Weekend art date

I spent all day Saturday making art with Mandy at her house, and boy did we have a good time.  Three other women dropped by to play at various points in the day and it felt so good to be in the company of others who love paint and glue and creative exploration.

The day was sunny and mild and we sat outside at Mandy's big patio table altering national geographic pages with CitraSolv. 

 

This is such a fun process.  You never know what you're going to get.

Here's a big pile of our pages drying on the ground.

You can see close-ups of some of Mandy's sheets by clicking here.

Next up, collaborative spray painting!

Mandy spread an old sheet on the driveway, laid down some large pieces of white paper and presented us with dozens of cans of spray paint and a big pile of random household items to use as stencils and masks.

We were tentative at first - walking around the sheet, adding little patches of color here and there.  As we warmed up, we just started layering new colors and patterns on top of existing ones, and we forgot to be afraid to cover up each other's work.  This was really really good for my inner control freak.  I'd be quietly observing a paper that I really liked, thinking the colors were perfect and it was probably done.  And then someone would lean in with a totally new color and I'd think "Oh no, that's going to look horrible!" and then I'd watch and gasp out loud in delight as the piece was transformed into something even more interesting.

 In addition to the big papers, I'd brought a variety of post-card sized cardboard (mostly cut up cereal boxes).  If something started feeling too precious, it helped to remind myself that I would in all likelihood be eating more cereal tomorrow, and there would be no shortage of card-board in my recycling bin, and quite a few colors of spray paint in my own garage.

Below are some of the postcard-sized pieces we ended up with:

  

and here are the big sheets of paper (which we will likely cut up into more postcards, or journal page backgrounds, or collage fodder.)

 After Mandy fed us a delicious salad and some amazing panini, we settled around the table and started to work on our own stuff.

I decided to work on a swap-bot

challenge - making postcards in the style of the artist Rex Ray.

I ended up making more than a dozen cards as I got the feel for the style and interplay of elements.

Here's some of the ones I made that day:

 

Here are my two favorites of the bunch (and the only one's I've mailed at this point)

I stayed until it got too cold and dark to do anymore art.  Besides, Mandy might have needed a break from my chronic goofiness after 8 1/2 hours.

 

Even after my 90 minute drive home, I was still buzzing with creative energy, and I went into my studio and kept making stuff until the wee hours.

Art friends are good for the soul!