Japanese Popsicles Artwork Backstory

One of the few benefits of being older is there is some personal history now I can pull from when creating new artwork.  My latest craze doing mixed media collage is benefiting from various other expressions on similar subjects done in the past.  Case in point:  In 2004 I did a watercolor of some orange ice cream and multi flavored popsicles (because I used to love to eat them).  In 2009 I turned that painting into a digital composite with some scanned buttons (art using scanned buttons kept me entertained for about a year.)  Now, I used some new Japanese washi origami papers to create the ice cream/popsicles and placed them onto a recent landscape photograph of trees printed on Hiromi kozo-shi paper.

Revisiting an Old quilt

Trying to put my quilts together in one place on my Pinterest page LINK HERE, I found a few that were saved from an old defunct website (redcrowartworks) I closed out years ago.  So, I'm reposting one of my first little quilts titled "Bee World," created in 2014, so the link will be more viable.  The quilt was mainly comprised of a collection of my art printed on fabric, some original fabric designs and a centerpiece of beautiful french silk I bought off of eBay, in a mix of silk fabric remnants, and which had some beautiful little embroidered bees on it.  My sewing skills are not the best, as one can see from the irregularity of the piece.  One of the artworks, a digital rendering of an oil painting of sunflowers, has recently reincarnated itself into a paper collage.

What If ...

there were Greater Flamingos in California?  Wouldn't that be nice.

Sunflowers in Vase

Continuing on with my variations on a theme spree is my newest version of Sunflowers in a Vase. Top:  Photo and paper collage on Arches watercolor paper, including a pattern of local sunflower photos printed on Kozo paper which make up the vase.   18 1/2" x 15".
Bottom:  My 28 x 22 oil on stretched canvas painting done in 2012.

Lotus Pond Mixed Media Photo Collage

Like the previous post, this mixed media collage of cut up photographs, a variety of papers, and pen & ink, glued onto Arches watercolor paper (11x15), includes images from a photo of orange and yellow flowers, shot at the Botanical Gardens in Mendocino in 2015 (below).  Also included here are some cut-outs from a print of a digital composite, comprised of an underwater photo shot in the Galapagos together with a field of Calla Lilies in Mendocino - both shot this year.  The inspiration for the piece is a photo of a Lotus Pond in the beautiful "Extreme Horticulture" book by John Pfahl with an introduction by Rebecca Solnit.

Evolution of an Bird Inspired Idea

I seem to flit from media to media, as evidenced by the evolution of the above bird art.
From the bottom to the top:
1.  A 100% digital painting done in 2005, with an old painter software program.
2.  An oil painting done in 2006, recreating (kind of) the digital painting but adding a Vincent van Gogh sky.
3.  Another oil painting, this time in 2006, with a different bird and a pink cloud in the sky.  Sold to a friend.
4.  Fabric applique of a crow drawing in 2016, on a T shirt.
5.  The same applique crow, under a pink cloud and starry night sky, now done by cutting up photos and adding various bits of ripped Mulberry papers, all glued onto 100% arches cotton watercolor paper - just finished yesterday.

New Pen&ink Watercolors plus Mixed Media Collage on Paper

Top to Bottom:
1.  Pen&ink & watercolor 7x10 - my hand holding a photo of the Taj Mahal with a view out the window in Queen Anne, Seattle of Puget Sound
2.  Two portraits of grandsons Cole and Wilson Taylor (which look nothing like them but they were kind enough to pose)
3.  Bottle of Amber's favorite hot sauce, also sharing the view of Puget Sound out the window
4.  Something new!  Mixed Media collage with cut up photographs and various papers glued onto high quality 100% cotton rag paper then inked.  Vase of Flamingo Flowers is 11.5" wide x 15" high
5.  The first of this new formula collage:  Woman with a Bird on Her Head is 11" w x 15" h
6.  Bottom two paintings by nearly 8 year old twin grandsons:  Cole's is a still life of two beer can openers found on a treasure hung; bottom is by Wilson of his legs and feet resting on the balcony.