Inspiration: Hannah Höch.

Tags

art, art history, collage, dada, hannah höch, inspiration

Hannah Höch is not just one of my favorite collage artists, but she’s one of my favorite artists, period. Full stop. During my senior thesis “Cut With the Kitchen Knife” – a collection of her work – lived in my studio space and not a day went by that I didn’t soak in it. She seems to be a bit obscure outside of the world of art nerds, which is unfortunate as she’s nothing short of amazing.

One thing you need to keep in mind when you view her work is that collage/photomontage was an entirely new art form. She wasn’t just revolutionizing modern art while she worked, she was inventing something completely and totally new. Some artists (Picasso, for one) had experimented with adding found materials to their work, but making work solely out of found images was an entirely new thing that exploded out of the Dada movement and the relatively new abundance of printed photographs. (Not that people hadn’t printed photos before, but the 30s saw more and more photos of higher quality being distributed in newspapers, magazines, and such.)

Even now, 80 years later, her work is completely revolutionary.

Cut With the Kitchen Knife.

The Bride.

On the Way to Seventh Heaven.

Heads of State.

The Beautiful Girl.

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Everyday I’m Whufflin’…

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daily whuff, instagram, photos

What we’re up to… hangin’ in the studio, making art, eating burgers… and cribs… getting excited about new board games and demonstrating EXACTLY why you should be wiping your cart handles down with the complimentary Purell wipes.

Collage Tutorial: Cutting Things Up.

Tags

art, collage, tutorial

Ok, so you have your source material. You’ve sorted it into piles that make sense to you. And now, you want to put them together. So, you’ve got to cut them up. Now what?

While working on shows and cutting up thousands (seriously, thousands) of pieces, I learned that the most efficient way to cut pieces is in stages. To do this, you will want scissors (preferably in varying sizes, but if you can only pick one, pick a mid-sized scissor), an exacto knife, a cutting mat (I use self-healing mats designed for sewing), and extra blades. Lots of extra blades. A sharp knife is key in avoiding torn edges and hand cramps.

Like so. I use all three sizes of scissors for different things: big ones for cutting the general area of a piece out of a full page before saving it, medium for trimming down pieces before cutting with a knife, and small for trimming the edges off of larger pieces. These scissors were a gift to myself after using just regulation large scissors for years and getting exasperated with them and/or losing them just one too many times. They’re awesome.

I have had this knife since college. My knife and I? We tight. It should be noted that I’ve spent hundreds of hours cutting paper and the *only* time I ever cut myself with the knife was when I was using it to try and remove a label from something. This is to say, if you’re careful when you work and you always use a sharp blade, cutting yourself is rare. I’ve honestly cut myself with scissors more than my knife.

So, to show my process, I’m going to demonstrate with the fiddly bitty bird paper.

This is the paper as it exists pre-cutting. As you can see, it’s a sheet of wrapping paper with the fiddly bird motif repeated. If I were to just take my knife to this and try to capture a single bird, it would take me all afternoon and make me more than a little twitchy.

So. I cut it down first, with the medium scissors.

This has two advantages, it’s now easier for me to see what I’m doing and cut the itty bitty wings much more carefully and it also preserves all of the other birds on the paper – preventing me from accidentally slicing through one with the knife.

And now! The knife! This is the tricky time-intensive part. I would not recommend something like these wings for beginners. It’s totally possible to get very, very precise results with the knife, but it’s also very, very easy to slip and slice through the very tiny detail you’re trying to preserve. Y’know how the advice for most things is to start small? Yeah, with cutting with an exacto knife, start BIG.

Twenty minutes and umpteen cusswords later… You can see when the piece is set on its own like this that it’s not pristine. The little imperfections will disappear when you set it in context of larger collage. I promise. What you want is a clean, crisp image – if you end up with hints of background or non-straight edges, that’s ok. Over-correcting when trimming can be much, much worse than leaving a little around the edges.

Though I will say – and I can’t emphasize this enough – if you’re serious about making clean looking collages, you absolutely must use a knife. You simply can not get precise results with scissors, no matter how small the scissor or how carefully you cut.

One more thing to point out – I cut almost all of my pieces down to the second stage seen here before storage, otherwise storing whole sheets takes up huge amounts of room and cutting pieces down later becomes time-consuming when I’d rather be assembling. The only time I leave pages whole is when it contains more than one image that I’d like to use. I almost never cut images all the way down before storing – the only time that happens is when I cut it to use it and then it doesn’t work in the piece.

Next up – taking all these things that you cut and making a new thing out of them!

Tendresse.

Tags

art, breastfeeding, collage, ii, tendresse

I’m really happy with this one. Really, REALLY happy with it. Probably as happy with it as I get with my own work. (I, like a lot of artists, have a bit of “my own worst critic” syndrome.)

Also, the jewelry bit was so damned fiddly and YEARGH I RIPPED IT. Thankfully, the grapes fit *exactly* over the ripped spot so no one but me (and now you) is the wiser!

(Not) For Babies: Real Love.

Tags

birth playlist, covers, john lennon, music, real love, regina spektor

Definitely the most appropriate song on my birth playlist. And also, John Lennon and Regina Spektor? Two great tastes that taste great together.  I’d be lying if this version of the song didn’t make me a little misty every single time.

From this moment on I know exactly where my life will go, seems like all I really was doing was waiting for love. No need to be afraid, no need to be afraid. It’s real love. Yes, it’s real love. Thought I’d been in love before, but in my heart I wanted more. Seems like I really was doing was waiting for you. 

Orange Mamas.

Tags

art, collage, motherhood, orange

In progress? I dunno. I can’t tell if this one is finished or not. I spent a good chunk of time last night adding more elements before finally gluing it down and deciding that at least for now, less is more. It feels the most finished this way of any of its iterations pre-glue… but still unsure.

PS: I’m posting some shots of work in progress on Instagram/Twitter. Username redsonika for both. 🙂

EDIT: I finished it! Thank you so much for all your feedback. I really feel like it’s truly “done” now. It’s amazing what a difference just one more element can make. (Though just as often it goes the other way and one more element just ruins the whole thing! Hence my caution.)

New! Addition!

Tags

nesting, studio

… to the studio. No, we haven’t expanded our family with any new mammals, just furniture.

For the first time in my adult life, I have a real honest to Dog guest bed in my home. The initial plan was to put it in the room that has now become Nuno’s study and have my studio double as a playroom for Paulo… but Paulo hates the studio. Seriously, were it not for him looking like a clone of me, I’d have my doubts about his maternal lineage. Doesn’t like my studio. Doesn’t like books. Next you’re going to tell me that he secretly hates R.E.M. and we’re going to have big problems.

MOVING ON.

Anyhow, my studio is a hell of a lot bigger than the study, so it makes a lot of sense on that level for extra furniture to find its way up here. Especially things like “guest beds” that aren’t going to be used on a daily basis. Except… that we chose a futon instead of a traditional bed for exactly this reason and so, it’s totally being used on a daily basis for me to sit on while I cut things. And it’s awesome.

 PS: to any potential guests? Those piles of papers/books/general art related detritus? Would all be cleaned up prior to your arrival. I make no promises about the cat, however.

I might even get that lamp working (the wiring situation up here is… precarious.). Still no promises about the cat.

Might as well face it, the cat really ties the room together.

(PS: Guests? Yeah, it’ll be infinitely cleaner than this should you decide to visit. Though you’ll thank me for the space heater. Still no promises on the cat.)

(Not) For Babies: Archipelago.

Tags

archipelago, birth playlist, mirah, music

I love this song so much and it’s just so beautiful and amazing to me that it’s only JUST NOW that it occurred to me that it’s a break-up song. And yes, I listened to it over and over and over again right before Paulo’s birth – but it was this part that got me: I’m in the archipelago and I’m waiting to arrive. I’m in the archipelago and I know I’m still alive. So much waiting, so much hope.

 

Collage Tutorial: Source Material.

Tags

art, collage, source material, tutorial

I’m so overwhelmed by the response to my post “Processing the Process” which made it to the WP front page. Wow, thanks to everyone who commented, followed, liked, etc. It’s really incredible that I put this thing out there out of… well, nowhere – I didn’t premeditate that post at all, I just sat down and typed and there it was… and it’s gotten such an amazing, amazing response.

One of the most incredible things I’ve been hearing is from people who used to do collage and feel like they want to get back into it (yes!) or people who see collage and think “Yeah, I want to try that.” So, for this group, I’m putting together a little tutorial on the nuts and bolts in working in collage. It’s not going to be exhaustive, by any means, but I hope it’s at least helpful.

First thing you need to do to work in collage is to find your source material. Collage/photomontage is all about putting together new images out of found images, so first – you gotta find the images.

This is my pile of source material as it stands right now (minus a few random magazines). This… is nothing. The reason it’s so tiny is that this just the total bare-bones what I can’t live without version of my source material library. I just recently started working again after a long hiatus and during that hiatus, I first had a baby in a 1BR apartment – necessitating that I clear out a lot of extra stuff to make room for exciting things such as changing tables and rocking chairs – and then we moved, again necessitating I winnow down my piles and piles of crap lest I want to pack and move them all. So, this is my “desert island” pile of material.

And oh yes, I use books. Lots of books. This is a tricky decision to make for a lot of people and by far, this is the part of my artistic process I’ve received the most flack for. Yes, I love books and believe that books are incredibly special and important – but to me, re-using pages from books in the form of art isn’t the same as destroying or burning a book for the sake of, well, destroying it. If you’re uncomfortable using books in your work, magazines also make for good source material but there’s not as much variety. Of course, if you work digitally, you can just scan the book pages without having to sacrifice anything – but I do things the old fashioned way.

This is an unruly pile of source material that I’ve collected over the past two years. This is actually staged on the floor like this because I’m done with it. It hasn’t inspired me for two years, so I’m chucking it. Of course, in the mean time, I don’t have much of a library built up… so… it’s just lying on the floor until I have enough new stuff to work with.

The first step after you’ve find source material that inspires you is to go through it and start selecting images. I most often do this while watching something – sit down with my books and magazines and simply pull out images that I think I’d like to work with at some point. This isn’t the time for cutting or getting fancy, just ripping the page will do.

As you do this, you of course build up a lot of pages. A LOT of pages. When I was working on my senior thesis, I had work tables just *covered* with pieces. It was a mess. I had a sort of organizational “system” but it was mostly just a mess. You absolutely need at least the bare minimum of organization to be able to work effectively, even if that’s just “This is a pile of chairs” and “This is a pile of faces.”

You can see here that this is a pile of nature images, going into a folder. And lo, this is why there’s a giant pile on my floor – I emptied my folders in order to fill them again. The systems I use for my folders really make no sense outside of my head and every person is going to have their own ideas for how to organize their images.

What’s important is that you’re going to want to have three types of images: background, subjects, and filler. Or, if you work on plain paper (which I do rarely), you just need subject and filler. If you really like birds and only cut out birds, you’re not going to be able to make very interesting work with just a pile of birds. You’re going to need other elements for them to play off of.

This is my folder pile, all stacked up and neat like it never, ever is. I really like these clear folders because it’s easy for me to see what’s in them. And yes, I have a mental category system for the colors in order to tell them apart at a glance. It took me *years* of working to come to this system as opposed to just piles and/or drawers full of papers. It has its advantages in terms of storage, that’s for sure. And I can indeed find things easier, though sometimes it feels like I’m always opening the wrong folder, it still beats digging a drawer for twenty minutes to find that ONE piece that I NEED and it’s at the bottom of a pile of random stuff and it just takes forever to find.

Once you accumulate your sources, you’re ready to start with the next step – cutting things up! Which we’ll get to next time!

Weekly Recap.

Holy cow has this ever been a crazy week for my blog. Having a post featured on the front page of WordPress has increased my traffic rates *ten fold.* It’s totally bizarre.

Naturally, it’s got me considering where I want to go with this in the future as the art posts are new here and I do want to continue with them… but then does that become the focus? And then what about The Whuff? I’m leaning towards not over thinking it and whatever I want to post – that’s what I’m going to post. So, if you’re new, try not to be too disappointed if this is not an “all art all the time” blog and if you’re really only interested in Mr. Whuffles, try to make a little room for some art. Ok!

Things I’ve seen on the intertubes! That you might also enjoy!

Birth Markings is a wonderful short film (20min) of women showing their bellies and telling their stories of their relationships to their bodies post-baby. I personally hate the idea of getting back to my “pre-pregnancy” state because my body has fundamentally changed – this was wonderful to watch and made me feel more comfortable with my own little muffin top.

Couple Reveals Child’s Gender 5 Years Later.  I’m totally amazed at these parents and their dedication to what’s important to them in refusing to budge in answering everyone else’s curiosity. Gendering in children is such a weird phenomenon, and this is really amazing partly because it’s just so much *easier* to buy the “blue is for boys, pink is for girls” marketing shtick than to try to walk a neutral middle road.

Bewildering and Intriguing Vintage Ads… Featuring Babies. I should show the 7-Up ad to my pediatrician when she starts giving me flack about letting my son have (watered down!) apple juice instead of plain water. And you know what my strawberry blonde/blue eyed baby really needs? A TAN! Right before he starts shaving!

While people sometimes have trouble with Paulo’s name [POW-lo], he should be grateful that I vetoed the very idea of a Sci-Fi name. The whole name nerd’s List of the Week page is a name, well, nerd’s wet dream.

As if my crazy mad birth playlist posting wasn’t enough for you – Rookie Mag has a playlist devoted to Adventures in Babysitting.

French children don’t throw food. I’ve seen a lot of these things true about Portuguese children as well. I wouldn’t describe this as a “better” method of parenting than what’s typical for the US, just very different.

Annnnddddd, something artsy! A peek inside the studio from Michelle of Armas Design.