Balance

I am pulled between two very different color stories.  I am energized and excited by the intense, saturated colors like the ones I dyed last week.  But the historian in me is also drawn to the grungy, vintage browns, rusts, and sepia colors that evoke a weathered past.  So to balance all the color from my last post, I decided to go vintage this week for my Texture Tuesday submissions.  Kim left the theme up to us, as long as we use at least one layer of her textures.  That part was easy, since she freely offers so many of her gorgeous textures.... but sometimes I find it hard to come up with interesting images to use in the first place.  I am looking forward to taking some online photography classes, as well as going on some "real-life" photo walks this fall, so hopefully I'll start to get some inspiration.  In the meantime, check out Kim's cafe for some wonderfully inventive uses of texture.

This photo was taken at 6 am on Friday.  My dog, Jackson, is an early riser, and I have learned to keep my camera handy just in case.....

Processed with Kim Klassen's "Thursday" (soft light @100%, color burn @16%, and linear burn @35%) and her "Scripted Autumn" (soft light @60%, texture brushed off of sky)

I see so many people setting up their own still lifes, so I gave it a try:

Kim Klassen's "Luminous" (soft light @100% and overlay @33%) and her "Pourvous" (overlay @53%, texture brushed off books and jug.)

This is an antique mixing bowl, which I set on the table runner I made from my erosion bundle fabrics:

I can't find where I wrote my recipe for this one, oops!

Speaking of erosion bundles... I started a new one on September 15th:

This one has a lot of rusty stuff bundled up in there, along with several photographs.  It's mostly fabric this time; fewer papers.  I decided I like the weathered look that you get from rubbing citrasolv on National Geographic pages better than the aged papers I got from the erosion bundle (with a lot less effort ) -- so this time I focused more on seeing what a year of weathering will do to fabrics.  Check out this space again in a year for the results!!

Gratuitous Jackson pic:

Hipstamatic shot taken on my iphone, processed with two layers of Kim's "Warm Sun" (overlay @50% and color burn @17%)

I'll close with a page from my art journal:

I was thinking I couldn't link up with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Art Journal Every Day this month because I am not always able to work directly in my journal...

But then I thought about it some more, and decided that yes I can!  Taking photographs counts as journal time, because I might use the images as collage fodder.  Working on the erosion bundle counts, because I'll use the eroded materials in my journal in some fashion or other.  Dyeing tissue paper counts, because one day I'll use pieces in a journal page.  I've decided that as long as I'm following my artistic impulses -- no matter how circuitous they may seem to an observer -- one of these days I'll get to wherever it is I'm going.