early recycling and spanish eye candy

I've been receiving wonderful feedback from my Cloth Paper Scissors article, and am hoping to share some of this knowledge at my upcoming courses. I have to admit I've been going out of my way to stop at Barnes and Noble and Border's just to peek at it in the store. There's a few spots left in my class at the Art and Soul Mixed Media retreat this October in Portland. Click here for more class information. Additionally, registration is now open for my fall seven-week sketchbook course at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. Click here for more class information. One of the things we'll be doing in both classes is experimenting with combinations of collage and drawing like the image pictured here.

These pages are from the sketchbook I kept in Barcelona earlier this spring. This page includes ink, watercolor, collage and colored pencil. I used a combination of found papers, altered papers, and hand made papers to describe the variety in the color and texture. It's a detail of Parc Guell in the northern part of the city. The architect Antoni Gaudi, based many of his his building forms based on natural forms: plants, seeds, pods, sea creatures, etc. Because he included these organic shapes within his structures, and flat tiles were not going to get the job done, he was forced to be one of the first to recycle. This structure is literally curved and covered from top to bottom with bits of fabulously colorful spanish tile. Eye Candy.