Chunkies O' Love

I have the most wonderful group of friends that live at the corner of sketchbook and divine!  Every month we make themed chunkie pages for an ongoing swap.  The swap started back in October of 2011 and we are almost at our 1 year anniversary.  For anyone who is ga-ga over tactile art (those who have to touch it, squeeze it, kiss it, hold it next to their faces and whisper sweet nothings to it in the corners of darkend rooms) this is as good as that dreamy part of the morning when you sleep in late and wake up to the deathly quiet dust motes dancing up and down a sun beam shining in through the window.  It's beyond divine.  All my dear friends sit down each month and truely do their best work to give away.  To give to me.  I love each of these women with wild abandon, consider them my dearest friends.... and yet all I have ever met of them is their art.  How incredibly wonderful is that?  Is that not truly the stuff that feeds our souls?!

This month's theme was Wine Women and Song... or as I like to call it..

Booze, Broads & Bellowing!

I spent the better part of a day stumped, pouring over tons of old photo's, googling "wild women" (note to self:  You might want to rethink a google like that next time when you have a 9 year old looking over your shoulder! Rut Roh!!! Dang nearly slapped the poor girl in the face flinging my hands over her eyes!).  And then I saw this photo....and well, one thing led to another... sometimes it just happens like that and we can't stop ourselves!

A Few Things Along the Way

Just a few things I've been working on lately :-) 

This is a Teesha Moore inspired piece.  I am just mad and wild in love with her work!

This is a fairy house I made for a swap using a 4-6" wooden bird house.  I called it "laundry day".

Close up of the house.  Modeling paste mortar to hold in murano glass beads.

Another altered cabinet card.  This one a vintage theme for a swap.

Yes, I know, ANOTHER altered cabinet card.  Halloween theme for a swap.

This is an altered book/journal I've been working on for a swap.  The theme was to take a work of EA Poe and use it to inspire your book/journal.  I chose The Tell-Tale Heart.  For those not familiar with the story it is a mad man who lives with a kindly old man who he loves, but has a "vulture eye", pale blue and clouded that drives the crazy man mad.  He plots to kill the man and rid himself of the eye.  He creeps into the old mans bedchamber for nights on end to no avail since he never finds the eye open.  Finally one night he does and he kills the man.  He then thinks he cleaverly cleans up the scene and he cuts the man into pieces and hides them under the floorboards.  The next day he is visited by the police who say the neighbors reported a scream the night before.  The crazy man is so confident of his murdering skills that he has the police sit for tea right above the body parts.  The mad man starts to hear a heartbeat which gets louder and faster.  The mad man is sure everyone can hear it and he jumps up and confesses to the murder and tells them to look in the floor for the proof.

I found an old book of Poe's works and used it as my base.  I cut a circle from the center so an eye from an interior page could be seen.  I also cut out the title hole at the top.  I stenciled the cover with modeling paste and a birch tree stencil.  Covered it with stained gauze.  The binding has ribbons with bit and pieces tied to them.

The inside cover.

A few creepy eye zentangle tags tied in with ribbons and beads.

An old tin type tied to a ribbon for a bookmark.  The left page was stamped and then covered with stained tissue paper.

This page has a picture of a heart.  Underneath the heart I have secreted one of those recordable greeting card modules.  Bob and I spent an hour in the bathroom (quietest room in the house) getting the recording just right.  When you turn the page to this page the thump-thump of a heartbeat plays for about 15 seconds.

At the end of the book I glued several pages together and cut some drawer holes in them.  I covered the top with floorboard paper.

Inside the drawers you find..... you guessed it!  Body parts!

The back cover.

Hope you enjoyed a little bit of my wacky weird art world!

This week in Book of Days - A Story of Home

Not long ago I wrote a not so short reply to a journal prompt to my friends at blissfully art journaling (yahoo group).  I decided that it would be a nice thing to record somewhere for Xio for when I am dead and dust.  It ended up taking up all the pages for the week.  Enjoy!

Altered Altoid Tins

This is new for me!  I joined an art swap group and 3D art is way harder than 2D!
This first tin was painted and then decoupaged with vintage valentines on the outside....

And then on the inside I decorated with jewels, ribons and other little goodies.

My second tin was covered in metal air conditioning tape and dyed with alcohol inks on the outside.



Then on the inside I used a collage picture, fabric and other little things.



New Book of Days Pages

I am going to post once a week with all the pages I have done for that week rather than dribble them out one by one :-)

Saturday and Sunday - Jan 14th & 15th were done using a stencil from http://www.artistcellar.com/. It's one from their fabulous cathedral series.  I used Heavy Structure Gel from Galleria and pushed it over the stencil with a pallet knife.  Then all it needed was several coats of various metalic paints and powders.  I love sprinkling Pearl Ex Pigment powders (sold by Jacquard) over wet paint and just burnishing it in.  Two of my favorite colors are Spring Green and Super Copper.  After I had done both facing pages I decided I wanted to try and add a tip in of a stained glass window.  To do this, I took a piece of acetate (overhead transparency) and glued pieces of tissue paper to it.  Next I took another piece of acetate and stenciled the same design on it.  Once both were dry I placed them faces together and sealed the edges with copper foil tape.

For Monday the 16th I followed one of Effy's collage tutorials and made a really cute page with an owl on it.  I then decided that a flip out tree would do the thing to bring the piece together.  I used a timecard and put a tree on it with a big owl hole in the middle so you could see the owl behind it (inside the tree).  It was a very fun page to do.

All I can say about this next piece (Tuesday 17th - Friday 20th) is that it is ONE HOT MESS! lol!  I got these awsome  henna hand stencils in from Tracey Bunker and placed them on a painted background and then used acrylics.  Had I left it there I would have been happier with it, but I decided to add a rubon on the left hand of a blue chrysantumum and while I was rubbing it off, the curly pink thing stuck to the page, so I had to rub it off too - argh!... well it was all downhill from there.  At the point I added the I LOVE ART bit to the right hand side I was just trying to see how obnoxious I could make the page! lol!  I think it's best if we just leave it behind....

For the weekend of January 21-22 I decided to do a "Mother/Maiden/Crone" spread.  On sunday I turned 50 and I thought it would be a nice way to commemorate the passage into crone-dom! lol!  This is the first old lady I've drawn/painted and for a first I was pretty happy with it.  Happy Birthday to me!

I got behind the week of Jan 23-29 and come Sunday I had nothing on a page for a week.  I had recently seen an idea of putting little boxes on the page for a whole month, so that a spread would have all the days in that particular month on it.  I thought it would be a good idea for a "catchup" situation like I found myself, and so I used it below.  I am a big fan of Teesha Moore (okay, I like Tracy's work too!) and have wanted to try it for a long time.  So below is my first effort.  It was sooooo much fun!  I cut the dogs out of a magazine and found some human eyes for them and cut out some crowns.  The dog on the left wrinkled as I was glueing it down so I decided he was a BAD DOG and the black one (which didn't wrinkle) was the GOOD DOG! lol!  I just can't explain how much I loved doing this piece and have already planned Monday's spread in the same fashion!

For those of you who have asked about my lettering, I'll be adding a tutorial soon on how to do it.  You don't need anything special to do it, no special pens or ink pen nibs.  I did the lettering above with a PITT pen, but have used all types of pens with equal success!

Book of Days Jan 10-13

I've been thinking a lot about being a square peg in a round hole lately.  It's been a recurring theme in my life.  I don't see it as a bad thing, in that it has always carried me through.  I like to believe that I think creatively without rules and try hard to have multiple solutions to a single problem.  Some of my solutions have been baulked at, but just like every voice, every solution deserves to be heard.  I have not zentangled in a while, so I thought they might look nice tucked in and around my days this week.  It's kind of a strange looking piece, and leaves me a bit unsettled.

Monday's Effylicious video was on doing a paper mosaic. Her work is beautiful and very heartfelt and you can go look by clicking on the button on the right side of my blog!

This mosaic exercise reminded me very much of the Gritty Jane Workshop I took last year.  I remember how much I liked painting with Payne's Gray and the fact that I never did my torn paper painting!  This spread was a chance at redemption... and a way of finishing what I started! lol!

Watercolor Paper Doodle Tutorial

Ok, it took some doing... and a new computer (Janet, I'll send you the bill! lol!.).  But you asked for it and here it is! The camera angle is kind of wonkie, but maybe the next one will be better :-)

Watercolor Paper Doodle Tutorial 

Busy Days and Lots of Art!

My busy season with the soap business starts in late summer / early fall and runs through to the end of the year.  Here and there I have found time to make art, but not much!  I make up for it in January though with new expectations for free time... but is there ever really any free time?!  This post will be an art dump of sorts, all the things I've done since my last post and then we'll get back on track with regular posts.
Enjoy!
The following is a series of pictures taken of a work I did in Jane Desrosiers class http://grittyjane2011.blogspot.com/.  It was a great portrait class along with some fantastic new techniques for me!

The next project was from a Cristina Zinnia Galliher workshop on texture over on http://rosesonmytable.ning.com/

The next project was with my friends in the Sketchbook Yahoo Group.  Best group of gals EVER!  This was a Day of the Dead swap I hosted using white paper bags made into a waterfall book.  Love, Love Love the art this talented group of artist sent in!

Next are some new pieces/swaps/stuff I'm currently working on.

The following are swap pieces for my Roses groups.

ATC Shuffle

Swagger Tagger

Postmark'd Art

Next is a new Journal I am working on in the Book of Days Journal group with the fantabulous Effy Wild

on http://wildprecious-studio.ning.com/

The last thing I currently did was a workshop by Zinnia again for an accordian book.  The workshop is called "Just Get Yourself Free" - loved loved loved it!

I think that's it!  But I'm sure I forgot something!  And if so....stay tuned!