Monday, December 31, 2012

December Calendar Journal Page

Hey there- I never posted my December page because- A. I didn't start it until the middle of the month and B. I just finished it.I almost just gave up- I have a bit of a perfectionist, black and white, ocd type thing going on in my head here that I'm trying to beat. so- rather that not doing it because it wouldn't be 'complete' (that's the ocd) or perfect (that's the other monster) - I decided to just start wherever and muddle through the best I can.  So here it is- my December calendar page. Thank you again Kate Crane for this awesome challenge and for all of your inspiration. (if you haven't heard of this challenge, check out The Kathryn Wheel and everybody's work there- so much fun)





Since I decided to rejoin this challenge again only in November, here is my November page. I am hoping next year to do all TWELVE months teehee.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Art Journal Cafe- Handcarved Stamp Challenge

France Papillon and Carol Lechatquitousse have issued a challenge over at the Art Journal Cafe  to carve your own stamps. There is a video tutorial as well! I'm fortunate enough to have a small stamp block started- I took a workshop at Diana Trout's studio a while ago, and she gave us a little block that we carved- we used it during the workshop and I brought it home, where it promptly got buried under other stuff. Well, I finally found it, and carved up the rest of the block. Here's a picture of it, along with some of the images it creates.


And here are all six of my new stamps. I am challenging myself to use all of the images on my page...



I worked on my `portrait a little more, so here's where that is now...


And then I made a few toner copies of it so I could play with the image, without ruining the original. After adding my stamping with pigment and solvent inks, I added more color with paint, Portfolio pastels and some Neocolors for her face. I got a little carried away on painting the face, and ended up making a hole in the paper right on her chin! So I just got that part off. Et voila- here she is. Its not intentional, but she definitely has a mad hatter look to her, don't you think?


Here's what my workspace looked like when I was done....





I think I'll make another page out of the scraps. :)






Thursday, November 8, 2012

Calendar Journal Page- Masking Tutorial

I really did have so much fun making this calendar journal page. I played with masking fluid- i took a watercoloring class many years ago, and just loved  working with this stuff. (It's kind of pricey, and I used half the bottle doing this page, but I read that you can use plain ol' rubber cement instead- have to give it a try.

Ok, so I opened up the last page in my handmade journal and painted the whole thing with watered down acrylic paint. After I did that, I painted on random sized circles with the masking fluid. Here's the best I could do photo wise to try and capture the process- the shiny parts are where the masking fluid has been applied.







Now, I pulled out my handy-dandy gear stencil and started stenciling on a coordinating color paint, and then pulled out my homemade spray ink and continued spray randomly all over the page.


 So far I have this:


 Hmmm.... needs MORE! I stenciled through sequin waste with a contrasting color and added some stamping with purple Stazon ink.


And now its time to peel! , with my favorite lovely assistant, my little girl. Whee!


I did a little reverse masking, since I thought the inside of the circles needed some loving...

(It was hard to catch the action- again, the shiny parts are where the masking fluid is...)


 Of course, you already have seen the results if you read the original calendar journal post but here's a little close up :


I'm already eyeing up a canvas I did a few weeks ago and want to change. Rubber cement, here I come!


Forgotten Portrait

Today, I found a small pile of old drawings in my closet. Among them was this portrait. I don't remember when I drew this- its reminiscent of a charcoal I did in 1987 that got destroyed when my high school caught on fire (arson). There were a lot of combustibles in the art storage area, of course, so everything that I had done so far that year was destroyed. Maybe I started another to replace it? Either way, I am off to the copy store tomorrow so I can use it in a journal page.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Art-is-You Hurricane Sandy Relief


The wonderful ladies at Art-is-You have put their heads together and came up with a plan to provide some much needed relief to the victims of Hurricane Sandy. If you go to their website, there is a button to donate- any amount is acceptable and will help. You can donate food cards or gas cards as well. There are many artists donating their artwork to this cause, and if you would like to donate, you will be entered into a raffle to win beautiful one of a kind artwork. One, in particular, Kecia, has created a beautiful painting by candlelight, since she still doesn't have electric. Another, Jenny of Everyday is a Holiday, has blogged about her experience here.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Calendar Journal Page - November



I thought I'd give the Kate's calendar journal challenge another go.Here's a link to her colorful and inspiring blog- the Kathryn Wheel.  I keep seeing such beautiful pages, but I haven't created one in months. The problem was writing in the tiny little spaces- so I decided to make a big calendar page in a Teesha Moore style amazing 16 page journal. So this space is approximately 24 x 10 inches.

Update- I am having so much fun with this! ....love how the black journaling adds to the page.

I added a tutorial here, about playing with masking fluid,  if you want to see how I made this page . 

Friday, November 2, 2012

Lynne Perrella's Class at the Ink Pad in NY, and a Hurricane


This past Sunday, I went to Manhattan to attend a class taught by Lynne Perrella and hosted by the Ink Pad.  I have always admired Lynne's use of color and pattern, and was very much interested in learning some new techniques. Actually, it was her stamps that caught my eye about 13 years ago that first got me interested in collage and mixed media.

(Feel free to skip-  Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep all night- I must have woken up every 45 minutes, so I was tired, and anxious, as I am prone to be when I do not sleep well. On top of that there were storm warnings- it was announced that the transit system was going to be shut down at 7 to prepare for Hurricane Sandy, and since I took New Jersey Transit to get into the city, I was anxious about getting out. Long story short, I left early. Before I left the class, I got to have some time with Lynne- she went around the entire room giving assistance (and provided a handout- woohoo!) and she helped me solve a layering problem in a way I never would have figured out. Anyway, I haven't touched it since I left Sunday, but here he is:


Next up- Hurricane Sandy, new friends, and collaging by candlelight.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Altered Bottled Class- Art Is You 2011

I'm a little bummed that I'm not going to Art-is-You this year in Connecticut. This would have been my fourth year attending and I will definitely miss seeing all of my art friends and looking at all of the different artwork produced. Last year was my second workshop with Michael deMeng- I can't remember the name of the class, but we altered bottles.
 
Here he is demo-ing the proper way to cut glass-
 
 


 
 
The proper way to cut off a doll's head...
 

 
 
 
And here we have some of the other students work....  I just love them- so inspiring!
 
Just loving the pipe fitting on the tall bottle
 
 
 

And ....tada! Here's mine. Getting that little spout on was a problem.... I cut out a hole in the bottle, inserted the victorian gas fitting into the hole and then tried to get it to fit snugly by shoving apoxie clay into the extra space. The only problem is that it was taking so long for the clay to cure that it kept going sideways on me. So, it's a tad lopsided... However, I did learn a great trick with the Aves apoxie clay- did you know that you can get it to harden quicker with a heat gun???? 
 


Sunday, September 30, 2012

DeMentriloquism Class at Lemoncholy's Studio

I took just a few photos from this weekend's workshop, and since I never posted last year's (ok, or the year before's- but I have an excuse- I forgot my camera that year) , I figure I'll start with this weekend and then catch up. First up is a picture of the class sample he brought to show us....

and here's a cute one during one of his demos....



and of course we have the (in)famous critique session.... 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' - if you haven't taken a Michael workshop before, here's the deal- when he plays that song- it's pencils down and you put your project on the table time. The critique is actually a great part of the process- you get to see everyone else's pieces and talk about the different elements that make it work.It's always very positive and fun. I took a critique class with Michael and Keith Lo Bue last year that was great. Anyway, I digress. Here' a qick pic. (notice the good, bad and ugly shirt)


you can't see my piece well in this photo, but I have  a hint- I didn't alter a doll head- I went ahead with my robot plan. If you would like to see much better photos, check out Kecia's blog and post about the class here.


Friday, September 28, 2012

Michael deMeng Class Tomorrow

Tomorrow I am taking a class with Michael deMeng! That's the exciting news- the not so exciting news- we are making ventriloquist type heads. Now, originally my plan was to go up to Art-is-You in Connecticut and take the class there where he is making little framed talking heads. Those were kind of cute. But this weekend's workshop is full on ventriloquist type dummies. I had nightmares for YEARS about my Charlie McCarthy doll, so I'm so not into making a doll head based project. Instead, I'm going to try to make a robot. I've been hankering to make an automata type sculpture, so this might just be just the class to get me going. Either way, Michael's classes are always fun- so even if I just sit around watching his demos and eating m&m's, I'll have a good time. Here's SOME of the stuff I'm bringing...

 
 
and a close up....
 
 


Monday, September 24, 2012

Page Re-do

The challenge over at The Art Journal Cafe is 'Save Your Page'. hmmmmm- I have lots of pages that I started and then lost my direction in my journal. Here's the page I'm starting with.



When I took Traci Bautista's class aeons ago, she told us to make copies of our work so we could incorporate them into future collages, so I had recently gone to the copy store and made color copies. (yes, I could just print them out from my computer, but then they smear  when I go to use them because the ink is water based- I love the quality from the color copier- and the toner doesn't smear- and what's more, can be used for image transfer! wheeeeeeee!)  ok, you get the idea- so I went over and copied some of my previous pages. Here's the front and back of my journal, with some images cut out .....  (I used gel medium to transfer the images to the page- funnnnnnnn!)

 
 
 
Ok, so I'm working on it.....it's getting a little dark..... I am frustrated and leave it for a couple of days at this point.
 
 
(hmmmm.....it doesn't look as dark here as in person, but trust me, you could hardly see my little flying guy)
 
 
So, I painted over the scallops, and the dark red checks, added some stamps, then portfolio pastels,  STILL TOO DARK! ARGGHHHHH! One last attempt- paint! and voila- this is it.
 
 
Here is the top portion only. I like the composition- off to the copy store. I think it will be the new back cover. (That will be my next post.) If you read this whole long wordy post- my thanks to you! :)
 
 





Saturday, September 15, 2012

Three Muses Challenge- Turquoise

 I have been LOVING catching up with reading my favorite blogs and seeing everybody's inspiring artwork. I happened to see that The Three Muses Challenge for this week was 'Turquoise'.  Turquoise you say?- well I love that color- especially when paired with rust tones - here's what I came up with....  This was so much fun- thank you Three Muses for the inspiration! Here's a page I made using a collage sheet from The Collage Closet.








Monday, September 3, 2012

30 Minute Challenge- Art Journal Cafe

Ok, so I think I'm on a roll..... I ran across this challenge at Art Journal Cafe and it seemed like fun. What a messy fun time I had. I created a journal page in 30 minutes. (well, a little over by the time I got the batteries changed on the camera) I got to use one of my all time favorite stamps- The Scorekeeper by Stampers Anonymous. I figured it would be appropriate since I was on a time crunch and he would keep score if I went over time!










 




Sunday, September 2, 2012

Compendium of Curiosities 2, Challenge 19

Since I just recently started blogging again, I hadn't realized that Studio L3 was doing another Compendium of Curiosities challenge. I happened to run across their post for this week and was so excited, because OF COURSE, I had the kraft resist paper, and (of course) had never once done anything with it other than to look at it. Initially I was going to ink up the papers, and use the Sissix to cut out Tim's Hanging Sign or Hardware Findings and make something from them. But I was working on a canvas at the same time....and needed some collage papers.....and anyway here's how it ended up instead....
 (this was also posted below in Dina's Out of the Journal challenge post)

 
Here's a closer look at the butterfly....
 
 
And now for a picture of the the papers all inked up with distress ink, before tearing and collaging onto the canvas-
 
 
Also, a quick sneaky peeky of an upcoming journal page... my little one was getting all jealous of my gluey fun, so I let her glue down some strips onto a prepared journal page. Looking promising!
 

 
 
Hop on over, look at everyone's work and join in on the fun working through the techniques. I'm planning on trying to do this now that Dina's challenge is over for the month of August.