Category: Longhaired Dachshund Calendar

Longhaired Dachshund Calendar: February Collage

Here is my Darby calendar collage for the month of February. This one was less of a struggle than January's collage. It helped to sketch an idea first…

It also helped to look at a masterpiece. I printed out Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles, 1888, and referred to it often…

I also discovered that Van Gogh was much more methodical than is often assumed. Here are two sketches of Bedroom in Arles. One sent to his brother Theo…

And this one sent to his friend and fellow artist Paul Gaugin…

The other piece I printed out was this Romare Bearden collage. I don't know the name of it. I kept coming back to his blocks of color…

Now, on to March. I think it's going to be about Darby in the miner's lettuce…

March 8, 2011
Dispatch from Dog Bar: Digging Out

There was no update on my collage progress last Friday because on Thursday we got hit with a major storm here in the California foothills. I'm from Cleveland, so I know snow. I know cold. I am used to living alone in my little house and stoking the wood stove to keep off the chill. But nothing prepared me for the intensity of what went down last week. I've tried to explain it to flatlander friends (flatlander = someone who doesn't live in the hills). The closest I got was "it was like an 20-hour avalanche, a meteor shower, the London Blitz, and being tossed in a ship at sea." Yes, I exaggerate, but how else to convey that I was terrified?

More than that, I was shocked how quickly my emotional state unraveled. Like a cosmic game of musical chairs, the storm came, the power went out, and all the stuff that fills up your brain — Facebook, phone, cellphone, Rachel Maddow, Oprah, The Real Housewives, Charlie Sheen updates, the furnace kicking on, hot showers, looking in the refrigerator — stops. And you're stuck with your thoughts and a cold nose and trying to figure out how to use your new oil lamps and realizing how easy it would be to knock it over and set the town on fire. And it just keeps snowing. And chunks of ice fall from the sky. Trees too. And I can see how not that long ago it was a triumph to make it through the winter. Because it still is. I took some photos of my day inside and the aftermath outside. Nothing captures the drama. And now that the sun is out, I have trouble remembering it myself. In fact, it looks kind of cozy…

This is my neighbor's tree, about 50 feet away from my house…

Look in the branches to see the tree trimmers. Yes, that is a house behind the tree…

Before the storm, I had been dissecting Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles, looking at the light, the composition, the perspective…

This was the direction I was headed…

Now, after my trip back to 19th century oil-lamp lighting, and my new thoughts about the fragile state of my psyche in isolation, I might make the piece darker.

I also briefly became a cat person. I'm telling you things got nuts. Bones, my neighbor's outdoor cat who is one of the toughest creatures I have ever met, cried her way inside. My neighbor is out of town.

My sister and her husband came an rescued me on Saturday afternoon. I spent a lovely night at her house playing Jenga with her girls, watching "The Social Network" and falling asleep to the rattle of their new generator. She blogged about it here.

Finally, it stopped snowing. My friend Ruth of Camping in Style, who posted about coming unglued in the storm here and made me feel like less of a wimp, took this photo…

Today I am getting back to "normal." Tomorrow I need to get more firewood. Another storm is on its way.

February 28, 2011
Sketching Solutions and a Quickfire Challenge

I received so much insightful feedback from many of you artists about my ongoing Darby calendar project. Superheidi of The Swing of Things was especially helpful when she advised “Just keep going on creating, don’t evaluate just yet. Somehow you’ll notice in which direction you are heading and then it’s easier to make choices and you can set some boundaries. I freak out when I think I want to create a ‘master piece,’ because the subject matters. It won’t work that way.”

She is right. I was freaking myself out. And it wasn’t working. So I found an old notebook and started sketching loose ideas. The first one (above) helped me put the pieces in place for the final January collage (below).

Then, I started playing around with ideas for February. The Narcissus is blooming in my yard, but instead of going outside, I’d like to include the interior too. That’s February here in Northern California — a cozy fire and spring flowers coming up. Also, I want to use this photograph I took…

Here’s my first idea…

Then, I did some close up sketches of Darby, trying to figure out where he puts his paws when he sits like this…

Finally, I went back to the pieces I didn’t end up using in my January collage and gave myself a “Quickfire Challenge” — a concept from the Bravo TV show Top Chef where the contestants are given limited time and ingredients to cook something delicious. Don’t think. Just cut and paste, I told myself. I made this in about 30 minutes with the January leftovers…

It felt very liberating.

February 18, 2011
Done…almost

My January collage of Darby is almost finished. I'm stepping away from it today and tomorrow I will disassemble it and glue it back together, the trickiest part, imo. As you can see, I scrapped everything from my first iteration except for the idea of Darby sleeping in the nest and the speckled paper.

This has been the most challenging collage I have ever worked on. I don't know if that's because I haven't made one in a while or if I am too close to the subject. I think the pressure I put on myself to memorialize my dog undid me a bit. Maybe I should just spend time with my dog. Enjoy his reality instead of trying to capture his essence. I still don't know. I might do some "throw away" pieces before I begin on February. Stay tuned.

P.S. The nest includes strips of the Peaceful Valley seed catalog. The bird brings another strip in his beak. Graphic designer Milton Glaser says it's ok to explain one's work.

P.P.S. Thanks, Rebecca Collins of ArtPaw, for sending me this link to images of The Eight Dog Chronicles, 18th century Japanese books that fired my imagination in a new way.

February 11, 2011
Slow Going

It’s February 5 and I haven’t finished my collage for January. My process spread out all over the house — pages ripped from magazines on every surface — and it made me feel crabby. I like things neat. Art is not neat.

Here’s where I am headed. It is not coming together. But I guess it is coming along…

February 5, 2011
My Collage Process

Actually, I am still discovering my collage process. Especially since, as I’ve mentioned, this year I am creating a series of Darby collages to include in a 2012 Longhaired Dachshund calendar. I’ve never worked on a series before. These are some photos of my first steps.

I spent a significant amount of time cutting out silhouettes of Darby sleeping. Then, decided I wanted to use the actual photograph instead. This is an important decision for a collage artist. Are you going to use the photo or deconstruct the photo and build the shape out of other materials? I wanted to use natural and/or Japanese paper in each collage and I liked the idea of Darby made out of the speckled paper, like an eggshell in the nest. And I wanted to use the feather paper beneath the nest. But both didn’t feel right. So I’ve put these attempts aside. For now.

Every time we go for a walk, I spend time looking at the colors I see, and the natural world my dog interacts with. Brown, green, and a hint of purple are January this year. Here are some images I intend to work with, including photos I took of succulents in my yard.

Here’s my work table. Yes, those are real deer antlers hanging on my fence…

One of the challenges I discovered was that I kept finding images I wanted to use for other months. I considered buying another table, but knew I would lose the saved images under piles of more saved images. So I decided to put everything up on the wall. I used Scotch Reusable Tabs. They work well, secure but easy to remove without damaging the paper.

I’ve also been working on compositions for future months and posted them on the wall too…

Here’s the direction I’m headed. I placed a lighter version of speckled paper behind the nest…

P.S. When I was finishing up yesterday, I noticed a scrap of paper on the window sill. I put some pine cones behind it (I’ve become obsessed with the artistic and engineering genius of the pine cone since I moved here — I used to think they were corny) and took a picture. It was a nice reminder about simplicity and the happy accidents that occur in the studio.

I’m so glad to be back.

January 28, 2011