February Glossy Project

Okay, so, I am a month behind here.  But when my niece/sister arrived and wanted to play "art" I got busy and finished her.  Hmmmm... I should be finishing up March.  I will have to go find her however, lol.  But, you know how sometimes you work on something and the results just are not that impelling to keep going?  That is how February was.  But now that I have put more layers and such, I think she is acceptable.

So, I started, as usual with a square from an old white cotton sheet.  Backed it as usual and transferred the  face.  Did the embroidery.  Gave it a gesso wash.  Painted the fece colors in with acrylics.  Added the background and hair colors.  Hair was way too bright red so toned down the hair and face with a green glazing.  Hair still too red, but with a couple more glazes it looks better now.  I found the paper pattern with the flowers on it and since the bottom of the picture was a blank filled that in with the paper.  Finally some more coloring added, then free motion stitching, and added the words.  Now, she is finally acceptable, lol.

Jumping Back to S

On my reverse alphabet art journaling pages, after doing H, I went back to S.  I found a pre-prepared (is that a word? lol) page in my journal that had the black bird on it.  It immediately reminded me of the birds we watch out our big window overlooking the rock wall and the valley.  When we have a stiff breeze sometimes the birds, these black crows and the hawks, "wind surf" and SOAR almost on eye level to us.  The seem to just sit in one place as the wind holds them there.  The look like they are having so much fun, just "hanging five" in the sky.

And here is my metal tape after applying some homemade red alcohol ink and then lightly sanding to emphasize the lines.  It is now added to my "pink folder" journal.  I have a two inch roll of tape too I am going to play with next so the journal may have more added to it!

I loved this process.  Sort of zen doodling with a pointed instrument.  I want to try a more formal edition soon.

Metal Tape Art

My son gave me a 6" roll of metal tape to play with.  I took off about 10 inches, which was wrinkled and rather wear worn to play with.  I used a plastic ruler to smooth it out.  Then, allowed the wrinkles to tell me what to doodle around the edges, added the hearts and swirls in the center using that tool with the tiny metal balls on the end... I think they are called stylus.  Now, I am going to play today with trying to add some color to it.  I do not have alcohol inks and don't want to buy more supplies so I am going to play with what I have to see what I can do.  This is fun and I am pretty sure I will do more, once I have figured out the coloring process.

H

Okay, jumping from T to H may not be kosher but art is art and today I did an H page so here it is. I am actually killing two birds with this one, he he.  BAJ group is already on the letter D so H gets me closer to on target. WPS's prompt is the state of your heart.  So, combined I have Happy Heart! It was fun to play with gel pens on this windy spring day!

Week End Visitor Portraits

My niece who is much like my little sister since she is only 5 yrs younger than me, and a fab artist herself, came to visit and she wanted to make an art quilt for a gift for a friend who is getting married in April.  So, we got to play in the studio for three days.  I worked on Pam C's portrait techniques for the WPS journal group and she worked on her quilt.  Here is the results.

U and T

OMG, the group is already on like E or something like that.  I gotta get going here!  This is my U and T pages.

I picked the word un-reel because I wanted to play with my bycyle gear and other reel looking tools.  They made a great "steam punky" looking background, don't you think? 

And for t?  Well tweet of course.  This is a song HRH used to sing to me, and still might sing again, lol.  "Cuz your so sweet, tweetlee tweet tweet, you give me a thrill, right down to my heel, oh you know I've gotta love you, cuz your so sweet, tweetlee tweet tweet."

Burning Desire Spread

In the truth group, we are to explore a "burning desire."  Well, I am afraid that all my burning desires have burned out, lol.  But I found a quote from  some unknown by me person named Kahlil Gibran explaining the word esoterica, which I had to look up!  He said "A spiritual awakiening is often found and developed in a wilderness.  It can be a poem or a parable of a deep forest, a mountain meadow or a cactus-studded deser.  The outdoor spirit of plein air refreshes and further enables the indoor studio chapel.  Each new creative beginning is a confirmation of the simple truth of taking care.  and while it may all appear to be self-indulgent and isolating, every thought, every stroke, every caress of the brush adds a small refreshment of meaning and purpose to our universe.  Work is love made visible.  

This so fits me, so my page  on burning desire is my creative efforts.

Alphabet Art

You know how you have all these "have tos" on burners and they occupy you mind and then finally you have them all finished?  And you know how you sort of totally go into a "rest" or "relaxed" state, rather a stagnant period where you don't do anything, just recouperating?  I think that is where I have been since last week.  I can't seem to get up and actually "create" much!  But, over in the BAJ (where our leader needed a rest too) she started this alphabet journal pages starting with Z and working backwards.  These have been about all I have been working on, and even those I have been slow on.  I think they are like on O and here I am on W.  But, they are nice for light arting!  It rather amazing to me of the themes I have have found in my life with just the four I have completed.

For X I immediately thought of xeroscaping.  When we moved to our place here, we planted buffalo grass around the house to hold the dust down, some junipers to go along with the naturals of sage, cactus, rocks and desert dwellers.  We love it!

For W, I thought of window.  But what to put in the window?  I tried lots of different things and then got side tracked onto  manipulating photos.  I used this really really old bottle of ink remover on the eye and the sunflower.  It changed the colors and look, as you can see.  And somehow, they morphed into a face.  I call this a window into my mind...

Nesting Art

Over in Creative Everyday, there is a daily and monthly challenge posted.  For March, the monthly challenge is "nest."  I mulled this around for a while trying to get my muse interested in this theme.  No luck!  Then, I realized that my cyber name swallowcliffs developed from the migrating swallows to the cliffs by our house, where they make these amazing swallow nests!  So, I cropped a picture I have had for a while and thought I would show that to you.  I have to say, the swallows have a special place in my heart.  They arrive on my son's oldest car girl's birthday every May.  The fly over our heads during the summer catching flying insects.  I love seeing the flash of their yellow bellies out our windows and when we are lounging on our decks.  They have a sweet trill too.  In late summer we have fun watching what we call "flight training" for the new hatchlings... it is a very noisy group activity!  All in all, they are very inspiring to me!  Here is what their nests on the cliffs look like.

I actually tried to post just a cropped close up of one of the nests but blogger would not accept it.  I think it has something to do with the settings in PS but since I have no clue how to use PS except in a very fundamental way, who knows, lol.  

Recent Journal Efforts

I try to do at least one journal page a day.  Sometimes I do more.  I do have a tendency to make things in multiples for some reason... the idea is that since I am in the mess, I might just as well do as many as I can.  I do that with baking too, lol.  Sewing, not so much, unless it is little 3-D creations like dolls, then I usually cut out at least three.  You know how the first thing always teaches you how to do something or gives your muse an new idea... so it is nice to have another ready to go NOW, as they say on the crime shows, lol.
Today, for instance, I am going to play with using words in journals... I will paste book pages and other things on pages... no telling how many I will do as this is an easy task.  Then, I will have no telling how many pages ready to use on a whim!  I like that!  So, here are the pages I have completed this last week:

Exploring My Dark Side(s)  Even dark sides can be artsy, lol.

A Glazing Practice-effects of glazes...

Journal Spilling Practice~doesn't journal spilling seem to be hot right now?

Explore Your Fears Journal Spilling style~fears come and go~

Journal Spilling on a previously prepared page~The saying in the circle and the lady at the bottom were radomly pasted onto this page many moons ago... and I just this week decided to do something with it.  Lists are good!

A Y page~doing the alphabet backwards...

And the Z page that started the backwards alphabet...

New for 2011

When I made my vision/dream board for 2011, I had no idea how much it would influence my life!  Besides putting my focus word "forgive" on it, I added some things I want to do to the house, and some personal "fix up" words, and the one that seems to be happening most is the "submit and share and view" my art.  Because I have that sign on my board, I have stretched myself to do just that.  If you are a consistent visitor here you know I have an art showing happening right now.  And before that I got to visit a very interesting art exhibit in Denver.  And today "ta ta da daaaaaaaaaa" I am a guest blogger on another blog!  I hope you will go pop over to my friend Thauna's new blog about, well BEING!  Here is the link
http://lifebesprinkled.com/  Thanks Thauna for inviting me to play on your blog!

And speaking of vision/dream boards, I picked up this idea from somewhere unknown now:  Make a drawing of your body and use that for your dream board.  So, I crawled up on my huge art desk in the garage and HRH did a body tracing of me... Now, she is hanging on my studio door and I put things on her.  She had the serenity prayer in her head, and lasts years dream board moon sun graphic on her belly.  And I use her to finish off dabs of left over paint from other projects.  She is actually getting quite colorful now. I hope she gets to have lots of things pasted on her before the end of 2011!  I know there is a trip or two coming up and hopefully other fun artsy things!  Here she is before the colorful additons of  fun began!

Yea 2011!

Moving into Week Three of Mandalas

I started out doing a mandala a day... but I am s l o w l y losing ground with that.  I did two "do them however you want to do them" for this week and here they are.

Number 8 is zen doodling... always relaxing...

Number 9 has to do with earth, water, air and fire.  Nice change for me.  I really don't do well with doing the same thing over and over.  I am thinking that a mandala a week might be too many for me, lol.

Art Showing!

Yep, I am having an art showing.  How fun is that.  Now that all the framing and matting is over, and the delivery is done that is.  One thing left will be the pick up at the end of March.  But, an Art Show!  My sweet HRH took some pictures.

Oddity Art

About 2 + years ago I took a class from M. Demeng.  His art is fun, weird, and he does assemblages.  I love 3D art so loved his class.  I have made a few efforts at art, using many tricks I learned in his class!
One of the prompts in the WPS truth group was to explore what you fear now.  I decided I fear getting so old that I have to have  someone elses hands to help me do everyday things.  I decided to make a "shrine" to my fears.  This is what I made:

A wooden box painted and mirrors added.  A question mark (that is what growing old is, a question)for a body with a doll head and arms added.

The mirrors give the box some interactive action.  And the danglies move with small amount of air movement too.

And the hand at the bottom holds this coin... rather how many feel about old people, lol

I still need to do some things to the outside of the box... 

Then, this last week end we took a trip to Denver where I got to go to this Museum

The MOA-Where there is a Nick Bantock AND their permanent exhibit called Cabinets of Curiosities

The above picture is the banners with some of Nick's art in foyer

And Nick's art was very interesting

And boxes and cabinets of curiosities were fabulous

And Nick's assemblages were so fun

So, I found a few treasures while thrifting there to give another go at assemblage.  Yeah!