The Search For Your Other Half

Remember English class: the theme of finding your soul mate, your other half, better half, kindred spirit, true love. Do you believe in this concept? Is there someone out there who is the one?

After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one . . .          Aristophanes’ speech from Plato’s Symposium

Other half

17” (l) x 5.5” (w)

(See the half circle below the piece? That’s a clay doodad: doo from doodle, that came about as a result of my doodles into clay marathon.)

Doodad: a decorative embellishment; trinket; bauble: an art quilt covered with doodads.

Doodles Keep Metamorphizing!

My doodles just keep metamorphizing! I tried stamping a few of my doodle stamps into an airdry clay, called “Makin’s Clay.” I’ll definitely be doing more of this! I really like the finished texture of the pieces: it’s like a very smooth paper. I made a button which I painted: the surface took the paint very well, and I applied acrylic medium (to seal the paint). So far the medium has not reacted with the clay in any undesirable way.

Clay pieces

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Painted button

Doodles Into Handmade Stamps

Now I’ve turned a few doodles into stamps. The one with the blue smudges was used on the fabric below (the small, partial, turquoise patterns).

Here is another stamp, and the scrap piece of fabric I stamped onto.

I’d love it if you’d share with me how you make your stamps. These are pieces of fun foam sheets (the kiddie stuff) glued onto a base of the same material; the most playful were the ones produced very quickly with scrap pieces. I’ve always thought I should carve stamps using lino, erasers, or some kind of carving block, but then you need a hand tool, and all kinds of carving tips, and on and on. It just never seemed to happen. This was soooo simple. All I needed was the fun foam sheets, an exacto knife, a sharp pair of scissors and printed patterns. I actually just glued the pattern, after I printed it out, onto the fun foam with white glue. That made cutting out the pattern, and placing it on the correct spot on the base, ridiculously easy.

I’ll post a few more fabric samples in the next day or two. I also have some more of my weekly quilts coming up . . .

Turning a doodle into a pattern

I’m going to start out with a less than remarkable doodle. Sometimes doodles really have zing! and you blink, shake your head and say, “Wow! How did this come out of that ho-hum meeting? ” Other times, I simply save them out of habit, or curiosity as to how I can fiddle with them and make something else.

The first pic is my original doodle. Then I fix it up, make it straight, refine a little in Photoshop Elements. I repeat the doodle for a full sheet of pattern.

I can use the pattern just like this, collage it onto my painting or quilt, then paint it whatever color/s I like. Or I can apply it to an appropriate background, placing the background behind my design and ending up with something like this:

The background is a photo I took of rust on a ship.

This process would make a wonderful workshop topic, which I would be happy to teach. Creating marks, doodling, fooling around, whatever you feel comfortable calling it . . . and then transforming the results into art papers that can be used in your work. You could also simply print out the black & white version and paint that, or use paintstiks, ink, whatever! Scan your results, and keep experimenting. It’s a bit like Alice down the rabbit hole: the adventure goes on and on! Time disappears. The wonderful difference is that when you ‘wake up,’ instead of disorientation, you have a bunch of original art papers!

Compulsive Doodling and the Patterns They Can Reveal . . .

It doesn’t matter how boring the meeting, how long the wait at the airport or doctor’s office, as long as I have a couple of good black pens and a small pad of paper, I am HAPPY! I love to doodle, and I have binders full of doodle designs to attest for that fact. At one of the workshops I attended, the instructor, trained as a fine artist, was appalled to hear the word doodling: drawing or sketching would be the correct terms. However, there is an effective psychological factor of not taking one’s self too seriously, which makes doodling not only acceptable, but preferable. I am an avid doodler: it makes me giggle just to say it!

So, you’re wondering, just what do I do with all those doodles?

I am soooo glad you asked. At one time, I made papier mache jewelry: earrings, brooches, special beads for small bags. Nowadays, I take them into Photoshop Elements and layer, repeat, flip, apply filters, paint new layers, and then start all over again! These results can be printed onto fabric or tissue paper, and become part of a new mixed media art quilt (MMAQ). They can also become the basis of painted tissue paper for collage, or stamps and stencils. I will post some examples, soon.

I have a pattern hero: this woman uses pattern masterfully. Her name is Anne Bagby. As she says:

I get my patterns from everywhere — fabric stores, wall paper and Dover books. The stamps are cut with lino-cutters using the v-tips. for small stamps, I use an exacto knife. I print layers of pattern, texture and glazes — watercolor first, then acrylic, brushes, squeeze bottles and sponges. This process produces a rich, complex surface.

What an inspiration for anyone who wants to use pattern effectively!

Of course, now I also have my small digital camera, as well, so I can collect images and subject them to the same treatment as the doodle, or combine them!

The fun just goes on and on and on . . . . .