Ah HA!!! More Purple and Orange (overlook my typos)

 

Looking UP - Looking DOWN

 

Another Fun Collage Day

 

"MOTHERSHIP" (a working title at least)

Thanks for visiting my ART BLOG!!  If you scroll down one entry, at the bottom you'll find the first steps to the collage below.  I was intrigued by the concentric circles formed by splashes of raindrops and wanted to emulate that in collage. After collecting other oval/circular shapes an idea began to form. Once I found the image of swimmers (taken below the surface) the idea of "escape" solidified. Turning some of the oval shapes upside down, it began to look like a space ship....

INTERNATIONAL COLLAGE DAY 2025

 

 

Collage: Perfect Tonic for Obsessive/Compulsive People!

 Another small collage -- 10x12 

Lilinoe - Goddess of Mist

 

Windmills of My Mind #3

 Yep -- another in the series....  During the first layout of Windmills #1, I had an image of a cool, old blue 'poison bottle' that I was attempted to use. A great image, but too literal to fit; Phil suggested that I not use it. Nor did it "fit" in Windmills #2.  So, it lingered in the scraps of images that didn't make the final cut. That is, until I figured out a way to "Make it Work!"  

Windmills of My Mind II

 If you happen upon this page, scroll down one entry to see the inspiration for this second collage based on the old song "Windmills of My Mind" ... this one was a bit more conceptual.

Windmills of My Mind Collage

 

Step by step collage by Lunel

 

Homage to Andy Goldsworthy

 Using one of Andy's ephemeral mud installations, I cut it out and surrounded it with collage shapes cut from complimentary colors using my flexible ruler.  Hey Andy, collage is ephemeral too! Thanks for the inspiration.

Collage with Scraps

After any collage is completed there's always a mess to clean up or to refile in folders marked "architecture," "anthropology," "science," or "archaeology," etc..  Finishing up the latest "roll of dice" collage during December, most of the left overs were still on the work table in January. But!!! They were so very pretty, I decided to use them to create a tiled abstract just using circles and squares.

ROLL OF THE DICE

Having had the most amazingly beautiful winter during November and December I had the joy to work on my largest palette -- our two-thirds of an acre in the beautiful ohia forests where we live near Volcanoes National Park.  In the last 24 hours eruptions are taking place in Halema'uma'u crater in Kilauea crater.

Recently I received a gift of "Art Dice" - 1" dice you can roll to suggest medium, color, style, setting, mood, and subjects!!   My role of the dice gave me LOVE, GREEN, FLOWERS, UNDER WATER, ABSTRACT AND DETAILED. I used a design that would suggest underwater waves and lots of yummy colors. 

Evening Hunt

 

Harbinger

 

Studio at Rest

 September and October in the small community of Volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii is one of my favorite times of year. The sunlight is crisp, the trade winds coming through have bounced off of our gigantic mountain-volcanoes of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea offering brisk delightful breezes. And, it is the perfect time to finalize projects before winter.  Getting cuttings into pots, setting up two small greenhouses for winter rooting, raking up leaves and cutting back older fronds of our giant Hapu'u ferns and turning them into mulch.  All that to say, my studio has essentially looked the same for nearly two months. There are ideas afloat -- numerous collections of color/texture/subject --- but no new collage to share.  The fallow-time is as important as the weeks where scissors and glue dominate.

PLAYFUL OBSERVATION

 

"Visitors at BIshop Plaza Honolulu"

 

Collage in Wailoa Center Exhibit

 

Hawaii - Keck - Kick-ass COLLAGE!!

 

Collage Day #2 2024

 

Beyond Limits

 Another day, and another collage?!!?  Yes, this happened so fast! Playing with colors but in that luscious range of lavenders.   "Beyond Limits"

Collage -- Practice, Patience, and PLAY!!

 

FINALLY...entering collage for an exhibit

 

EYEING ARTISTIC EVOLUTION

 

The inspiration for "Cosmic Connection"

 

"COSMIC BELONGING" and World Collage Day 2024

 

May Day, Lei Day, May Remembering

In May we celebrate our meeting for the first time in Santa Cruz in 1986, as well as our wedding anniversary. This year marks 38 years together.  The other anniversary we recall was the fire that took our home in 2018 and the year we spent being homeless while seeking legal help in handling the denial of our insurance claim. While we did, eventually, receive insurance funds and did relocate to a new home a year later, memories and emotions still surface. This year I created a collage that depicts the feeling of vulnerability and "nakedness" of losing everything, dealing with traumatic medical issues, learning about and living with PTSD and the lowest point in our lives. We were left with "empty bowls" and later had the chance to re-fill them though the many acts of kindness of friends, neighbors and the amazing support of our D9 team of lawyers. 

Oxford, Henry The 8th, Copernicus, NY 1964 Worlds Fair... and more

 

"Who Will Survive the Ride?"

 

ENCOUNTERS - Collage by Lunel

 

Ready for World Collage Day In Volcano

Just a month from now I will be hosting the fifth year of "World Collage Day" where invite a few friends to come and play with collage art/techniques. Going back to May in previous years, you can find group photos of participants and collages they created.

In 2024 I set out to explore slicing, weaving and cut-outs and several recent blog entries show examples. Here are a set I have created as examples for the upcoming class to illustrate what I have learned. Each of these samples can be completed in one day.

"Enlightenment" (poor photo! I'll try again with another shot)

What FUN!!  Can't really give out any clues about construction mostly because it all happened so FAST!  

Keep Scrolling DOWN

The key elements (from top to bottom) -- a blurred image of a cityscape, a spectacled observer using some kind of optics for viewing stars, 

a close-up of a passion flower with a bug in disguise, 

wire set up of some kind, 

Fresnel lens from a lighthouse and finally, 

guts inside the linear accelerator. All seemed to have something to do with light or vision, thus the name.

 

"Jumble Jungle"

 

"Lady"

 

"Underworld" (one way or the other)

 

Da Vinci's Girl

 

"Dreams of Flight"

 

DOJO

 

"Timeless Moment" Collage

 

Collage Using Scraps

 No sooner had I made a post of last weeks' collages, then the scraps I referred to came together --- finally!  I loved all the hot pink, vibrant blues and bright yellows, so I dug through my many files to find both some under water creatures and the radiant image of a nebula.  The key elements were the inside of a plutonium storage compartment, the microscopic photo of a geranium pollen and mating seahorses. Quite the mix, right?  The only possible name became

'"Geranium, Plutonium, Ad Infinitum"  (15x20) 

Collage Scraps and One-Day Challenges

 

While I am Waiting

 Some (older) folks may remember the famous quote from Heinlein's "Stranger In A Strange Land" -- 'waiting is, I grok."  Such understanding comes from proverbs about everything having a time and season. So it is with art, especially undertaking a big project such as this one.

So many pieces! I'll tackle it in chunks, but try not to get overwhelmed. And, in the meantime, work on other ides for new collages....like the one below.

It is hard to use a gigantic image like the moth in the center -- so it doesn't overwhelm. Turning it upside down helped as well as finding matching colors in the architectural elements that turned it into more of an abstract feature. I cut the New York City skyline in half, turning part of it, too, upside down so the blues are connected to the mirrored hall.  The subtle colors of the NYC skyline are reflected in both the ducks-at-sunset as well as the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. Colors also blend as the body builder's stunning body glistens with the same colors of the skyscape, ceiling and chandeliers in the hall. The geometrical designs on both edges come from The Kizil Caves in China.

Behold....the "MOTHMAN"... (18x26")

 

SNOW GLOBE

 

While it is not unexpected, it is always a surprise to

wake up in Hawaii and see SNOW on Mauna Kea.

We're blessed that, at the end of our driveway, we

have a gorgeous view, and although the sun is

shining -- it's chilly enough to find comfort in

our cozy art studio. (The background of the collage 

below is of inverted snow-capped mountains.)

Dragons, Snakes and Mo'o Magic

 

 

SORRY ABOUT THE TYPOS!  Used a different format -- no can correct.  Oh well...

"Eye of the Beholder"

           
 

Good Review of SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS

And, here is the fascinating story of a seamstress named Jeanne Villepreau-Power (1794-1871) who explored the coast of Sicily and did scholarly study of the octopus Argonaut argo (paper nautilus). Big thanks to Maria Popova and her amazing publication "Marginalian" CHECK IT OUT...

Excellent Article about Octopus Research

"Behold The Power"