Pages 10/18/12

I've been busy! My blog is neglected. What can I say? I am spending alot more time posting things on FaceBook these days and am wondering if this blog will stay active much longer. Anyway - here's what I've been up to the last couple of months. I've been making alot of pottery to prepare for my show in November. These are in the kiln today and I am excited to get home and look and see if they all survived! :-)

Pages 6/8/12

Aren't these super cool? These are the self portrait books that Jen Worden put together. Each of us did a self portrait and sent it to Jen. She made these fabulous handmade books for each of us. Inside there are pages with copies of the other artist's self portraits. We also filled in a questionnaire and we got a copy of each person's answers. Awesome. Thanks Jen!

Artists are: Jen Worden, Maripat-Luna Doyle Oberg, AMy McDonald, Judah Sleep, Me and Karen Isaacson.

Pages 5/7/12

Detail of the right spread.

Detail of the left spread.

Here are a few altered book spreads I did over the weekend. Mixed media, painting and collage on an old yearbook. This book is BIG. I am a little overwhelmed working large and filling the space, but it's been fun. The scary baby one, yeah it's scary. lol. I was just really drawn to the weird image.

Pages 5/3/12

Not too much going on in the studio right now. I've posted a page I am working on in an old journal. I'm working on priming some pages in a brand new book. This is the boring part, right? I have a couple more pages to prime and then I'll stitch them all together. That's when the fun starts. ;-)

Pages 4/23/12

A couple more finished visual journal pages. Both for a round robin I am in. Not sure now, looking at the 'Secret' pages if I need to go back and do a bot more. Hmm. Some open spaces I think might need 'something'. I'll sit on it a night or two. ;-) The 'Secret Family Recipe' spread was inspired, believe it or not, by the label on a can of Bush's Baked Beans.

Pages 4/16/12

Here's a finished spread in my personal art visual journal. It's the last one to finish before I do the cover. Top image is closest to the true colors in the book. The second I included because I loved the colors the Hipstamatic photograph put on it. It really enhanced the blues.

Pages 4/12/12

Well, I finished the page last night. I used the cut up piece I showed you guys yesterday. I layered in a bunch of acrylic paints and pastels and then did a final batik like stencil over the top to give it a splash of bright yellow. What you think? A little strange looking, but I dig it.

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.

Inspired by Leonard Cohen's "Who by Fire". I love this wonderful song. The imagery and creativity and thought put into the words. Illustration is a play on life and death and mirror reflection.

Paint, henna stencil and pencil drawing.

Left panel is stamped and images from the hipstamatic camera for iPhone were printed on canvas paper and altered. Song is inspired by the Counting Crows, "Round Here". "She has trouble acting normal when she's nervous."

Inspired by Peter Cincotti's, "Always Watching".

Inspired by the Tragically Hip's, "38 Years Old'. "Freezing slow time away from the world
He's 38 years old, never kissed a girl". Beautiful.

Well, I mailed out my book to Amy McDonald last week. I made alot of progress, but still didn't feel like I was done. I guess I can finish it when it finally comes back from the round robin. I received a book on Saturday from one of the artists in the round robin. It's a cool book with images of people who do undesirable jobs like, poop scooper, funeral home cosmetologist. Her theme is the taro, which is pretty interesting. I'll post an image as soon as one is complete. I am about 3/4 through the first spread. I tackled he death card, which works really well with my Day of the Dead artwork. It's Super Bowl Sunday, and a good day to get some art done since I hate football.

Pages 1/7/12

This is a sketch I did on a paper grocery bag. I'm adding it as a tip-in page into the altered book. I find tip-ins a good way to use the doodles I create while on the phone. Some of them can be pretty cool!

Page illustration. My book theme is 'Lyrica Obscura'. The words are 'What shape does the silence have?' This line is from the song, 'The Headphonist, by Kinky.

Altered book pages with collage bordering added.

I am slowly making progress on my altered book. I'm starting to add collage to the borders, and making some tip-ins to add some interesting papers and doodles. It kind of bulks up the book too since I have to have it ready to mail in a few weeks. I'm working on the cover next, trying to figure out a closure that will be adjustable enough to work if the book gets really bulky.

Pages 1/3/12

Preparing the Altered Book. Removing pages, gluing pages, and waiting for them to dry.

Back Cover. I sanded the cover, then painted the book with good acrylic paint and used metallic pens. This isn't done, I'm just getting started!

Interior Page. Working on laying in a strong base for collage. Acrylics, pens.

Interior Cover. The them is 'Lyrica Obscura'. Those gem lyrics that make you stop and think ... and play over and over.

Another Interior Page. Building up colors and layers with paint.

Well, yeah. It's been awhile since I blogged. Sorry. What can I say, my life has been a whirlwind since about October. I do so much on FaceBook these days that I keep forgetting to update the blog. If you're reading this, and you haven't added me on FaceBook, follow the links to the right and catch me there.

So, this is a new project I'm working on. It's an altered book for a Round Robin I am in. I'd kind of forgotten how much work it is to prep these bad boys. Finding the right book, removing pages, gluing pages together, painting the pages ... e-yikes. It's fun though. It def give me a break from ceramics for awhile and it's good to mix it up.

I thought I'd share the process. It's still in early stages, but you might be interested in what steps I'm taking. 

Lessons learned so far? Make sure you pick the right book to alter. Make sure the spine is sewn in, not glued. Take the book and crack the spine really wide. Do you see sewing? It's a good book to alter. Also, check the paper. What's it like? This one has a newsprint finish and it took foreverrrrr to dry. Make sure it has good paper. Test it before you put a ton of work into it. (I didn't. lol.) Anyway, I have it working now, I just had to make sure there were about 3-4 pages glued together for strength.

Pages 09/15/11

Been working on my journal lately. Here are a few finished pages for you guys to look at. I love journaling. It really gives me total freedom to work less mainstream. It's art for myself, not anyone else.

Pages 02/21/09

I got pretty behind with my Traci Bautista workshop this week because of work. Today I buckled down and spent a bit of time going through the exercises. Most of the exercises were about spilling out your random thoughts using a variety of different mediums. I used Sharpie paint pens, gel pens, highlighters, markers, white out pens. I found it really fun to randomly write words and didn't stress out while doing them. I recommend trying something like this. Take out a blank sheet of paper and start randomly scribbling the thoughts in your head. Then mess around with different pans and see what happens. Try using a bunch of pens you'd normally not draw with, like a highlighter. Just when you think you are done, push it again and add more color or line work.

The painting above I started with a really dark blue background and swirled in some lighter blues. The exercise was to write with a white out pen. I also used gel pens and a sharpie pint pen for the blacks. This one is my ode to the blank page. ;-)

Pages 10/03/08

This is the page I created for the 'Blissfully Art Journaling' Yahoo Group - 'All About the Shoes' chunky book. I made the background using techniques I learned from Karen Gartel's workshop I took last year. (Check out previous entries which describe her techniques.) I painted and stamped the background using hand-carved stamps. I altered an legs image I found online, enhancing it with paints. I made the skirt from some neato papers my friend Laurie found for me and and glued down metal washers for buttons.
At the bottom, I added a grommett and tied a bunch of fibers and cool ribbons I'd been saving. On my swap pages I also tied on tiny shoe charms. (But I ran out on this page. ;-)
Once I have the swap pages back, I'll post the other artist's work.

Pages 03/22/08

I'm taking an online painting/collage course with artist Karen Gartel over at Altered Diva Online Workshops. The 6 week course is called "Softly Spoken" and is supposed to help us make our own painted backgrounds and teach collage composition. I honestly took this class because I wanted to MAKE myself set some time aside and work on some pieces. Having a deadline, and knowing that I paid for the course would surely give me motivation, and it did. The course is somewhat self paced with new lessons given every Monday and a week to turn around the assignment. Karen gives written instructions as well as an instructional video - which I love. The group is able to ask questions, show progress and discuss their project. (Pictured left are my 4 pieces in progress.)
I'm a fairly intermediate painter, and I honestly didn't expect to learn a whole lot of new techniques, but I've been very pleasantly surprised. I've never used gesso on watercolor paper (and it's cool!) and I've learned and interesting way to layer multiple colors which I've never done and will definintely use in the future. All GREAT techniques. I definitely recommend the course even if you *think* you've done it all. ;-) We have 3 more weeks of the class and I'm excited to see what's next. Will keep you posted.

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 01/26/08

Sketchbook collage. Got some new pink paint (so NOT a fave color of mine, but I wanted to expand my range of colors a bit) and a cool new Frida Kahlo stamp which I bought from stampcamp.com.