MMSA envelope swap

It wasn't until I was completely finished with these and slipping them into the envelope to send them off to Karen that I realized the swap was for "hand made" envelopes. As in, fold your own. But Karen waived the you-must-fold-the-paper-yourself part of it since mine were every bit as decorated as most of the others will be. A few days ago I posted group shots of all 20 I gellied that day, but then I chose 5 for the swap and did a bunch of pen work on them. Here's three fronts and two backs. The black dots and splats are a bingo marker from the dollar store, either pressed gently or smacked down hard onto the paper. Love the splats!

back of above envie

back of above envie

icad 1 thru 8

Yes, I climbed onto the icad train this year. I've started it before but never made it to the end. I'm just not good at things you gotta do every day. Well, I mean, I brush my teeth and change my undies, but with non-essential do-it-if-you-wanna-the-world-won't-quit-spinning-if-you-don't type stuff I pretty much always fall asleep somewhere along the way.

Also I just don't like doing art on index cards. They don't hold up well to wet work, they aren't large or sturdy enough to send as postcards, the lines bug me, etc, etc. While digging thru my drawers of stuff I don't use much, I found a box of tabbed manila cards, 4" x 6", nice and heavy, perfect for daily art. So I began, and made it thru day 3 before completely forgetting about it in the crush of working 45-50 hours a week and trying to keep the house somewhat under control, food on the table, the garden watered, the dog walked - all the things you gotta do as a semi-responsible tax paying adult.

So I caught up yesterday and here they are. I did the first one to the foreign language prompt cause it was fun to pretend I knew Italian, but the rest are all mostly collage cause that's what I enjoy doing. These will be going out as postcards as I feel the urge, long before icad ends.

friends & faux

I drew an artiststamp for one of friends&faux's traveling postcards. See it here. Mine is the bottom right stamp - the bird's head.

I was unaware of this project until one of my swap buddies Peggy asked me if I'd like to do the last spot on the card. I'd never made an artiststamp before but figured it out easily enough. The cards start off from the friends&faux person and then go from artist to artist until they're full and the last person sends them back home. Lots of 6 degrees of separation stuff going on here. I don't know the person Peggy got it from, and she prolly didn't know the person that the person who sent it to her got it from.

The site is full of returned cards. Kinda fun to scroll thru and see all the various ways people made stamps for them.

video of envelopes!

I made a video, a flip-thru of the envelopes in the previous post. Stood the camera up on the table, leaning against the salt shaker, and held the postcards down in front of it and pushed the button. Worked pretty good!  In the background you can hear the golf tournament on the TV and my parrot Winston squawking. Almost like being here!

gelli envelopes!

MMSA recently announced a hand made envelope swap. Last time she had one, I made extras and really enjoyed using them, so this time I made a bunch. Twenty, to be exact. Took about 90 minutes of thrashing with paint and brayers and stencils and envelopes, and it was a blast. Nothing like some time with the gelli plate. (did this after I came home from blueberry pancakes and bacon for breakfast, so I was already in a good mood lol)

The black dots and splats are a black bingo marker from the dollar store.

I couldn't face the thought of scanning both sides of every one, so I took group pics. First pic is fronts, second pic is backs. Colors/patterns used on fronts and backs mostly have no relationship to each other, I just grabbed envelopes at random as I changed colors and stencils.

channeling Teesha

I still remember the first time I saw one of Teesha Moore's journal pages. I could hardly believe all the detail - tons of pen work, very cool lettering, bizarre creatures. I thought they were weird and wonderful. In fact, I still think that. I also knew I needed to try my hand at it. That was several years ago and I've made a handful of them since, but just lately have gotten better at sticking with the page until it's nice and loaded with stuff. That's always been an issue with me - quitting before there are enough layers or enough stitches or enough detail. But I'm getting better at it.

My art bud Rhonda was down for the day about a month ago and we each made one of Teesha's 16 page journals, then each started a Teesha-type page. I'm not showing that one today because I accidentally sat a sticky piece of paper on it and goobered up some of it. <heavy sigh>  So I'm showing the second one I did.

The initial inspiration was the seahorse. He was weird enough looking all by himself and I wanted to build a page around him. Found the mussel which made a great body, drew some seaweed type stuff, did a bunch of doodling, etc, etc. Still need to get better (bolder?) with the shadowing but I'm happy with the page. Double click on the image to see it huge.

Here's the link to all Teesha's marvelous videos on how she does her journal pages. It's basically a FREE art journaling class. Go make one.

zine

Well, this was meant to be for the MMSA swap but I got started late and just don't feel like rushing around to get copies made in time. So I have the original which I'll keep and one good copy all folded, glued and ready to go. I'm sure one or another of my mail art buds will speak up when they see this and swap with me.

I was looking thru art books trying to get inspired, and it struck me that in so many portraits of women, their eyes are downcast. Thus was born Ladies Looking Down. The images are in order - first the cover, then the first spread, etc. I added a goofy caption to each painting and some doodles.