"Dauntless", a 6x9" mixed media piece on paper
Day 194: Dauntless
Today, I was working on a limited edition of “Across the Bay”, a mini painting of the San Francisco skyline on woodblock that I did back on day 48. An artist friend of mine, miss Trish Tunney, who also shows at City Art Gallery and is an amazing photographer, bought it the day I put it up for the July show and graciously allowed me to keep it up for a few days. Amplifying her awesomeness, she gave me her blessing to make a limited edition of them since a few people wanted it. So I didn’t get started on today’s piece until the evening, and I felt like drawing.
9 little lovelies in the making!
Two of my favorite bloggirls (is that a word yet, Urban Dictionary?), Sophie of The Art of {Being} MissKoolAid and Nicole of BlueBicicletta are also talented illustratists (that’s probably not a word either. And for some reason I am pronouncing it with a British accent in my head, which makes it instantly sound more plausible. Caution to the wind, I say!). I tend not to make drawings as often as I do paintings on canvas because I feel like they require framing and whatnot, and they are somewhat more vulnerable to being lost or damaged in the melee that is my studio or guest room/store room for stacks of completed artwork.
Watercolor pencils + acrylic matte medium + pen on dictionary page
Then when I was working on that mini quilt the other day, I was building up bits of paper in a few sewn layers, and today it dawned on me that I could do something similar with my drawings. I know this should have occurred to me earlier, but sometimes it takes my brain time to catch up with itself. “Dauntless” is a mixed media piece on 6×9” watercolor paper (also effective as heavy cardstock) with the Motels/Mortgages page from the phone book, some colored paper, and part of a map of San Francisco in the general area where I took the photo that I used as a reference for the drawing of these houses, which is on a vintage Spanish/English dictionary page.
This is my new favorite word. I might have to get a tshirt with it emblazoned on there.
The page originally featured the word “coadjutrix” which I have never seen before and had to look up, and that was a fun adventure into Wordnerdland (oooh, three made-up words today, it’s a record!), but then I decided to cut out “dauntless” because I thought it was a nice way of putting a positive spin on the financial difficulty a lot of people are having with the housing market. Why do I feel like I need to take a breath after typing a long sentence? Jeez.
Marianne Bland's Art Blog 
You draw beautifully. I love how you layered the papers behind the drawing itself. And I am really touched by what you wrote about me.
Sophie
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This is my favorite word/mixed media/message piece. 🙂
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Really? Wow! That’s pretty cool. Maybe I will have to do more then, hmm?
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yeah. do more. your work is inspiring as well as brilliant – the work as well as your use of color. i like the way you pulled each element of the mix together in a number of ways, each relating to the next. made up words are one thing, made up words that retain understandableness are another. …and no understandableness doesnt really count because ness is too easy to add onto almost any word.
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