Break Through

Sometimes you have one. Sometimes you just do it.

A few weeks ago, I was searching for inspiration with both hands, a magnifying glass, a flashlight, and a map. Today, the ideas are flowing so swiftly that even sleeping has become a dicey prospect. Feast or famine- it seems like it's always one or the other.

This new technique I'm developing- a kind of mixed-media applique- will be easier to explain with copious photos, and thankfully throughout this project I took them!

Having become obsessively fascinated with the intersections and negative spaces created by Stacked Journaling, and after completing several engrossing studies (check out my last few blog posts for photos of these experiments), I decided that it was time to launch a much more ambitious project.

I cut two yards of multi-purpose fabric, primed it with white gesso, and then painted it in a white-to-black gradation. I then cut the MPF into two pieces and set one aside to use as the background.

I took the other piece and flipped it over onto my large cutting mat. (Don't ask me why, but one side of the MPF the kind folks at Roc-Lon sent me is green. It gives me a giggle.) Using a thick, black Sharpie marker, and writing directly onto the fabric, I created a block of SJ. Then I began cutting out everything that wasn't Sharpie ink... all the negative spaces. And I mean all the negative spaces.

 

(back)

(front)

Here it is a little further along, turned over onto its future background.

(detail)
 

For the last two weeks, I've been cutting and cutting and cutting away at this poor piece of fabric, dulling and discarding many x-acto knives in the process. This is what it looked like when I was nearly finished cutting, laying face-up on my large (also green) cutting mat.

(gradation detail)

Finally yesterday, I finished cutting out the top layer and mounted it onto the background with gel medium.

("Fury" 24" x 35")

Now, perhaps, you can see my reason for painting one large piece of fabric and then cutting it into two pieces- I wanted to inverse the colors to create a dramatic contrast between the background and the SJ foreground.

I think I might be more proud of this piece than almost any other I've finished.

Now I'm going to take a few days off!

Happy creating!