automatic thing on my part, the way my brain works. Probably why I tend to wander around a lot, lol.