March Journal Spread

Yea!  This is the last spread in this journal.  It only took me 3 years and 2 months to finish!  I do jump around a lot - trying a little of this and a little of that, so I get to experience different types and formats of art along the way, but it is hell when it comes to actually FINISHING things!  So other than doing the covers for this journal, which I like to leave for last - this book is done.

This is another "a la Teesha" spread.  Lots of fun to do and all the pen work is very relaxing.
I am not a very laid back artist - guess I'm wound too tightly for that - but I admire the fun and freedom that comes through in Teesha's work.  Check her out here.

February Journal Pages

It's been quite a while since I've posted.  Much going on with my father and he has just recently moved into an assisted living facility.  Lots of changes but he is doing very well with it all and accepting everything with a lot of grace. Thankfully.

I have squeezed in a little bit of art - much of it a few minutes at a time on my lunch hours - sitting in the car - listening to a book on tape.

I started this little journal in January 2008 and this set of pages is the next to last ones in the book.  As you can see, I'm enamored of the Teesha Moore style of journaling right now so just had to try my hand at some pages.  I love the bright, funky colors and the sort of humorous and edgy way of depicting things, but most of all I love the use of pens for writing, lettering, drawing and doodling.  

Art at KSU

 I just had to share this. KSU has a brand new performing arts theatre that will have it's grand opening later in October. In the lobby of the theatre is currently being installed, a commissioned work from Cleveland artist, Olga Ziemska.  I think I read that the funding came from an Ohio arts grant.  You just have to look at her blog - Olga Ziemska - and see the pictures - most from her studio - of this work in progress this summer.  Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page because there are some "other" posts in the middle. This artist worked with dance & theatre students here at Kent State to pose for the outlines of the figures. She is using some gorgeous pictures of Northern Lights as her inspiration for movement and color. Each figure is cut from a sheet of clear acrylic. She evidently raided our KSU photo archive for the pictures our photographers have taken over the years of students, plays, dance performances, events around the campus, and anything else she found that was colorful and depicted life and art at the university. Ziemska is using five sizes of clear acrylic cabochons and adhering pieces of the photographs to the flat sides of each cab. Then the acrylic figures are filled with waves of the colorful cabachons to complete each piece. The figures will be laid out along a wall in the lobby of the theatre. It's hard to tell from the photos, but I suspect she is going to use some sort of suspension system and maybe, I hope, back lighting. It will be interesting to see how this artist completes this installation.  I can't believe that those figures would just be screwed to the yellow wall, but that's just me.   I may go over to the theatre on my lunch hour Monday to see the progress of the installation. Our dept. photographers are taking pictures of the process too. For some reason, this work is just speaking to me and  I can't wait to see it finished. Of course, all those luscious blues and greens and purples are right up my alley! Enjoy!

A little Journaling

Wow - it's been quite a while since I posted anything.  Busy, busy.  Plus any art I've had time to do has pretty much been for an art group project we have going this year that is sort of secret for now.  More on that in a few months....

I did take some time recently to work on the last two pages in a little art journal - altered book that I'd started two years ago and never quite finished.  I really enjoy the style of journaling that Teesha Moore teaches so thought I'd give that a try on these pages. It really is a relaxing way of working - no planning ahead of time.  Just brushing on some acrylic paint for the background and when that's dry, adding some strips cut from various magazine pages to make the border.  Add a little shading with some of the newish Pan Pastels and a focal figure - made up of several different pictures from magazines.  I added a saying I'm fond of and a lot of doodling with my milky pens to add the finishing touches.  I really like the result and think I'll try another page or two or three...what do you think?

Assemblage gift

 My first try at some assemblage.  I'd had this in mind as a gift for a special friend for some time - and had laid out the various pieces on my desk in the basement studio, but just never got around to completeing it.  My friend Gina's 30th birthday this month was the prod I needed to get it done.  And my fledgling experience recently with making cold connection rivets with copper wire helped me assemble it.  You need to know about some of the components - the antique brass stencil G, the metal stamped "IRON" and the 20 and 15 that are part of the ruler "arms" are a nod to Gina's blog IronG 2015.  Gina is a triathalete and is in training for the 2015 Ironman.  Whoa!  Pretty big goal - and I have no doubt that she will make it!  Back to the assemblage - see her crown?  It is supposed to be a cupcake.  Yeah - hard to believe that a hardcore athlete like Gina has a cupcake addiction, but she does!  But she is really good and after eating the cupcakes (unlike me) SHE goes out and runs it off!  The little legs are from a computer board scavenged for me by a friend at work and cut on my bandsaw.  I'm betting Craftsman never thought their saw would be used for some of the whacky things that I cut with it!  Anyway, it was lots of fun to make and Gina got a kick out of it so I'm a happy camper.  Hmmm....I have a bunch of those brass stencils......

What a nice way to start the New Year!

My friend Dawn (from Art Girl Designs) and I played with some metalsmithing on New Year's Day and we each finished one pendant.  What a fun time to be able to relax, visit, experiment and learn from one another as we worked on this new medium.  We'd both been collecting tools, sheets of metal and all the other bits and bobs needed.  We'd each invested in a good DVD to get us started and took our time watching and reviewing before getting started.  I'll let Dawn show you her beautiful pendant on her blog.

 

The sort of oval pendant in the photo here, that has the vintage picture, was my first piece.  I learned some things I wanted to try:  making rivets with a piece of copper wire, texturing the metal, and cutting a frame using the jeweler's saw.  The most valuable lesson though was the one hardest earned - if you want to add a chemical patina, that should probably be done before you start to rivet the layers together!  Duh!  It makes it tough to do once a photograph is in place, but I did manage to add a bit of liver of sulfer using a Q-tip.  

The second, more rectangular necklace is one I did a day later, on my own, but still using some of the same techniques.  On Dawn's advice I bought some hardware cloth - the one used was the 1/8" grid - and by pounding, was able to create a nice gridded texture on the copper.  I played with the metal letter stamps I've had for years and never used once (adhering nicely to my New Year's resolution to begin using stuff I already own!) to create the word "LIVE" on the little brass piece.  Then held the copper and brass layers together with copper wire rivets.  I decided I wanted to add some more brass, so drilled holes and inserted the tiny little brass hardware I had bought from Volcano Arts some time ago.  I can't wait to play some more!

Happy Halloween!

Yes, I know. I'm a couple days late. Oh well, better late than never, I say. I started this little painting two weeks before the holiday with the intent of making it into a print for cards for family and friends. But circumstances changed and I invited the whole family to my place for Trick or Treating. It suddenly hit me that that meant I'd best get my butt in gear and CLEAN my house - not to mention finishing some projects outside before the cold weather sets in. So my little paint got set aside and wasn't finished until Nov. 1 after all the festivities were but a memory. It was a sketch first, then I washed the background with watercolor and finished all the details with acrylic paints. Every one of these little paintings teaches me a thing or two about how the paint works, and about how to control it better. Also I still need to learn a lot more about shading. But I'm getting better each time, I think. Guess I'll be ready for Halloween next year! It was fun to do it and am now thinking of images I can draw and paint for a little Christmas scene.

Doodle Bug Squirrel

Yes, I'm still squirrely! Kent State University's 100 year anniversary will be kicked off at homecoming on October 10 this year. For anyone who's been around the Kent, Ohio campus, you'll know that black squirrels are a beloved icon there. So we've mounted a squirrel decorating contest to help celebrate. There are two sizes of squirrels - 30" and 8". My contribution - "doodlebug squirrel" is one of the smaller size. It was doodled using a fine point enamel paint pen. I just had to get my ladybugs in there somehow. Can't wait to see the other entries! If you're in the area, be sure to stop by Tailgate Alley at the Dix Stadium from 1 pm - 5 pm on October 10 and vote for your favorite designs in each category!

Funky Furniture

Painting some funky, fun furniture pieces is my new "thing". I bought this small white set of drawers at a friend's yard sale this summer. It was white and painted in a nice little country scene. I had seen some funky painted stuff on the Web and just had to try my hand at it with this piece. It was a lot of fun to do. I did the front first and as you can see, I got a little too "detailed" with it. Those that know me, know that is my normal state of being. Ha-ha! I decided if I wanted to finish this any time soon, I'd need to lighten up on the sides and top, so they are a little less intense. And I have to say - I really like them the best. Good lesson for me. Less detail - good thing. Next I'm tackling 4 of those old metal patio chairs that have the tubular, curved legs that let you sort of bounce when you're sitting. I think they are from the 40's and 50's.....good winter project!

Journaling (cont. 4)

Well these are some of my latest pages. Anyone who knows me knows I love the Wizard of Oz and now all the prequels to that story written by Gregory Maguire, like "Wicked", "Son of a Witch" and "A Lion Among Men". So of course, I had to have an "Oz" page in my journal. Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West is my favorite character....

The whole swine flu outbreak and the concern over it becoming a pandemic has had me really worried, so doing a spread on it helped me deal. The middle set of pages are a blatant plagarism (or is that only when it is the written word?) of a Zettiology artist/goddess - Teesha Moore, art work. I'm not intending to sell it or anything, so hopefully my "copying" won't be frowned upon. I really just admired her style and wanted to try my hand at it. I'm also NOT a fan of orange, so that seemed the perfect color for me to force myself to use. I really like how it turned out. Of course I had to do a bunch of doodling in the dresses and in the edge borders, but that is just me. Any chance to doodle.... Trying this taught me a number of different things and I love, love, love, her style of writing in her journal pages. So fun and interesting.

Art Journaling (cont. 3)

The copper cobweb page is a tip in. Something I had never tried, but had admired in other artist's journals. The delphiniums are from my garden and yes - they were really that blue Decided to try painting some on the reverse of the pages. I also tried my hand at a crackle technique on these pages too. See the yellow peeking through the navy, night sky? On the pages with the painted flowers, you can see, (if you click on the picture to see the larger size) that I glued down some tiny blue/green and copper round bits. Those bits are actually the waste left over from computer boards being created and holes punched. My sister Cindy, and BIL Kelly, kindly brought these (and other types) to me after learning that I used all sorts of leftovers to create art. They told me that what looks like copper is, in some cases, actually GOLD. Whoo hoo! Maybe I should insure my book..... :-) The lime green page is one I did after my baby sister, Carrie, told me she was considering becoming a Druid. So of course I had to investigate it and learn what I could about it. Sounds like a perfect type of religion for her. It reveres all that is of the earth - wind, sky, water, trees, animals. And it's primary tenet seems to be doing good things for and to one another. Be the good example you want others to be. Very interesting.

Art Journaling (cont. 2)

I had to journal at least one page about Obama. I had admired him for several years ever since seeing him on a talk show. He just made so much sense and was very unlike the normal "politician" that we are all sick of. Was so tickled when he actually decided to run for President and even more thrilled when he won! Hope that he keeps his word now and helps our country get back to being the highly esteemed nation it once was. The page with the lady in blue with the waving hair is my attempt at doing the style of art journaling that I've seen Susan Shie do on her journal quilts. I knew I'd never do a whole quilt like she does, so took her style to my art journal pages instead. It was fun, but (and I know my friends won't believe this of me) way more detailed and intense than I normally like to do! Give me a mindless doodle any day!

Art Journaling

I've been working on this art journal for more than two years. It started out to be a journal that I'd use for my art group and the monthly prompts we'd agreed on. That went out the window pretty quickly for me and it turned into the place that I captured cool quotes and sayings and practiced different techniques and looks that I admire from other artists. I only need to finish one more spread and then the covers so decided I'd get some of the pages scanned and shared here now. See what you think.

Susie art

Have you ever seen the wonderful, folksy quilts created by
Ohio artist, Susan Shie? She calls her art "outsider" and boy does she have a definitive style all her own! She has been "out there" and way ahead of the pack for as many years as I've been quilting (25+ oh my!) When I was doing all the traditional quilting stuff, Susie was making some fabulous pieces with super heavy quilting, thick battings, and lots and lots of embroidery, beading and mirrors. Now that I'm into some of the more "artsy" quilts, Susie has moved on ahead again and is creating huge narrative journals on her quilts. They are still very folksy in form with whimsical figures and pictures all over them. And Susie's painting them with the use of an airpen, which is similar to an airbrush, but with far more control. Anyway, I just love her journal quilts but know I don't want to invest in the equipment or time to do it her way, so I sort of improvised and created a small 8 x 10 size piece on card stock. It was my friend's birthday so I decided to do it using all the "aging" quotes I could find and turned it into a birthday card for her by scanning and reducing it to a card size afterwards. It was a lot of fun to try.

Sample Art

Here is a samples I did using some of the new rubber stamps from

Art Girl Designs. The stamps are deeply etched red rubber and come on sheets

that are 6" x 9" or there abouts.

New Stamp Designs

I'm so proud to announce that my good friend, Dawn Burrows, who is a talented graphic designer by day and an equally awesome mixed media artist by night, has just produced her first two sheets of rubber stamps! She's selling them via her Etsy site so please go check them out! Some parts of these designs began life as her family photos, but they then underwent a lot of tweaking and fluffing to get them just right. LOVE the little girl reaching for the star and the little boy sitting on the building blocks. There are some great architectural pieces too that will make for some really great ATC's as well as greeting cards. I'll be posting some pics in the next day or two of what I'm doing so far with these stamps.

Gone Squirrely!

Yes, I've finally gone over the edge now with the "doodling" stuff! Actually the squirrel on the left is the first example I did for the Kent State University (Kent, Ohio, USA) Centennial Squirrel contest. (click on the picture to see more detail). I'm co-chair of this project and we are "unveiling" them tomorrow at a town and gown breakfast. We needed one sample that gives the people in attendance an idea of some of the things that can be done with these squirrels for the contest. They are created initially in a nice weight, black resin and if you're not of a mind to do some art on one, you could also just dress them up. Or do nothing and just put him on your desk as is.

If you're not familiar with KSU - we have tons of black squirrels all around the campus. They aren't our official mascot, that's "Flash" a golden eagle, but our little furry squirrels are near and dear to everyone's hearts. These replicas (designed by David Knox of our Tuscarawrus campus) are being sold in an 8" size and also in a whopping 30" size! Our hope is to hold a friendly, viewer's choice competition in October 2009 for both sizes. And there will be lots of fabulous prizes too! More info on that to be announced soon!

We have tons of artists around the Kent State campuses and the greater community and also many alums all around the country who might also want to get into the action. If you're interested, go check out the KSU Centennial Web site and click on the link for the Squirrels. It may not be active until the week of Sept. 29 though, as the site is currently being built, but there's lots of Centennial stuff to check out in the meantime. Hope some of my artiste friends in Ohio (and elsewhere) will want to join us for this fun competition.

My Fall List

I love Fall. The cooler weather, the crisp nights, the awe inspiring colors of the trees and most of all, I love, love, love - HALLOWEEN! Especially the witches! But Fall for me brings a long list of projects I need to complete before the first Saturday in December (Dec. 6 this year).

That is the date that, with my dear friend, Dawn Burrows, we hold our annual Christmas Open House. So all fall we are both in "full production mode", designing and creating new items to sell at the open house. Right now I'm working on Santas. I found a pattern I really love for a German Santa at the Country Cupboard in Berlin, OH (right in the heart of Amish country). It is made with a wool coat and hat/hood, trimmed with faux fur. He is holding a bag of polymer clay "oranges" and a sprig of evergreen topped with a tiny, red, glass bead. See what you think. Right now all my energy goes into the stock for the open house, but right after Dec. 6, any of the extras I make will be posted to my Etsy shop.

Check out these pics. The bodies with heads are done and awaiting clothes and beards, so they are all lined up on my table and they are STARING at me! It really is an odd feeling to look over and see all of them...."sew faster! we need clothes! no gifts for you, you bad girl!"

I finished one and took it to Dawn's to do a cat test. Two years ago I made the mistake of using wool from a friend of a friend, who had sheep, for the Santa's beards. The cats ripped off beards and scattered the Santas from one end of the house to the other! And other people who bought them had similar situations with their pets too. It had to be that the wool beard material hadn't been cleaned enough (it looked and smelled fine to ME) to get a scent out that only another animal could smell. I replaced beards on a number of Santas that year. Now I cat test if I'm using anything that hasn't been commercially processed. This year's Santa sports a curly, silky beard of Border Leicester wool and I just love how it looks. The cat's sniffed it once and walked away, so we're good to go!

I've been hitting all the rummage sales buying up old coats and skirts, then cutting them up and felting them for the Santa's coats and hoods. So far I'll have some in dk. red, dk. green, gold, brown and maybe some in a cream too. I'd still like to find a nice medium or country blue too.

Rainbow Swirls - Hand Dyed Paper

Finally! I managed to work out the details and technique to something that I can consistently reproduce and have begun selling this beautiful, rainbow swirled paper in my Etsy shop! It's been a long haul and one of the biggest lessons was figuring out that not all glossy cardstocks are created equal. After much trial and error I've found a brand that lets me turn out some of the most vivid and luscious colors you'll find. I've packaged them in packs of 5 sheets - 8-1/2" x 11" as that seems to be the most frequently requested size. Check it out. And let me know what you think. I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this paper! And if you buy some, I'd REALLY love to see what you do with it! I think it will be great in cards, ATC's,

journals, book covers, scrapbooking, you name it. Now if only I can bring myself to cut into it!

Weekend Painting Job

I've been wanting to try my hand at these little landscapes taught by Karyn Gartel for some time. A friend took her class and was kind enough to show me how to do it too. They were a lot of fun and I love how they are so whimsical and folk artsy. I was most amazed that you could actually paint on canvas using the inexpensive sort of craft acrylic paint you buy at the hobby stores. I notice now that I'm seeing both the day and night versions side by side, that I made a few errors - the hills in the night one are brighter and lighter in color than the daytime one and it really should be the other way around, shouldn't it? Maybe I should go back in and paint a big cloud obscuring the sun! And don't tell, but I have my light source coming from the left on the day time piece, but my shadows for the trees and houses go the opposite direction! Duh! I don't care. I'm still happy with them as I've never painted on real canvases before and now, having done this, I'm not so intimidated so may try some other things later on. If you'd like to see Karyn Gartel's site and the classes she offers, check out her workshop blog.