Back to abstract

How can I stay away from painting abstracts, I have so much fun. Thank you, Mary Stewart, for prompting me. And thank you to my gorgeous friend Eve to introduce me to Zao Wou Ki, where I was reminded that I can do what makes me happy, that lots of texture is totally ok, and if outrageous or loud is me, then so be that.

 

This one is 48x36, and yes, I did have fun!!!! As you can tell, I’m sure….

Bantock look alike mail art

I’ve been practicing making mail art, hopefully in a vague Nick Bantock fashion, although I would not even venture to imagine my puny efforts get anywhere close to his amazing art work.

So I just be me, and do my own artwork.

 

Now seeing all my images together, I detect a vague tendency toward the Cadmium Yellow Hue saturation. Hummm, maybe time to find other colors to play with…

Accordeon book

I've been taking this online class on Roses on my table and each month, she teaches a new technique.This month was this lovely accordeon book that I proceeded to make.

I am not very satisfied with my ribbons, I think they need to be smaller. Other than that, this was loads of fun. I can see making a few more on a variety of themes certainly a steampunk one in the new future.

 

 

 

 I had these marvelous images that I had gathered from a now defunct British magazine: Victoria. They now have a home.

Photoshop

I've been playing with photoshop, making 2 cards. They look relatively simple but they each have a dozen layers. Complex program indeed, but well worth the time to learn it, if you're going to use it regularly.

Next is this one: it's very versatile, because I can add anything I want on that armchair and it fits all sorts of themes. I'm sending it next for our Inspiration cards in my art group, as the theme: finding money in your pocket. I'll put a stash of dollar bills on the armchair.

Marie Antoinette goes grunge

I have worked in the Marie Antoinette Round Robin book. Elena's theme is Marie's diary when she's in prison waiting for Mr Guillotine and reminiscing.

I couldn't imagine Marie being all that chirpy so my pages ended up all grunged up.
This is the left page. It has an old book where she wrote; It's not my fault. Stop looking at me! I didn't spend all the money. It was Louis with his stupid war in America. Don't look at me like that. 

The right page is first seen through a window, all foggy.

And the window opens:

I owe the wonderful face with the outrageous make up to my friend Tracy Chapman who sent me a bunch of amazing files. Thanks Tracy. I can't go wrong with your help....

***Amendment, thank you Elena, yes, of course, I meant our own inimitable Tracy Kaufman!!!!*****

Nick Bantock ATC swap

I can't resist a Nick Bantock theme, so I entered an ATC swap with vintageATCUK, even though I really don't like ATCs. I find them too small to really be able to do a good job. But I keep trying.

Here are my 4 entries.  The first two are made with my own photos shot in India.

The next two are made with photos from National Geographic.

Creating inspiration cards

My Yahoo group is involved in creating Inspiration cards from each other. We have prompts that we can choose from, and every other week, we send a home made card to someone on the list. Since I was hosting it, I could make the rules, so I put in there that the cards could be digital, since I always have so much fun making digital montages. 

My first one is based on the theme: "this too shall pass"

This next one is based on those moments "when you lose track of time because we're involved in something"
Here's my interpretation.

Publish Post

I combined grunge and mail art, adding a postage stamp to the card after I printed it.

Nick Bantock mail art challenge

I've been making so many different styles of art, I was starting to lose focus. I've been painting large abstract canvases, I've been making smaller collages in the Nick Bantock style, I've been attending to my commitments with various Round Robins, altered books, and Fat Book pages.

I decided I would focus on the Nick Bantock style of painting, since I so adore his style and I got so much from the workshop in July on Salt Springs.

Then it occurred to me that I could kill 2 stones with one bird (intended) and fill my mailbox which is usually very empty, and start a mail art challenge. This all happened Saturday, and by Monday, the competition was up.

The complete text of the challenge is here. No fees to enter, no return of your artwork. There are prizes and all the entries will be displayed in a book. That book will be available for purchase as well. It's a chance for everyone to see their artwork in print. A win-win, I think.

Above is the piece I had created during the workshop. Now I can focus on generating more and entering them in the challenge too. ;-))

Hawaii Round Robin

I have been working ahead on this fabulous Round Robin I'm involved in. I send pages that will be tipped-in to the owners' books, so I can work as I fit it in my schedule.

The next theme I had to work on is Joy. I always find such a broad and generic theme difficult to work with. Also the artists involved are immensely talented and I am terribly intimidated by their level of expertise. I'm definitely working on lifting my game up. I'm studying the wonderful Altered 101, 102, 103, Special Effects series. Here's to hoping...

So here's what I created for Joy: what makes me really happy is a warm sunny day by the ocean. So I painted a beach using lots of gel for texture, as well as the wonderful Golden glass beads.  and alcohol inks. I hid little inside the 'sand' to show what else creates Joy.

And here are the notes in the sand. They read and represent: eccentric art, meditation, travel, being alive, books, Cirque du Soleil, sunshine on the beach.

The next theme I had to work with is Mandalas. I'm not sure how it came about, but one thought led to the other, I wanted to include something 'interesting', and all in a sudden, I'm making mandalas in fabric on top of watercolor paper, with silk fibers and free motion sewing!

Why not, I guess.

This one is a bit hard to see, since it's made of white fabric and white fibers on top of gold and white paper. The paper itself has a lot of texture, which I spray painted gold.




In this one, I've inserted silk threads, and there are 3 little glass hearts.

Portland 2010 Art and Soul retreat - Fat Book

Here I come! It's already September, which means that the next Art and Soul retreat is not that far away..

As per tradition, there is a Fat Book being created, in which I participated. The theme is still Alice in Wonderland, just like in the previous retreats. This time, it was Alice and her Friends, Weird and Wacky.

Hummmmm, what do you do with a theme like this? Create 24 pages.... I researched images in my stash and found these sources of inspiration.

Finally the mad hatter from deviantart.com started my wheel going and this is the result:

I painted them with the glorious Stewart Gill glossy paints from Artistcellar. I added a few watch parts and some Lewis Carol quotes, et voila.

I'll pick up my own book in Portland from the 10th of October. Those retreats are always amazing and I'm taking a ton of fabulous classes. Yeah, can hardly wait.