2x2: 2 Artists, 2 Sketchbooks -- Week 14

One of the things that is fun about this collaboration is the push to use colors and color combinations that I don't usually use. I do paint with orange and I do paint with blue, but not usually together. And yet, I love this color combination.

My first thought when I saw Dana's marker sketches was how great it would be to block print different kitchen vessels. My second thought was that I was starting to sound like a broken record. I wanted to try something different. Because that is another thing fun about this collaboration, trying new things.

I started picturing collage, inspired by seeing Tracey English's wonderful creations that keep coming up in my feed on Instagram. Tracey's collages are created with tissue paper (see her process on her blog). 

Dana (l), Anne (r)

I created mine by painting on cheap printer paper with gouache. I cut each of the shapes freehand, without drawing shapes first. I wanted the page to have a freedom and energy to it to match the energy of Dana's sketches.

I knew my colors wouldn't match exactly and I was ok with that. Until I started taking photos of the spread. In the photos my orange looked tan. And so I went back and colored a page with orange marker to match Dana's orange and cut out new orange pieces and carefully replaced all the orange bits. I didn't like having to go back and re-do it, but I couldn't help myself!

Dana (l), Anne (r)

It's much better, now.

This week, again, the pages seem summery to me. They make me think of a vintage-y, farmhouse kitchen in the heat of summer. You know the feeling, when it's almost too hot to drink coffee. It hasn't been that hot here, but I can picture it.

Oh, and the round bit with the flowers on my page? It's supposed to be a decorated plate, but I like the idea of it being a bowl filled with flower cereal. Wouldn't that be a perfect summer breakfast?

Don't forget to stop by Dana's blog for her take on this week's spread.


About the project:

2x2: 2 Artists, 2 Sketchbooks is a collaboration between artists Dana Barbieri and Anne Butera. Dana and Anne met in an online painting class. Although they have never met in person, they have become friends through regular visits to each others' blogs. It was through this connection that this project began. Wanting to move from friendship to collaboration, each spent two months filling one half of a sketchbook before mailing it off to the other. Dana worked on the lefthand pages and Anne on the right. Each will be responding to the other's work on the adjacent sketchbook pages over the coming year. Watch weekly as they reveal another page of their story.

About the artists:

Dana is an artist and crafter living in the foothills of the Catskill mountains two hours north of New York City with her husband, two children and little kitty. She is passionate about painting, knitting, crochet, color, pattern and design.

Anne is an artist, writer and crafter who finds inspiration and joy in the beauty of her garden and the magic of nature. Dissatisfied with and disheartened by the pace and lifestyle of the city, she and her husband (with their two rescued greyhounds and an aging Siamese) relocated to a small town in the beautiful Driftless region in southwest Wisconsin with the goal of living a slower, simpler, more intentional life.