I promised to post one of my pieces from the nevermore series, so like Horton (Dr. Seuss reference), I am true to my word.
This piece is called silence unbroken . It is about 12 inches square and is a good piece to demonstrate the mixed media I worked with for that series. The base image is a segment of a photograph I took in colour then had printed onto artist grade paper in black and white. The paper is mounted onto 1/2″ plywood/birch veneer with artist acrylic medium. I added colour to and manipulated the peeling wood by accenting areas of light and shadow with prismacolor pencil crayons. The raven’s feather is drawn on Mylar with grease pencil, cut out and glued on. I copied the photograph of the little girl (actually my aunt who is about 82 now) onto a transparency sheet, cut her out and glued her on. The curtain is is not part of the photograph but is cheesecloth that I added to the surface. The viewer really has to look to see which elements of the composition are part of the flat photographic base image and which have been added to the surface. For example, the ropes hanging down are not 3-D at all yet they look like they are.
It occurs to me now that I should post another image from this show as most of the other pieces have these elements and some charcoal and watercolour paint work.
Here is a second piece, psyche: through an ether of sighs. See what I mean by the vine charcoal work in the corners that gives the work a pin hole camera look? The blue out the window is watercolour paint. The image of ‘psyche’ is a photo (transparency) of my paternal grandmother when she was very young. The raven image is China Marker on Mylar, like the single feather in the previous image. Again, all of the colour you see in the walls, window frame etc. is done with pencil crayon.
There. Now I have given you a peek into my process for this series. What do you think?
By the way, most of the work from this show is available for purchase (except silence unbroken ). If you want to check out the whole series go to my website: http://www.CJMcKinnon.ca
All for now,
Happy Canada Day!!
Carri
SASKARTGIRL! 