dlp2015 weeks 6, 7 & 8

Oy. When the week 7 prompt came along, cover up the good parts, or something like that, I made a background and sat it aside to dry. When I came back to my desk, I mistakenly picked up week 6 and covered it all up with dress pattern tissue and used tea bags.

Then I saw my real week 7 sitting where I had placed it to dry. Whoops.

So, ok... I just covered up week 6 which I really liked. But that was the whole idea, right? Sorta.

Anyway, I did a bit more stuff on the real week 7, adding more black than I normally would, then ran out of steam cause I was bummed about messing up. But I do like the look of all the tissue and tea bags on week 6.

Week 8 was about repeating and I used squares instead of my default circles, just for something different. The black ovals are a stencil I cut from an old file folder. Spelled out SQUARES across the page and did a bunch of black and white doodling.

Altogether a weird dlp2015 week. Will try to pay more attn for the week 9 prompt which comes out tomorrow.

MMSA 3 item collage swap

When Karen posted some 3 item collage post cards on her personal blog, I thought, huh, those are cool. I also thought it would be a great idea for a swap, and sure enough, Karen announced it a couple weeks ago. I sat down and started paging thru magazines, looking for likely images.

When you have only 3 items, each one is very important. They need to relate somehow, they need to tell at least a bit of a story. I knocked out the chicken in the croc's mouth in ten minutes and then spent the rest of the week coming up with the other two. So hard! I have a whole pile of rejects on my work table that I hope will be useful for something else cause I sure couldn't make them fit into a 3 item collage.

Two of my three have something coming out of - or maybe going into - a mouth. Not sure what's going on there. Prolly just means I'm always thinking about food.

This swap put me strongly in mind of the 6-word short stories. The most famous is probably, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." I find them fascinating. If you're not familiar with them, go take a look. Then try to write one.

Still a week to get yours in the mail if you wanna play.

Yes, I cut around every one of those pointy little teeth.
Took forever.

I was going to trim off the card to clean up the torn left edge
of the elephant but then decided I liked the look.

layers!

I like Roben-Marie Smith's style - her colors, marks, projects all appeal to me. I've bought a couple of her online classes before and been happy with them so when she announced this one - Cardboard Crush - I didn't hesitate for long. You get a LOT for your money with this class. Four artists created projects for this class using cardboard and there are process videos from all four of them. I've only watched Roben-Marie's so far - two over 30 minutes and one about 25 minutes - and am making a project from her vids.

She is the queen of layers in my opinion and as I watched the vid, I jotted down what she did along the way. Then sat down and got to work with the intention of not stopping until I had outdone my previous layeriness. I also had the brains to take process shots along the way! I always love other people's process shots but rarely remember to pick up the damn camera until I'm finished. The last two pics are scans of the finished cover. Will post again when I've got it all done.

the horse ranch

I've become friends with a woman whose sister manages a Thoroughbred brood mare farm. Seven stallions, about 130 mares so lots of horse sex and lots of babies in the spring. I went out there this afternoon and wandered around taking pics. They're pretty self-explanatory, but here's a quick run down - calf (going to end up in the freezer eventually so they call him Stew), mama cow, Rio the farm dog, lots of baby horse pics, Owl the curly tailed farm cat. So lovely to walk around trailed by the dogs and cat, scattering chickens as we go, stopping to feed carrots here and there, scratch a butt. I came home smiling and smelling like horses.

thanks Connie!

My mail art pal Connie has been painting a lot lately and blogging her work. I like almost all of them but one of them really grabbed so I up and asked her if I could have it! The nerve, huh? But I really liked it and she and I have traded enough art that she knows I appreciate her work, so she said sure. In trade for a piece of mine yet to be created. If she spots something I post that she likes, she's say so, and I'll send it off to her. Kinda like a deal with the devil in that you don;'t know the cost until the time comes. But I'm good with that, I like having the things I create go off to live with with someone else who'll enjoy them.

Anyway, it arrived last week and I'm finally getting off my arse to blog about it. I still need to decide how to display it. Don't want to mat it cause I like the deckle edges so maybe need to just mount it in a frame on a dark background. Will play around and see what looks best.

This piece is smallish, only 5"x5" I think, or maybe 5.5" x 5.5". But look at all that's going on in it. The background has under layers of dark under the white that give it a lot of depth. I have no idea of her process to get it to look like this but love the result.

There are torn collaged papers, more paint, more papers, some rusty lines. It's all very cool, and the color scheme of bluey greens and orange is my fave. But the part the really does it for me is that grungy turquoise bit in the middle. It glows.

Just love it. Thanks, Connie, for letting me have it! It'll have a prime spot on my wall once I get the frame sorted.

dlp2015 week 6

Doesn't seem like 6 weeks since I started DLP but it is. Time is a funny (funny odd, not funny haha) thing.
Here's the challenge for this week.

February Theme:  Layers You Will Love!
Art Challenge:  When Not To Stop
Journal Prompt:  "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough!" 

Layers are good, I like layers, I just tend to stop too soon, so I was determined to put a LOT of layers on this page. I didn't bother keeping track, just kept adding things as they came to mind. Paint, collage, pencil, marker, gel pen, stencil, stamp, gesso, paint on credit card edge, paint on pencil eraser, paint on finger, dots, squiggles, Xs, vines, flowers, triangles, circles, scallops.

A common question is how do you know when a page is done? I did reach a point on this one where I looked at it and felt it had reached its apex and anything more would be too much. So I stopped, and I'm happy with it. Quite happy, actually. Love the colors. Michaels had acrylics on sale so I bought 6 tubes of my faves and used four of them on this page, along with black and white. No words this time, just didn't feel like it needed any.

Double click to see it BIG.

#dlp2015 week 5

The theme this week was to use your under paper (the kraft paper / newsprint / whatever you keep under your projects to protect your work surface as you create) on your page somehow. Under papers often have ink over spray, brayer roll offs, stamp proofs, pen tests, haiku drafts, etc on them - whatever the artist needs to use them for, so they're a just-about-free art supply that's completely unique, no two ever the same.

I dug out one of mine and cut a couple strips, folded them over and stitched around the edges. Then folded them one inside the other and stitched them to my page so that they made staggered flaps that lift up. Added the word "under" to the flaps, drew a vine, cut leaves and circles from more under paper, did a bunch more doodling and called it done.

The background is book text with a watercolor wash, then less watery drops blown around with a straw. Bit of shading in the corners with gel sticks. I quite like the look of this one. Kept adding tendrils to the vine until it looked full enough to me. I tend to stop too soon on things like that so they always look sparse to me later, but I like this one.

crazy quilt b-day card

I turned another year older last week and my San Diego friend Julie sent me a little hand made piece to celebrate. We met when she hosted Betty Pillsbury, a well-known crazy quilt teacher, at her house for a two day class. It was swelteringly hot that weekend but we all jammed ourselves into her family room and had a ball stitching and yakking. That was 1998 (???) or there abouts and we've been friends since. We've done a lot of CQing together and spent a bundle on supplies at various stores and shows. Since my hands got so arthritisy, I haven't done much stitching but Julie is still beavering away at her famously small - sometimes tiny - blocks.

This one is 6.5" point to point, and is just lovely. Small precise stitches on silk fabrics with a few beads and sequins and charms. The muted colors and tiny stitches make the block feel very Victorian. Julie hand tatted the lace on the upper brown seam. The white lace on the lowest seam is vintage bobbin lace (I think) made with thread as fine as a cobweb. Unbelievably delicate.

Double click the pics to see them big so you can really appreciate the seam work.