In the Spirit of Cassandra Tondro
This painting is a monotype print where I have added only few collage pieces and a couple of little details with pens. In this artwork, the rooster is waking us up to notice that in art, whether we are makers or viewers, we are always in the middle of an experience. Thus, if you want to become a better artist, you should not focus on the final results only, but also on the experience.
Cassandra Tondro
There’s a particular artist that I want to introduce for this subject. She is someone that I greatly admire, Cassandra Tondro. I am most honored to have Cassandra Tondro herself answering to my questions! I also got her permission to publish her photo and my favorite artwork of hers called “Illusion” in this post.
The Supplies
Cassandra Tondro has not only thought through about what kind of paintings she wants to create. She has dug deep into the whole creative process. The development of her current way of working has started steps back from what most of us would think. She wanted to find an environment-friendly solution and discovered a way to work with leftover house paint.
I did not have extra house paint but some odd jars of similar kind of fluid paint like Tim Holtz’s Distress Paint. I also diluted few old acrylic paints with water to get more fluid paint colors.
Working with Colors
Cassandra Tondro has made videos of how she works with the paint. Instead of plastic sheet and canvas, I decided to use a glass plate with blank watercolor paper. My plate is about 12 by 12 inches.
While I poured colors on the plate, I thought about how suitable this process is when you want to forget the rest of the world and have a quality time with your favorite colors. Cassandra Tondro embraces quietness while working:
I like quiet when I work. My experience is that we are surrounded with so much noise all the time — traffic, cell phones, airplanes overhead, radio, videos, Musak in stores. My studio is my refuge from all of that. I like to be alone in the studio — no phone, no computer, no Internet connection — and I like it quiet.
I agree. This is a process where colors are the music players, and the painter is the maestro, fully focusing on how to make it all work together.
Unpredictability
One general characteristic of art is an unpredictable creating process. While you have to accept more unpredictability than usually, there’s a lot what you can control. Choosing the colors and creating color mixtures is one thing. Composing color areas is another. But as Cassandra says, this is an experimental process. Experimenting is also very freeing. As I was unable to repeat the strokes that I usually do, this process tweaked my style to an unpredictable direction.
Movement
When I pressed the watercolor paper against the glass plate, feeling colors crushing between the plate and paper, I felt like running. This process involves physical movement, even if you are working on the table, instead of laying the paint on the floor like Cassandra does. The action, combined with colors, lifts your spirit, forces you to concentrate and makes you curiously excited.
When the paper is turned over, and the artwork is revealed, there’s no quietness anymore! The colors have found their home. They have abandoned the hard glass, and now lie rearranged on the soft paper. A good 24 hours of dry air and they are there to stay!
A warning: Once you have made one, you won’t be able to stop!
I got fascinated by everything, including the cleaning of the glass plate!
Inspiration
I asked Cassandra where she gets her inspiration for painting:
My inspiration often comes from dreams or during meditation. I like to meditate before I start to paint. It sets the mood for creativity, and ideas often occur to me during meditation. Another good source of inspiration for me is taking a walk. Getting outside and walking frees up my mind, and I sometimes get ideas that way.
This kind of art thrives on the freedom. When I look at my pieces, I hear the colors thanking me: “You released us!” And as colors are so close to emotions, it feels like they have been released too.
This is the next print after The Rooster.
This piece was made on canvas textured paper instead of watercolor paper. It is not quite as sharp as those made on watercolor paper. If you create small pieces, as I did, I recommend using thick watercolor paper.
I composed the gallery-style image on a black background, but I think that Cassandra’s work would look beautiful on a brick wall. I like to imagine how the colors would have flown in the air and crashed against the hard blocks.
The more you experiment with this technique, the more you begin to appreciate Cassandra’s paintings. I see her art very powerful. Maybe because it is something totally different from my own, which often includes too much expression, too much explaining. Cassandra’s art is the art of listening. Watching her paintings makes me think: I am free to live, I am accepted, there’s no need for talking.
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More Time, Better Art?
This artwork was inspired by Rococo, the 18th-century-period style with curves, asymmetry, gold, and ornaments. When I think of Rococo, I think of time. How long did it take to sew those elaborate women’s dresses? What about the porcelain table clocks, how many people, how many months did it take to get one finished and working?
The time we are living now is totally different. Not that I want to spend half of my life embroidering one chair. But I cannot help thinking: sometimes we create quantity but not quality. We get frustrated with our lacking skills and weak artistic vision, but often, there’s a simple solution: time. So, instead of creating three pages in a week for your art journal, make one!
Creativity needs time. The first thoughts are often the least innovative. When we take time to dig deeper, we reach not only frustrations but also new solutions.
Working in Short Periods of Time
I used to have a difficult time working in several sessions. I wanted my work to be finished in one go. Leonardo da Vinci certainly did not have problems like that! He spent over ten years painting Mona Lisa. Of course, he did not dedicate all of that time to one painting; he did other things too. But he let his subconscious work during the breaks. So I did da Vinci – while waiting for the watercolor to dry, I engaged myself in other activities.
I built the foundation for this work with several thin layers of watercolors. Then I worked with colored pencils and watercolors to add details. A small flat brush is my favorite when adding details with paint.
Some might call it finished at this point, but I wanted to add tension and interest. As this was about Rococo, some shimmer seemed appropriate!
Rococo Glitter!
I have a few jars of Inka Gold, beeswax-based metal paint. They seemed just right for this artwork. And speaking of Rococo, some gold would be appropriate too. I love Golden brand’s gold acrylic paint.
Finishing
Some hand-decorated papers added richness and variation. Then I continued completing the tiny details.
The size of the artwork is 12 inches by 12 inches. It took about three days from start to finish.
The quality of one artwork cannot be measured by the time the artist spent with it. Great art can be born quickly when skills and creativity meet. But on the other hand, if you want to improve your art and increase your creativity, why not focus on one artwork for a bit longer time.
What do you think? Can you make time work for you?
Let Unconventional Inspire You
You know I love beautiful and decorative things. But the more I create, the more I feel that creating art should be expression first, aesthetics second. This watercolor collage is called “Leftright Wrongright” and it is about how sometimes the old wrong and unconventional can be the new right.
Rubber Stamp Art
If you think of experimental and avant-garde, would you ever consider using rubber stamps? In that context, they are the most boring thing. They are the absolutely wrong choice when you want to create unique and advanced art. But as my mission was to express how wrong can be right, I just could not resist taking the risk and using them! I painted the background with watercolors and then started stamping.
I only stamped once with each of the stamps. That way they were seen as individuals, not as a bunch of clones. I have used this principal before too, see Can Rubber Stamping be Art and Make Samplers to Save Bits and Pieces.
Watercolors
Watercolors are my trusted friend. They make the best backgrounds but also, they make rubber stamps look much more interesting. After the whole background was covered with stamped images, all different from each other, I added water and brushed the water-based ink to blend with watercolors.
With the big brush, I doodled this and that thinking fierce fully about destruction and bravery.
With a smaller brush, I added details and enhanced them with colored pencils.
Imitating Rubber Stamps
To make the stamped images even more individual, I added hand drawing to make few of them bigger and more handmade. A thin drawing pen is great for imitating rubber stamps that have delicate details.
Finishing
When I worked with this artwork, it became clear to me that the final touches are crucial here. I should not only do what I usually do but add something that is against the rules, disrespectful even. First, I doodled with a white gel pen and let the doodling look a bit dreadful. Then, I grabbed a piece of paper, painted red and yellow with heavy acrylic paint. The unsophisticated color and the clumsiness of the shapes when I cut it made it look so wrong.
But I finished this artwork with a new attitude. As I wanted to express that sometimes we need to do things that make us feel uncomfortable, I needed to break my ordinary rules. I added few rough elements without over-decorating them. They are the wrong that makes the right spin. They make me ask: do right and wrong exist at all when creating art? If we think that unconventional is wrong, are we denying the true power of art and where it can take us?
Hopefully, this inspires you to add something wrong to your art, and make it right!
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Intarsia in Watercolor
Last week I visited a fascinating exhibition. The gallery displayed Yoshinobu Nakamura’s wood intarsia art. Yoshinobu Nakamura is a Japanese artist living in Finland. He creates masterpieces by combining tiny wooden pieces. I was deeply impressed how the characteristics of various tree species and specimens showed in his work. I wanted to try the subtle color scheme and some kind of intarsia myself. And I did, only using watercolors and watercolor paper instead of natural wooden blocks!
Love for Tiny Pieces
Speaking of tiny pieces of paper, I have always loved them. When I was a teenager, I cut the pieces from magazines and made a mosaic type of work. Some of them never got finished as they were painfully slow to create!
Years later, I made a pen holder for my husband using paper scraps cut from magazines. I carefully covered every surface that could be reached and finished the penholder with gel medium. It has survived at least ten years!
Watercolor Paper Intarsia
But this intarsia project was going to be different from mosaic work. I would not only cut the paper into small pieces but also adjust each piece in line with others! I started the project by painting the papers. For some of the painted areas, I also added lines resembling wood grains with a black drawing pen.
Next, I tried cutting the pieces. I discovered that they have to be put on top of each other, right side up. The cut line will then fit perfectly.
I used masking tape to attach the cut pieces together.
The big piece that I made looked pretty interesting. But it looked even better when the geometric shapes were cut out of it!
I painted one watercolor paper to look like pine wood. The spotty paper was found from the stash. After hours of cutting and adjusting, the artwork was finally finished. See, all the papers are on the same level, not on top of each other! With intarsia technique, you can use thick papers for collage art!
My belief in watercolors continues to stay strong. I love how easy it was to imitate wood with them!
Once the artwork was put together, I attached the piece, with masking tape background and all, onto a white watercolor paper using gel medium. I think I call it “Rolling Stones.” Have fun with this technique!
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