Back again! skinny pages

Well, what a hiatus! Unintentional, in a good way. I got a job! It is a long term sub job and goes until January, but there may be possibilities for the future. It's going well; I am definitely blessed. The job and graduate class, along with part time tutoring has left me lacking in art time. I know, I know, make time! I've still been knitting, and took time out to go to the Rhinebeck NYState Sheep and Wool Festival. Fabulous Fibers in lots of yummy colors. The colors themselves were inspiring. I have finally finished the skinny pages for the swap I signed up for (thank you Belinda for hosting and being so organized!!). I had some orange paint mixed from other colors. So that's what ended up, along with a couple of other accent colors. Here are two samples (side by side in photo).

post card number 2

Happy September and Paper towels for all

As a teacher, I've evolved into really considering September as my new year. With some job uncertainty, I was worried that this September was the first one in a long time that I'd be without a classroom. Opportunity knocked and my prayers were answered. It is not absolutely perfect, but very few jobs are, and the first week has been quite wonderful. With a separate part time job and an graduate class coming up, things are going to get quite busy. But I want to take time to make art! So here are some post cards I made with some fusion dyed paper towels. See Traci Bautista's Collage Unleashed for instructions on these. Her book is really fun; losts of techniques to play with. Play being the operative word.

journal pages from workshop

Fabulous workshop with Kelly Kilmer at a nearby stamp store. What a wonderful teacher and a wonderful group of ladies. Kelly is a great teacher; she encouraged us that "there was no wrong way to do it," and shared her own paints, paper, collage images, and stamps. Here is a journal page from that workshop.

atc with dress form

ATCs galore

I made several while watching the movie Definitely Maybe - fabulous feel good film. Some of these have a background of diluted water colors sprits on paper and other various paint marks, others are "intuitive water colors" with Dr. Ph Martin's watercolors. I received my sunflower atcs from 3 other great artists, but I still need to scan those in. They are lovely.

mosaic

I may come back to black and white. They are really very classy looking. Here's a mosaic with buttons I played with for a yahoo group challenge. I had a spiral thing in mind when I started. I think it's ok, but I will probably try again and mix buttons and beads in a more definite pattern. I may also do some stamped polymer clay tiles - I have soooo much polymer clay. But it was fun to do this and see how easy it was, especially with Golden's molding paste. I like have a textured background showing in between mosaic pieces. Maybe doing a mosaic mixed with some stamping into the molding paste. Hmmm. . . . I'm still job searching, but it does allow me a lot of time to play, which I am enjoying.

more black and white

Tag art #2

black and white

Sometimes things are just black and white . . . and sometimes they're not. I've been job searching all summer and had several interviews, even been close once . . . but nothin'. As a teacher this is starting to flip me out a bit as school is fast approaching (insert several angry conversations with God) and I find myself feeling like just a big fat loser. The hiring process is far from transparent and it seems nothing is black and white in my job search. Friends (thank God for them!) and art have helped me stave off the sinking into despair. Here's some black and white tag art that I'm considering sending to Somerset Studio. It was challenging but fun to confine myself to a limited color palette.

Sunflowers

Here are some sunflower atcs that I've been working on for a swap. It has challenged me because the flowers have to be painted or hand drawn. I'm doin' my best. I think they're coming out ok. The background of this card is an eraser that I carved and now use as a stamp. I hope the follks who get my cards aren't horrified:) I took the swap because I wanted to do something different and challenge myself. I am still looking for a teaching job, and a bit frustrated at not being hired yet. But I have noticed that I've been wallowing in the pool of self-pity a bit too much. The other day my friend brought me to a picnic with some of her work friends. She knew some of them had kids, so she brought along some construction paper, crayons, etc. Pretty soon she was using index cards and business cards and the kids were lining up to learn how to make the bunny or the frog with origami. Those are the only 2 things she knows how to make, but the kids kept on trying it until they got it, and then happily embellished their froggies or bunnies with yarn, crayons, pom-poms. So I realize I need to take this opportunity to be a bit more childlike and play with stuff a bit more. So I am trying to see art everyday as less of a finished art piece idea and more of playing with art every day. I'm off to a museum tomorrow with a friend and looking forward to some inspiration.

more yellow

Here's another yellow atc.

yellow

Trying to do some art every day. So here are some more yellow atcs that I finished today and will be mailing off for swap. I am also working on a full sized collage - but more to come on that later!

coffee card

Here's my finished coffee collage. About 4 x 6 maybe. The very bottom layer is an experiment with Ranger alcohol inks. This is on poster paper and not true glossy cardstock, so that's why it looks a little different, but I think it adds some stability and interest for the background.

NEW SCANNER!

Finally set up my new scanner, and love it! My art comes out clearer when published to the web. And now I can scan originals, print them, and continue altering. Oh the possibilities are endless! Here is a yellow atc for a swap I'm doing. It's a gessoed playing card dry brushed with yellow paint. The focal image is a cancelled postage stamp from a letter I got, and the corner images are rubber stamped and colored with pencils. I like the yellow - blue combination. And the shell sticker up top picks up some more blue. Too bad I can't get to the beach myself! But creating some art is a type of escape.

coffee!

I've accepted a challenge to make something coffee themed, so now I'm thinking about where my coffee themed stamps are, and thinking back to this atc I made a while ago. I really liked making the painted tissue paper which forms the background. I think I got that from Traci Bautista in Cloth Paper Scissors. I got her Collage Unleashed book and love it! So now I'm thinking of some rich brown backgrounds. Hmm . . . I think it's time to head to Starbucks for some inspiration!

more atc's with diaper liner backgrounds

Here are more

ATC's galore, Favorite techniques and magazines

Since I'm now on vacation I've had a blast playing wiht art supplies again. I also had a chance to take some photos of atc's I'd already made. Here are some with painted and stained diaper liners (I know, weird, but I saw it in Cloth Paper Scissors, so I gave it a try). CPS is one of my favorite mags, and as is Someset Studio. Eye candy galore, and techniques I really can try. These atcs involved using the diaper liners to wipe off excess paint as I was making other things. I took a look at them and realized they looked pretty good for backgrounds. I xyroned the atc's and stuck them to the diaper liners and cut to size. The pictures of the ladies are from Somerset studio clip art (love that prize in each magazine!) The kids faces were toner transferred onto water color paper and then painted over. The building picture is from my trip to London - I cut up the pictures that were not so great. Add some ephemera and - I LOVE MY ATC's!

The art goes on!

Life continues. I am hanging out on a limb here, trusting God for the future. Not to comfortable a position to be in all the time. Life is still worth living, and OF COURSE art is still worth making! So here is my foray into inchies. Fabulously fun. Collaged and painted a cheap old wooden plaque with some cheesy message on it. Made inch by inch squares and used some cool punches to dress them up.

healing

There is nothing like hooking back up with the body of Christ to get true perspective. The C.A.M.P.S. community has been and is to me the very hands and feet of Christ. I've stopped asking why, and have begun to look to God with hope and ask "What new exciting adventure do you have planned next?" I am journaling my experience and here are some pics.

WASTED

I feel like my mind is in one long scream. But nothing is coming out. I'm numb. I think I was just screwed over in a major area of life, made the sacrificial lamb. I am actually in awe that this could happen to me and think that life could be over now. I keep trying to hold on but the sand is slipping beneath my feet. I really hope God meant Jeremiah 29:11 - 13- I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. I see no hope at times in this crisis. I see no future. In the midst of trying to hold on, I am trying to make art and will attempt to post some pics in a few days.

liberated!

Today I eschewed the To Do list and made ART! How liberating. I'm on vacation, and I finally decided that even if my studio space is a disorganized cramped corner of my tiny apartment, THAT DIDN'T MATTER ANY MORE - It was time to make art. ATC's are soooo . . . possible for me right now as I can work on several of them at a time and use up some of my paper scrap stash while I'm expressing myself. There's somethign about those little canvases that I find addictive. Here are a couple of the recent creations.

Funny story. So I finally set up a blog and am going to use that digital camera I bought about 2 years ago. I try to take pictures of some new work and the battery on the camera appears to go kaput. I change the batteries, but it still doesn't work. I'm bummed. And for like, a month, I keep saying I'm going to take it to the store to get it looked at, but I never really do. So I finally took it to Best Buy and told the nice ladies in the digital camera section the story. They offer to crack open a brand new package of batteries, in case the ones I bought were duds. Immediately the thing turns on, and I mumble something about paying closer attention to where I put the new batteries vs. the spent batteries. The young ladies were very nice and didn't even laugh at me. Note to self - be less of a dingbat. Still not feeling incredibly inspired in paper arts, but I've done a lot of knitting. Here's some new stuff. "Soar" and my favorite new hand made socks.

back again!

Amazing how times flies. And I get less productive. Terrible how our "real" jobs interrupt being creative and making art isn't it? My digital camera is on the fritz, so I've had difficulty photographing new work to post, but I will not be foiled. Hopefully I can get it fixed today. I'm trying not to be bogged down with the minutiae of daily life (bill paying, paper filing, etc.) that seems to sap all my artistic energy. Sprititually I'm trying to commit to some spiritual disciplines with a book called Spiritual Disciplines Devotional by Valerie E. Hess (IV Press). I've always been attracted to the practice of lectio divina, or devotional reading of the scriptures, but I've had real difficulty putting in the time to do it. Why is it so hard to carve out time for those activities we say we value so much? So I read and meditated on John 9, where the man born blind receives his sight, and I kept hearing "allow me to open your eyes." I don't yet know what that means, but I am hopeful that I can explore the implications for my personal life and my art. In what way do my eyes need to be opened? Here's an ATC I created last year.

inaugural post

"I love myself when I am laughing. And then again when I am looking mean and impressive." Zora Neale Hurston wrote this in a letter to Carl Van Vechten on December 10, 1934 about some photographs he took of her, and it's the title of the Zora Neale Hurston Reader edited by Alice Walker. I found her several years ago through Their Eyes Were Watching God and have read most of her work. As my graduate studies in literature seem to have me leaning in a Harlem Renaissance direction, I've continued to have Zora on the brain. I just like the way she lived on her own terms. Some thought she was brilliant, some crazy, some just didn't know what to make of her. At the risk of inappropriately comparing myself to the great Zora, sometimes I feel quite misunderstood myself. Anywho . . . with this blog I am committing to spend time on the activities that replenish me, that feed me spiritually: connection with God and meditation on his word, writing, altered art . . . and who knows what new frontiers may come. This image is a "paper doll" I made with instructions from one of the Somerset Studio Gallery magazines.