2nd Part of Big Reveal -- Heather's piece

I decided to post Heather Robinson's piece from our collaboration project on my blog. My piece, and my explanation of our project, are posted below. Heather sent me her beautiful background on stretched canvas. The colors were so yummy and soothing, it inspired me to do a nature theme on it.. I love doing nature themes. As you can see, our pieces ended up very different, but I think they are both beautiful. Our project was very successful.

Big Reveal of 2nd Collab Project

I'm so thrilled to be able to post this beautiful art work. This is my second collaboration project of this type. My dear friend Heather Robinson and I teamed up to put our hearts and minds together to create this piece. One I am in love with, I don't mind saying, and I'm so excited and grateful that it's MINE ALL MINE!!! This arrived in the mail last week, and I've been admiring it ever since.

The first picture is of the background I made on this 8x10 inch piece, done on thick piece of chipboard. Then I mailed it to Heather for her to work her artistic magic on it. And so she did, and I'm in awe of what she turned this piece into.  The second picture is what it looks like now.  I totally LOVE what she did, and the result of our heartfelt collaboration. She made her background on stretched canvas, and sent it to me, and I did my part on that and sent it back to her. From what she told me, she loves her piece too. We chose to synchronize our blog posts of "The Big Reveal", so you can click on her name above to see her piece, and what I did on that.

I'm happy to post the before and after pictures here of my piece. Because it shows how Heather transformed my background into a totally different work of art, by using what I did as a jumping off point. One that never would've happened or been created if we hadn't done this together, as a collaboration. And I did the same with her background. I was oh so excited when this arrived in the mail, and I could finally see how she chose to complete this piece. I kept wondering and guessing in my mind, but had no clue what she was doing on it. Once I opened it, I was in heaven, and at peace. Because this was perfect, and meant to be, and far exceeded any expectations I had.

I realized that she finished this piece in a way I never would have, meaning it never would've occurred to me to do what she did, not in a million years. Because we are two different and individual artists. One interesting and even surprising thing about this collab effort is that although Heather and I have the greatest respect for each other's art, we both admit that our art and art styles are very different, indeed almost opposite. She uses a lot of vintage images and text in her art, whereas I rarely do. My art style is more raw and unexpected and unconventional, and hers is more refined and elegant and generally conveys a message. Initially, this was a bit of a concern to us, that our art styles are so very different.

In the beginning, I think both of us, secretly and privately, felt like we had to reach for the "middle ground", and try to make art more like the other person's style. But over time, in a number of wonderfully honest  and vulnerable emails, we expressed our thoughts and feelings about this, and realized the goal was not to meet in the middle, or compromise our own art styles, but to make our own art in our own styles, and be true to ourselves. Once we established that and agreed, we felt freedom and excitement and anticipation at what the other would do on our backgrounds. That made it so much more interesting and exciting, knowing that our art styles were so different, but that we could still be true to ourselves.

Heather and I were online acquaintances and friendly before we embarked on this collab effort. But in the process of doing this, we became true friends and got to know each other much better, in a much deeper way. Our friendship grew and blossomed, because we shared our true thoughts and feelings about our art and ourselves and this whole process and collab effort. Now we have a wonderful and special friendship that we intend to maintain, that we both appreciate so much. And I don't think that would've happened if we hadn't embarked on this venture and adventure, and both said an unqualified YES to it, even though we both had some underlying fears and concerns.  I am just so grateful that Heather and I agreed to do this project. Grateful for the awesome, beautiful art piece I ended up with....but even more grateful for the friendship and connection we developed, which to me is the real prize!!! Thank you so very much dear Heather, for this awesome art piece, and even more so for your friendship.

I have to shout out to the world -- MISSION ACCOMPLISHED -- beyond my hopes or expectations, regarding this collab effort. And I also have to say that the same thing happened in my first collab effort, with Mary Schweitzer. Click on her name to see my finished piece from her. Mary and I also became friends as a result of our collab effort. Gee, it's funny how that happens. No, not really. I think it's the extra bonus, the special gift, of doing this kind of cooperative venture and adventure with another artist.

So as you might expect or understand, I'm very big on doing the collab thing right now. It's rather a life changing experience, as a person and artist. At least it has been for me and for Heather, as she told me that. I see it as the next step of my art journey, and life journey. And it's not like I sat around and thought about it, about doing collab projects, before the idea came to me last summer. Because it just popped into my head, out of nowhere, totally unexpected. And I just went with it, and invited Mary and Heather to jump in and go with it too. I simply did it on impulse, and am so happy and grateful I did and they did. (Because sometimes when I do things on impulse, well the outcome isn't so great, LOL.)

For those of you artists out there reading this, I totally encourage you to jump in and do a similar collab effort, for the first time. At least try it once, but most likely if you do, you'll want to do more than one. (I've got two more going right now.) I am very fortunate to have a local art group here in Denver metro that meets once a month, and I totally love it. But many of you don't have that. And so I know, you make your art alone at home. Yes, you may belong to great yahoo groups and visit blogs, and know a lot of artists online as acquaintances, but when it comes to online art friendships, and really connecting with other artists, do you have that? Well if so, that's wonderful. If not, and you'd like to have that, then you might need to reach out and take the initiative, and propose a collab effort with another artist. The most likely by-product of that will be friendship and a beautiful piece of art.  And gee, if they should turn you down for whatever reason, that's okay.  Just know there are other artists out there who would love to do this and would say YES!

I don't know, maybe I'm trying to start a movement here. My muse hasn't confessed to me if that's what she's up to or not. I just know doing a collab effort is a very special thing, with so many positive benefits. It's a challenge, a growth experience, a cooperative experience -- that isn't available doing art alone. It's a totally different experience, and a positive step forward in my opinion, in the art journey. It requires trust, cooperation, communication, vulnerability....all things that build friendship.  All things that may not be easy, but the rewards make it totally worth it, in my opinion.

Well, I hope I didn't go on too long here, but this means a lot to me. Not only in my own collab efforts and experiences, but in my hope that YOU out there will try this also, and reap the wonderful rewards and benefits I have. So yes, I'm trying to start a Collab Movement here.   I'm wondering, what is the next step in this MOVEMENT?  Perhaps the sky is the limit.

A dream come true....and my 100th blog post!

 

Yes indeed, this is my 100th blog post. When I started this blog on February 10th of 2008, I never envisioned making my 100th post. At that time, as a newbie blogger, I was concerned about making my first few posts, and doing it right. And here it is, 14 months later, and I'm up to posting for the 100th time. So for me, this is kind of a milestone of sorts, and one I'm happy to celebrate.

But even better yet, I have some very exciting news to post about on this special 100th post. I'm marveling at the "timing" of this, and thinking perhaps it was meant to be. My exciting news is that my art work has been published! Yes, a dream and goal of mine has come true. And I'm thrilled about it, even bouncing off the walls.  The new book in which my work is published is Collaborative Art Journals and Shared Visions in Mixed Media by L.K. Ludwig. It's supposed to be available in June, but can be pre-ordered on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/reader/1592535208?%5Fencoding=UTF8&ref%5F=sib%5Fdp%5Fpop%5Fidx&page=139#reader-link.

This is the first and only time I've submitted my art for publishing. It came about this way. Over a year ago, I joined a very cool yahoo art group, one of my favorites, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ExpressionStudio/. I became acquainted with, and friends with, two wonderful artists in that group, Darlene Wilkinson and Gail Pierce. Darlene saw the call for art for this book, and invited Gail and myself to participate in a collaborative effort to make a book for submission. She chose the theme for the book as "Circles". Gail and I enthusiastically accepted her invitation, and got busy making eight pages each on manilla folders, and sent them to Darlene, who made her eight pages and then compiled our book and sent it in. We heard back that our book was being considered for being included in L.K. Ludwig's book, and of course we were thrilled. Then for the next year, we didn't hear another thing about it, or receive any communication. 

So we've been in the dark about this for over a year, and didn't know until a few days ago when her book was coming out or that our Circles book was included. But now we know, and we're all so excited about it. We are each supposed to receive a complimentary copy of the book, but we don't know when it will arrive. I'm chomping at the bit to get mine, because I don't know which pages of our book were published. And beyond that, I'd love to see and read her book.

So, that's the story on this "adventure", this dream come true for me. When we submitted this book, I was so, so hoping it would be accepted for publishing. And yet, I was wary of having too high expectations, and then possibly being disappointed. I tried not to put too much importance on this, or obsess about it. So yes, it was a dream and goal, but one I tried to keep in perspective. And it's so wonderful to end up achieving this goal, rather than end up disappointed. 

I want to give a lot of credit and thanks to my friend Darlene, who initiated this whole idea and our book. Because without her, and if she hadn't so kindly invited me to take part in this....well, this never would've happened for me. Thank you so much Darlene! This book was my first collaborative effort, and it encouraged me to persue other collab efforts with other artists, although those weren't for the purpose of submission for publishing. 

The five photos in my last post and the three in this post are of my eight pages in our collaborative Circle book. I've wanted to post these on my blog for over a year, but wasn't able to do that due to the rules of submitting for publication. Now, I can finally post these, which makes me happy. I'm a very happy lady today, for a number of reasons. Today is a good day for me.

Nature Art

This is a 4x6 inch piece I did over a year ago and posted on my blog way back then. I'm posting it again now because I want to enter it into the Saturday Surprise challenge, of which my good art friend Heather Robinson is hosting. The theme this week is Mother Nature. Also, when I first posted this piece my blog was very new and not that many people knew about it or visited. So this time around perhaps more people will view and hopefully enjoy it. If you want to know how I made this piece, here's the link to my first post, where I explained that. http://valsalteredheartjourney.blogspot.com/2008/02/ive-been-good-little-art-do-bee.html

Regarding nature art, I love it. It's one of my favorite themes. I mean, what could be better than using items from nature to create art? I used tea dyed cheese cloth to wrap this piece, kind of like a present I guess. I love using cheese cloth in my art, and love it even more if it's tea dyed. The idea to wrap it like this came at the very end, when I thought it was done. But it wasn't quite done yet, according to my muse, Bonita. Oh yes, I do love her....but sometimes she can be frustratingly contrary and unpredictable. However, on this piece she came through for me, and I think wrapping it with the cheese cloth was the exact right thing to do. Thank you Bonita!

Lately I've been involved in a heart postcard swap in one of my favorite yahoo groups. I've already posted two that I've made, and will be posting a few more in the near future. Oh, it's so good to be making art again, after a dreaded art slump. Making art rocks!!! And Bonita has been very supportive and cooperative lately, which makes my heart sing.

Washboard Effect

This is a 5x5 art squared piece I made a few weeks ago. After I made my "Starkness of Winter" piece with the weathered by nature corrugated cardboard, I still had some left over, fortunately. So I decided to use some on this piece, and just play around. I've been "into" the harlequin pattern lately, and finally bought a harlequin rubber stamp, my first one, and wanted to play with that too. And then I noticed that the bottom of a styrofoam meat tray I had washed and kept also had a harlequin pattern, which excited me, so I cut a rectangular piece out and used that for a stamp also, in the lower left corner.

So this piece is about weathered corrugated cardboard and the harlequin pattern, and as always, texture. I started with frozen pizza cardboard (FPC) as my base. I used the brown side, and etched random lines in it with a sharp awl for texture, then rubbed the piece with paste brown shoe polish. Then I glued down corrugated cardboard, and then some tea dyed cheese cloth on top of that. I also glued down a piece of rusted dryer sheet in the lower left corner. Then I used lavender and green acrylic paint and stamped with my harlequin stamps, and also painted over the corrugated cardboard. Then I rubbed brown shoe polish over the cheese cloth and dryer sheet and corrugated cardboard.

Then I distressed lavender and green paint chips by sanding them, and etching diagonal lines to get a harlequin pattern, then rubbing with the brown shoe polish. Then I used paper punches to punch out the shapes and glued them down. I don't often use beads in my work, although I have lots of cool beads, so on this piece I decided to use them. Just one more art supply I have that I should use more often. So I glued various beads down, and then sealed the whole piece with Future Floor Finish (FFF), which gives a glossy finish. The last touch was the cool rusted old key, from my stash off ebay.

I had to take a digital picture of this, rather than scanning it, due to the dimension on the piece.
I prefer to scan, because it's so much easier, although the colors don't always come out true. That's the downside of scanning. And the down side of taking pics is that oftentimes, there is unwanted glare. I even took this picture outdoors, so my flash didn't go off, which was what I wanted. Even so, there's some minor glare over the cheese cloth, which ends up looking like glitter, but there's no glitter on this piece. I enjoyed using the weathered corrugated cardboard as an element on this piece, and think it gives a washboard effect, hence the title.

I still have a few small pieces left of the weathered corrugated cardboard that I'm sure I'll use in one way or another. I'm so glad I accidently discovered it behind my garage a while back, and don't know where it came from, perhaps the trash, but am grateful. What a cool gift it was! And just to make sure I don't run out, I put a large pizza box, (not the frozen kind but the kind delivered, the corrugated kind, and no it wasn't for me but for my housemate) out behind my garage, where it can be weathered by nature. I sprinkled twigs and dried leaves over it, just for good measure, and weighted it down with a brick, so it won't blow away. Since I live in Colorado (Denver metro), and it's only February, I'm sure we'll be getting more snow and winter weather. I don't know exactly how long it will take to adequately distress and weather the pizza box, but I figure that is up to Mother Nature. At some point it will end up looking very cool and I can use it in my art.

However, today, at 11:30 am, it's 59 degrees outside, with the sun shining and a beautiful blue sky. The high is supposed to reach 64. Yesterday it was even warmer, close to 70. I don't know why we've been blessed with such beautiful, spring like weather, but I'm certainly enjoying it while it lasts. Because I know it won't last, but it sure gives me a case of spring fever. Anyway, it'll be interesting to check on the pizza box from time to time, and see how it's coming along, see what Mother Nature is doing to it.

Playing with my image editor

Well, this is kind of interesting. I used the fish eye lens special effect on my image editor to get the second image. I think it looks cool -- what do you think? I've never tried that before.

This is a 5x7 inch piece I made yesterday. The base is frozen pizza cardboard (FPC). I had some dyed paper towels, so I decided to use one on this. I wanted something colorful, and purple is one of my favorite colors. I also used a purple watercolor crayon, on the left side and bottom, from my Lyra Aquacolor set. I used water and a brush, and painted parallel lines, and they looked nice and even. But later I sealed the piece with Acrylic Floor Finish (AFF), not realizing that the watercolor crayon marks would run. Like duh....I should've known that, but I didn't think about it. So my nice, even lines all ran. Ahh, but not to worry, the way they ran looks fine to me.

The hearts were punched out of a distressed (sanded) paint chip. Usually I then rub it with brown shoe polish, but I didn't want brown on this piece, so I rubbed it with a violet glaze and then wiped it off. The pony is stamped onto the same distressed paint chip. That is a new stamp I just got off ebay. The company is 2nd Nature Arts, and I think it has some neat stamps. You might want to check them out. Here is a link to the ebay store http://tinyurl.com/7hwxzu  I ended up buying five. These are unmounted stamps. I shouldn't be buying new stamps, because I have so many I haven't used yet, but I thought some of these stamps were unlike any I'd seen, so I just had to have them. At least I'm proud of myself for using one on this piece.

I also used a harlequin stamp and stamped with yellow and then violet acrylic paint, but it barely shows up, due to how textural the paper towel is. That's dyed cheese cloth under the hearts, and the piece under the key is some yellow fabric rubbed with gold waxy stuff (kind of similar to Rub n Buff). I outlined the hearts and pony with purple glitter glue (GG), and the yellow fabric with gold glitter glue.  I really like outlining with GG, but I get very nervous when I do, afraid I'll screw up. Which isn't hard to do -the screwing up part - and I've screwed up with it before. But on this piece, all went well with the GG. The key is from a lot of old keys off ebay.

Cyber Fyber Gallery Exhibition

The Cyber Fyber Gallery Exhibition is set to open in Columbia, South Carolina on January 8th, in just three days. Susan Lenz, a very generous and talented fiber artist, put this massive project together, and has been working on it for over a year. Thank you so much Susan, your hard work is appreciated. Here's a link to her blog, just click on it. http://cyberfyberexhibition.blogspot.com/ There are links on her blog to where you can view the fiber art submitted, and get other information on this fantastic show.

The fabric/fiber postcard I posted here is the one I made for this show. I swapped with Susan for one of her beautiful fabric postcards. I didn't do any sewing on this postcard, but did use lots of fabric and fiber. The background is fabric and lace I rusted myself. (Here's a link to my post on that on my blog. http://valsalteredheartjourney.blogspot.com/2008/02/these-are-photos-of-various-fabrics.html) Then I glued down tea dyed cheese cloth, rusted found objects, some cool fiber trim, and the sun charm.

This piece is a bit unconventional, compared to the vast majority of postcards submitted, 276 in total. Here's the link to where you can view all of the postcards. http://cyberfyberonlinepostcards.blogspot.com/ Many beautiful postcards were submitted, so you should take a look and feast on the eye candy and huge variety of fabric/fiber art. I think it will excite you!

There will be a People's Choice Award given for the winning postcard and the winning ATC. The postcard with the combined "most comments" and votes from the exhibition at Gallery 80808/Vista Studio will be the winner. Consequently, comments do count and are important on that. Sooo, if you like my postcard, then please go to it and leave a comment. Here's the link again -- http://cyberfyberonlinepostcards.blogspot.com/, and my postcard is number 121, so just scroll down to it. And if you see other postcards you'd like to comment on, please do that too. I'm totally amazed and pleased at the variety of postcards submitted, it's totally awesome. I just wish I could go to the show, and see it in person.

Starkness of Winter

This is another winter piece, and quite different in appearance from the last one. I wanted this one to look more real, more raw, more natural. I found a very weathered piece of corrugated cardboard behind our garage, distressed naturally by nature. That's what inspired me to do this piece. Then I pulled the rusted piece out of my rusted found objects (RFOs) stash. Oh yeah....this was a perfectly rusted piece! The leaf I picked up from my yard a while back, and stuck it in a book to flatten it, so I pulled that out too. Then I scavenged in my yard for just the right twig. And then I was ready to start on this piece.

The base on this is an 8x10 inch piece of frozen pizza cardboard (FPC). I probably should've used chip board, because there's some minor, minimal warping on this, but not bad enough to effect it much. The white background is white caulk spread on with a vintage, non-serrated butter knife. I texturized it as I spread it, then let it dry for about three hours. Then I sprinkled on some walnut ink crystals, spray misted it with water, and let the ink run down the piece randomly. Then I used double stick carpet tape to adhere the corrugated cardboard. I'm so glad I thought of using the tape on this, because using Matte Mod Podge or gel medium would've been much messier and more difficult, especially with a non-flat piece of corrugated cardboard.

After I adhered that, I glued down the leaf, the tea dyed cheese cloth, the rusted metal, and the twig. Then I sprinkled some more walnut ink crystals over those areas, spray misted with water, and just let it dry. The last thing I glued down was the feather, as kind of an after thought.

There are different colors and textures of winter, in my mind. After a fresh snowfall, there can be pristine beauty, eery stillness, even a peaceful feeling. But there can also be starkness, and the color of brown, rather than white, can dominate. I was trying to express starkness in this piece.

An art gift for my niece

This is a new piece I created on Sunday. It's a gift for my 16 year old niece for Christmas, to go along with a gift card to a bookstore. Her name is Shannon, and she's a fine young lady who has a voracious appetite for reading books. She's been an avid reader for many years now. She is also a fine writer, and has been writing and journaling for years also. I've read some of her writing, and am so impressed with her intelligence and talent. She's a darn good writer, and I believe has the potential to be published at some point.

Well, I was an avid reader and writer at her age, so I can relate to her in that way. I think I can relate to her very well. And I'm so proud of her and I love her, and am lucky to have her as a niece. And so I thought it would be nice to make her a small piece of art for Christmas. I wanted to make something to encourage her in her writing. At least that was the goal of this piece.

This is a 4x6 inch postcard format, and the base is frozen pizza cardboard. The background is a multi-colored piece of scrapbook paper glued down on the base. Then I used gel medium to glue down a piece of dyed cheese cloth on the left half of the piece. I cut some quotes on "Authorship" out of a book, crumpled it up, then rubbed brown paste shoe polish over it, and glued that down over the cheese cloth. The hearts were punched out of paint chips. The circle and triangle shapes are vinyl paper clips. I wrote the text with Bic permanent markers, and then rubbed the shoe polish over that whole part, including over the paper clips. I sealed the whole piece with Acrylic Floor Finish. (You can find it at Family Dollar stores.)

This was a fun, simple piece to make. I hope the message will mean something to Shannon, and that she'll find it encouraging. Because I really want to encourage her to pursue her writing, I think she is that good.

Book made at Lynn Perella workshop

I attended this workshop over a year ago, and it was a totally great workshop. Lynn Perella was a wonderful instructor, and I was proud to come away with this book. This is the first time I've posted this book online, and I thought it was time to do so. It's been sitting on a shelf in my bookcase all this time, and I almost forgot about it. So it's time to bring it out and post it on my blog.

This is a crazy, nothing barred collage. I wasn't totally comfortable with doing this at the workshop - it was all very new to me - but hey, that's why I took the workshop, right? To learn new ways to make art, especially regarding collage. It was a fun day, and I was pleased to come away with this book. After I got it home, I did more work on it and improved upon it, in my opinion.

We started out with a very large piece of rosin paper. It can be bought by the roll at certain home improvement/hardware stores, and also online. I'm not sure exactly what it's used for in that regard, but it can also be used for art, so Lynn Perella used it for her workshop. It's a very sturdy paper, and comes in a pinkish red color. You can see that in some of these photos.

At the end of the workshop, Lynn helped me fold my large collage into this book format. These pages are 9x12 inches, and I scanned them. I had to scan each page twice to get the whole page, top and bottom, due to the size of my scanner. I suppose I could have, perhaps should have, taken photos with my digital camera, to get photos of each page whole, but I didn't do it that way, I chose to scan instead.

I'm not going into detail on how this collage was made, because mostly I forget. Shame on me, but it's true. Well, when you do a collage like this, you just start painting and then gluing all kinds of things down. And since this started out as one large piece, and then later was folded into a book format, I had no clue how it would look as a book. That ended up as a big surprise, but a good one, I think.

So here it is, and I hope you enjoy it. Just continue scrolling down to see the whole book, it includes a total of 16 scans. Well, I mean scroll down, if you're up for that. I've never posted this many scans in one blog post before, but this is the only way I know how to do this.

Nature in Threes

This is some new art I made today. I guess I can say I recently took a brief sabbatical from making art. Don't ask me why, I'm not sure....maybe I just needed a break. It really felt good to make art today though.

I didn't have anything specific in mind when I started this piece. This is 5 x 7 inches, the base is frozen pizza cardboard. I used wallpaper from a sample book for the background. Then I distressed three green paint chips, by sanding them and using a sharp awl on them, then rubbing brown show polish all over them. The leaf on the middle paint chip was made by spreading gel medium on the back of a real leaf, and then stamping with it. When it dried, I rubbed brown show polish over it. I used a punch for the grasshoppers. The middle grasshopper was punched out of the leaf I used to stamp with.

The other two leaves are real, glued on with gel medium, then coated on top with gel medium, so as to preserve them. When dry, I rubbed them with brown shoe polish also. Then I glued tea dyed cheese cloth on the top and bottom corners, then rubbed it with....guess what? Yep, the brown shoe polish. The "three" is stamped caulk, painted with Gold Lumiere paint when dry. I outlined the middle paint chip with a gold paint pen. The seeds at the upper corner are from my yard.

And the key is one I got on ebay, that came in a large lot of cool, vintage keys. I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE those old keys, and should have enough now to last me a while.

Two more collages

These are my most recent works, and just happen to be collages. I'm so proud to say that, because I believe I'm making some progress on this front. These are 5x5s, the art squared format I like so much, and feel very comfortable with. One of these days, I hope to make a book with all my 5x5 art pieces that I've been making and saving for quite a while now.

In the first collage, I punched the hearts out of paint samples. The small frame is also cut out out of a paint sample. Then I sanded them with sand paper and used a very sharp awl to distress them, then rubbed brown shoe polish over them. (My oh my, but I do love that brown shoe polish!!!) I used the awl and shoe polish on other distressed areas too. The "J" is light spackle packed into a stencil. I've learned it's more difficult to frost light spackle as I do with caulk and wallboard joint compound, because it has a lot less moisture. So I can't frost it over a stencil, but can pack it into a stencil.

This is the first time I've used an awl to distress with, and I'm kind of liking the result a lot. However, you have to use brown shoe polish to get a much more cool distressed look. Good thing that shoe polish is cheap and accessible. The idea of sanding and distressing paint samples in my art just kind of jumped out and bit me on this piece. I'm thinking my muse was paying close attention and making herself available -- which is not always the case. So now, I'm glad I have a lot of paint samples in my art stash. Woohoo for that. I plan to use this "distressed paint sample technic" again and often, and maybe try to expand and perfect it.

In the second collage, I used images torn from a book for the sea creatures. And some tea dyed cheese cloth, but then rubbed over it with blue glaze. Then I added some rusted screen and a rusted washer. Oh right, I started out packing the light spackle on the piece in various areas.

I pretty much used the same technics I've explained before with these collages. If I try something new, I explain that too. The distressed paint sample/awl technic is new.

These are not for a swap, so I get to keep these. And hopefully incorporate them into my own book, at some point. Hope you like them, I do.

The Key to Your Wish collage

Gee, I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. That I'm actually WANTING to do layered collage, as opposed to avoiding it like the plague. Who knew I'd ever get to this point? I know I sure didn't. So yes, this truly does shock me, but also pleases me very much. Hmmm, perhaps it really is true that we must face our fears in order to overcome them. That seems to be working for me so far, in doing these layered collages. And I'm thrilled about that.

This is something I "threw together" yesterday in just a few hours. (That's amazing to me also.) It's for a personal swap with an online art friend (Hi Linda!). She suggested we do a swap about a year ago, but I had other art commitments at that time, and couldn't do it then. I told her maybe we could do it sometime in the future. So, the future is here, and we both agreed it was a good time to do a swap. And gee, I haven't done an art swap in many months, so I was very pleased and motivated to do this one. And I didn't even have to agonize over what to make. I love it when art happens that way, don't you?

This piece is 5x7, which is a new format for me. I mostly work on 5x5 art squared formats, or else 4x6 postcard formats. But I was game to try a different size and format, and am glad I did. There are similarities with this piece to the last two collages I posted. I glued down a piece of light blue fabric (dimensional) from a fabric sample book onto frozen pizza cardboard. Then glued down a poem torn from a book, music paper, and a definition of Precious cut from a dictionary. Then I rubbed brown shoe polish on the whole piece. Then I used brown acrylic paint sponged onto swirl stamps, and stamped a few times.

Then I painted wallboard joint compound on with a brush in certain spots. After that dried, I rubbed blue glaze on with my finger in certain areas, and rubbed brown shoe polish over them again. I was mostly going with the brown/blue color theme. Then I remembered that recently, in my local art group, I had dyed some cheese cloth blue and purple, so I pulled that out and used it on the lower right side. And also used a piece of tea dyed cheese cloth on the upper left side. I used some brown netted fabric over the blue cheese cloth, and a strip of it towards the top.

Then I cut a strip (the brown embroidered piece) from a blouse/frock I found at a yard sale a while back, and glued that down. The hearts were punched out of a textured paint sample. The key is one I got in a lot of keys off ebay. LOVE THOSE OLD KEYS, AND KEEP LOOKING ON EBAY TO SCARF UP A GOOD DEAL ON MORE. HOWEVER, THEY DON'T GO FOR CHEAP. And the "wish" part came last, and fit nicely on the key.

And I sealed the piece, once again, with Acrylic Floor Finish from the Family Dollar store. When I used it in the past, it gave a non-glossy satin finish, as opposed to the glossy finish that Future Floor Finish gives. I really liked having the choice of using a satin or glossy finish. But now, I'm almost out of the AFF, and using the last few ounces, so it has thickened, and now it's giving a glossy finish. Don't know what's up with that, it's a surprise, but I think I need to buy a new bottle of it. Well, I've had this bottle for a few years now, and perhaps it changes over time?

So anyway, this is the art I ended up with, and I'm pleased with it. I really enjoy using paper and fabric together in one piece. And gluing down a dimensional/textured fabric piece as a background ends up interesting, because it provides lots of texture right off the bat. I've learned that when I do that, I don't have to add a lot of texture, even though I tend to anyway, to a certain extent. The cheese cloth is always a good way to add texture, and I love it. I love texture so much, sometimes I worry if I add too much texture to my art, as in over-kill. But I don't worry enough to stop doing it. And I don't normally use much text or words in my art, but I'm reconsidering that, and thinking I should do that more often.

"Playing with Layers" collage

I don't do "layered" collages very often, and so far, I've only done a few. Why? I think because I have far less confidence in attempting them, I don't feel I know the technics used very well. Also, it's difficult for me to want to cover up things I've already done, as in the layering aspect. Consequently, I've mostly steered clear of them, except for occasionally. When I do attempt one, I do much better if I'm just playing around and experimenting.

When this first started out, I wasn't thrilled with it, and I almost wanted to toss it. Because I hadn't planned for it to be a layered collage, but it looked so bad, I felt it was the only way to salvage it. So I thought....hmmm, this is a good chance for me to play with layering.

This started out with frosting lightweight spackling onto frozen pizza cardboard. Now I'm well familiar with using caulk and wallboard joint compound, both of which I've used fairly often in my art. But I had never tried the spackling, so I decided to get some and try it, and see if and how it differed from the other two. I wasn't sure if I wanted regular spackling or the lightweight kind, but that's what I ended up buying. At first, when I first started frosting with it, I wasn't too happy with it. It seemed harder to work with, harder to frost, and harder to adhere to the cardboard, because it has a lot less moisture content than the other two. But I persisted and got some to adhere.

I wanted to embed some text into it, which was the first time I tried that. I had never tried that with the caulk or jc before. So I tore two short poems out of a book, one about Mom and one about Time. And tore another small piece out of a dictionary, and two small pieces out of a song book. I also used a few pieces of torn tissue paper and dress pattern tissue paper. That's the point at which it wasn't looking too good, and I was tempted to toss it. I set it aside to dry overnight and went to bed.

The next day is when I decided to try salvage it with a lot more layering and collage. I glued some netted fabric, lace fabric, and cheese cloth on, which I liked. Then I added the bird image and strips of rusted fabric, and few small pieces of decorative papers. Then the idea of stenciling the "B" occurred to me. I frosted more spackling over the stencil for that, and I really liked how that worked out. Then I did some stamping, glued on the punched out shapes and the feather. I also added some micro beads in gel medium on a few spots. I used my finger to rub on some different colors of glaze in different areas, then rubbed brown shoe polish over the whole piece. (I love that brown shoe polish.) I wrote the word "play" on there, and added some touches of gold rub on. Then I sealed it with Acrylic Floor Finish (AFF), bought at the Family Dollar store. The last thing I added was the rusted piece in the top right corner.

Making this piece was fun and challenging, and I should maybe try doing this more often. Maybe it would help increase my confidence at layering.

My Own Grunge Painted Collage (done on upholstery fabric sample)

This is a piece I worked on over several days, since last Saturday after our local book arts group meeting. Doing the grunge painting on fabric there must've really inspired me. (Scroll down to see a post and photos on that project). I really enjoyed doing the grunge painting, and love the results of it....and started thinking hmmmmm, can I produce similar results all by myself, as just one artist? Because the painting we did at the meeting involved the whole group, 13 artists.

At our meetings, oftentimes members will bring things to share with the group. At our last meeting, some people brought fabric remnants and wallpaper sample books to share. So, I brought home an upholstery fabric sample. It's dimensions are 17 x 12 inches, and it's quite thick and somewhat textured. I didn't care for the color, it was kind of an orange/tan, and I didn't know what I planned to do with it. Then it occurred to me I could just use it as a "practice" piece for grunge painting, that it would be perfect for that. And since I considered it a practice piece, and just for fun, I lost all fear of ruining it.

Now you have to know something about me. I am fearful about the "C" word. Doing "collage" scares me, for some strange or stupid reason. Anytime I think I'm doing a "collage", I get fearful and anxious and tense about my art and what I'm doing. Because I feel like I DON'T know what I'm doing. I start to over-think what I'm doing, or should be doing, and start second guessing myself, and get all concerned about placement and composition. I also get that way about layering. I have a really hard time with much layering at all, because I find it hard to paint over or cover up something I've already done, especially if I like the way it looks.

That being said, I really wanted to see if I could cut loose on this "practice" piece, and do a layered collage -- spontaneously, and with abandon. And see if, and to what degree, I could overcome my fear of collage and layering. That was my main goal with this piece, much more than being concerned with how it turned out.

I really, really got into working on this piece bigtime, and everytime I thought, okay it's done, more ideas would come to mind on what more I could do, what more I could add. Although I must say, in the beginning, I really didn't care about what I painted over or covered up. But the further along I got, the more attached I became to the piece, and the more concerned I was about what got covered up, and where to paint and stamp and glue down. I felt much more free about that in the beginning than later on. So in that sense, I didn't totally achieve my original goal, but only to a certain point.

So anyway, I think it's finally done. That is if I don't add something else. I couldn't scan the whole piece because of its size, so I had to do three scans. It would look better and more cohesive to see it as one piece, but this will have to do. The bird was one of the last things I added, and is embroidered on denim. I embroidered it on a pair of bell-bottom jeans in the 1970's!!! How "groovy" is that? So gee, it's over 30 years old! I cut it off the jeans many, many years ago, and held onto it all this time. I'm amazed I still have it, and more amazed that I actually found it and thought to use it on this piece. I think this is the exact piece it was meant to be on, and was waiting in a drawer for all these years. I was also able to use three of my caulk inchies on the right edge of the piece, and I added those last too.

So, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!!! In comparing this to the grunge painted fabrics posted below, I think the results I achieved are somewhat similar, but also different, because this turned into a collage, and I used other elements in addition to just paint, such as glued on crumpled tissue paper, yarn, cheesecloth, ric-rac, fabric, silk leaf, and of course the embroidered bird.

So, what do you think? I'm almost afraid to ask.

Paper and fabric woven postcard

This postcard was made for a swap on a yahoo group. The theme was a technic theme, this month doing weaving. I've seen this type of weaving on art, but had never tried it myself. I chose to use my crumpled rusted (copy) paper and then some fabric for the weaving. It was not as difficult as I thought it might be, but also not as easy as I wished it to be. It took me an hour to weave this 4 x 6 inch postcard. I had the option to paint over the weaving, and do more layering, as some people did for this month's swap....but I liked the way it looked too much and didn't want to cover that up with paint or glaze. You see, I kind of have a fear of "layering" like that, because I have to cover things up, and that's hard for me to do. I think I need to get over that fear, because I love the look of layered art. And it takes guts to do!

The image of the woman was printed on transparency film in sepia ink, then tranferred onto a paint chip or sample. When it was totally dry, I rubbed brown shoe polish over the image. The hearts were punched out of the crumpled rusted paper. And in the center I stamped Lumiere metallic rust paint with some new swirl stamps that I like a lot.

I almost forgot to mention the piece the image is glued to. It too, was a sample I picked up at Lowe's, a sample for window shades. Something I hadn't seen at Lowe's before.

I think I'd like to try the weaving again, perhaps with two pieces of fabric. I like the way the weaving looks, but to be honest, actually doing the weaving is kind of a pain in the zorch. But that's just me.

Moonscape

This is kind of another happy accident, regarding the texture. I used box (corrugated) cardboard for the base, because I figured that would be sturdier than the frozen pizza cardboard I usually use for these smaller pieces. This piece is a 5x5. Then I spread on some wallboard joint compound and textured it the way I wanted with a butter knife. I wanted it to look more like plaster. And when it was dry, it did look like plaster. However, the moisture from the JC had seeped down into the cardboard, and even though the JC was dry, the cardboard was still damp, and therefore not stiff but somewhat flexible. At that point my muse Bonita jumped in and whispered in my ear....what if you bend the cardboard a little here and there, what will that do to the JC and the texture? So I bent it, before I could even second guess myself (or her), and discovered the "what if" of doing that.

Since JC isn't flexible, it flaked off in the bent areas, adding more interesting texture. It didnt change the look a lot, but enough to give it a different kind of texture. I need to backtrack here though, and say I painted it before I bent the cardboard. And I didn't use paints, I used - get this - beet juice from a can of beets I ate that day. I also dyed some cheesecloth and some yarn in the beet juice. After I painted on the beet juice, I sprinkled on some wallnut ink crystals, misted with water, and then turned the piece in different directions so the brown color would run down the page.

I punched the circles out of entree cardboard and frosted and textured them with the JC also. And sprinkled the ink crystals on them too. On the left side, I used some tea dyed cheesecloth, and on top of that the beet dyed cheesecloth. After I glued down the circles, I looked at it and thought, gee, this kind of looks like a moonscape. So then I wrote the word on some tea dyed muslin and frayed it and glued it on.

I like the look of using two colors of cheesecloth, which was a new idea too. Now, I'm trying to think of other ways to dye cheesecloth. I'm wondering if food coloring would work. I know I could use store bought dyes, but I'm trying to think of other ways to dye it. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Another heart postcard

Yes, another one. Well, the dimension is 4 x 6 inches, which is the size of a postcard, so I'm just calling them postcards. On this one, the hearts on the left and the strip in the middle are cut out of rusted fabric. The threads are what came from fraying the fabric strip. I find that I like using the threads almost as much as using the fabric. As you can see, that's cheese cloth on the right side. I used that technic again of cutting or punching shapes out of cardboard, gluing them down, then gluing down crumpled/uncrumpled tissue paper over them. In this case, I used tan tissue paper. Then on the right side, I glued down the cheese cloth over the tissue paper.

This cheese cloth was tea dyed, so it was sepia color, but I chose to paint it with Moccasin Brown, and then rubbed Burnt Sienna over the heart and circles with my finger to get some contrast there. I added the buttons last, and like them on there. Up to that point, I felt it wasn't finished, it needed something more, but was having a hard time deciding what. I tried a few other things that didn't seem to work, so then I raided my button stash. Fortunately, I had some buttons the right colors.

This is most likely going to be for a personal swap. I haven't decided for sure yet, but I think so.

I've been a good little "art do-bee"! Remember Romper Room?

Yes I have! What is a "do-bee"? Does anyone remember the TV show Romper Room from the 1950's? Remember Miss Gloria, the show's host? It was on here in Denver, I'm not sure if it was just a local show or not. Anyway, a "do-bee" was a good little kid, who got things done. Good things.

So I've been a good "do-bee" today, regarding my art. And getting a new art work done. Beyond that, doing something totally different from what I normally do. It's been on my mind lately, call it an urge, to do something with wallboard joint compound (JC), which is somewhat similar to spackle. Don't know why that "urge" cropped up out of nowhere, but it did. So today, I followed it. Beyond that, I didn't have a clue what I wanted to make.

But I was out in my yard, so I started picking up "nature" items, thinking I could use those in my art today. And so I did. I also used cheese cloth that I recently tea dyed. And I used walnut ink crystals in the JC, to dye it brown or sepia, because I didn't want to have to paint the JC.
That worked out well, although maybe I should've added more, to make the JC darker. Because once it dried, it came out lighter than I expected. I also sprinkled some walnut ink crystals on my piece, to make some areas darker.

And once I started on this piece, with the natural items to inspire me, my muse jumped in and things moved right along. The idea to add the cheese cloth to the back, and then wrap the piece with it, came at the end, out of nowhere. I do love using cheese cloth in my art though, and even more so now that I started tea dying it. Today I also put some in walnut ink, to see how that comes out. Hopefully, it will come out a little darker brown, whereas the tea dyed cheese cloth comes out a sepia color. But until recently, it never occurred to me to dye cheese cloth. However, I read a tutorial on the net that included doing that, so I tried it.
Sorry, I don't recall where I read the tutorial, or I'd give credit to that artist.

Anyway, as one idea leads to another, and one idea can inspire other ideas, this is where I ended up today. I chose a small piece for today, but hope to use this conglomeration of technics on a larger piece soon.

Regarding the Romper Room thing, as an aside here, I actually got to meet Miss Gloria when I was in my 20's. It turned out that a new girlfriend I made was her daughter. And so she took me to meet her mother. I have to say, it was a thrill to meet Miss Gloria, 20 years after I used to watch her on TV. And practice being a good "do-bee"!!! And never being a "don't-bee". (Like yea, right. I'm sure my own mother would have something to say about that!) Ahhh, the memories from childhood.

A fabric postcard for myself

I say this is for myself, meaning it 's not for a swap or trade. Most of the art I've done in the past year, regarding 5x5s and postcards, has been for swaps. Which is great, because then I get wonderful art from other artists, which I love getting. But sometimes it's nice just to make art and keep it for myself. I feel some of my best art was done for swaps, and I must confess that sometimes it's difficult to part with my favorite artworks.

The fabric I used here for the background is batik-like, and one I love. I found a remnant at a thrift store and was drawn to it, so I snapped it up for $1.50, half price that day. I got at least a yard or more, I haven't measured it. That's enough to be useful for a lot of art. The hearts are cut out of my "rusted fabric" (scroll down for samples below).

I love, love, love rusted fabric, or rusted anything. As you can see, I glued on three rusted found objects, scavenged from the parking lot of my local truck stop. I cut out strips of paper from National Geographic magazine, from pages that would make a good background, and glued them down on the fabric first. Then I tea dyed cheese cloth, and glued that down over the strips of paper.

Then I glued down the hearts and the rusted found objects. I frayed the edges of the fabric, and used those threads on the piece also. The more I work with fabric and fibers in art, the more I love them. The base to this piece is frozen pizza cardboard, which I use often for postcards, 5x5s, and ATCs.

One thing I don't like about how the photo came out though, is how the cheese cloth looks more white than sepia. Because it is sepia, due to tea dying it. Although I wish I'd left it in the tea dye longer to make it darker. As a matter of fact, I have more cheese cloth tea dying right now, that I plan to leave in the tea for several days, to see how dark it will dye. The cheese cloth on this piece was soaked in the tea for only a few hours,

Another option for me is to dye some cheese cloth in walnut ink, which I think I'll try too. That should come out a lot darker than tea dying. I have walnut ink crystals, that I can use for that purpose. Hmmm, I might just do that after I post this to my blog.