Pages 12/27/07

Ahh my poor blog. I need to update you with something. Where did the last month go?

Pages 11/06/07

Pages 11/01/07

Pages 10/14/07

Look what I just learned how to do. :-) I took a bunch of my photos of my altered books and journals and made a slideshow with Slide. I'm probably one of the last people to make my own slide show. It was actually very simple! Anyway, these are photos from a round robin True Colors theme that I was a part of in 2004. It was one of the best round robins I've participated in. Enjoy.

Pages 10/10/07

I got a hankering to work on some ceramics pieces this past weekend. These are bisque fired cork toppers. I just drew the black lines first, and will color them next weekend. After the color goes on, I'll fire them to cone 06, then apply the transparent glaze and refire. I'll post the next stage as soon as I get 'em done.

Pages 10/06/07

I've been busy at work but had a little time to jam out a bunch of zipper danglies for the Art Erratica Day of the Dead Danglies Swap. These are decorated with the 'Evil Grows' artwork in my last post. I wired them to an oversized lobster claw clasp and accentuated with a bone skull, beads and wire swirlies.
UPDATE - I just found a picture of some of the swap items one person received. (Pictured Right) Looks like she got one of mine. :-) This was a great swap. I got back some really cool items.

Pages 09/13/07

The finished colorized version of
'Evil Grows'.

Pages 09/08/07

Not sure where this image came from in my mind. But at least I'm drawing again. Hopefully I am out of my creative block for now. This is the black and white version. I'll colorize it over the weekend.

'You never know, where evil grows.'

Pages 08/28/07

Wanna buy five copies for my motha' –Dr. Hook

Wowee. I got a bit of a surprise yesterday when I got my ATC Quarterly in the mail. I knew there was going to be an article about my Journal ATC's in this month's issue - but had no idea I'd be on the cover. Did I say Wowee yet? Well, if all the nice emails I've received from folks trying to help me snap out of my creative block, this certainly will. If you haven't checked out ATC Quarterly - check it out! I always find it very inspirational. Ronna Mogelon, the editor, is phenomenal. Anyway, I wanted to share the good news. :-)

I feel the urge to do some drawing, so maybe this dry spell is coming to an end ...

Pages 08/16/07

I am having one BUMMER of a week, guys. I've done nothing creative for myself since the weekend. Ack, wish I could hide under my bed, and skip Friday. Work, is just ... a drag this week. My 'rock' at work (a co-worker) is sick this week and I'm just so missing her strength and sense of calmness she gives me when dealing with all the wahoo clients we have. Boy, I wish the week was over.

Well, enough whining ... no art to post today, so I thought I'd find some ephemera or something 'collage-y' to share with you out of my collage stash. Here's a freebie - a nice fat scan of a game board of a bunch of cards. These are great to add on ATCs, or I print them small and use them in matchbox swaps.

Gosh, can you creative types send me some creative vibes to get me back in the groove? C'mon, I know you can help me ... if I have any readers out there (I'm not sure if anybody reads this blog 'cept my niece and KD), post a link to what *you* are working on this week. I'd love to see. ;-)

Pages 08/13/07

Zipper Pull with a handmade Day of the Dead bead and danglies.

Pages 08/05/07

Back to Collage
As anyone who follows my blog can tell you, I tend to get bored pretty easily. To break my boredom, I pulled out a chunk of collage materials and got to work on some ATCs and altered tags.

A friend of mine gave me some pretty cool tags from some clothing she bought and thought I could 'do' something with them. I love them! The tag pictured isn't complete yet, and I expect to go back and work on it again. I do that with alot of pieces, get as far as I can, then think about how I want to finish them, or decide if they will be part of a larger piece. I wonder if any of my readers do this?

One new technique I tried was layering a heavy layer of gel medium on the background and gently sticking newspaper to it. Once it started to adhere, I pulled OFF the newspaper and it left the text behind. It's very subtle, and tricky to do. If you try it do it on a test piece first and expect to do it several times before you get an interesting pattern.

I also painted and pre-made a stack of about 12 ATC card bases ready to be collaged on. Last weekend, while recovering from a cold, I sat in the backyard with a bunch of magazines and clipped out a bunch of images that interested me and put them into a small box. I figured if I had all the pieces ready, I could delve into the images and grab a pre-made ATC and go to town with very little prep work.

I highly recommend this technique to anybody who has limited time to work on art, but needs a little downtime after a hard day at the office.

The two ATC cards I made, I collaged at the same time with the same palette. Again, I am not sure these are done yet. I think they need some words.

That's it for today. I am off to the Santa Clara County Fair. I'll try and take some pictures. ;-)

Pages 07/21/07

Day of the Dead Bamboo Beads

Sumthin' different. I've been making Frida Kahlo bamboo beads for awhile and was geting bored of making them. I think it's cool that you can tile the photo across the three beads. It opens up alot of possibilites. I put these up for auction at eBay if anyone out there is interested. :-) They are sealed and water resistant and ready to rock and roll in a cool project. These would make a neato bracelet. I haven't tried putting one together yet, but plan to. I have several sets I will play around with soon.

Pages 07/19/07

Faux Postage

I got inspired from a class I recently took with Mountain View Artist Jacqueline Ernst. We learned how to get better at sketching while travelling. The class was very laid back and Jackie was very flexible with the class schedule. She'd pretty much teach us whatever we wanted to learn or try. It was a great class, very friendly and supportive. Jackie makes faux postage. Her stamps are very intricate and reflect her past travels. I was fascinated by them and quickly sketched some in my journal.

These are the sketches which I scanned and colorized in Photoshop. I made a stamp border and added type. They aren't as detailed as Jackie's, but they're me. ;-)

I recommend a class with Jackie. Her studio is warm and cozy and her personality is infectious.
A shout out to ya Jackie. I'll be back for another workshop soon.

Pages 07/13/07

Pages 07/12/07

Peace on Earth

The size is 8"X10", painted with Watercolor and India Inks. This comes in reaction to all the chaos going on in the world. Hoping war will come to an end soon.

Pages 07/02/07

Sketchbook doodle.

Pages 06/29/07

It's been awhile since I've painted in large format. I ordered some pretty nifty Sharpie acrylic paint pens with a wide nib from Mister Art. I was pretty dubious. It worked really well on the canvas and the nib and paint held up almost until the end of my line work. It started choking right at the end and I had to go over the last bit twice to get nice coverage. Now that the painting is all drawn, I am working on adding color. The size of the painting is about 4'X4'. (The other photo is the whole painting before the color was added. Taken on my lousy camera phone.) It's pretty cool to see the artwork I've been doing so small (4"X4") translate into large format. It's pretty trippy.

Pages 06/27/07

I've been decorating bamboo tile beads and using them in crafty things. The beads are drilled in an odd place so it's rather dificult to use them. I outputted a Day of the Dead image onto clear paper and transferred it to the bead. I've sealed it with many layers of protective varnish to give it a nice sheen and to prevent it getting scratched. Then, I made various charms and attached them to a 'pleather' bracelet. I bought a bunch of these bracelets fairly inexpensively awhile ago, and didn't know what to do with them. They had big gaudy charms on them that I used in another artsy something. I never toss anything! There's always another art project you can add a 'leftover' to.

Pages 06/23/07

I recently made this collage for a swap I joined up for on the Altered Art Obsession Yahoo group. This was an open themed digital collage ATC swap. It was the first time I've really done this type of swap, which is strange because, I do digital collage every day in my job as a graphic designer. It was neat just to do a collage for myself, rather than a client. The entire collage is done in Photoshop and I've used copies of real letters from Frida to Diego. It's an interesting concept, digital collage ATCs. I'm not sure why I haven't done any in this manner before. It took me less than 1/2 an hour to put this together, while a traditional collage might take an entire evening, plus time to dry. I've uploaded this image high res, so feel free to print it and add to your ATC collection from me, to you. ;-)

Pages 06/22/07

"Rule #1 - Be Wierd" I've been taking a class on travel journaling with Jackie Ernst. I wasn't terribly interested in learning to journal while traveling, but I was eager to hang out with some like minded folks. It's been fun. It's good to go back and learn the basics like contour drawing. I pretty much sucked at it, like I sucked at it in Art School. But, it got me collaging and journaling again, which is good. It's amazing how a little comradary with some other creative types can spark your inner artist.

Pages 06/21/07

Fly. Open your mind. Reach for the stars. Small steps will take you there. Look up. Aim high. Fly.

Pages 06/10/07

"Today was my Birthday". I used some of Teesha Moore's stamps and painted and layered some collage over top. I found some gel pens over at Target (4 for a buck, I love a bargain) and am loving them. I haven't really used gel pens before, and I am not sure WHY as they are very powerful. You can draw over practically any surface.

Pages 05/19/07

I've been playing around with some different shaped glass slides for pendants. I've also been reworking vintage jewelry to hang them from. Some of the old junk jewelry I find is awesome, and worth bringing some life back into it. The back is a textured piece of glass which is pearly purple. I've also been trying to solder in some different materials. Soldering isn't the easiest material I've ever worked with. Solder and I have a love / hate relationship. I love what it can do, but it's fussy to work with and stinky. I've burnt myself countless times and almost burnt a hole clear through my work table. Don't tell my husband. ;-)

Pages 05/18/07

Well, I'm still messing around with charm bracelets but the reaction has been pretty underwhelming to say the least. Everyone seems to be making them right now, and that's cool. It's really 'craft of the week' right now. I'm not one to follow the current trends, so I've tried to make them a little unusual. Also, it's been alot of fun to actually *use* beautiful beads or trinkets I've been hoarding over the years. My wiring skills are definitely getting better and I think jewelry making is becoming a medium I like more and more.

Pages 05/05/07

So, I jumped on the charm bracelet badwagon. Yeahhhh. I'm not much of a follower in that regard, but darn they looked like fun. This is the first one I've made and I have 2 or 3 more in the works at various stages of completion. I work on them off and on. Sometimes I will be working on a completely different project and I'll find a bead or oddity and it will be the perfect embellishment for a bracelet. I recommend taking a crack at making a charm bracelet. Have fun with it and push the limits. This ain't your gandma's charm bracelet - that's for sure. ;-)

This one's on eBay this week for anyone that's interested.

Pages 05/04/07

These are some matchbox shrines I created for a Latin Shrine swap on SwapBot. It was challenging working small, but alot of fun. I received 3 back from various partners and all were clever. I'll try and snap a picture of them sometime.

Pages 04/29/07

He. Saw her across the crowd.
(Colorized version.)

Pages 4/27/07

Well, after a little hiatus, I'm back. I've been super busy with some projects and work. I'm happy to share a large project I completed for a product recently. It was alot of work, but I am very pleased of the results! The company was very great to work with and overall a great experience. Let me know what you think!

Pages 2/15/07

Day of the Dead Ornament - Soldered glass with an original Day of the Dead design underneath. Wire hanger and wire wrapped skull attached with lead free solder. I had a couple of 2X2 glass panes leftover from some really bad picture frames, so I recycled them and made them into something else. ;-)
Auctioning at eBay

Pages 1/22/07

'Ask Me to Cry' Assemblage
This is a Day of the Dead Altar. Constructed of pine and embellished with various ephemera, paints, inks, glass, beads, polymer clay, found objects. Hand built sugar skull. This piece represents dealing with my Father's death and all the things I should have said, but didn't. Bottling up feelings, emotions. There are personal massages written all over the altar.

Pages 01/21/07

"Luna" Acrylic paints, copper and bronze metalic inks and paints, copper wire and steel washers

Pages 1/15/07