Journal Prompt Cards

Over in A.R.T. group we are making some journal prompt ATCs.  The idea is to put journal prompts on an ATC then when you are stuck you can pull one out and write about it.  I think this is a twist on the slip of paper in a bowl or a box idea.  But, I am always up for making ATCs.  This is some that I made.  I dug the background paper out of my stash.  It is some experiment from last winter no doubt.  Then, last early summer, I found this chinese dinner take out carton full of pieces of paper with quotes on both sides at my favorite fabulous shopping mall-a yard sale, for like a quarter.  So, it was relatively easy to mark off the ATC size and add the quote.  Cut them up, now I have a lovely set of cards to play with.

Altered Photo Copies on a Hanger

I fell in love all over again with my Mom.  I made these little "practice" cards using a snap shot of her.  The snap shot was about two inches tall and 3 inches wide.  I enlarged it, made lots of copies on different colors and types of paper. Cut her out and used the cut out, and also the background for stencils.  All such fun using different techniques from the book study group over in A.R.T based on the Lynne Perrella book Artists Journals and Sketchbooks.  I just loved how they turned out, and wanted to have them somewhere where I could enjoy looking at them.  So, I made this mobile!  I found the cage wire in one of my stashes, gave the pieces a shot or two of acrylic sprays.  Added some beads via copper wire.  Just let the mini tags do the hanging by pushing them through the little squares on the cage wire.  I now have "Mom" hanging right over my art table.  (sorry about the double take but I am not sure how to use this new downloader quite yet.)

Food Art

Just to show you that I do something else once in a while, here are some photos of my detour into food art. I have "cooking" posted on my harvest moon vision board as I have been wanting to get back to doing a bit of cooking.  Not much, just a bit.  My DH is the chief cook and bottle washer around here... he doesn't like my type of cooking at all!  But, sometimes, I get a yearning for "speciality items" that he doesn't do.  The photos above are one of those.  He does great BBQ, and salads, and veggy, meats, general meal stuff, but not something like this!  In the last two weeks I baked cinnamon rolls, fresh dinner rolls and a loaf of bread, oatmeal cookies.  Today, I am thinking brownies!  Vision boards are so great to get you into action!

Sex Change

My Grandfather would not be a happy camper if he saw this collage.  He and his wife and my four year old father came to this part of our state in 1904 as pioneers, in a wagon pulled by some sort of beasts, I am thinking horses.  They lived in a log dug out until five years later they built a three story log house.  There GP and wife continued to fill the house with boys, seven to be exact.  The land was not the best agriculture type land and life was hard for them.  The boys and GP were hard working, hard playing cowboy farmers of their times.

But GP should love to be the joy-god of wine and agriculture I think. LOL.  Dionysis wore leaporad skins and was a happy guy.  (Who wouldn't be if they were the god of wine?)  I hope he doesn't look down on me for this!  Still working on this.  I have to add some detail to his body builders body, and a bit more layering.

I Should Have Just Doodled...

This is a work in progress... from a prompt over in CCS.  A collage dealing with ancient myths.   Well, I am not very familiar with ancient myths, but last week end I found a 1942 edition book dealing with them at a yard sale (my major shopping mall experiences, lol) so picked it up for a quarter.  I found the joy-god of wine and harvest so decided to try something with that.  To begin with, the page was a color photo copy water transfer.  That means you wet the page, slap down the jet print copy, give it a bit of rub, pull off the copy and play with what you get.  This page was like the third printing from my photo copy so was rather ghostly.  I kind of liked the looks of it, but, it was on bare manilla folder page so I gave the background an acrylic wash or two to get rid of the manilla look.  Then, since there is a poem,  I was trying  to stick with the elements within the poem.  But, not so fast... after more net searching I discovered this should have been a guy!  Well, today, I will be digging through my ancestor pictures to transfer to the face of this, must not mess with mother nature, nor her gods, right?  Add some inky stuff maybe... well who knows.  As I said I Should Have Just Doodled.
 Speaking of doodles,  if you like to doodle, try out this place:  http://www.theprocrastinator.co.uk/  There is an interactive doodling screen you can play on if you don't need the products.  If I was still working, the calendar would definitely be on my desk... I loved those sorts of calendars when I worked... allowed me to add a bit of art to my day!  And the company cards sound fun as well....

Discharging

Have you tried anything in the way of discharging?  I mean "lightening" a darker color with some sort of removal medium.  Years ago, a secretary had the option to use what was sold as an "ink remover."  It was a little bottle of weak acid that would scrub away an ink mistake from the typewriters or I suppose a printing machine of some sort.  That was before the conveinience of easy edit with computers.  Sometimes one would type on a typewriter for an hour only to discover a mistake that could not be tolerated... so the ink remover would come out to try to fix this.  Then, we got correction tapes, then liquid paper, and now, TG, the computer! LOL.  But, back to discharging.  I bought this clorax bleach gel pen in the detergent department at the store.  Found a piece of black fabric and made a drawing with the bleach.  I haven't had much experience with this except back in the early seventies I wrote and made drawings on my jeans.  Cotton works best of course, synthetic no, perhaps silk might work, or wool, the naturals.  I did not think this was going to work as the gel eventually dried and I couldn't see any lightening of the black.  But after giving it a washing in liquid detergent I hung it up to dry.  This morning, bwa la... a drawing had emerged!  I immediately ran to the sewing machine, threw on some white thread and started a bit of free motion sewing.  This is the piece in progress... who know what it will eventually become!  It might turn into a lovely dish rag, lol.

Hands...

Someone on one of the groups hooked us up to a site with a "Hand Project". The lady had drawn many hands adding small things about that person.  So, I of course had to try it.  Mine is more like the doodlings I have done in the past.  It was interesting.  Please excuse the paint spatter on the side, it was there before I started and I decided it was okay for it to be there for this project.  I am thinking of painting around the hands but haven't decided.  This really is my last piece of art to show unless I do something today.  Sometimes it seems like I have lots to show and sometimes I get down to the last of my "new works."  That's ok, I will just show you something else artsy... giggle!

Post Card Swap

Over in CCS, we started a little post card swap in one of our conversations.  This is the post card I received from the UK.  It was packaged in tissue and had four "queen stamps" on the envelope, which I will use both in a piece of art one day.  This past summer, improving my garden was on my vision board, and I did work in the yard more.  Now, this card arrives from a total stranger! Thanks Jane!  What about do you think about that?

Playing With More Techniques

Here are some cards I made for reference dealing with pre preparing pages (say that a number of times as fast as you can) in your art journals.  I stamped on the cards what I did to them so I could remember.  Now, If I decide to do a collage or something, I will know exactly what to do for the background of my choice.  Also, I am learning to use photo copies of my ancestors in my art.  Here you see my DH's Grandfrather, my Great Grandfather, and my DH (well, he really is not my ancestor, but I had to include one of his photos, lol)

October

These seem to fit into the October theme.  I think they are results of EDM themes.  Pencil on cream colored paper and a elmer's clear glue with black watercolor resist.

Playing With Photo Copies

Over in the A.R.T. group, we are doing a book study in Lynne Perrella's Artist's Journls & Sketchbooks.  This is our first activity-playing with photo copies of old photos.  This was a small little snap shot  about 2 X 3 inches of my Mom.  I enlarged it, made lots of copies so I could play.  The cards are made as a reference to what you can do with copies.  I think I want to make a mobile with mine!

Doodling Again

I found this doodle I started last late winter.  I do something like this at night in front of the TV.  You can see the parts that were already there, I think.  Anyway, I picked it up and finished it a night or two ago.  I like it.  I still have a bunch of these round cards so will be doing more.  I wonder... what should I do with a bunch of round doodles?

Drawing Plus Watercolor

Just some efforts in using watercolors. I haven't done much with water colors, but I am leaning to like them, especially over a pencil drawing. These are from EDM prompts.

Scanner Art

Someone in one of the groups I visit talked about her scanner art. She has invested in a really nice scanner so she can do this. This conversation caught my eye because I had read a bit about it maybe last winter. The little bit I get from this idea is that you scan 3-D items, then do some photoshop magic to the scan, then print it. Well, lacking photoshops skills, and really, scanning to my computer amazes me, I have here some unmanipulated scanner art! lol.

Flicker Wood Batik

I was bummed out for a couple of days as it seemed the bird visitors had all flown south, so to speak. But today, I had another visit from a flicker, a blue jay scrub, and a small flock of cedar waxwings, who are so cute with their little top knots. I guess some leave and new ones arrive... Swallowcliffs Delux Bird Resort is still in business, lol.

The photo is the last batik I finished in honor of the visiting flickers.

Daily Sketches

I try to sketch something everyday. Sometimes I use a "model" as in the apple sketch and sometimes I just try to come up with something with out any reference as in the butterfly. I remember how relieved I was when an art instructor told the class that most artists have what they call "scratch" which is photos, or the real thing, to look at, to refer to. That they do not just come up with the art spontaneously from their mind. Did you grow up with that idea... that you ought to be able to just draw something without looking at an example? Perhaps if you had drawn something over and over again you might!

Climate Change

Blog Action Day 2009 – focusing on climate change – will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. All bloggers can have a bit of say about this today! How do you feel about it? What do you do about it?

I feel like I am doing my small bit by recycling anything I can find to use in my art. If you have been reading my blog you know I am the self proclaimed "Yard Sale QUeen" and have been "Her Majesty" since 1963. So, in ackknowledging that there is climate change and we need to do what we can, today, I am showing my work in progress with some recycled slide mount holders. This is the first step. I will be adding something in the windows and some embellishments on the front, eventually... I just have to see what I can find that can become art instead of a land fill item!

If you want to get involved here is the link

http://www.blogacti onday.org

Post Card Swap

Over in CCS we had a little collaged post card swap. This is the card I sent to Lin.

Drawings

I am trying to do a drawing each day... did I tell you that already? I have managed to do most days I think. Here are the latest in my sketch journal!

First-draw some paper money. Well how boring would that be... so I made my own dollar.

Second-draw something from a first aid kit. I happened to have this little self care first aid kit.

Third-I made these labels to put on a group of old glass bottles I bought at a yard sale. i still need to put names on them.

I think daily sketching and drawing will improve my skills... eventually! What skills do you want to upgrade?

A Bit of Explaination

I start with a piece of wood and put a sketch on it.
For the birds, I have a bird identifyer chart to use as reference.
I draw right on the board, and I put a border on.
I also draw in some background things.
I do the painting... it is a bit confusing at times. I try to paint from the lightest color to the darkest color. I wax over each color as I add it.
Her is most of the painting waxed over
The last coat of paint is black. Totally covering the entire painting. Once that is dry, I scrape the painting and get the "wood cut" look of the wood batik process.

See the painting in my last post!

This is a technique I used to do in the early 90's and I am just revisiting it now.

All My Bird Activity

The scans are two wood batiks and a pen drawing/doodle.

I decided I had to do some bird art since the birds have been so entertaining around here this fall. We have had some interesting visitors and some old regulars. This last few weeks, a large flock of robins have been here. They are very busy eating the cherry tomatoes right now, and cleaning up other seeds from the garden. They also hit the windows often, but that does not seem to bother them and they fly off in another direction. The cat and I get the thummmp sound from this happening, and she runs to the window to look out to see if they go to the ground. Last week I had a flicker landing on the seals of the windows so I had a great view of it. I think that will be my next wood batik. The pen drawing kinda of remind me of their over all look too.

Another Group Another Journal

Ugly even after adding some colored leaves!This one is a mistake... it is actually the next to last step in my wood batiking! lol
The journal after the pages are sewn in...
The blue folder with elastic..
The journal held closed with the elastic corners
A great variety of papers..
A page marked with the elastic...

I signed up with a book study group. This is actually the third time I have done this. My first one was a Julie Cameron book in CCS, the second one was KKR's Taking Flight book, a ning site started by the oh so nice Teri, and now The Art Journal and Sketching book by Lynn Perilla (hope I spelled that right) in the A.R.T group. I don't have the book yet, but was told by members I would need a journal and could do that while I wait for the book. So, off to my stash I went, to see what I could see. I found this "sandwich" of a tree-I painted the trunk on muslin then free motion sewed the leaves and grasses. I hated it! So, I thought I could use it for a journal cover if I brightened it up. I stamped colorful leaves on it, and added some sparkly powders too, but I still did not like it. While playing with the darn thing, I happened to flip it over and discovered the back side of the sandwich would be just the ticket. It is green tulle with green stitching. Nothing else needed here. I love anything green and the play of the shiny tulle against the flat stitching is nice! I used an new, but old since I have had it for years, folder that had elastic on it to keep it closed as the cover boards, incorporating the elastic into the whole thing, Made my leafs from paper I already had, sewed it with wax covered linen thread that I found recently at a yard sale, and "Sigh" I am one happy journaler! Hope the scans give you an idea of my lovely new journal!