MMSA bird postcards

I was happy to see Karen announce a bird postcard swap back in November, I think it was, since I like birds. I posted my outgoing cards and now here are the ones I got back. All good ones, in keeping with most of the work done in the MMSA swaps. 

Made by Nydia, this card features here hand drawn and colored bird,
some washi tape and doodling on a painted background.
I love the little bluebird.

Made by Valerie, this card is bird images from magazines and
postage stamps on doodled card stock.
The bird with the crossed beak is interesting,
as that actually happens in nature. I like the balance that this card has.

Made by Trula, this card is collaged, colored,
then sanded or scraped to give it a worn look that I quite like.
I also like the oddball selection of images that
have nothing in common but make a cool collage. 

ATCs from AJC swap

Susan, Katrina, Kris, Carolyn 

Here are the returns from the AJC ATC swap.

Every time I receive a large-ish batch of a given media - ATCs, postcards, whatever - I'm struck by how individual we each are as artists. The only "rule" for this swap was that the ATCs be mixed media, at least 3 techniques used. Consequently, there's everything under the sun on these cards - collage, paint, gelli printing, stamping, stenciling, drawing, lettering, stickies, stitching, embossing, glitter. You name it, it's on these somewhere. They're great! Thanks to everyone who participated, these were really fun to receive.

Artists are noted below each image, clockwise from upper left.

Sandi, Tangie, Jo, Rain

Debbie (pirate), Linda, Carol

command performance

Well, a request, actually, but since I don't get too many direct requests for a specific piece of artwork, it *feels* as grand as a command performance.

One of my mail art buds, Beth, is doing the sketchbook challenge to the theme of 'postage stamp head people'. (just go look at her blog) She asked if I'd like to contribute a page and I jumped at the chance. I haven't done the challenge ever, for a number of reasons, but was thrilled at the chance to be in someone's book. 

I spent 30 minutes sifting thru my box of postage stamps (thanks, Rhonda) and found a bunch of heads. Then I paged thru a Vogue, trying hard not to get distracted by the articles, until I found a few bodies that would work, size-wise and with the stamps I had. 

Fussy cut the bodies, glued the heads on, glued them to the gelli print background and embellished a little. Wa-la.

They crack me up.

digital collage 'remember me'

Made in response to a call for art by Tangie of Art Journal Caravan. Everyone's submissions will be assembled into a digital book available for purchase at some point. It's at 300dpi so you can click (or maybe double click) on it for a huge view.

Started with two background papers blended with a grungy overlay. Added some stamps, blended in.

Used many images of my mom, Virginia, and her mother, Theresa. (mother theresa - ha!) She's the center image and the two going down to the left from there. She was dead at age 36 from breast cancer.

Used digital washi tape on most of them, staples on one and a paper clip on another. Added a butterfly image.

Added a cluster of flowers at lower left and some layered old papers at lower right.

I'm really happy with this. Love the color, the grunge, all the vintage images, the stamps in the background.

ATCs for AJC

Welcome to Acronyms R Us.

Tangie of the Art Journal Caravan (2014 signups available now) (it will be the last year) announced an ATC swap open to AJC members. Since I've only ever seen digital work from most of the caravanners, I thought it sounded like fun, plus I like making ATCs, so I signed up.

You had to make 12 of them, alike or different so I got out my ATC box full of backgrounds, partially completed ATCs, ATC stamps, ATC sleeves, etc, and dug around. I found enough partial ones to swap with just an afternoon's work in finishing them off. Some were pretty much done but I added doodling or stamps to perk them up a little.

I'll get 10 in return in a couple weeks and it'll be fun to see them.

Looking at the pictures I just uploaded, they're quite a mixed bag of techniques, materials, and time periods. Everything from vintage ledger paper to last week's magazines.

mmsa white swap

I love these monochromatic swaps. We've pretty much run thru the color wheel and are finishing up the year with white, which I loved working in. Karen announced this swap well advance and I've been tearing out pages of white stuff for weeks and fussy cutting them out on the couch in the evenings.

So when I sat down to make the cards, I had a file folder full of things all ready to go. I *really* enjoyed working like that, instead of having to stop creating in order to find and cut more stuff out.

These are very random collages in that there's no story, just a pleasing arrangement of white-ish objects. I did not shadow any of them, which means there's very little depth but preserves the white.

Anyway, here are my white cards. I had another but got turquoise paint on the damn thing somewhere along the way and will have to repair it and use it for a private swap.

in my previous life

I'm a published fiction writer. I no longer write (much), but when I did, I sold a short story to a national magazine and had another accepted and published in an anthology of stories written about an artist's paintings. All this by way of saying that when I saw this on Tumblr, I identified immediately. If you've ever been a writer, know a writer, wish you were a writer, you might think it's funny. 

I thought it was hysterical.

I found it here, on NaNoWriMo's blog.
NaNoWriMo is the acronym for
National Novel Writing Month
which is going on now, in November.
Good luck to all you crazy authors. 

My reality was a lot of the chimp, a fair amount of the plaid jacket guy, and just enough of the hunk with the quill pen to end up with a story that someone liked enough to pay me for. (full disclosure: I don't drink so never did that, and I know I'm not brilliant, but I do play a *ton* of solitaire, altho not back while I was writing heavily.)

When I was writing, I felt driven to do it. My hands itched to get to the keyboard and the story tumbled from my fingers as fast as I could type. It was like that for a handful of years. I typed and untyped and retyped like crazy, and then... one September, I just lost the urge. Gradually my days filled up with other things and pretty soon it was 6 months since I'd written a word. Now it's been 3 or 4 years, and I guess it's gone for good. 

I miss it.