ATC's for Lill

This is the second set of ATC's I've exchanged with Lill Mederak in Canada. I waited to post these until I knew she'd have received her package so as not to spoil the fun. I do love this little format - both for it's ease and quickness to complete and for it's tradeability too. I just organized all my ATC's in a three ring notebook with those clear vinyl baseball card sleeves and arranged them in groups - lots of eraser carved ones from my early days with the Carving Consortium and then later groups in various swaps. I also have enough from a few dear friends to make a whole page of work by that one artist, which is fun to see. My style has certainly changed and I think, improved too, over the years.

Dyed Papers

My latest creations. Dyed papers. Aren't they 'purty'? Lots of fun too. And the pictures don't do them justice really. I am doing some more experimenting, but if all goes well will be offering these for sale on my etsy site. Stay tuned!

Tribal Inspiration

Isn't it fun to get inspiration for something you love to do from the most unexpected places? I was recently looking at some lamp worked beads on line and came across some that are done using various aboriginal designs. No - I'm NOT going to try my hand at lampworking on top of everything else I can't seem to say no to! But the swirls and circles and undulating snake-like shapes really spoke to me so I just had to doodle with them. Here's my first attempt. This was done on white watercolor paper using the Faber Castell Pitt Artist pens in both the brush size and the S size for the tinier detail stuff. I think I'll have to play more with these sort of designs and I think I really want to try doing it on top of some of my hand dyed watercolor paper too.

Been Doodling Some More...

As you might know, I've been doodling for a year or more now and always on the lookout for more "patterns" to use. So when the "Zentangles" Web site became popular a couple months ago, I started playing with some of the shapes and patterns I found there.

I decided I needed (I'll admit to being a bit obsessive and detail-oriented!) a "library" of patterns I like to use repeatedly when doing my doodling in journals and ATC's etc. I did these little rounded-corner squares in my journal and thought you might enjoy seeing them too to give you some additional patterns to use as you do your own doodling.

Those Zentangle people are right - doodling is so relaxing and "zen" like. I lose all track of time when doing these repetitive, mindless patterns.

I've also been experimenting with a variety of pens to see what I like best. My favorite is the Pentel EnerGel liquid gel ink pen with a very fine needle tip. But alas, it isn't permanent, so when I want to have permanency for either archival purposes or because I'm going to add color over the patterns I've drawn, I have to use something with waterproof ink.

My favorite in the permanent category is the Staedtler .01 Permanent pen. It actually comes in some other sizes too finer and broader both if you want a variety. These are a little pricey though and for me not terribly easy to find.

And a friend, Colleen, who works for Faber Castell here in Ohio, gave me some of their permanent ink pens to try. The Pitt Artist pen by Faber Castell is the nicest in my opinion. Good permanent, black India ink in an "S" size works well for these doodles, but was a tiny bit too broad for me because I tend to have a heavy hand and they are felt tipped so they sort of smoosh out a bit and get even broader than designed.

But, good news!, Colleen recently told me that they have a brand new pen coming out very soon and it is available in an even finer tip! She let me write with her one and only sample and it will be a great substitute for the harder to find and more expensive Staedtler pen. Can't wait till they're on the market!

Art from the Heart - New Book - and a chance to win!

If you haven't already heard about this awesome opportunity, it's not too late!

Artist, Catherine Matthews-Scanlon is giving away two copies of her new book, Art from the Heart and YOU could be the lucky winner. But you only have one day yet to enter the drawing so don't delay!

If you are interested in winning a copy, all you have to do is post about her give away on your blog and you'll be entered to win one of the two copies of this new book, which by all accounts sounds like it will be a huge hit! You'll also need to post a comment on Catherine's blog so she knows you're playing along and should be entered into the drawing. She'll be checking your blog to be sure you've posted about the book and giveaway.

Aren't artists fun people?! And so smart too! Best of luck with your book Catherine!

Pocket Calendars

This was a new item for me this year - pocket calendars with artsy mixed media covers. My friend Jean gave me a big hunk of primed canvas about a year ago and as so many things do, it just sat. I decided to do something with it and came up with the idea of a little book cover for pocket calendars. This way, you can buy an inexpensive calendar at the store and have a fun cover for it that will continue to work year after year. I did these by first cutting out the pieces of the cover, then transferred laser copies of images that I'd first manipulated, colorized and added words to in Photoshop. I used Golden's acrylic medium to do the transfer - brushed a liberal layer all over the face of the image, then flipped it medium side down onto the cover canvas piece and brayered it to smooth it out and make sure there was no air under it. I let that dry, then used a piece of wet (water) cotton fabric over the end of my finger to rub, rub, rub all the paper backing off the image. I then made some scratches, etc. in the image to "grunge" it up a bit. Next I applied Golden's acrylics - both heavy bodied and fluid types - to add color all over the edges and rest of the cover peices. I used rubber stamps with Stazon inks to add some additional embellishment plus bits of gold foil here and there. I sewed the covers together by machine and included a funky fiber bookmark, with little beads on the ends. Add a pocket calendar and voila! Art for your purse! I posted the few I had left to my Etsy shop, if you want to check it out!

Advent Santa

This is my new 2007 Santa. I saw a pattern for one that was similar online, but I decided to design my own pattern and think it turned out pretty well. I love his long hat, embellished with a tarnished bell. These are weighted with cinnamon scented rice to make them stand (and smell) nice. I've posted some to my Etsy store for sale if you want to look. For those of you who know me, Santas have been a big part of my life for about 20 years or so. I've made a new Santa of some sort for almost every year and hope to continue doing so. I lean toward the more primitive look in Santas and sometimes use a commercial pattern, but often just design one of my own. I take inspiration from a lot of places - the internet, my collection of Santas, and whatever art mediums I happen to be involved in at the time. But I do tend to do more in fabric because of my sewing and quilting background. Hope you like them!

Star Santa

Here's the Star Santa that I made last year. I sold a few last year, but this year the shoppers nearly cleaned me out! I only have 4 left from a total of 20! I just love this little guy - I think I relate to his fat tummy! Ho-ho-ho! Oh that reminds me - have you heard about how a big store recently instructed their store Santas to not say "ho-ho-ho" anymore!? Evidently it isn't now considered PC and might offend some ethnic groups! Santa is now supposed to say instead..."ha-ha-ha"! This really frosts me and I think, is just ridiculous. Are people really spending their precious time trying to figure out what words we've used for generations that now are not PC any longer? Give me a break! MY Santa is still going to say "HO-HO-HO!" - so there!

Christmas Projects

I've been working all fall it seems to create items to sell at the annual Open House I do each December with my good friend Dawn. We both put a lot of time and effort in coming up with new and hopefully unique items to offer. The Open House was last Saturday and as in past years, was very successful. I find it is hard to know what will sell and what will not. And this year I noticed that some items that didn't sell at all the previous year and which I offered again this year "on sale" at a slightly reduced price, now SOLD OUT completely! So I'm guessing that means my price was too high last year? Or do tastes just change from one year to the next? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this if you've ever done anything like this. Anyway, I've posted some new items in my Etsy shop if you'd like to look and will try to post some here on the blog too.

Doodle, doodles, everywhere!

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Are you sick of seeing my doodles yet? Too bad! Because I'm having way too much fun with these! My close friends know that I love Halloween, hence the witch ATC! And along with that goes a love of the "Wizard of Oz" and now the "Wicked" series. These book pages are a great place to house some of the great quotes I've been collecting on scraps of paper for years. The black spread here started with the quote, then sort of evolved into an Oz spread. I hadn't intended it to have any color at all, but when I thought I was finished, I just had to add the red glitter to Dorothy's shoes! And I'm not a big fan of glitter, but how else do you get ruby slippers to sparkle?!

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Oh - I should tell you about the pens I've been using so far...I'm in love with this gel pen made by Pentel, called EnerGel. It goes on so smoothly and is a dream to even just write with. But alas, it isn't waterproof so when I'm going to add color over top of it, I have to resort to the more expensive but waterproof, Staedtler or Micron pens. I do like the really fine lines I get with these pens though. The Pentel is a .5 mm pen, while the other two come in a variety of sizes and I like the .01 the best. Really, really tiny lines and doodles are possible with them!

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Then of course, I had to do more bugs! I hope you can see these close up to see all the little doodling going on inside the bug shapes.

A fellow artist and new friend, Colleen McGinty, works for Faber-Castell and she kindly sent me a couple sets of their markers to try for my doodling, so they will be used for my next doodles. I'll let you know how they work! Right after I get done soldering some new pins I have in progress...are you starting to see why I called this blog "Art Frenzy"? LOL!

Doodle ATC's

Here are some of the ATC's I've been doing in spare moments. I do these in the car at lunchtime while listening to books on my MP3 player. I even keep a few blank ATC sized cards next to the phone at work for those times when I'm on perpetual hold! Now my boss won't have to wade through my doodles on the sides of all the invoices we pay! The eyes may look a bit odd and truly are not my normal thing to draw, but I saw another artist drawing eyes and thought what a good way to build your skill at drawing parts of the body...and DOODLING at the same time! The colored ATC's here were done with more of the ColorBox Cat's Eye pigment ink pads. I did find though that if I put the colored ink on last, it sort of greys out the nice black gel pens I'm using. And if you put it on the card first, you have to give it a few days to dry really, really well, or the gel pens don't want to write over it.

More doodling

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A couple more pages from my "doodle book". The leaves page is actually the first one I tried. I gessoed the page first. I like that you can see a ghost of the original type in the background. I am not great at freehand drawing, so on scrap paper, I sketched a couple leaf shapes, then cut them out and used them as templates to draw around. Then I sectioned off the inside of each leaf and started filling in the sections with doodles. Lines, dots, circles, stars, wavy lines, spirals, you name it! After the leaves were all doodled to death, I used ColorBox Cat's Eye pigment ink pads to smear on color, using a separate makeup sponge to move and blend the color to my satisfaction. The black page is just black gesso (I'm now in LOVE with black gesso! so rich and dark!) with white gel pens for the smaller lines and the bigger stuff is done with one of the pen-type correction pens for great coverage. I have to give credit here for the little "bug" shapes. A totally awesome artist - Ingrid Djikers - is where I saw these little bug shapes the first time. I've since seen them in a number of artists work, so evidently I wasn't the only one who fell in love with them! Ingrid does some amazing things with her bugs using collage, but I saw them as perfect little shapes for more...you guessed it!....DOODLING!

Doodling.....

Oh boy - don't read this if you don't want to become addicted to doodling like I have! If you love details this will be right up your alley! One of my friends, Lou McCulloch shared her book "The Humument" with our club some time ago. I fell in love with this book and all the lovely "doodling" that the author, Tom Phillips did over top of the pages of an old Victorian novel ("The Human Element"). I was inspired to try my own hand at "found text" and "found poetry" - obliterating most of what was on the pages originally and only leaving some (or sometimes none) of the original text while adding my own art on top and around it. I enjoyed playing with trying to make a free-form poem out of the original text, but for me, the big draw to this genre of art, is the doodling. I feel that I am primarily a left brained, organized, toe-the-line sort of person. I work with numbers and facts all day in my job and that organizational bent of mine follows me into my personal life as well. When I'm doing any sort of art, I feel like the right brained part of me kicks in goes to war with my left brained, tightly organized self, trying to burst free of the "rules" I impose on myself. This doodle art, as I've come to call it, allows both parts of me to meld nicely and feel right at home! And the tiny little patterns I draw on the pages is very relaxing and stress-free and sort of....well....mindless! I'm definitely addicted to this and have even taken to carrying ATC sized cardstock in my purse to "doodle" on. I'll post some of those here too for you to see. Hope you're inspired to give this a try too!