Just Playing Around

There is something undeniably attractive about drawing on photos from flyers, magazines, etc. Partly it is appealing because you can doodle from an existing image: in this case a face in a flyer. One thing led to another, a little black marker, a little highlighter and it looks odd and mysterious. Then I put it on top of a photo of fall leaves. So there you are, art that might not "mean anything", but insists on being anyway. Sometimes images suggest a meaning later on. Meanwhile, take advantage of any opportunity to draw purely for the entertainment value of it. I often forget how much fun it is to try a new idea.
When we were kids, we used to draw a weird mark or squiggle on paper and challenge each other to make a drawing out of it. This was a fragment of a photocopy of someone: (the top of his head appears in the lower left.) I drew it as a hill, added a tree, and a horizon line. Then I began erasing the halftone and enhanced it a bit with black pencil to make a moody sort of sky. Photographing it with this bamboo placemat as a mat makes it look more important than it really is. That's a good thing to remember: almost any artwork you are struggling with takes on stature if it is matted. Imagine it matted, and see if you can live with it.

The Nighttime House

At night time, my house has a life of its own. Here are four of the things it does while the residents of the house are sleeping, ...or trying to. Since I was still awake, I was a witness. I think some interesting drawings or paintings could come from this, but meanwhile, the photos capture that mood.

Alternatives

Or, maybe I should have selected less information, focusing on a more intimate view of the subject:

Collage + Merge = Risky

This vintage collage is from a project that didn't work out, but I had fun scanning it in pieces and then manipulating it in Photoshop. The original problem was a bad composition, and I'd given up on it.
Though probably not worth spending a lot of time on, I enjoyed the effort, and nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

The upper left is cloned images and so is the lower right. Photo collage could be lots of fun: maybe I should try some more! This is a new category: can you Rescue Old Art?

Troubles with collage

The subject of collage came up in a comment, so I wanted to mention this. National Geographics are one of the best for "natural" colors and mysterious-looking textures. It's also fun to make as many of the edges as possible out of things that are already edges in a photo. I kept a box of the mags for years, but finally used them for this about 3 years ago. I doubt it's lightfast, especially in Phoenix. Last week I stood on my bed to get this photo (hence the blur) and put it on the computer. I'm still tinkering with the colors in Photoshop.

So maybe worrying about colorfastness is less important than remembering to take a picture of whatever it is! I've also heard you can section up a collage to color copy it and reassemble.

This was inspired by the Tut exhibit that came to San Francisco back in the (80's?) and a postcard I got there. The collage is about 2 x 3 feet, & done on Office Depot poster board. I used rubber cement, which is also bad. Not very archival. Maybe there could be an EDM Challenge to do a drawing and then do a collage of the drawing and post them side by side.