Art for when you can’t travel

Can’t travel this summer? Art can have a transformative effect on your surroundings and therefore your mental health. Remembering past travels or dreaming about future trips can lift your mood and brighten your day. My latest suite of monoprint collages considers the beautiful destinations of our world and captures them along with patterns in nature, thanks to images I’ve taken on past travels.

Fibonacci pattern monoprint collage with cyanotypes and vintage maps of England by Elizabeth Busey. 18 x 18 inch. Prussian blues oranges nature patterns
Lucent. Monoprint Collage. 18 x 18in. $475 ($575 framed)
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Your vacation pictures say a great deal about you

I’m not sure if this a true Fiboancci structured plant or not…

The pictures you take on vacation say a great deal about you. What are you interested in? What do you want to remember? My phone isn’t filled with the traditional sites, but rather with patterns and shapes I want to remember. A recent long weekend trip to Chicago yielded no “Bean” pictures; instead I focused my lens on patterns…

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Patterns ground me

Patterns ground me. I’ve tried to make work that had nothing to do with patterns, and it didn’t feel like me. In the midst of midterm election shenanigans in the U.S., working with the Voronoi diagrams has provided me with times of peaceful creation and discovery.

A change in color hints at leaves

Geometric collage leaf structure
©Elizabeth Busey. Multiplicative. Monoprint collage (unique) 12 x 12in.

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Synthesizing sunlight in the studio

It has been a dark winter. When I lived in Seattle, I craved sunlight so much that I would sit in our tiny Honda CRX during rainy lunchtimes on the off-chance of glimpsing some rays. Our midwestern winter has been mostly grey and overcast. Perhaps that is why I’ve been delving into the joys and trials of yellow.
Elizabeth Busey, In Anticipation of Sweetness. Reduction Linocut,
18 x 18in circle, Edition of 16.

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Yielding Somewhat Gracefully to Life and Adding Some Bling

Elizabeth Busey, Yielding Gracefully. Reduction Linocut, 17 x 25″

During my exploration of the sassafras leaf, I was operating under the assumption that the colors I see in the fall were always in the leaf, but became more apparent in autumn. For the yellows and oranges we see, this is basically true. But not for the red. The red that I found so challenging and unfamiliar is in fact produced by the leaves as a sort of battle against the inevitable arrival of winter.

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In Praise of Red

Everything about our holiday season was late this year. Including this post. It took me until the day after Christmas to dive into a color with which I am not too comfortable… red.

Deciduous holly berries are the only brightness
in my December garden.

Red is one of those colors in nature that works like an exclamation point. In my yard, outrageously colored holly berries (from a deciduous shrub) are the only bright spot in a garden of muted browns. Red male cardinals fight with grey squirrels for the seed I have set out.

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Adventures in the New Language of Chine Collé

I have been toying with some ideas for a few months. I have visions of layering and new materials. Of well, something different. But something too different can be scary or frustrating, so perhaps something somewhat different would be a good place to start. This was the conversation I had with myself this morning. When you work alone, you have to be your own motivator and artistic therapist.

Pine Cone on Rives BFK with Chine Collé.

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A new leaf…on life and art

I don’t know how Thomas Edison did it. Popular lore claims that he discovered 1000 ways to not create a light bulb before he achieved illumination. I’ve been experimenting with encaustic printmaking this fall, and while I have learned a great deal…let’s just say that I have not achieved my light bulb.

I received some nice news this week that one of my favorite prints, Breath Intertwined (a close-up view of two red bud leaves) was accepted as part of the 2015 Delta National Small Prints Exhibition. This print went to Boston last fall, and is currently at the 57th Mid-States Art Exhibition in Evansville, IN. I thoroughly enjoyed creating this print, and this encouraged me to do another up-close leaf print.

 

Selfie with me and two layers of ink

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Inspired by the Chroma

My trusty Tama To needs sharpening after the completion of my latest prints. (For new readers, this is a fabulous tool that cuts small circles in wood or linoleum.) Like my last huge square cellular print, I decided to run two different color series, and the result is two very different prints.

Elizabeth Busey. Ambrosia. Linoleum Reduction Print,
Edition of 13, (28 x 28in), 2013.

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