Remember those vintage pipe cleaner, felt and styrofoam head figures peeps used to make? I found one at an estate sale and had to have it. It had big ole’ shoes, gloves and a pointed hat in felt, some sort of nose and a little tunic looking shirt over it’s upper body. Pretty hinky but full of old craft magazine memories. One day I was outside early and noticed that a ray of super bright sunshine was beaming down on our white shed and got the idea to shoot some shadows. There was Mr. Hinky Elf, in all his splendor. I think he made quite a silhouette, all long and lanky. So I shot him for awhile and a few other things and printed them out. When I sat down to make this page I was interested in texture and layered on many cancelled postage stamps and some small labels, etc. I also put a hand drawn womans face and my Shadow Man on there and then painted over it all several times with a credit card. Lots of texture, plus an odd focus image. My kind of page. This one is finished, I won’t put writing on it because I like it the way it is.
Long tall shadow art journal page
Posted: March 13, 2012 in art journalTags: altered book, art journaling, journaling, mixed media, new art work, painting, photography, shadows
Piscean necklace for a change of pace
Posted: March 12, 2012 in beadworkTags: beads, necklace, piscean, pisces
I made this necklace over the weekend. It’s the first beaded project I’ve done in years. I have a lot of beads. Remember what I’ve told you about my definition of “a lot”. That’s been coming up a lot lately, hasn’t it? haha. I was reminded of the old joke “how do you eat an elephant” answer “one bite at a time”. So since my beads are sorted by color I decided that I would work monochromatically for a while until I started feeling more comfortable working into those file drawers. The necklace is worked in yellow orange beads with two Asian designed carved fish to represent Pisces. (Remember, I am Pisces Rising). It also has citrine and yellow jasper, was well as shell and AB finished faceted glass beads. I used a slide clasp for the first time and like it; easy to take on and off and doesn’t take up as much room as a toggle clasp. There are also brass colored tiny metal beads for the “oooh shiney” I require. All in all, I’m pleased. Enjoy your day!
All stamped up art journal page
Posted: March 10, 2012 in art journalTags: art journaling, new art work, rubber stamp, stamp
I believe I said earlier this week when presenting Albert the doll that when I say I have “a lot” of something it is likely to be an insane amount. Such is the case with this art journal page. More than a decade ago I procured a lot of stamps from Ebay and a box from a local used office supply shop. The stamps range in content from images for advertising to medicine to the Olympic games and a space shuttle mission. The text varies from “mixed nuts” to post office sayings to “import” and “export”. My goal was to see which of these antiquities still would print with a regular ink pad under normal conditions. Most of them did, leaving me with this busy page of black inked wonders. I topped the page off with one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver printed off the Internet. I like this page with its random DADA meaninglessness, graphics printed in simple black ink and old style mid-last-century appearance.
Angel with dove art journal page
Posted: March 9, 2012 in art journal, photographyTags: art journaling, cemetery images, journaling, new art work, painting, photography
I took this picture of an angel holding a dove at a cemetery in Brooksville, FL. The statue was unique in my collection. I’ve been shooting graveyard images for 15+ years, all over the southeast US. The image was Photoshopped and the height of the statue gives it a kind of wonky orientation on the page (the statue was about 3 1/2-4′ tall). I printed the photo on regular copy paper and placed it on an otherwise prepared page. It looks like I used either pan watercolors or pan gouache to color the image. This page is in my altered map journal but has no journaling on it besides the “The bird leaves no trail” saying. I doubt that anything more will be done to this page in the future, I like it the way it is right now.
Glyph found shadowlet
Posted: March 8, 2012 in photographyTags: found, found images, photography, shadows
One of the shadowlets I created in the afternoon on my kitchen countertop, by using a strong ray of sunlight and a stencil. Because only parts of the stencil were illuminated, the shadowlet is abstract. This one looks to me like an ancient glyph, perhaps for the word “tree”. I like the way the shadow also has a shadow around the bottom edge of each patch of light. If you have been following my blog for a while you know that I love capturing found shadowlets (or creating them if the opportunity arises). I find them so evocative and fun. Just another thing to keep that camera in use!
Found graffiti
Posted: March 7, 2012 in photographyTags: art journaling, found images, graffiti, photography, stencils
I really love this small portion of graffiti I shot more than a year ago on the side of a building where artists were allowed to paint. It was a montage of several artists but I enjoy the composition of this picture and took tight shots of pieces rather than the whole wall. There is such an elegance in the line and the grey, white, black and red color scheme, and I like the stenciled dollar signs in contrast to the sweeping sprayed lines of paint. Unfortunately, the wall is now blank and I was glad I documented the art while I had the chance. This blurred line art reminds me of the capability that the Stabilo All pencil has for making a watercolor-like line with graphite. In other words, this look could be replicated in our journals with a bit of practice. Cool to think about.
Paper mosaic dragonfly art journal page
Posted: March 6, 2012 in art journalTags: art journaling, journaling, mixed media, mosaic
The picture is a tad crooked because the altered map book journal I use is so big it hardly fits on the chair seat without falling off. Sorry about that. This page features one of my favorite processes which is paper mosaic. I like to use either colorful magazine pages or my own colored/textured surfaced papers. Can’t remember which this is, but it was watercolored over after gluing, I can see that.I think the orangy-red in the center might have been printed at one time with a styrofoam plate print and watercolor washed. This page doesn’t have any journaling yet. I usually work ahead visually in a book and then as the mood strikes to write I decide which page to use and try to find a pen that will actually print over top all the process work. Most likely that will be a Sharpie of some kind, or a white gel pen if the background is dark enough.
Three chicks art journal page
Posted: March 5, 2012 in art journalTags: art journaling, journaling, new art work, photography
I’m dedicating this post to my friends Elli and Soren. To Elli because she has a case of spring fever right now of epic proportions. And Soren loves googly eyes on everything and these chix have pretty close to googly eyes going, without actually googly-ing. The journal part is above, written in white gel pen. I found these chicks at the drug store after Easter last year and have them sitting on my kitchen windowsill. They are bright and cheerful and we have extremely interesting conversations while I do the dishes. Nothing I can share here, you understand. Spring has Sprung!
Albert
Posted: March 3, 2012 in art dollTags: art doll, new art work, plain doll body, terry lee getz
Meet Albert. He has a funny story. Well, sort of funny. I bought a bunch (when I say a bunch, the numbers are usually astonishing) of these plain cloth dolls on clearance about a decade ago. I always wanted to make dolls, see. But the plain sort of ill shaped dolls mocked me. Don’t know how to sew (or rather, design patterns) so no clothes. Tried weaving over one and that took forever just to cover the body rectangle. I think I even tried painting one once. Everything that ever happened with these dolls, which wasn’t much, was only done once. So I decided to give some away and have a friend that said she’d take some. God bless her. Then the one I brought in to send her a picture of started mocking me. In order to shut it up, I applied gesso in black and white, then put a face on with those marvelous Sharpie poster paint markers, then when it was dried did that (except for the face) about three more times to cover, then sewed some shirt buttons on and called it Albert. I believe I got the last laugh…or did I??
Art life
Posted: March 2, 2012 in photographyTags: art journaling, everyday object still life, new art work, photography
I haven’t spoken too much on this blog about setting up simple shots with everyday items that you have literally laying around during the day as you make art. On this day I’d been using my alphabet rubber stamp set and decided to make a phrase and shoot it from eye level. I made sure the stuff in the background was art related (although you can’t tell now what it was, it was a rubber stamp pad and a paper plate palette) and set the other stamps behind the words. I like the depth in this shot and a tad of Posterize that I applied in Elements “arts” it up a notch. Get yourself some decent natural light in an area with some flat surface available (i try to use my kitchen counter) and set some objects up. Don’t have to be fancy about it. I saw a great shot of a fork yesterday on a fellow photographer’s blog. Try your flatware, dishes, art supplies (paint brushes are awesome), parts of a flower bouquet, flat marbles with writing underneath, your journaling supplies for the day. You’ll be surprised how poetic these shots look when changed to black and white, cropped and maybe filtered just a bit. Print ’em up and put them in your next collages. If you get really inspired by one of your set ups, draw it into your journal before breaking it down. A great way to practice your drawing, too.
Crickyn 