What's Happening in the Studio

After a long summer of moving to our first home, the studio is up and running.  Here are a few snapshots of what I'm currently working on.  There are two potential bodies of work starting now.  The first are what I'm calling "pennant drawings".  They're constructed from torn segments of other drawings and collage material. 

It takes a considerable amount of time to make the fragments.  I'm asking myself a lot of questions right now: do the fragments need to be hand drawn?  By me?  What content/effect does having collage material from old magazines offer?  How can I make these bigger?  Are they a timeline or record?  This idea started with a series of drawings from summer of 2008 that were combined.  Here's how they looked individually:

 

 And then when I put them all together:

The other thread I'm starting to explore is garish color and the power of repetition.  I think I'm drawn to pattern right now because of my constant exploration of fabrics and interior design for our home.  I especially like Amy Butler's designs; she is not afraid of color!  I fluctuate between natural and neutral colors and bright, almost primary colors in my compositions.  In learning about Amy's process--in which she designs the seed pattern or motif in paint, and then it is replicated--I wondered how hard it was to create my own.  This is my first attempt:

 

I'm going to scan it soon and see what it looks like replicated.  I was pretty shocked at my color choices as I went along.  I kept pushing myself out of my comfort zone whenever selecting the next color.  What I find intriguing is how repetition mitigates the discordance of the color.  This led me to really push it.  First I was looking for motifs...here's the first steps:

  And then here's where it went:

It's not complete yet, but whoa!  That's a whole lot of color for me.  We'll see where it goes...

There are some other directions starting to form, but these are the two most prominent.  Alongside them, here's what else is percolating...