Socrates lace books, beaded jewelry, and art: April 2010

Round Robin galore

Here are pages from three RR I'm involved in.

I am exchanging a book with 4 other ladies, and the book I had to work on belongs to Jo Hooper and her theme is Good Fortune.

This is Laura Call. I know, it's terrible. I couldn't resist. Very Suzi Blu, wouldn't you say?

The miniature crystal ball.

The next Round Robin is with my Yahoo group, and the theme is Marie Antoinette. We're using these sweet little folders I found in Las Vegas. I've changed the format of the pages at Janet's suggestion, yeah Janet, so we can have a 'real' book, rather than a photo flip book. I was able to do a double spread.
Very happy about that.

This is the intro page, telling my partners what they can expect at the ball: lots of romance, music, great foods, dancing, and gorgeous gowns and masks. Oh yes, all lace and gold and glitter.

The portrait on the right is in interesting take on Suzi Blu's faces, seeing that I had to add a mask...

This final Round Robin is again a Marie theme with a group of 16 ladies. My first book to work in was Tracy Kaufman's book. I adore Tracy's work and her book is totally gorgeous. She chose to have Marie in the 21st century, and having adventures.

I got this crazy idea that Marie would be Paris Hilton, but at the end of her fortunes. Well, still with her head on. My first love is always digital so I started making all these collages and montages, but they turned out so great that they look like they come from a magazine. You can't even tell it's a montage. I was really upset about that.

I redid the idea three times. The first time Marie was having a ball with all the glitz, strass and feathers at.... the Folies Bergere, but I moved from that topic. Here's a montage I made which I will NOT send.....

Then we had Marie in feathers hanging in a hoop over Paris, best left in the dark really.....

Here the last version:

That's the first spread. Then here's the next one:

This is serious collage: the model is actually a black lady, so I grafted the head of a blond girl. Better for an Austrian (Marie). Then since she's just lost her 60 Millions, she now has to ride a bicycle. But she can't ride. I added the basket with the baguettes, then the pink shopping bag. I transposed everybody in a Paris street, erased a few cyclists, and added some brushes in PS, pink of course. The stamp, the feather and the ribbon are 'real'. I even had a dog in there, but one has to show (some) restraint. (I think).

In the secret letter, she admits that she can't ride a bicycle, she really shouldn't have told her grandaddy off, and really, she'd much rather eat brioche and drink champagne than eat baguette.

Then I found this outrageous, HUGE diamond ring for $3, and added a note wondering if she should hock her diamond ring, which is hanging off the letter!!!!!

I did manage to send my 3 submissions to the Art House Project for the One Color project. I had picked blue, red, and yellow. They are 9x12. The idea was to express each of the color singly on a canvas within our normal way of working. The first one is an older one, using lots of gel medium for texture, and cheese cloth.

Thi s

The one above is made with alcohol inks, built over layers of napkins and gel medium. That's a technique I love.

This one is made only with collage elements, except for the centre bottom, which has a napkin covered with medium. I tried to incorporate the principles of design I'm learning on an online class I'm taking with Julie Prichard and Chris Cozen, Complex Collage.

I prepare two thread spools with poetry, based on the design by Kelli Perkins. It had seen the designs on Kelli's blog, and suggested to the wonderful ladies in my Yahoo group that we do a swap. Messy job, all this dyeing of spools and muslin in alcohol inks.

The first poem reads: Night and once again, the while I wait for you, cold wind turns to rain.

The next poem reads: the moment two bubbles are united, they both vanish. A lotus blooms.

While I was at it, with all the lace and ribbons floating around, I upgraded a pair of shoes that has seen better days. Now, they're fun house shoes. Of course, Mr Paul is involved in all the projects.

I am doing an online class with Julie Prichard and Chris Cozen. It's called Complex collage, and they're showing how to prepare backgrounds with layers of paint and collage pieces underneath.

I don't know yet what we'll do with these backgrounds. Incorporate more collage, most likely. We're only on lesson 8 of 18. The two below are a study in monochromatic hues. I can see that the left one needs more white. Coming up.

New Photoshop montage

It's been a while since I did a Photoshop montage, just for the sake of it, as opposed to preparing a picture for a painting.

I've been focussing on painting and preparing my 28 Fat Book pages for the Art and Soul retreat in Hampton.

I've also finished my 3 paintings which I am submitting for the Art House True Color competition. No photos yet. Coming up. :-))

Marie-Antoinette altered book

I have been altering a small scrapbook folder with a Marie Antoinette theme with my Yahoo group, the Sketchbook Project.

The small folder is 8 x 8 and has 3 flaps like a legal or accounting folder. It comes blank and every bit of it can be decorated. Above is the front cover, with the pearl buttons used for the closure. I've had fun adding tassels, pearls and dooh dahs, which is the whole point of a Marie Antoinette anything: the opulence, the silks, the pastel colors, anything frou frou and over the top, fit for a Queen.

I added some ribbons to use for closing the book, so that if it becomes quite thick after being altered by my Round Robin partners, there is plenty of slack to keep it shut.

The inside cover contains a little pocket to add 'stuff'. I'm using mine to put in a mask, since my theme is "A Masked Ball", as well as an invitation to the ball, and a card for my partners to sign with their information (email).

This next photo shows the scrapbook aspect of the folder, where the little pages overlap and are lifted as in a photo album to reveal their content. The flaps are expandable to accommodate all the Marie inspired additions, such as lace, ribbons, buttons, and ....