Stealing Third From Left

Artist: Renee Harris
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio

Website:
Renee Harris

How do you describe your work, Renee?
I describe my work as one-of-a-kind narrative wall pieces that are influenced by my love of illustration, gardening and folk art.

Flying Through

What is your creative process like?
It often begins with procrastinating about deadlines and this then leads me into a creative frenzy. I’ve found that I work best under pressure whether it is self imposed or fulfilling an obligation to a gallery or upcoming show. Recently, I have been blessed with a lot of ideas pouring through my mind. I tend to work more consistently during these mental surges, whereas, when the well is dry, I find myself wandering in the garden or working on something else.

What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your current level of artistry?
My father and mother were big influences on me and my creative directions. Dad had an art room in the house, where he dabbled in caricature and sign making. I loved that room because of all the brushes, pens, paints, etc. as well as watching him work on various things. His patience in guiding me through drawing and experimenting was an important part of believing in myself. My mom was and is quite a reader and I found myself loving my trips to the library with her to find my next special story. I especially enjoyed the picture books and decided early that I wanted to be an illustrator of books. She also was interested in gardening and I became her helper in the garden. Those summer days in the garden soil were the best as I learned about seeds, maintaining plants and harvesting the rewards.

After high graduating high school in my small town of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, I attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C. for one year. After that first year, I transfered to The Art Academy of Cincinnati, where the program better fit my goals. But that one year in D.C. was magic because of all the art I was exposed to, not to mention the museums. I graduated from the Art Academy with a major in painting and printmaking with a minor in illustration.

Three Hitching Into the Night

Is there a tool or material that you can’t imagine living without?
A black roller ball Pentel pen.

What inspires you to create?
I believe it is nature. I see the textures, pattern, color, light, form, volume, diversity, etc. in so many aspects of nature which are parts of each of my pieces. Even the smells and what I hear influence some aspects of my work. I am responding to the infinite rhythm of living material.

Sheltered

What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?
Early on, I remember being rather pouty when processes would not behave or when the idea I had turned to mud. But those times and even some now were important. It took me quite a while to feel comfortable with and capable of making felt fabric as well as effectively combining embroidery with it. So, I suppose that my stubborn tendency kept me on track during those years. Fortunately, the processes aren’t in the way nearly as much now and I find myself working more easily through frustrating issues.

What is your best piece if advice for those who would like to rise in their level of artistry?
I think remaining open minded to all kind of possibilities and staying focused as you move forward. Allow yourself to play with materials without having the need to create a masterpiece right away. Let the creative side come through you easily without setting barriers up of negative thought. And I do believe that if you want it badly enough you will find the time, the place, the materials and the choice to make it happen for you.

Red Roots

What takes up the majority of your time besides your art?
Gardening. Whether it is putting in a garden in the summer or maintaining it throughout the season or having an indoor container garden during winter…..I am driven to have dirty nails. I love all aspects of learning about plants. And I am an avid bird watcher too. Love to keep tabs on my own backyard birds as well as birds from all over.

What’s your favorite comfort food?
I absolutely love steamed red or white cabbage with a touch of vinegar on it……yum!

Art Attack Thursday!

What a wonderful idea this is for a special gift! Threads In Time has an Etsy shop where she creates custom art quilts for people, using scans of their family photos. She writes:

I will then create a fabric and mixed-media collage using an artful variety from my antique and vintage collection. If you have personal fabrics, lace or buttons you want to incorporate into the collage you can mail them to me and I will work them into the design.

Threads In Time has lots of other lovely art quilts and fabric ACEOs for sale as well. Grab a cuppa and pay her a visit!

1000 Artist Journal Pages
by Dawn DeVries Sokol

This is a beautiful and inspirational book, full of the most glorious examples of modern artistic journaling you’ll ever see…and it’s got lots of newcomers, not just the same well-known faces. The reviews are unanimous: gorgeous, with large, well-spaced images. The journal entries are actually readable, if they’re meant to be!

Why would anyone need a book on journaling? Well, you don’t really: not anymore than you need art of any type. This book will inspire your own journaling, but even more than that practical reason, it will just fill your soul with beauty and poignancy. Is that enough? Oh yeah.

Technique Tuesday!

Cosmic Flowers is a fantasy abstract that I created when I was fooling around with repetition of shapes. I would recommend reviewing my post on creating an abstract, where I quoted Nita Leland’s explanation that the elements and principles of design are what an abstract is really “about”. To add a bit to that here, let me share another quote with you from Nita’s Creative Collage Techniques:

The elements of design are the tools with which you construct the framework for your collage….The principles of design are the rules that you apply to the elements of design to organize your collage into a unified whole.

Keeping all that in mind, the elements that I primarily focused on were shape, size, and color, and the principles that I primarily used to create the piece were repetition, rhythm, and harmony. The color scheme is an analogous one, with a few splots of the complementary colors thrown in. This usually results in a very harmonious color combination, but not one that is static or boring. Secondly, I played with the size of the circle shapes, from single beads up to the largest (about 1″ across) punched circles. The repetition of the circle shape across the various sizes helps to unify the piece. The paper circles were cut from floral images in a catalog. The placement of the clusters of circles, looking like flowers themselves, was designed to develop a rhythm as your eye moved around the piece. Single circles and smaller ones were placed around for balance.

I wish I could give you the “Three Simple Rules for Making An Abstract”, but I really don’t think they exist. Most of this design work simply happens without too much thought as you move your potential pieces around and make decisions about what stays, what goes, and what gets moved. Still, I think it’s helpful at times to look at your piece and analyze the design elements and principles that you see in effect, and consider whether tweaking them somehow would create a stronger piece.

Make Art Monday!

Cosmic Flowers

This one almost got named Lucy in the Sky with Flowers, but that seemed too cutesy. This collage is another result of my playing around with the notion of abstracts. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow!