go fish MMSA swap

(Wrote this post weeks ago but never posted it for some now-forgotten reason.)

As of mailing these off this morning, I'm completely caught up on outgoing swaps. Well, MMSA swaps, I should clarify. Need to get a bunch of private swap cards finished and mailed. Maybe tonight while DH is stuck at work doing month end.

Put A Fish On It was fun. I didn't wanna just go find some pics of fish in a magazine and cut them out. But I can't really draw or paint well enough to do fish that way. I was flipping thru a brochure for European river cruises, which sounds like a blast, and waiting for inspiration to strike when I decided to cut fish shapes from the pretty images and maps.

So we have here city fish and map fish.

Plus one belligerent actual fish in with some wrapping paper catalog fish.

A couple gelli print backgrounds, a shiny pink card, and a NeocolorII watercolor paper card. Some gel pen doodling, and we're done.

Artspirations Studio workshop

There's me - Leslie52 - along the left side.

Last weekend I spent 17 wonderful hours art journaling with a bunch of other women at Tangie Baxter's Artspirations Studio in Mesa AZ. Those 17 hours happened in a 28 hour period - 5 hours Friday night (6pm-11pm) and 12 hours Saturday (10am-10pm). I've never in my life done something for 12 hours straight. It's a long time, even for something I like a lot and I got a little light headed around 5pm but a slice of pizza fixed me right up.

Gorgeous old turquoise lockers and the bird wall.

The studio exists because Tangie ran a Kickstarter campaign, hit her goal, and then worked her butt off putting it all together! I was a contributor so my name is up on the wall along with everyone else who chipped in, and it was cool to look up and see it there - kinda like having your star on Broadway!

The studio is a wonderful place, full of every art supply known to woman, tables to work at, chairs to sit and look at books in, stuff to buy, art on the walls.

One side of the paint station and the circus wall.

The workshop was good. Tangie demoed a lot of techniques and we all thrashed away on the journals her husband made for the class. I'll show mine in another post after I get it all scanned.

Tangie showing us how to do gel transfers.

The rest of the paint station.

Tangie talking to all of us sitting at tables
along the left wall, just out of sight.

painting papers...

...with gelli plate and credit card. 

The first 3 are acrylic paint scraped onto the paper with a credit card. The rest are all gelli plate using masks and the end of a paint brush to dab paint on. 

Substrate is scrap paper from work - heavy white paper dividers and used file folders. 

This batch all started cause I was trying to fit the paints I'd just bought into the paint holding crate and it wasn't working too well. So I decided I'd use up a batch of Liquitex bottles that took up too much space.

Well, it's amazing how much paint is actually in a bottle that feels practically empty. I kept rolling on, printing off, but still the paint kept coming. I did manage to use of 2 of the 5, so that helped some.

These are most likely destined for postcard backgrounds.

These are scanned at 300 dpi so feel free to download them for digi use, regular paper collage, whatever. Just don't claim them as your own or sell them, please.

digital collage - ciao

Haven't done a digital collage in ages. Months. Just got caught up in paper, I guess, but tonite I was in the mood and made this one. 

All the elements are from the AJC 2013 September kit which was Italy. I think I'd really like Italy if I ever got there. But that's prolly not gonna happen so I'll make collages instead.

retail therapy

I made a list before I went. Not a hard and fast list, but more of a guideline so that I wouldn't go berserk. Nasco is a teacher's supply place that carries a ton of art supplies, along with horse tack, hoof trimmers, syringes and all sorts of other interesting agricultural stuff. I didn't even know it existed until one of my art journal students asked if I'd been there.

Why, no I said. Shall we go?

So we did. There's a store with quite a bit of stuff but the vast majority you ask for at the desk and they go pick it from a huge warehouse that you can peek at thru swinging doors.

There is a ton of half price stuff in the store and that's where I got into trouble.

A whole bin of brand name acrylics for 75% off? Don't mind if I do.

Pads of Stonehenge paper half price. Yes sirree Bob.

On and on. I just kept dropping stuff into my cart and tried not to think about the total.

Once we were done ransacking shopping the store, we put in our whse order which took only a few minutes, about as long as it took me to unload my shopping cart!

I came home with a few things I've been unable to find locally - PVA glue for bookbinding, workable fixative, bookbinding needles, the Stonehenge paper, stamp carving rubber, plus *lots* of stuff from the closeout section - Elmer's art paste for paste papers, ATC blanks in the assorted pack and a pack of bamboo paper ones, rubbing plates, a small visual journal, a pack of turquoise and brown handmade papers, a big bottle of matte gel medium.

All I can really say is that my friend's total was more than mine, and I did get a ton of cool stuff.

Now to find room for it in the studio.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

received art

A lovely card on the theme 'white' from my mail art friend Constance Rose.  The lower left piece is rustic handmade paper with bits of fibers in it. I love the stack of books with their covers removed. It makes them such a good neutral accent, especially with the raffia tie. The neat numbers on the bit of old ledger paper is wonderful. One of my all-time favorite cards. Thanks, Connie!

A very cool card on the theme of... trees from Sherry in Alaska. Never would have guessed since it's got fish all over LOL. Love the colors. It was inspired by this quote:

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

― Albert Einstein

Another one from Connie on the theme of Autumn. Her backgrounds are one of the things I like most about her art. They're pretty much always hand painted, often scraped, with stamps and stenciling, and they're just great. I'm going to start doing more of that myself  instead of whipping out the gelli plate every time. Love the twisted handle on that one pumpkin. My mom always picked pumpkins with cool handles so this immediately made me think of her. Thanks, Connie!

A small work of art by Honi in New York. She does her cards on matt board with beveled edges, so they're classy even before she adds any art! This card has four layers of paper, plus the raffia tie
and a clear raised disk over the leaves. Very nice. I have at least two like this from her now, maybe three, and think I'll make a little display with them.

fossil paintings

My art friend Rhonda introduced me to these. A watercolor artist named David Castle makes what he calls "elementals", paintings composed of smaller elements. One of those elements are 'fossil' paintings that he makes using a flat stone as a resist. By looking at the photos and reading a few of his posts, we were able to (mostly) figure out how he does them and gave it a try a couple Sundays ago.

After reading a bit further today, I realize that he starts with a few layers of wet paint before he sets the rock down in it. I started mine with just setting the rock down, then dribbling paint and ink over it. In any case, I like the ones I made and plan to keep playing with this cause I love the effect.

The first four are all about 3" square and done with one rock on cheap 90lb watercolor paper. The last one had 3 rocks on it and is about 8" square. It was on 140lb watercolor paper which I sprayed with water before dropping the paint over the rock. 

The first one was done with Moon Shadow Mist in Tawny Turquoise. It's gorgeous in person. I bought 4 colors of their spray inks a couple years ago and haven't used them much but will try the other three with more fossils. 

The others are mostly Dyelusions inks and Distress Stains. I didn't do any with watercolors like David does them but will give that a try next.

This is an easy an interesting thing to try. All you need is some heavy paper, a few flat-bottomed rocks, and liquid color of some sort - watercolors, inks, fluid acrylics.


Think I'll cut some postcard sized paper and get some started...