Pages 4/11/12

This was a weird little picture that came out of altering a magazine image. Almost spooks me out. Well, wait ... yeah it spooks me out. I covered this with a wash of acrylic paint, and then went back in with portfolio pastels and more full strength acrylic paints.

I ran this through the Zyron so the back is sticky. Oh, and I cut it up into pieces to give it a little more drama. I'll pop it into a journal page tonight and post the results tomorrow. ;-) Or when I get around to it. Who am I kidding.

Pages 01/24/09

Hi everyone, I must apologize for not being around over the past few weeks. Work got crazy busy for me and I wasn't able to do much art! I have a couple swaps I am involved in so I am posting one of the collages I made for Alerted Art Obsession Yahoo Group 5X5 Hearts swap. We are making 10 5X5 squares with a 'hearts' theme. Once we send in our hearts, we will be mounting them into a display. Once I get my swaps back I'll post some of the results. Mine is made up of a panted background which has been stamped with hand carved stamps, collaged, and then individually painted. I masked off the bottom and painted the stripes. I finished the edges with rubber stamp pads.
I'm not sure I am done though. I may add some other feature, like some sort of text treatment or an eyelet with some danglies. I am ambivilent about adding any hanging elements though since we are going to be mounting these. Hmm.
Featured left (click to enlarge) is another approach to the Hearts 5X5 collage by AAO member Teri Velazquez. I like the different texture treatments she did. All the hearts are similar, but the treatment is very different.
The swap hostess, Tejae Floyde, has posted some info about the process she used for her hearts collages. I thought the technique she did for the background was very interesting. Check it out!
By the way, the Altered Art Obsession Yahoo Group is once again open for membership. If you are interested in joining, stop by. The group is juried and you must provide images of your work and requires filling out a questionnaire. It's one of the best groups I have belonged to with very quality swaps. If you make high quality work, and want high quality work in return, I suggest you apply.


Update: Above, a picture showing all the participants of the swap.

Pages 03/18/08

Last weekend I got a big old jar of broken jewelry at a second hand store for a deal. Score! It was perfect for a swap which was coming up. I cleaned all the pieces in my new super sonic jewelry cleaner, then broke them apart and repurposed them as charms. I got a chance to practice my wire work and making loops. (I'm getting better, but it takes alot of practice!) These will be going to a 5th Anniversary Charm Swap for the ABC (Altered Book Club) group on Yahoo Groups.

Pages 03/14/08

I got my 'Chunky Love ATC Book 'back a few days ago and it's REALLY cool. This was a swap I was in with the Altered Art Obsession Yahoo Group. I grabbed these photos of it off of one of the other participant's blogs because they were quite nice. (These are from Tejae's blog.) I'll try and take a few pics myself this weekend. I'm always so surprised at what everyone comes up with. There are so many styles and 'takes' on the subject. To see my contribution to the book please see this blog entry.

Pages 02/28/08

Since we didn't have as many signups for the Shipwreck Swap, I had to quickly come up with a bunch more cards so the 5 participants didn't get the same card. lol. The front has a small plastic mirror and a vintage photo which I manipulated in Photoshop to make it look like it was bending in the water. On the back I did a transparency gel glue transfer - TWICE. One layer is of a weather map, and there's a ghostly overlay of a woman playing a violin on top. The butterflies are transparencies.

Pages 02/23/08

This is a piece I've just finished for the Altered Art Obsession Yahoo Group. It's one of 10 pieces I made for the swap. The theme is 'Shipwreck'. The swap hostess is going to make tiny little treasure chests, alter them and inside will have all the artwork from the participants. It sounded like a very unique swap, so I couldn't wait to join in and work on mine. The size is a little odd, 2" X 4".
I started with a large sheet of heavyweight watercolor paper and did multiple layers of lumiere metallic paints. On the other side, I found a nice big piece of vintage wallpaper with a crackle/peeled look and adhered it to the back. After I let everything dry, I cut the cards to the size I needed and was ready to start collaging.
I wanted to do an underwater theme, so I found a couple photos at istock photo and downloaded them. I sized them to the size I wanted and printed them on cardstock to my inkjet printer. I attached the girl's image, painted her hair in several layers of acrylics and then added the boat, tossing on the top wave of her hair. I had some pretty nice bindis, so I added that to her face. Lastly, I did a coating of shimmering sparkle paint on her hair (which the photo does not show well.)
For the back, I used a purple stamp pad and weathered the edges. I found a really cool poem and sized properly in photoshop, and printed to a transparency. I adhered it to the card with sparkle paint and then added some simple metallic stars in the corners. Once I get my treasure chest back, I'll post my return. ;-)

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. ;-)