Hours, new collage series, wip

For the last few weeks, I've been mostly drawing. I've drawn five different poses of the female figure. Out of those five, I redrew and reworked four of them.   Previously, someone asked if I work from live models.  For my current series, I've been working from photos of a live model.

Hours, pencil on paper,  9.18.2012

Everday, I'd toss each pose round in my head, trying to envision how the pose would work as a painting. I'd go to sleep each night thinking about the poses, and ideas would come to me. I had a vague idea but nothing clearly defined. So the process of drawing and redrawing continued through this week.

Hours,  pen drawing on paper

Last week, I also started collecting bits of fallen life that I'd found along the trails when we were hiking. I've got pine cones, bark, moss, leaves, and fern fronds sitting on my desk.

materials for monoprinting

And then it happened. Those previous ideas and all the odds and bits I'd collected on my hikes gelled together in my head, and I set to work on a "feeling".

monoprint leaf with acrylics on rice paper

I took out my handmade rice paper that I purchased before leaving Japan, and cut several pieces to a 9 x 12 size. Then I got out my sheet of plexiglass for monoprinting and began. I felt like the child in the sandbox building a sandcastle. Playing with purpose.

Hours I, monoprint rice paper collage on 140.lb paper, wip

I chose "Hours" as the name for this latest series based on the Greek myth of Horae who were the personification of the seasons in nature. Hours I, shown above, is almost finished. There are some details that I want to refine on the lower half of the collage.

I'll write more about the materials I used in my next blog post. I was chasing a feeling so I only got one photo of this series as a wip.

What have you been up to this past week?