INSPIRATION Summer, 2013
IS IN THE CARDS
Magic? Maybe not, but as artists, I think it’s important to listen to the river of ideas and sensory information around us, to notice our gut instincts and to listen carefully for messages from the universe -what Jung termed the collective unconscious...
An Online Workshop with Susie Monday What gets you going in the studio? (Be it a back bedroom, kitchen table or dedicated workroom..) In this workshop we’ll learn about and make our own Inspiration Cards and ?igure out how to use them as art work prompts, creative jumpstarts and mini-‐art gifts for friends.
even more interesting, the use of an all-‐in-‐one printer or copier to "?inalize" your cards, and suggestions for how to make Inspiration Cards part of your artist's path.
For those with digital tables (such as an iPad), I’ll include some optional lessons on some apps as The four week class takes well as some online tools you through collection and and software that will let collage activities, photo-‐ you add some digital fun editing and word-‐smith to your Inspiration Cards, fun to make your collages too.
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Week 1: What are Inspiration Cards? Learn about Inspiration Cards and how to use them with lots of examples, then assemble and organize your collage materials -‐-‐ paper, packaging, magazine images and photos, fabric, trims and more -‐-‐ and start to work. This week's workshop includes four design assignments that use your
INSPIRATION IS IN THE CARDS Summer, 2013
Inspiration is listening...and doing right-‐brain intuition, intentions and goals Do one thing every day that and your left-‐brain analysis of composition and color schemes. Number scares you. ?ive design exercise is coming next Eleanor Roosevelt week.! brochures, maps, bits of shiny foil and package wrappings -‐-‐ that I just can’t But ?irst -‐-‐ what are these cards and why seem to toss out. To tame the do I make them? collection, I ?igured out that if I made I started making Inspiration Cards about my own little mini collage cards using a decade ago, and included making them the otherwise PILED UP bits and as part of my annual Artists’ Journey/ pieces, I could transform the Artists’ Journal January Workshop at El collections into something useful, and Cielo in 2007. The practice grew from give myself permission to throw about several different inklings and impulses: the leftover bits. Self and sanity preservation. 1. I had used Tarot cards and other similar decks when I wanted a kick-‐ start to a project, or felt blocked in my 3. Once I started making cards with others, they became a swap tradition creative studio work, all to good effect. among those who take my classes, like It seemed like asking the universe for artist trading cards, but bigger! I use a little randomly selected guidance regular 3” by 5” index cards as my was a good practice for me -‐-‐ along template/?inal size -‐-‐ though as you with actually GETTING TO THE see, my process often means making a STUDIO . larger collage and shrinking it! 2. I am a collector of ephemera -‐-‐ birthday cards, letters, pieces of Saul Bellow:
You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.
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INSPIRATION IS IN THE CARDS Summer, 2013
4 BASIC DESIGN EXERCISES Return to these basic design exercises, whenever you need some inspiration for your inspiration cards!
There are years that ask questions and years that answer. Zora Neale Hurston
Make at least one collage with each of these design exercises as your starting point. You may decide to take some detours or high roads or alternative routes as you work -‐-‐ that’s ?ine with me. Just start out in the same space! P.S. One more exercise to come next week! SUPPLIES TO BUY 8.5” by 11” sheets of card stock or bristol -‐-‐ at least 10 sheets
1 yard WonderUnder or other paper backed fusible web
Xacto craft knife, #11 blades permanent markers, wide and and metal blade ruler ?ine point, variety of at least 2-‐4 Cutting matt colors (Micro Pigma pen for example) Glossy photo paper, at least 5 sheets Ultra ?ine black Sharpie Large size glue stick Scissors for fabric and paper
One set of materials just with letters -- leftover collage bits from some text on textile experiments. A small cutting blade is helpful , too.
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3” by 5” white unlined index card -‐-‐ pack of 50 Plastic Index card ?ile envelopes or index card box for storage (optional) Perl cotton (one or more colors) and appropriate sized embroidery needle
Bond paper for sketches, samples/test sheets
Assorted good quality colored paper -‐-‐ multiple colors
TO COLLECT Assemble these ingredients into a set of small boxes (cigar boxes are great), clear plastic tubs or produce cartons from the warehouse store (my personal favorite!) Sort, or not, up to you!
Assorted rubber stamps, as needed
Old magazines, mail, cards and other paper ephemera Fabric scraps, trim, buttons, yarn, thread scraps
Stickers, sticky backed stars, labels, etc. Photos, or best, copies of photos, unless they are ones you’re OK with using as-‐is. Shiny packaging materials such as candy wrappers Phrases from ads and cards that you like Quotes you like either handwritten or printed from your computer
INSPIRATION IS IN THE CARDS Summer, 2013
WORKING FROM RANDOM design exercise 1 This is the most dif?icult design The first question I ask myself exercise of the ?ive -‐-‐ because you have to when something doesn't seem to give up more control than you are used be beautiful is why do I think it's to doing -‐-‐ and because it’s essential to not beautiful. And very shortly give up your judgement of the result. The you discover that there is no most dif?icult thing to do, as artists and reason. as human beings, is to acknowledge John Cage exactly how little control we actually have...especially on the behavior of other humans, and even, other objects. This design exercise helps remind me, that if I 2. Turn each stack face down and blindly select three pieces of paper from each make an effort to go with the ?low, often stack. Randomly cut or tear (or both) the outcome is interesting, surprising, these images into smaller pieces -‐-‐ revealing and much more intriguing than each no larger than 4” square. anything I could consciously have put my will to. Don’t worry, the other exercises 3. Turn the images over, and, as quickly will give you plenty of opportunity to as you can, carefully glue* and exert control and choice. Make at least assemble a collage of as many pieces of one. images that you can assemble on one 8.5” by 11” piece of card stock or 1. From your stack of magazines, cut or bristol board, roughly keeping a grid tear quickly (in 3-‐5 minutes on the pattern. Don’t be too fussy, but do timer) three stacks of images and notice patterns of colors, shapes and words that catch your eye-‐ small, text. medium, large. Include words. Erica Jong, Fear of Flying
It took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence and the white paper. And now that I can take it . . . now that I can finally do it . . . I'm really raring to go.
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INSPIRATION IS IN THE CARDS Summer, 2013
What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can’t decipher. What we can’t understand we call nonsense. What we can’t read we call gibberish... Chuck Palahniuk
4. * To glue carefully with a glue stick, means to seal the edges. Use an old magazine as your gluing stage. For each collage piece, turn it over on a clean dry page of magazine. Coat the collage piece to and beyond the edges with a good coat of glue. You don’t need to do the interior area, but you can if you like a really tight ?lat surface for your ?inished product. Use a new clean sheet of magazine page every time you glue a new collage piece. Clean your ?ingers often!
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5. That’s it. Next step later.
Ideas are one thing and what happens is another.
6. But do make more than one to see what happens! Using the same stacks creates pattern.
John Cage
INSPIRATION IS IN THE CARDS Summer, 2013
I'm not an abstractionist. I'm not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on. Mark Rothco
WORKING FROM COLOR design exercise 2 This exercise starts with color. Try it with your favorite hue (a basic color such as red, green, blue, yellow, brown) or with one you dislike, for more of a challenge. Color carries emotional and sensorial info. Your Color Inspiration Cards don’t need words to communicate messages. 1. From your collection of paper and fabrics, select as many variations of your hue (ie if red: pinks, maroons, scarlets, wines, etc) as you can in 3-‐5 minutes.
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2. Use the color wheel on the following page to ?ind the complement of your main hue. The color complement is the hue directly on the opposite side of the wheel from the color you started with. 3. Cut three small squares, circles or strips of paper or fabric that match your complement. (use variations or all the same). 4. Pencil off a rectangle this time on your card stock, measuring 7.5 “ wide by 4.5” wide. Use this space for your collage/s.
INSPIRATION IS IN THE CARDS Summer, 2013
She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar. Janet Fitch, White Oleander
5. Using your principal hue, glue down a collage that has the emotional feeling or meaning of what that hue means to you. Perhaps blue means ocean or blue means sad, or blue means night sky or angelic cloak. Whatever the personal meaning of the hue, make a collage that either realistically or abstractly expresses that meaning. 6. Once you have the main collage arranged and glued to your satisfaction, add three small elements -‐-‐ shapes, forms, dots or lines -‐-‐ using the complementary color of the principle hue. This will make your design POP! A design tip to use no matter what form your creation takes.
Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries. Jack Kerouac, On the Road
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FASHIONMONTHLY June 25, 2013
A very wise quote is a spectacular waterfall! When you see it, you feel its power! Mehmet Murat ildan
WORKING FROM A QUOTE design exercise 3 You word people will love this one! 1. Find a quote you like. It may be one that you have memorized, one that’s in a journal, or one that you ?ind online. One of my favorite places to ?ind really great quotes in on the book/readers site Goodreads. You do have to make an account for access, but I ?ind the site a really great one for book reviews and author information, too! 2. Other free/non member sites for quotes include: BrainyQuote, Quotations Book, and just a Google search for the theme or topic
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you are interested in including the word “quote.” 3. After selecting a quote to work with, illustrate it with a collage -‐-‐ or simply print it out on your computer multiple times and make a collage of the text only. Use the 7.5 “ wide by 4.5” wide rectangles for your collage this time, too. 4. P.S. Feel free to use any of the quotes in these pages. Most of them come from GoodReads.
INSPIRATION IS IN THE CARDS Summer, 2013 You can also use FOUND QUOTES, combinations of words and phrases from ads and magazine titles, such as the ones on this page from one of the participants in my workshops, Pat Schulz. Another cool tool for working with text is TEXT WRITING, both an app for your phone or tablet, and a web-‐based software that lets you curve type, manipulate it with size, spacing, color and font style. Find it at http://www.storyabout.net/ typedrawing/ Remember to save your collages! And take a photo or two to share on the Joggles Forum.
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself. Marlene Dietrich
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INSPIRATION IS IN THE CARDS Summer, 2013
I don't know whether you can look at your past and find, woven like the hidden symbols on a treasure map, the path that will point to your final destination. Jodi Piccoult
WORKING FROM A SYMBOL design exercise 4 And back to world of images. 1. What is one of your favorite symbols or icons -‐-‐ or even shapes -‐-‐-‐ a heart, a triangle, a spiral, a wave, a human pro?ile, a tree... 2. Choose just one for a starting place. 3. Cut three copies of a simple shape silhouette of your design from black paper , each one should almost ?ill your 7.5”by 4.5” penciled rectangle on your card stock.
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4. Cut apart and reassemble the three black shapes in different ways on two rectangle backgrounds. Use different pieces of the shapes however and where ever you wish -‐-‐ but stick ?irst with black and white. 5. Next pick up your micro point pen or Sharpie and add lines, dots, squiggles or other pattern textures. Fill in every inch of the space. Remember to save your collages! Share on the Joggles Forum.
INSPIRATION IS IN THE CARDS Summer, 2013
Here are my ?inal symbol designs -‐-‐ and on the next page, see a stack of design ideas ready to transform into Inspiration Cards.
Remember, there’s one more design exercise to come, and then all of these projects will become the basis of further manipulation, sizing, embellishment and more as we turn these design exercises into Inspiration Cards. Next week, we’ll start using some tools and technology, so round up your resources: Equipment and Tools Digital camera computer smart phone or tablet (optional) inkjet printer or all-‐in-‐one copier (preferred) sewing machine (optional)
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Oscar Wilde
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INSPIRATION!
PLEASE let me know if you have trouble following these instructions, either through the Joggles forum or through my blog or email. I will supplement the information about Inspiration Cards on my blog throughout the month, so check in there at https://susie-‐ monday.squarespace.com/blog/ I’m happy to answer questions or just take comments any time! Email me at susiemonday atsymbol gmail.com Also, if you’d like to join my email newsletter list, follow this link to sign up: http://mad.ly/signups/69874/join 12