I am Rushmore

DIY postcard swap

2012-03-13T20:32:00.001-04:00

These are some of the postcards I made for iHanna's DIY postcard swap.

They went out in yesterday's mail.

I could do this all day every day.

Motion detector

2012-03-11T22:04:00.000-04:00

The lovely Lis of Dandelion Seeds and Dreams left me a comment this week that cracked me up: "I want you to provide us with your daily schedule ... how doyou do so much?! I envision this ginormous space filled with all of your artsupplies and you swooping around creating in a wonderful dance of energy andcolor."

Now my space sure isn't ginormous - it's cozy and cluttered and has very little room for swooping or dancing. But in my MIND???? All swooping, all the time.

So how do I manage to make so much art in spite of being a mom/wife/daughter who works full-time and has a reasonably clean house (or at least a house that wouldn't land me on one of those scary reality TV shows)? Here's my secret:

I'm a spaz.

No, really. I do everything reallyreallyfast. I walk so fast that the sensors on the automatic doors at Target don't recognize me and I nearly crash into the glass.

I also talk fast, type fast, cook fast, eat fast, read fast, clean fast, and (it should go without saying by now) paint fast.

SO, while I didn't even come close to accomplishing everything on my art "to-do" list, here's what I managed to do:

finish all my postcards for iHanna's post card swap
eat more cheese
draw on 3 pages in the traveling sketchbook
make the backgrounds for dozens more postcards (while I was in postcard mode)
work on lesson 4 of my composition class

This lesson was about working with a loose grid formation.

Here's all my crazy collage-y goodness from today:

The one below doesn't seem to have enough going on:

But this one has TOO much:

This next one is so busy I think it was pulsating when I took the picture:

I prefer the monochromatic ones:

Oh yeah - I also went to my mom's house to use her sewing machine to put stitching on some postcards and while I was there I finally patched my jeans with this crazy faux-batik fabric I made with elmer's gel glue and acrylic craft paint:

Here's my rudimentary sewing skills in action:

These jeans are so old and stretched out they are know around the house as the Legend of Baggy Pants. There was no way I was going to win Amy's contest with these jeans, so I decided not to step up as Cameron's stunt double.

So there you have it. My weekend wrap-up.

Cartwheels included.

notoriety

2012-03-10T08:28:00.000-05:00

I walked into the post office yesterday to get stamps for my latest batch of post cards. My usual guy wasn't there. I recognized the guy behind the counter, but I don't think he's ever helped me. As I approached the counter with my fistful of colorful mail he says "let me guess - Isaacson?"

HA!

Here's the ridiculously ambitious to-do list I jotted down in my journal yesterday morning:

work on composition class lesson #4
make 10 postcards for iHanna's postcard swap
catch up on Lifebook lessons (I think I'm four weeks behind)
finish pages in traveling sketchbook so I can mail it Monday
write a blog post about cartwheeling
work in book for crop circle group
carve a new stamp for stamp swap

And even though I left work early yesterday and do not have any parental responsibilities, I've managed only to eat a lot of cheese, watch True Grit (the new Cohen Brothers version) go to bed early, drink a pot of coffee and read blogs for 2 hours.

Time to get my art on.

What's on your agenda for the weekend?

dreamy

2012-03-08T22:23:00.001-05:00

I have several categories of recurring dreams.

There are the control dreams, in which I am driving but suddenly realize I'm actually in the back seat and no one is behind the wheel. And the one where I'm in an elevator and it starts traveling in all kinds of crazy directions, like the elevator in Charlie and the Chocolate factory, and I'm absolutely terrified.

There are the procrastination dreams in which I realize I have not attended class even once this semester, and I haven't read the book, and in fact probably didn't even buy the book, but the exam is today.

And then there are the frustration dreams, in which I cannot open my combination lock on my locker, or worse I'm trying to dial a very long and complicated phone number and the phone keeps malfunctioning and I have to start all over again. and again. and again.

The worst dream I ever had was a childhood fever dream and it's haunted me for 40 years. Enormous logs are rolling down a hill and they crush a single, tiny, fragile flower. I know. It sounds so benign. But if I spend too much time thinking about it, I get a nauseous panicky feeling and I think I might cry.

To this day, I avoid piles of logs.

Want to see what other people are dreaming about this week?
Visit them at the Butterfly Effect.

This week's outgoing postcards

2012-03-08T14:52:00.000-05:00

I stayed up way too late making post cards last night. They started off kind of sweet and pretty (or at least as sweet and pretty as I ever get). The first one is made from dictionary pages glued together to make a stiff card. The next two (though you can't really see it) are "quilted" - magazine pages glued together and then machine stitched in random patterns.

But I can't stand too much pretty, so I started adding my bug stamps to other cards that felt a little cloying.

(after I posted my stamp tutorial, my mother emailed me to beg me to never send her anything with this fly on it. Doesn't she know by now that this is the QUICKEST way to get me to do something? It's taking an enormous amount of restraint not to send her a fly-a-day. You're welcome, Mom.)

Things got darker as the evening progressed.

Hoping to get these out in tomorrow's mail.

Inspiration Deck

2012-03-06T07:59:00.000-05:00

Jessica, from In Search of Dessert, dreamed up this great project. She was deeply moved by the book "Desire to Inspire" by Christine Mason Miller (which I also happened to be reading when I came across Jessica's great idea)

The back of this book features some perforated inspiration cards featuring art and quotes from the contributing artists in the book. Jess thought it would be cool if a bunch of people from all over the world created their own deck using a set of standard playing cards, mailed it to her, and then she would assemble a new deck for each participant using a different card from everyone involved.

Here's a shot of the cards I made:

Jessica emailed me last night to say she'd receive them and wondered how I'd made them. I only took one shot of them in process, but here's a quick description.

First, I ironed them to a sheet of freezer paper so that they'd stay in place while I painted the background. I started with a few coats of gesso to completely cover the face of the card. Then, using a brayer, I rolled on two shades of orange paint, haphazardly.

While it was still wet I flung on some darker orange paint and then rolled over it with the brayer to smoosh the orange drops. After it was all dry, I flung some aqua and white paint to make all those little drips and dots seen below:

Once totally dried I decorated them with collage papers, stamps, colored pencils, more paint, etc, and wrote a different quote on each card.

I had to gesso the backs one at a time because I was afraid to iron the painted cards to more freezer paper. I then laid them face down and used spray ink to color the backs in a bluish aqua color and I stuck a mailing label with my contact info on the back of each one.

aren't those labels cool? I scanned some of my painted pages and printed the image onto blank white labels, and then ran the labels through again to put my contact info on top (using the regular label template through Word)

Jessica will hole punch each card and bind the new decks with a metal ring before mailing us each our very own one-of-a-kind inspiration deck. I can't wait to see what I get back!

Caught up

2012-03-04T22:46:00.000-05:00

I finished lesson 3 of my composition class and I'm officially caught up (until lesson 4 is posted Wednesday). This assignment used similar techniques to the horizon assignment from lesson 2 but explored the cruciform shape and focused on texture.

Cameron left a comment on my last post that my pieces looked like something you'd find in a high-end hotel or spa. which is really just the sweetest thing ever, but also kind of cracked me up because I'm always surreptitiously taking pictures of art prints like these that I see hanging in public places (most recently a hospital) because I want to paint like that. But it's such a popular abstract look that you can find cheezy reproductions in target for crying out loud. so maybe it's not something to aspire to....

in the meantime, the class is really interesting and helpful and is challenging me in a big way. I painted over and threw away a bunch of these before settling on a few I can live with. and even though I'm saying I'm "caught up", I feel like I've only scratched the surface with these exercises. I want endless hours to repeat them over and over again. I have way more interests than hours in the day.

Composition lesson 2

2012-03-03T23:08:00.001-05:00

Lesson 2 in my Jane Davies composition class was about abstract landscapes. I added contrasting paper "horizons" onto those color studies I showed you in my last post. Playing with color value and contrast and balance.

Then I worked on these pieces:

The thing about taking a class is that I don't want to create something exactly like the example used in the lesson. But I don't really know how to do it any other way, which is why I'm taking the class in the first place. And one of the reason's I took Jane's class is because I find her work so beautiful and inspiring and I look at it and say "I wish I could paint like that". But if I painted like that then I'd be painting like Jane Davies. and she's got that pretty well covered on her own.

I'm trying not to over think it (too late for that you might say) and just learn all I can. I could go on and on about what I do and don't like about these paintings, but I'll refrain. They are class projects and evidence of learning and that's plenty good enough for today.

I'm getting paid to do this

2012-03-01T16:12:00.000-05:00

My wish came true and we got our snow day today. The phone rings at 5:30 and I answer to the beautiful sound of the Superintendent's robo-call, telling us schools are closed for inclement weather. What this means for me? A paid day off to do nothing but make art.

I'm catching up on my composition class. Here's my second shape collage for lesson one:

I've read the handout and watched the video for lesson two and I've prepared 5 backgrounds and started all these little color studies:

On a day like today even snow-blowing is relatively pleasant, because at least I'm getting paid for it.

composition class

2012-02-29T17:25:00.000-05:00

So I'm taking Jane Davies' class "Keys to Dynamic Composition" and lesson 3 was just posted today and I've only just begun to explore lessson 1.

sigh.

and I've been avoiding the class blog because I didn't want to be influenced by other people's work, but I finally popped over there today and holy crap there's some great stuff going on. great art, great conversation, great feedback and instruction.

what the hell have I been doing?

sometimes the social aspect of online classes is just too much for me, but I think I've been missing out this time.

So there's my first attempt at lesson 1, which had us focusing on repeated shapes and creating both variety and unity in our composition.

It's finally snowing here in Massachusetts after the mildest winter in a billion years. (that's the official meteorological statistic, by the way).

I'm really really hoping for a snow day tomorrow so I can dig into this class.

The local kids say that if you wear your pajamas inside out when you go to bed, schools will be cancelled in the morning.

Guess what I'm doing tonight.

marbled paper

2012-02-28T08:24:00.001-05:00

You probably know by now that I am completely obsessed with painting papers.

This will be the third (and final) installment in my "painted love" series and I saved my favorite for last.

I've tried a number of different techniques for marbling paper, but this one is my favorite. It's cheap, easy and (relatively) not messy.

I start by pouring about an inch of liquid starch into an old 9"x12" pan.

(The only place I can find my liquid starch is Walmart - in the laundry aisle. It's dirt cheap and comes in a big bottle)

I mix cheap acrylic craft paints with water to make it drippy. How much water? It depends -this is a trial and error kind of thing because every paint has a different consistency. The goal is to get the paint to float on top of the liquid starch. If it's too thick it won't come off your brush in the first place, and if it comes off your brush but immediately sinks to the bottom of the pan it means you need more water. Here are two colors floating on top:

I gently stir them with a chopstick:

I move the chopstick up and down until it looks like this:

I drag my handmade comb lightly across the surface to feather the paint.

(the comb is made from toothpicks sandwiched between 2 pieces of cardboard. I think I learned it from Martha but can't find a link)

Now the surface of the water looks like this:

I lay a piece of card stock on top of the water and gently press it down to make sure the whole surface of the paper touches the paint:

I quickly peel it up. (this picture was from a different experiment, hence the orange paint)

Then I dunk it in a bucket of water. You can also run it under the faucet, but I don't have a sink in my studio and I hate working in the kitchen. This bucket works just fine. I swish the paper around to get all the gloppy starch off the surface. The paint stays on the paper.

Here's the finished piece:

If you're continuing with the same color palette, you can reuse the starch for many many pieces of paper. You can drag scrap paper or a paper towel over the surface to pick up any paint you didn't catch on your print, or you can leave it there and just add more paint for your next print. Eventually you'll find your prints aren't as crisp or the colors are muddying - rinse out your pan and start over! The big bottle of starch will get you through several sessions.

As much as I like the traditional feathered look, I absolutely adore the abstract "blobby" look, like this one:

Same technique, only this time leave the paint floating on the surface without stirring or feathering. you might want to gently tip the pan or blow on the surface just to get the paint to spread, but leave it loose.

You can see a whole bunch more of my papers in this old post.

And here are some recent projects using my papers.

I used this one as a background for a poppy painting:

I used this one more traditionally - as endpapers in an altered book.

and check out the book - it has little DRAWERS in it. I learned this trick from Amy in her awesome (free) altered book class on Flutterbye.

I've also been using them to decorate Altoid tins:

Big fun.

Try it.

Kitty gestures

2012-02-28T07:32:00.000-05:00

I've been long intrigued/intimidated by Carla Sonheim's book "Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists"

It claims to be "52 creative exercises to make drawing fun" and I eagerly checked it out of the library expecting to be transformed into a confident whimsical illustrator overnight. But I browsed it and immediately said "I can't do this" and returned it without trying even one of the exercises.

Enter Cameron, from Paint Myself Pretty. She has decided to tackle one exercise a week and blog about it, and has ~~begged~~ encouraged other bloggers to do the same. And since I like Cam, and I want to be able to draw better, I've decided to play along. I ordered the book and it finally arrived and I'm catching up on lessons 1-3.

Lab 1 - "Cats in Bed"
The idea was to draw lots and lots of cats from your imagination, while drawing on a soft surface (such as bed) to keep your lines loose. Here are my bed kitties. I tried and tried to make a different shaped cat (without going to google and looking at other people's cat drawings). My brain seems to know ONE way to draw a cat (and not a very good one at that).

Lab 2: blind contour giraffes

Okay, so it's not a giraffe. It's another cat. And in fact I skipped this exercise in the interest of catching up with assignments, and pulled out a blind contour drawing I made of Jake 6 months ago. I'll go back and do some giraffes. I swear.

Lab 3: Pet gesture drawings. The mission was to make a series of quick loose gesture drawings of your pet in action. It was challenging because one cat would't stop moving and the other sat like a lump. But I kept at it throughout the day and captured quite a few poses. I even like a few of them:

Phyllis, (who has been quiet for such a long time now) has threatened to rear her ugly head over these sketches. I have to keep reminding myself that I will not wake up one day magically knowing how to draw. I actually have to draw and draw and draw some more if I want to learn. I'm hoping that Cam's good example will keep me working on these exercises all year.

I can't stop carving stamps.

2012-02-23T00:29:00.001-05:00

I was so happy with the results of my face stamp, I wanted to keep experimenting with more elaborate designs. I figured out two things that have radically improved the way I stamp. First I discovered I could do a gel transfer of my image directly onto the surface of the carving block. (I use Speedball Speedy-Carve - it comes in a 4x6 inch block and it's really smooth and easy to carve.)

I had a bunch of copyright free clip art images that I had photocopied (in order to get toner based images instead of inkjet images).

I spread the paper will gel medium, stuck it down to the carving block, burnished it and let it sit.

Once it was dry, I spritzed the paper with water and peeled it all away - leaving an amazingly clear and detailed image on the stamp.

The second thing that helped, was carving with a magnifying glass. It allows me to carve away the tiniest little bits, leaving a lot of detail.

Here's the finished product and the corresponding stamped image.

Other recent creations include:

This fly stamp

This bee stamp

These hand stamps

This chicken stamp

I asked my son to draw one of his signature "guys" for me, and I turned it into a stamp.

And since I've been obsessed with mid-century fabrics lately, I carved these simpler shapes and used them on this postcard:

It's been a productive few days.

When I close my eyes at night I'm still carving.

Update:

A few people have asked what I use to carve my stamps. It's a Speedball linoleum cutter - readily available at craft stores and on-line for not a lot of money. It comes with five different tips (which are nicely stored inside the handle).

I don't keep a journal

2012-02-20T21:03:00.000-05:00

In the fall of 2008, I was visiting a local art museum with an out of town friend and stumbled upon an exhibit of artist's journals. I'd never seen anything like it and I was riveted. They filled me with yearning and made me physically ache. I'm not sure I even thought in terms of wanting to do something like that myself because it seemed so far out of reach. I wasn't an artist. That Christmas I gave my friend a copy of 1,000 artist journal pages - mostly so that I could look at it before mailing it off to her!

(I've since purchased my own copy. It's amazing)

Three years later, I make a lot of art, but don't really think of myself as an art journaler because...

I don't keep a journal.

But I do have THIS book.

It's a cheap weekly planner, kept during the most stressful 3 months of my professional career.

It holds 30 flimsy pages of collage, some drawing, and a few words each day - it's an amazing snapshot of what I was doing, reading, watching, eating and feeling in 2009.

But I don't keep a journal.

In August of 2009 I got a new job, and life was easier and happier and I stopped writing stuff on that calendar. But in Spring and Summer of 2010 I kept something of an almanac in this little spiral bound notebook. I spent a lot of time working in the yard that summer and I joined a farm share for the first time. I documented everything I planted, and when everything bloomed, and what I got in my weekly share. There were some personal notes thrown in as well, and looking back on it gives me such vivid memories of that time.

But I don't keep a journal.

Fall came, gardens died, and back-to-school-time got busy. The notebook was forgotten.

But clearly the pull of those artist's sketchbooks hadn't lessened. I bought a flimsy blank journal in April of 2010 and started painting and collaging snapshots of my daily life again. This one coincides with setting up my art room, launching my blog, and getting into a daily art practice. It has almost 50 entries.

But I don't keep a journal.

Not coincidentally, that book came to an abrupt halt around the time I was doing the Index-Card-A-Day project (June - August, 2011).

Come September, I remembered my weekly planner from 2009 and bought another. This one is still going strong with daily entries 5 months later.

But I don't keep a journal.

And then in January, I started watching Natasha and Amy's altered book videos on flutterbye, and made my own altered book for documenting my life. It started out with daily entries, but that only lasted a week, since I was already keeping daily entries in my calendar. I'm using it regularly though - sometimes to capture the mood of a week, sometimes to reflect on a single event. Sometimes I write loads of words, sometimes the images speak for themselves. If you look closely, you might even call it an art journal.

But....

oh nevermind.

be like the hawk

2012-02-20T17:52:00.000-05:00

Painted Love

2012-02-17T20:38:00.002-05:00

As you may have guessed from this picture I posted on Sunday, I love to paint papers.

A few people asked me about what they are and how I made them.

All the painted pages below are gelatin prints and I posted a little tutorial about it a million years ago. I used an actual gelatin block that I made with unflavored gelatin, but it seems you can now buy something to simulate it. You can find my tutorial here.

The papers hanging on this clothesline are simple paste papers.

Here's how to make them.

In a nutshell, you mix paste with paint, spread it on the paper and make marks.

I bought a carton of Elmer's Art Paste and mixed up the whole box. (It makes a gallon). You really don't need much for any painting session, but this stuff seems to keep indefinitely. I've had the remainder of the gallon sealed in a plastic container for over 2 years and I just used it last week and it was fine. I mixed a blob of paste with a blob of cheap acrylic. (maybe 2 parts paint to 1 part paste? I wing it)

I spread it on cardstock with a brush:

And while the paint is still very wet, used a bunch of different tools (including my fingers) to make marks.

You can use colored paper and paint a different color on top for a 2-color effect:

This one is blue paint on yellow paper:

Here's are a few more examples:

On this one I painted stripes on the paper before making the marks

On this one I used a rubber stamp:

more finger painting:

So now I have enormous piles of painted papers. What do I do with them?

Sometimes I use it as a great first layer of an art journal background.

Usually I cut them up and use them in different things.

For a while I was really into creating tiny mosaics.

None of these individual colored pieces are larger than a square inch

I used a bunch on a journal cover a few years ago:

This hangs on my studio wall:

Now I'm more likely to use them as collage elements in mixed media pieces:

I like marbled papers even better than paste papers, but we'll talk about that another day.

Likes me best

2012-02-15T09:07:00.000-05:00

I met this guy in 1987. We were college sophomores, hired by the University to do the same summer job. Not long after we met, he admitted he had a crush on me. My response? "Oh great - that's all I need". Thankfully he kept hanging around until I came to my senses. In 1994, as we drove home from a friend's wedding, he said "I guess if you want to get married next summer that's all right with me".

*swoon*

As you can see, our particular brand of romance is not very mushy-hearts-and-flowers.

He gave me gum for Valentine's Day.

It was the perfect gift.

Once, in a conversation about how I knew Ric was THE ONE, I answered, "he drives me less crazy than anyone I know."

It's true.

Plus he plays all the good records and none of the bad ones.

And he makes me laugh and he makes me think and he is never, ever boring.

That first summer, a friend observed "Ric likes Karen best".

25 years later it's still true.

Overhaul

2012-02-12T18:42:00.000-05:00

My friend Lynn is cleaning out her basement and attic and gave me some great storage things for my studio. The problem was there was no way to get them in the studio to start using them without doing a major overhaul of my space. So I spent the majority of the weekend re-organizing, and very little time actually making art. And once I start organizing, it's hard to stop.

Here's what I've been up to:

The major "free thing" is this tower of clear drawers - now filled with nicely organized inks, paints, pens, etc. - all within arms reach of my table and no longer jumbled into huge tubs. I also moved the file cabinet out of the closet, but more on that later.

The other significant "free thing" is this paper storage shelf. I know, right?

The addition of these items required a total closet overhaul (even though I'm not keeping them in the closet). I don't have a "before" picture, but you can visualize precarious piles upon piles. I took EVERYTHING out of the closet, went out and bought cheap plastic shelving and started putting things back in better order.

I stole this next idea from Lee - I hung one of those fabric sweater racks next to my shelf. It still needs some work - 2 1/2 of the spaces are filled with bubble wrap. Might be time to let some of it go...

I had this old rack in the basement - it once hung in the kitchen of an apartment I haven't lived in for a decade, but heaven forbid I throw anything away. You see? it came in handy on the inside of the art closet door.

Lynn also gave me this vertical file, which now neatly holds folders full of stencils, my small cutting mat, some plastic mats I use as paint palettes, and other flat things that no longer tip over when I pull one out.

The vertical file sits on my primary shelving unit - which is no longer impossibly jumbled and crammed. (no really, it's not)

So here's my happy little workspace:

The printer/scanner sits on this old coffee table from IKEA that has great storage space below

The 1000 year old futon attracts visitors, both human and feline, and can be folded down into a bed in the rare event we have a house guest.

When my sister was visiting in December she installed this wire/clip system along the top of one wall - it's a great place to hang stuff I want to see for a little while.

She also installed these two little "floating" shelves above the couch. I often use them to prop works in progress so that I can look at them and decide what else they need. (the face painting just came in the mail from Amy!)

Two boring-but-helpful changes: mounted the power strip on the wall so I don't keep kicking it:

Mounted the dustbuster on the wall so that it wasn't taking up premium shelf real estate

This is the ancient bookcase we found by the dumpster when I moved to Seattle in 1992. It's a total piece of junk, yet I moved it 3000 miles when I came back to Massachusetts in 1998. It's been sawed in half and bolted back together. I did paint it once, though you wouldn't know it to look at it. The black spot in the lower left of the picture is Jake crawling out of bed to say hello.

Here's the little beast in his favorite spot.

All of THAT work was done yesterday. Today, the organization bug wouldn't die. I tackled the daunting baskets of paper. I sorted all my collage images into categories and made folders and put them in the file cabinet. After this picture was taken I alphabetized them!

FINALLY - I tackled the 3 overflowing baskets of painted papers. I took over the dining room floor and sorted them by color category. Jake is laying on the purple pile.

Then I made hanging folders for each color (and within each file is an envelope-style folder with the small scraps in the same color family. There were so many they all wouldn't fit in the file cabinet, so here is the overflow in a plastic file box under my table. (not alphabetized) (yet)

I'm exhausted, but feeling VERY accomplished.

Now somebody stop me before I start alphabetizing my paints...

duck

2012-02-11T23:49:00.000-05:00

Outgoing

2012-02-10T19:28:00.000-05:00

That refers to the mail, not my personality.

I've learned to fake it really well, but my true self is socially backward, fearful of everyone, and quite content to be alone, thank you very much. If I don't know you, I'd really rather not talk to you.

As a kid I would sooner pee my pants than ask where a bathroom was. Literally. I'm not kidding.

And this hatred of talking to strangers is not limited to face-to-face interactions. I also hate talking on the phone to people I don't know. It took me until I was 35 to get up the nerve to call for pizza. Thank goodness I've always lived with someone who's willing to do it.

But I digress. Today I remembered to scan my mail before dropping at the post office, and here are a few things going out to folks from the "good mail day" list:

This next one is for a swap-bot trade that involved using a file folder as an envelope, and restricting your collage images to a single book:

Happy Friday. I'm going to crawl into my cozy cave and make more art!

Epic mail day

2012-02-07T23:05:00.000-05:00

You know how you start using a word to be ironic, and then you say it so often you lose the irony and it just becomes part of your vocabulary? Being surrounded by 10 and 11 year old boys all the time made me start saying EPIC as a joke. But you see where this is heading...

It's like in high school when my friend Holly and I started making fun of the deadbeats who used the F-word all the time. (keep in mind this was the early 80s and it was slightly more shocking to say fuck). We mocked them by peppering our conversations with the word so often it became a habit and now I swear like a truck driver.

But it's the MAIL I came to write about. It was an amazing mail day. (a fucking amazing mail day) I headed to the post office with 11 post cards for an international post card swap. I totally forgot to scan them and took quick pictures on the way out the door, but the pictures totally suck and the mail is gone so I can't go back and retake them. So here's a blurry montage of them. I think if you squint they look better.

But then LOOK at the bounty that was waiting for me in my box! Three letters and four postcards. One of the letters came in an envelope made from a Tim Horton's bag. How cool is that? And a post card from MadMadge always makes my day.

My postcard making spree is paying off! To get good mail you've got to send good mail.
And my mail is about to get a lot cooler, because LOOK:

I went to college just slightly before the computer era. We had computer labs on campus, but nobody owned one. I made all my spending money by typing people's papers on a typewriter for $1 per page. If I really liked you, and you weren't a very good writer, I would correct your grammar and spelling as I typed for no extra charge. My friend Alison had a 3 page paper due every Thursday at 2:00. She would still be WRITING it at 1:30, and I'd be typing the first page or two while she was frantically finishing. I did a lot of on-the-spot editing for Alison. I'm especially glad I did, because, as it turns out, she's the person who introduced me to Ric in a round about way. We've lost touch. She doesn't know I married him, but I'm grateful to her.

And that's fun fact #something or other.

Alcohol Inks revisited

2012-02-06T21:02:00.000-05:00

Remember my epic fail with home-made alcohol inks and the wussy colors they made?
I decided to have another crack at it. Janet, who actually WATCHED the video on you tube, left me a comment saying the "recipe" called for one sharpie per ounce of alcohol. And I had 3 ounce bottles with just one lonely Sharpie per bottle.
Since I was already this far into it, I decided to completely pillage my sharpie collection and add 2 more busted sharpies to each bottle. And this time I wouldn't just squeeze the inserts impatiently for a few seconds, I'd let them soak. In fact, I forgot all about them for a few weeks and yesterday took them out, and fished all the floating dead sharpie bits out of the bottles, and made a colossal mess, but LOOK:

The colors are WAY brighter. These are sprayed on card stock, bristol paper and gessoed cardboard. They dried really fast and since they're made from permanent markers they don't smear or bleed when you add other material.

The pages below were just regular copy paper used to blot up the excess from the top of the plastic stencils.

Since a lot of people use alcohol inks for non-porous surfaces, I tested it on the plastic alcohol bottle:

and on some aluminum duct tape:

and on some little metal wings (un-stained ones pictured for comparison).

This shot also shows the plastic stencil as another example of staining plastic.

So it works pretty well - but is it worth it? If you pay full price for a multi-pack of Sharpies, the pens end up being about $.80 each. I bought the spray bottles for a dollar each. The alcohol was only a few bucks for a giant bottle (enough to fill ten 3-oz bottles). All told, each little spray bottle would cost about $3.75 if you bought everything new. Informal browsing shows me the average retail cost of spray inks and alcohol inks is about $4 per ounce. Are these as totally vibrant and yummy as those? Probably not, but since I had SOOOO many old and inherited permanent markers laying around, my out-of-pocket expenses were $12 for 10 colors, 3 ounces each. (and a lot of elbow grease scrubbing the ink stains out of the kitchen sink). Totally worth it.

So here's what I did with one of the pieces of paper while I was waiting for my insomniac son to fall asleep last night. I sprayed a few colors of ink over various stencils. Put down different stencils and sprayed different colors. Covered it all with a light layer of gesso and then sprayed another layer of ink over another stencil

And since I'm still obsessed with my "posterized" image of myself, I painted a larger version of the stamp on top of a background that was layered with inks, then gesso, then more ink.

In all of my self-portraits I have the chin and jaw of Jay Leno. I mean, I do have a pretty well-defined jaw area, and a hugely wide mouth, but I don't look as much like a mutant as this image would make you think.

on the other hand, I CAN put my whole fist in my mouth.

and it's not a particularly small fist.

And that's the 5th (or 15th) thing you've learned about me this month.

Betcha can't wait for more!

Center of the Universe

2012-02-04T21:31:00.000-05:00

In 1973, my family moved to Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. I was in first grade. I lived there until I went off to college in 1985. It was a pretty idyllic childhood, with a fantastic family in a safe suburban community. Kids, in general, were considered a lot more competent than they are today, and so we had a great deal of freedom and independence.

Here's my Jill Berry-inspired map of the key features of my town.

(according to my childhood self)

I used a variety of my own paste papers as backgrounds.

Each of those little squares is actually a door.

(oooh! flappy!)

If you've got really good eyesight (and the inclination) you could read what I wrote under each flap.

But if you don't have good eyesight, here's a key:

House: I lived here from 1973 to 1985 and for as long as my parents continue to live here it will be home.
State Route 140: Be careful of the curve. (Yes, mom)
Spring Street School, Grades 1-6: The first person I met in this building, in 1973, is still my good friend today. (She calls me Bitch every time I talk to her.)
Mountain View Cemetery: We smoked our cigarettes here. (see Pizzeria)
Hale's Drug Store: This would have been a better place to buy candy if the lady wasn't so mean.
Shrewsbury Public Library: my first job was shelving books here for $3.12 an hour. I secretly wish I still worked here.
Shrewsbury Pizzeria: They had a cigarette vending machine. In 6th grade we pooled our change and made Christine go in and buy some. (see cemetery)
Center Dairy Bar: best place to buy candy and chips. (green apple flavored Bubs Daddy bubble gum!)
Maple Ave Sidewalk: Got asked out by a boy for the first time ever. He carried my books. We broke up 20 minutes later.
Shrewsbury Jr. High: 7th and 8th grade. Enough said.

__________________________________________

P.S. Even though I've since lived in New Hampshire, Western Mass, Seattle and Greater Boston, the lure of "home" was too strong to resist. I moved back to Shrewsbury in 2004 and live 3 miles from my parents. Max is having an idyllic childhood, though I hope to god his map doesn't include cigarettes in the cemetery.

P.P.S. I both started and ended my smoking career in 6th grade.

P.P.P.S. good old spell check has informed me that ONCE AGAIN, I have spelled cemetery wrong, as well as pizzeria. I could go fix the map, and rescan it, and repost it here, but instead we'll pretend I did it on purpose for the sake of childhood authenticity

P.P.P.P.S. Does this count as one thing or ten things?

I made this stamp tonight

2012-02-03T22:57:00.000-05:00

I was planning on making a map, but something I saw today made me think of something else and one thing lead to another and the next thing you know I'm rushing home from work to make a face stamp.

I started with this picture:

I imported it into Picnik and used the "posterize" effect:

I printed it out, taped it to some transfer paper, placed it on top of my my pink rubbery block and traced around the black parts to transfer the image to the carving block:

And after carving away all the pink bits, I was left with this stamp:

I can't even tell you how happy this makes me. I'm going to go stamp it all over everything I own and then think about all the other face stamps I want to make.

maybe tomorrow I'll make my map.

painting of champions

2012-02-03T06:56:00.000-05:00

Cereal is the perfect food. I will gladly eat it any time of day or night. (For those of you keeping score at home, this is the 3rd of the 29 exciting things you need to know about me.) As a kid there was no greater treat than being allowed to have cereal for dinner. A friend recently told me how guilty she felt when she was so tired one night she couldn't cook and gave her kids cereal. Are you kidding me? I assured her she was not a deadbeat, and in fact was the BEST MOM EVER.

I'm equal opportunity when it comes to my cereal. I equally enjoy a bowl of high-fiber twigs-and-sticks type cereal and those technicolor sugar bombs disguised as food. When my son was small and I was obsessing over the nutritional quality of every morsel of food that passed his lips, I would wait until he went to bed to take the junk cereal out of hiding. Now that my mother-of-the-year award has been revoked, we bond over which box has the most marshmallows and which makes the milk turn colors.

My idea of heaven is not unlike my college dining hall - a dozen kinds of cereal lined up in giant plastic dispensers and permission to eat as much as you like. *sigh*

One of the many good things about going through boxes of cereal the way some people go through glasses of water is that we always have empty cereal boxes in the recycling. And if cereal is the perfect food, then cereal boxes are the perfect substrate. They've been essential to my recent postcard making spree. Last week, as I was cutting the little flappy parts off the front and back of the box, I decided to put them to use as collage elements.

So here's how my painting started:

(oh thank god she's going to get to the point at last!)

After half a jar of gel medium and a few days pressed under a stack of heavy books, I was ready to slather it in gesso and get started. I painted it a bright yellow green and rubbed dark oil pastels around all the edges:

Then I brayered on another few layers of gesso:

And then I stopped taking pictures.

I do that all the time - I get so excited about what I'm working on that I forget my good intentions of documenting the steps along the way.

You'll have to take my word for it when I tell you I added a bazillion more layers of paint, and some big loopy black handwriting and some more paint and some more oil pastels and at some point covered the whole thing in tissue paper and painted all over that and tried some stenciling and hated it and covered THAT with more paint.

I finally liked the look of the background, so I added some hand-dyed paper and a few charts printed on tissue paper and rubbed the surface with some pan pastels.

Here's where I ended up:

I was kind of liking it until I scanned it and saw it on my computer screen and then I hated it. Does that ever happen to you? When I looked at this digitally, I didn't like that all that black and was especially peeved that the graphics weren't straight. I'm usually pretty slap-dash, good-enough when it comes to life in general, but I couldn't get over this crooked bit. I decided to cover that whole middle part with gesso with the intention of printing a new copy of the chart and putting it on straight this time. As I was adding layers of paint on top of the gesso, the tissue paper underneath started to bubble up. I though about stopping and letting it dry, but instead I tried to peel it up. I figured I'd just add more gesso and more paint, but I ended up really liking the effect of the peeled area and leaving it alone.

so HERE is my very very layered cereal box painting which I gleefully link to the Butterfly Effect (whose theme this week was making layers) and to Paint Party Friday because it's been a long long time since I visited that talented group.

Thing #2

2012-02-02T06:00:00.001-05:00

I know the words to a lot of songs.

A LOT of songs.

Regardless of whether I learned the words 40 years ago or 40 minutes ago.

I don’t even have to like the song.

I can’t help it.

Sometimes it’s a good thing. When you know a lot of songs you can pretty much always find something to sing along to, and we all know how much I like to sing.

But then I think of all the things I’ve forgotten, while still being able to sing all the words to a Betty Crocker frosting commercial from the 70s and I start to worry.

Just how much premium brain real estate is being taken up with song lyrics?

Thanks to advanced modern imaging, I was able to find out

First Thing

2012-02-01T09:16:00.000-05:00

Two things are dominating my thoughts today. First, I started reading Jill Berry’s book “Personal Geographies” and I can’t stop thinking about all the maps I want to make. Second, Tammy has been musing about photo organization over on Daisy Yellow and encouraged us to doodle our photo path from camera to blog.

Computer organization is easy for me. I’m a linear thinker. I love lists and outlines. My computer is full of folders and sub folders that are clearly labeled in ways that make sense to me. I can find just about any document, photo, or scanned artwork in seconds.

If only the rest of my life was like that. I have so many ideas in my head that I’m trying to pin down right now. I wish I could say it looked like this:

Instead, this is the sad reality – no less than SIX little notebooks scattered about, and a purse full of crumpled post-it notes.

But if you look back at that neatly organized bulletin board, you can see I was contemplating the “29 faces challenge” over at AyalaArt. (one face for every day in February). I still might do it for the sake of practice, but the thing is – my faces suck and don’t make for very good blogging. My best posts were when I was being interviewed by Amy back in October.

So in February, I’m going to tell you 29 things about me that you may not already know – complete with illustrations, and maybe even maps. Today I leave you with these sketchbook pages I made a few years ago, when my life was in chaos and I had both a desperate need and some time to try and tame it through visual journals.

devil kitty

2012-01-27T20:26:00.000-05:00

Came home from work today to find a mason jar full of turquoise dye spilled all over my work table, chair, and floor.

whose fault?

this guy:

paper eating evil beast

dumper of buckets

spiller of liquids

_______________________________________________

He knows I'm pissed at him so he's being ingratiatingly cute:

In the basket with the stuffed studio mink

In the scrap box under my work table

PLEASE don't be mad at me!
(I love that he's laying in the middle of Cameron's black kitty paintings)
(and no, Cam, your paintings are not still laying on the couch after all these months - this is just an old picture)

Like most of us, he's a study in contrasts.

I've been messing around with my new Inktense pencils (LOVE!!!!)

and altering a creepy black and white picture of myself.

Here's one of my own contrasting sides:

Here's another:

I think I like this view best:

Linking up to the "Opposites" theme over at the Butterfly Effect, where we are ALL pretty ALL the time.

Go see for yourself.

Journal pages and el-cheap-o pen storage system

2012-01-23T23:36:00.000-05:00

I could stay up all night trying to write insightful or pithy remarks for this blog post, or I could just show you my damn journal pages.

Here's what I've been working on - one finished, one in progress:

Oh, how I love me some circles.

But really, you came here for the brilliant and FREE pen storage system I rigged up over the weekend.

Here's my old pen storage system:

It was problematic, to say the least.

Here's my new pen storage system:

Why yes, yes it IS toilet paper tubes hot glued into a shoe box.

I don't know about you, but I am glue gun IMPAIRED. I love hot glue and all you can do with it, but I always make a huge mess, and ALWAYS burn my fingers a thousand times. You'd think after the 6th or 7th time (in a row) that I burn myself I'd figure out a different strategy. but no.

Which reminds me of a little guy at camp last summer.

He was only 5, and really really wanted to help build this:

But you have to be in 4th grade to use the glue guns. Everyone else gets tacky glue.

And we try to keep the glue guns at a safe distance, really we do.

and we kept warning him that the glue gun was really really hot and he shouldn't touch it.

he touched it.

and as he cried, he wailed "You told me not to touch it and I touched it"

that's me and glue guns in a nut shell

BUT, did you know that you can get rid of all those stringy spider-webby bits of glue without painstakingly picking them off one by one all the while swearing under your breath?

You probably already know this, but I was so excited to learn this from the resident craft queen at work.

HAIR DRYER.

or better yet, heat gun.

a quick blast melts them all away and makes them disappear.

Now if only she can teach me NOT TO TOUCH IT.

homemade alcohol ink with Sharpies

2012-01-21T10:50:00.000-05:00

So, as I mentioned yesterday, I made some homemade alcohol inks. I THOUGHT these were going to be amazing, and then I did a bunch of testing and thought they were a complete failure, but then I did some more testing and decided maybe I have a place for them in my art after all. And since living with a 5th grade boy makes me think and speak like a 5th grade boy, I sum up the experiment this way:

I first heard mention of this in a facebook group a few weeks ago and put it on my list of things I should look into. Then I read about it again on TJ's blog and decided to actually do it. So I found this video on You-Tube (which I watched just enough of to get the basic idea of how to do it and then turned it off. given my mixed results, maybe I should have watched the whole video and followed it up with her part 2 instructions)

The bullet points:

break open a sharpie and soak the inky insert in some rubbing alcohol.
done

I bought cheap travel sized spray bottles and a big bottle of rubbing alcohol and raided my abundant stash of sharpies (many of which were inherited when my office closed a few years ago so I didn't pay anything for them)

It was quick and easy (and smelly and a little messy) and the colors were VIBRANT!

So then I set about testing them on a bunch of different surfaces. I took a file folder and attached various papers and tapes and started spraying. TOTAL DISAPPOINTMENT. The colors were muted - some almost non-existent. And the SMELL. Man-oh-man it smelled like a hospital ward. For hours. (Oddly the cat was fascinated by this and hovered near the smelly papers all afternoon).

Here are the results of my experiments:

Clockwise from upper left: water color paper, cereal box covered in gesso, plain cereal box, book page, copy paper, card stock

Clockwise from upper left: Tyvek (which has been ironed), masking tape, aluminum tape, clear packing tape.

I called it a day at this point and nearly dumped them down the drain in disappointment.
But I took up the cause again this morning and had better results. I noticed that the colors were most vibrant on bright white, smooth, not-too-absorbant paper, so I started there.

Here's a test palette on some mixed media paper (with the corresponding sharpie color for comparison)

I tried it with some stencils on cheap copy paper. Not bad:

Then I tried yellow, orange and red in a cheap sketchbook and filled it up with notes on what I'd learned.

Advantages:

cheap

dries quickly

transparent

easy to write over it

permanent - doesn't smudge when reworked

overlapping colors blend well

gives a nice effect with stencils

Disadvantages:

smelly

colors are muted

bleeds through to the other side of most papers

beads up on plastic and metal surfaces. it dries and leaves the color in little droplets

did I mention smelly?

Final assessment: not what I'd hoped for, but if I can tolerate the smell I will use it to create some interesting background effects.

If any of you have experience with homemade inks leave me a comment.

book-altering, literature-quoting, weekend-loving geek

2012-01-20T22:03:00.000-05:00

How cool is this? Just one of the fabulous things I've learned in the altered book class is how to make alternating doors in a book. Seriously - Natasha and Amy have some really great FREE video tutorials over there on Flutterbye. I've got lots of other book-related things to show, but tonight I'm showing my doors because this is what I used for my QUOTE (another last-minute link up to the weekly butterfly effect theme).

What's behind door #1?

Art is the only thing

that can go on mattering

Once it has stopped

Hurting

"Art is the only thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting" - Elizabeth Bowen

Look how nice and flappy that is. I've been geeking out over this for days.

(Plus look how ORANGE it actually is. My scanner made it look much more red)

And speaking of quotes - I'll leave you with the best Friday quote ever, courtesy of my son Max, age 10, as he got home from school today.

“There’s a new movie coming out and it’s called Max’s Free Weekend and the best part is it takes two days to watch and the even better part is there are no homework scenes”

love that kid.

The postcard making spree continues

2012-01-20T06:48:00.000-05:00

I've also been trying new bookbinding techniques, making little books, working in my book of days, trying out all the very cool altered book techniques offered in Amy and Natasha's free altered book class, and working on Life Book projects. (how many times can I say book in one sentence?)
oh yeah - and I made my own alcohol spray inks last night. Documenting this creative spree has NOT been one of my accomplishments. The predicted snow storm for tomorrow will be the perfect excuse to stay in my studio all day. (like I need one!). I promis to take pictures.

Things Forgotten

2012-01-13T22:31:00.000-05:00

Linking up to this week's theme at the Butterfly Effect.
After quite a few failed attempts at turning this into something else, I'm posting my original sketch.

Post Card Mania

2012-01-11T23:00:00.000-05:00

While I ponder whether my fictitious post card writers will be able to pull off some correspondence this week, I have been a prolific post card maker in real life.

I've got TWENTY, count 'em, TWENTY post cards (and two wee packages) addressed and ready for the post office. Here are a few highlights:

Boy, oh boy, do I crack myself up. It's a shame I have to sleep once in a while because I'm on a roll!

Jellied Chicken Loaf

2012-01-08T17:22:00.000-05:00

Those are three words that should NEVER go together, but there they were - in this recipe book:

It's the third edition of "Food for Fifty" - originally published in 1937, though this particular edition is from 1951. I bought it for $1 at the library book sale last year.

The inscription just kills me:

It belonged originally to Mildred Smith, but written below, in another hand, it says "given to Marion Kurshbern by Mildred's daughter, Carol upon Mildred's death". Doesn't it make you wonder about the lives of these people? Did Mildred work in the food service industry? Why was the book bequeathed to Marion? Who donated it to the library book sale? Did it stay in Marion's possession until I bought it?

It's filled with out-of-fashion recipes ("Cottage Cheese Croquettes" anyone?), mysterious terms (what on earth could "French Dressing, Semipermanent" mean?) and institutional menu planning. It's your go-to-guide next time you want to make raisin pie for the masses.

As cool as it is, I've decided to alter it. In fact I started altering a few months ago as part of Amy and Natasha's FREE altered book class on Flutterbye. As fun as it is to mess around with the book, it didn't really have a focus or a purpose. I'd painted a few scary faces in it and that's all.

But then I decided to see what was going on in the Book of Days group and I decided this would be the perfect book for a year of art journaling and reflection.

I haven't decorated the cover yet - I need to work in a book for a little while so that eventually the cover will reflect the contents.

Here's the inside of the cover. (recognize that painting?)

The next spread sets my intentions for the year. I had a releasing ceremony on the Solstice to let go of the things that don't serve me anymore. I also spent several contemplative hours on New Year's Day choosing a word for the year. This spread has a little pocket on each page and some personal writing slipped inside.

Then a spread for the first week. (with a fold-out page)

In addition to capturing this year's journey, I hope to pick up some cooking tips.

Next time you're planning a party for 50 of your closest friends let me know and I'll send you the recipes for Prune Whip, Veal Souffle and Sweetbread Cutlets.

Post Card Challenge

2012-01-06T19:01:00.000-05:00

Last night I made the 11th-hour decision to join Darcy's Postcard Challenge. When she first described the challenge I was totally intimidated and thought there was no way in hell I could take it on. But all day yesterday it nagged at me, and I stayed up until midnight making my first card.

The project, inspired by the Griffin and Sabine books, is a year long postcard correspondence between two fictional characters. Every week, Darcy will post the name of a country and we all work from there. (This week: Austria). I don't know that I'll be able to keep up with the weekly pace, but I'm full of ideas on where I want this to go.

The story begins:

Got nothing...

2012-01-05T20:52:00.000-05:00

...or next to nothing, anyway.

It's been ages since I've played along with the Butterfly Effect.

This week's theme is "The Woods" and all I've got for you is an elementary school art project.

(I kid you not. The project idea was found on one of the of the many websites we use to get arts-and-crafts ideas for the kids at work. I think the middle schoolers are going to do it after school one day next week. It involves masking tape and watercolors.)

So, I've spent the past hour staring at it, trying to figure out what to do to it to make it edgier.

Trying to make it more worthy of a dedicated blog post.

And I was getting grumpy and coming up with nothing.

AND it's too big to fit on my scanner bed, so I scanned it in two parts and spent another hour trying to figure out if I had any software that would stitch the two pictures together.

(I don't, so I'm going to pretend it's supposed to be in two pieces. )

( I was going to call it a triptych, but that's three paintings. )

(What do you call two? A diptych?)

( Dipstick is more like it).

So now worrying about this little painting has taken about 5 times longer than it did to paint it in the first place.

I need to get a grip.

So here it is, in all it's fifth grade glory.

Just trying to get back into the habit of making art every day and posting here more than once a month.

Plus, I miss the radiant glow of all the pretty people at the Butterfly Effect.

Re-entry

2012-01-03T20:12:00.000-05:00

It's been a beautiful month of homemade presents and fancy gadgets, favorite traditions and delicious food, slowing down and paying attention, releasing and holding close.

At first I wasn't blogging because everything I was making was a potential gift, and since my entire lovely family reads my blog, I didn't want to tip my hand.

But then the gifts were done, and I just slowed down - basking in the glow of family.

And then, I lost the habit. Of both art and blogging. But mostly blogging. And the longer I went without posting, the harder it got to post. There's lots to say, and lots to show, and this is part of what's holding me back. Where to start?

But now, vacation is over, the guest room/studio is empty, skipptety jillion on-line groups are ramping up, we're settling back into our routines, and I'm taking the plunge back into cyberspace.

Yesterday I watched the first part of Traci Bautista's free workshops over at the Strathmore website (along with most of the blogosphere).

After playing around with the techniques, I made this spread for one of my traveling art journals .

So Happy New Year, one and all. I've been stalking your blogs all month, but not commenting or interacting. I hope to back up to full speed in a few days.

Blue and Purple postcards

2011-12-04T17:17:00.000-05:00

I've got a stack of lovely mail art that needs answering, so I've been working on postcards today.

I decided to double up and make some postcards that would fit in with the colors of the day.
Of course now that I am ready to mail them off I regret not making larger pieces to keep with my other colors. Rather than having an incomplete rainbow I will probably end up making MORE blue and purple art to keep.

For now, here are my postcards.

I started the blue ones with various security envelopes... which makes me think of money...which led me to this old book of mathematical tables I found at the thrift store, and I found and ripped some pages about calculating compound interest.... which made me think of a terrific (if a bit dark and depressing) song by the National, Bloodbuzz Ohio, and it's repeating chorus of "I still owe money, to the money, to money I owe".... which just seems to sum up the sad state of so many Americans in this economy.

So after getting all dark and heavy on myself, I switched to another in my series of purple flower postcards. I had a hot mess of a painting a few months back that got cut into postcards. Bit by bit, I've been doctoring them and sending them out. I cut the flower petals out of painted book pages

Aqua

2011-12-04T16:58:00.000-05:00

Don't have any bad puns or song titles for Aqua.

This started out inspired by a very cool roll of washi tape, which can barely be seen at the bottom of the collage. As layers got added, it totally shifted away from the original plan, and ended up influenced by the dogwood blossoms on a wonderful postcard I received from Janet.

Have I mentioned how much I'm enjoying the monochromatic challenge?

This is for Daisy Yellow's Rainbow, of course

Dead Flowers

2011-12-03T22:45:00.000-05:00

OK, I promise to stop naming my posts after Rolling Stones songs.

I grew up pretty indifferent to the Stones. I knew the hits. The hits were fine, but whatever. It was ancient history. My appreciation for the 60's was hyper-focused on the Who. And what self respecting new wave fan listened to the Stones for crying out loud? but when I turned 30 I had an epiphany. those mid-period stones records? from the late 60's and early 70's? jeez louise. why did it take me 30 years to figure this out. Beggar's Banquet? Let it Bleed? Sticky Fingers? Exile On Main Street? These are some of the best records ever made. When I admitted this total reversal of opinion to my fellow ~~nerds~~ rock loving friends, the very wise MAM said "You know the thing about Exile?".............."It's a really good record"
enough said.

Here's my green piece. (oh MAN I just said green peace) for Daisy Yellow's Rainbow
It made me realize I don't use much green (i.e. grass green, Celtics green, Kermit green). I'm much more earth-tone when it comes to green. so there you have it. Not really a dead flower, but a dormant tree. It doesn't feel rainbow-licious, but I like it nonetheless.

The sunshine bores the daylights out of me

2011-12-03T22:28:00.000-05:00

Just because I was the fanatical orange hostess for five days of color, doesn't mean I don't like yellow. You can't really have a rainbow without it.

Plus, I'm obsessed with stamping images from a cut lemon.
Plus, I found all kinds of interesting yellow things in my stash.

I am loving this monochromatic thing.

(and since two of my other posts this week coincidentally referenced Rolling Stones songs in the title, I feel compelled to keep the theme going. and while I can't get enough sunshine personally, I have always loved that particular line from "rocks off") (shit, now I'm going to have to find another stones song for my green post. )

Book 2 sent to Kristen

2011-12-03T22:18:00.000-05:00

Here are a few of the pages I added to Andrea's sketchbook before mailing it off to Kristen today:

fun with color mixing!

I love me a good list

And, completely unrelated to sketchbooks, the damn cat is drinking the water out of my paint brush rinsing cup. It's a wonder I get anything done.

Shattered

2011-12-02T08:25:00.000-05:00

This week's theme at the Butterfly Effect is "Broken Pieces"

It's easy to feel fractured in this modern life of ours. There are so many things that demand our attention, and so many roles we play in our own life and the lives of others.

When I'm creating, I feel calm and peaceful and whole - which only serves to emphasize the areas in my life where I'm not quite as content, furthering this feeling of being fragmented.

Of course one of the things I do best (and perhaps all women do best) is hold all those pieces together with a smile on my face, even when I'm being pulled in a bunch of different directions.

This piece started with a collage sheet I made months ago and never used. I'd layered dozens of squares of paper (some of my painted papers combined with scrapbook paper and book pages)

I also had a series of self portraits I took last year - close-ups of portions of my face. I printed them and layered them into an approximation of my head. I cut the whole collage into pieces and linked them back together with jump rings. I attached a string to each of the pieces and "installed" it on the wall with the strings wrapped around push pins. I think I might find an empty frame and tie the edges of the collage to the edges of the frame - maybe with fishing line so it looks like it's floating. not sure.

Here are a few detail shots:

Now I'm off to the Butterfly Effect to see how everyone else has interpreted this theme.

Orange you glad I'm hosting?

2011-12-02T05:45:00.001-05:00

Welcome to day two of Building a Rainbow!

I'm Karen and I'll be your hostess for today's color!

Okay, not THAT kind of hostess, but boy did I love those orange Hostess cupcakes.

Which leads me to the color of the day:

Orange!

I love Orange - both the color and the flavor.

Orange is the only decent Lifesaver in the roll of five flavors.

It's the preferred color of lollipop at the bank.

It's the popsicle you fight for.

All the best flowers are orange.

My favorite chair is orange:

And let's not forget sunsets:

So naturally, orange is my go-to paint color.

(Hey look! It's the background color of my blog!)

Looking through my flickr pool, it's by far the most used color.

So in honor of today's color, I made this collage of both new and old painted papers.

Now head on over to Daisy Yellow to join the fun!

She comes in colors

2011-12-01T13:17:00.000-05:00

Guess what? We're building a rainbow and you can help!

The ever-inspiring Tammy at Daisy Yellow is building a rainbow with five days of color.

Today is day one and the color is red or pink.

I rarely work in these colors, but was up for the challenge. I intended to create something red, but a funny thing happens when you combine your red paint with white gesso....

So here's my pink piece for today. It includes just two of the many kinds of washi tape I got for my birthday from my lovely, lovely sister.

It also includes a picture I took of my favorite day lilies in my garden.

Now go make something red or pink, and add your linky love at Daisy Yellow!

Radio On

2011-11-26T20:00:00.000-05:00

Here's some things you should know about me:

If I know the words to a song, I am obligated to sing it.

I know the words to everything.

I love to sing. I love to drive. I sing anywhere and everywhere, but my favorite place to sing is the car.

I grew up in the cassette era. I had a few dozen LPs, but mostly I had homemade cassettes of other people's LPs. They would pile up on the front seat of my 1983 Plymouth Reliant - alternately baking in the hot sun or freezing in the cold New England winters. This really took its toll on the sound quality of the tapes. It didn't bother me - who could hear the music over my singing? Ric says "Karen was lo-fi before it was cool to be lo-fi"

I married Ric because
1. he has more records than anyone I've ever met
2. he never minds my singing
3. no one, in the history of humankind, makes better comp tapes

There are far worse reasons to get married.
We've been hanging out for 24 years now.

This month, Michelle Ward challenged the Street Team to document our favorite sing-out-loud songs. It was tempting to fill my list with oldies-but-goodies of the last 3 decades, but I wanted to capture some of my favorite songs RIGHT NOW. They may not be my favorite songs next year, or even next month, but they are what make me turn up the volume and howl along this week.

Of course I couldn't resist adding a few perennial favorites, so turn it up loud and sing with me now:
"I'm in love with Massachusetts. With the radio on"

Brewed Awakening

2011-11-25T07:49:00.000-05:00

This week's theme at the Butterfly Effect is Coffee or Tea.

I used to hate coffee. In fact, I didn't drink coffee for 37 years.
All of my caffeine came in a can.

and I had no qualms about cracking open an icy cold diet coke at 7:00 in the morning.

But in 2004 I bought a house 50 miles away from my job and started getting up at 4:30 in the morning and that seemed just a wee bit too early for diet coke, even for me.
I decided to learn to like coffee.

Now I like coffee so much that I sometimes go to bed early just so it will be closer to coffee time.

So in honor of this week's theme, I carved a little coffee mug stamp. And I painted some water color paper with coffee. And I enlarged a picture I took of coffee beans. And I slapped it all together into this.

I feel like I should turn it into a trivet. If only I used trivets.

I'm also posting this ridiculous little post card I sent to a friend after buying my new coffee machine last year and seeing it's called the "CoffeeTEAM GS" and spending way too much time, in a pre-caffeinated stupor, wondering what "team" has to do with coffee.

"When are the try-outs?"
"Are there Cheerleaders?"
"Can I be the coach?"
"Do they ever play TeaTEAM GS?"

And then, for good measure, I'll repost the index card I made in June. Because you can never have too much coffee.

four squared

2011-11-23T16:44:00.000-05:00

Forty Four things I'd like to do while I'm Forty Four

1. Go see Anno

2. Ride my bike

3. Take a dance class

4. Get my brown boots re-heeled

5. Sing in the car

6. Get more paint on my clothes

7. Go away with my sweetie

8. Tell Phyllis to Phuck off

9. Submit more art

10. Laugh every day

11. Fix the doorbell

12. Forgive myself

13. Outsmart the squirrels

14. Make lists

15. Take an art class in the same room as other human beings

16. Take naps with the kitties

17. Use my art journals

18. Paint the living room

19. See all the Harry Potter movies

20. Drink wine

21. ROAD TRIP!

22. Be thankful

23. Cure cancer

24. Send birthday cards to my friends

25. Mail more art

26. Hug

27. Practice image transfers

28. Hear live music

29. Floss

30. Think less

31. Read novels

32. Get a screen door

33. Slow down

34. Throw pots on the wheel again

35. Do cartwheels on the beach

36. Make music

37. Plant more poppies

38. Walk in the sun

39. Embrace etceterism

40. Prioritize

41. Stop being afraid

42. Ride my Rip-stick

43. Go to an art retreat

44. Eat Pie

What makes you happy?

2011-11-21T20:48:00.000-05:00

1. Moldable foam stamps tutorial
Go watch this tutorial from Traci Bunkers right now. It's really cool. Here's some I made. I keep making more.

2. I won Amy's blue cat and it's hanging on my wall!

3. Thanks to a huge inter-library loan system, I'm finally reading all these really great art books that have been on my wish list forever. More are on the way.

4. Got mail from Corrine and TJ.

5. Found fantastic kids' reference books from the early 60's at my local thrift store. Five volumes for four bucks. Full of pictures like this

and this

Plus I found these never-used pencil and oil pastel sets for a pittance.

6. I carved this stamp.

I have a favorite stencil that looks like this:

But sometimes I don't want to cover the background with paint or ink

Sometimes I wish I could just stamp those circles on a page.

So I rubbed a stamp pad all over the stencil and pressed a carving block on top to capture the image and then started carving. Here's my finished stamp:

Here's an image from it. I've been using it on everything.

7. Card Catalog love.

As a life-long library lover and former library employee, I nearly died when I saw this nifty little online app. I think every list I make for the rest of my life will be made this way.

___________________________________________________
Okay, you thought you were going to get through a post without me mentioning pie. You were wrong. Pie is still making me really happy.

8.

Pie Coma

2011-11-20T21:14:00.000-05:00

9 pies. 8 adults. 4 kids. 5 hours. Not as many leftovers as you'd think.

Face it

2011-11-20T10:01:00.000-05:00

Voice of Phyllis:

1. You suck at drawing faces.

2. All of your faces look exactly like (insert name of teacher here)'s faces.

3. You have no style of your own.

4. Don't show anyone your feeble attempts unless you enjoy looking like an idiot.

5. I don't even know why you bother. You should just give up.

Voice of Reason:

1. You just started learning about faces five seconds ago. Cut yourself some slack.

2. It's okay to draw in the style of (insert teacher's name here) while she is teaching you her techniques.

3. Learn as much as you can from as many different instructors and trust that your personal style will evolve.

4. By posting your efforts you might reassure or encourage other beginners.

5. The only way to get good at faces is to draw more faces. Stop whining and get back to work.

Wicked good mail day

2011-11-16T17:11:00.000-05:00

I've had a congestion headache for 3 straight days. Yesterday it got so bad I left work early to go home and take a nap before heading out for an evening meeting. And then, after barely sleeping last night, I decided to take a personal day today. And, as if they knew I desperately needed a pick-me-up, THREE of my art-loving blogging friends sent me mail. Good mail. WICKED good mail (as we say here in Massachusetts).

First out of the mailbox came this supercool wooden postcard from Mad Madge. (click through to see what the post card looked like before she altered it). I was honored when she asked me to participate in a collaborative mail swap (since the post card is about aging and we are both turning 44 in the very near future). Of course, now that I have her gorgeous card in my hand there is no way I can alter it - I will think of some other treat to send her.

(beer cap placed there for scale - it's rather wee. not much bigger than an index card. And it's made of wood. And was mailed just like that. See the cancelled stamps? How cool is that?)

NEXT up in the mailbox was THIS gorgeous envelope from Barbara:

Look at that rainbow stitching. OMG.

Barbara and I formed a mutual admiration society when we were both doing the index-card-a-day project over the summer. She's still doing them, and said this one was made with me in mind. I'm delighted to own it!

She also sent this great ATC

My third treat of the day came from Cameron - a fabulous "Paint Party Friday" regular.

She painted this kitty in one of Amy's free live classes and sent it to me because she knows I'm partial to black cats. (and okay, I did pretty much beg for mail in my last post)

Here's the kitty - painted on fabric and stitched all over. It's so fabulous I can hardly stand it. Look at those fishies!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all three of you!

You brought so much sunshine to my rainy, achey day.

And so, after shamelessly begging for mail, I felt I'd better get busy on fulfilling some mail art promises. Here's the stack of things that went out this afternoon.

Who knows? Maybe one of them is on it's way to YOU!

Scrap Book

2011-11-12T16:23:00.000-05:00

So I made this little book for a swap:

The swap requirements were pretty specific:

the book must be made of paper lunch bags
Each page must be dedicated to one color of the rainbow
The pages must use collage techniques
The pages must be mostly monochromatic
the ends of the lunch bags form little pockets and I have to include at least one surprise inside a pocket.

This was the perfect opportunity to use all those little scraps of painted papers and leftover bits of other collages. The deadline to mail it is Monday and I was kind of regretting signing up (it was one more plate spinning in the air), but once I started I totally got into it.

Here's the front and back cover:

Here are the pages:

I do a fair amount of trading on Swap-bot. I don't much care about what I get in return - most of it isn't my taste. I do it because it gives me structure and deadlines. It pushes me to work with specific parameters (be it theme or technique or material or size). If I'd seen a tutorial on how to make paper bag books I would have thought it was cool and book marked it and never ever completed it.

And even though I like the way it came out, I don't need to keep it. The joy was in the creating. I don't really even care if my partner likes it. I mean, I hope she does and all, but it's beside the point. At this point, swaps are all about practice and discipline. Plus it's always a thrill to find real honest-to-god MAIL in your mailbox. Mail that someone lovingly created by hand. Even if I think it's crap, it's pretty cool.

I haven't signed up for anything new lately, and have only one more commitment after this journal. I'm on the fence about signing up for more. I think I might need a break until after the Holidays. The reason I hesitate to stop? My mailbox will be so empty! I have a few mail art friends, but I'm not very prolific in that arena. (maybe because I'm wasting so much time on swaps???) But, as the lovely Pamela in San Francisco reminds us, in order to get good mail you need to SEND good mail. (and something is going out to dear Pamela on Monday!)

So, dear readers - want to get some mail from me? Send me something. A post card, a note, a sketch on the back of a napkin, the rumpled receipt from the bottom of your purse. I don't care. If you send it, I'll send you something back!

Karen Isaacson
PO Box 532
Shrewsbury, MA 01545

Free love

2011-11-11T19:01:00.000-05:00

The awesome free live art classes continue over at Amy's blog. Today's class was taught by the lovely and talented Manon, who did a wonderful job teaching us to draw little faces like hers. I almost didn't go to class. (Did you read my post earlier today about spinning plates and doing too much and feeling overwhelmed? Skipping the class could have been a really smart move in the way of preserving my sanity. I made the equally smart move of telling the family I was not available, shutting the studio door and learning something new in the company of fabulous funny people all over the world)

So the first face I drew was using Copic markers. Until today, I only had 2 of these markers. Orange and Blue. I didn't really see why people love them so much. I didn't plan to buy more. But I've seen what Jane Davenport did with them in the Supplies Me class. And when I saw the "25% off your total purchase" coupon good for today only at the local mega craft store, I invested in a few more in the flesh tone palette. (and Now I get it.)

Anyway - I sketched along with Manon as she taught and as soon as I drew the outline of the head I thought it looked like a piece of toast. I figured that as I went along it would look more human-like and less toast-like. I was wrong. When it was time to add the hair I just decided to embrace the burnt-bread nature of my drawing, so here it is:

The next face was done with pastels. The cheap chalky ones I bought a million years ago and hardly ever touch. It was super messy and dusty. (Perhaps because I was drawing on card-stock which is so super smooth and glossy it doesn't absorb much color?) In spite of this, I managed to blend and shade way better than I ever have before. If you think the paper looks smudgy, you should see my face and pants.

(I crack myself up)

I'm SOOOOO glad I took this class.

And don't feel bad if you missed it. Amy recorded it and I'm sure she will put the link on the sidebar of her blog. And please, please, please stop by Manon's blog and see her amazing little faces.

Spinning

2011-11-11T11:04:00.000-05:00

My life is jam-packed with good ideas and opportunities.

Over the summer it was energizing and thrilling.

Right now it's just overwhelming.

It's been sneaking up on me, stealthy and quiet, but I've chosen to ignore it.

Bad feelings have been circling like turkey vultures and I'm down here in my shiny costume, tap-dancing and spinning my plates in the air.

Tra, la, la.

Here's the spiral:

1. try to do everything

2. get overwhelmed by "to do" list

3. berate self for not achieving the impossible

4. become immobilized by bad feelings

5. berate self more for being lazy and doing nothing

6. take on more responsibilities to prove that you are not lazy and incompetent

7. go back to the top of the spiral and do not admit to yourself that you are miserable

I've worked really hard over the years to break old patterns of behavior and re-write old scripts. Still, there's a perverse comfort to this line of thinking. It's so familiar! I know how the story goes! I can inhabit it so easily and I won't need to challenge myself! Hooray!

Plus, there's so many ways to feel sorry for myself in this story. I can walk around with the back of my hand pressed to my forehead and sigh a lot.

It's been tempting to just close the studio door and crawl away from it. Get in bed tell myself stories of martyrdom, helplessness, and victimization.

Instead, I'm painting like a mad woman, because when I'm painting the vultures stop circling.

Excited by the colors and textures of this piece I made over the weekend, I decided to explore it further and to work on canvas instead of cardboard.

It started like this:

The blue circles on the left are paint samples, there's a bit of a muslin bag at the top, and another image of a plate spinner in the center. I squeezed on some blobs of paint and spread them all over the canvas with a brayer. I kept adding more layers and colors.

I totally regretted that orange as soon as a laid it down, and since I wasn't waiting for each layer to dry, it was quickly becoming thick and muddy. Rather than waiting for it to dry and covering it with gesso like a sensible person (heaven forbid) I grabbed some plain paper and laid it on top of the painting and rolled the brayer on the back of the paper.

It looked really cool after a bunch of paint had been lifted off because you could see little bits of background showing through:

And I got these really interesting mono-prints too:

I was so entranced by the grungy layers I nearly stopped, but I knew I wasn't done. I kept adding layers of paint, and got so excited I stopped taking pictures of the stages. Here's where the frenzy ended in the wee small hours of this morning.

I had fully intended to use beeswax in this project, but now I'm not so sure. I'm liking it the way it is. I'm going to sit with it for a few days.

Here's to the start of a 3-day weekend
and Paint Party Friday
and letting the plates crash to the floor if that's what it takes to stop spinning.

more wax and bad cats

2011-11-10T18:53:00.000-05:00

Another waxy collage. This one started out as a piece of card-stock I used to test some new spray ink and a new stencil. I like the colors and started rolling on acrylic paint with a brayer, gluing on scraps and little bits of stuff, and topping it all off with beeswax. Fun, fun, fun.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to make cat art for the butterfly effect this week. I was so excited by the theme, being rather fond of felines, but let me tell you, this ended up being miserable. All attempts at cat art were simultaneously really ugly and really "cute". I don't do cute. Here's the best thing I came up with. I almost didn't post it because it's not really what I'm interested in doing. Somebody recently said she doesn't make art she wouldn't hang on her wall. This falls into that category for me.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but I cut the cat pieces out of a big sheet of painted paper and assembled him on top of a collage of my other painted papers, and made his whiskers out of embroidery thread and wire, and his claws out of wire. Part of why I hate this is the colors - the pastelly purply thing isn't me either. (so why did I paint those papers in those colors in the first place and leave them in my stash to tempt me into making art I hate?)

So I leave you with this journal page I made a few years ago, which actually DOES hang on my studio wall, in spite of the fact that the caption is so poorly stamped you can barely read it.

It's a picture of Jake and it says "Never counts to ten when we play hide and seek"

I thought about re-stamping the caption for this posting, but I would much rather melt some more wax.

waxing euphoric

2011-11-09T22:26:00.000-05:00

Here's my second attempt at playing with wax. This time I melted three pots of beeswax - I left one in it's natural state, but I added a cheap oil pastel to the other pots and melted it along with the wax for color. Encaustic artists everywhere are cringing, I know, but it was a worthwhile experiment.

I made a very compelling mess, and it was SO MUCH FUN.

I started by painting with the orange and blue wax directly onto canvas board. I zapped it with the heat gun just a little bit to blend the edges of the color, then I coated a piece of marbled rice paper with plain beeswax and adhered it. (That's the weird blue nebula in the lower left corner). I then added a piece of wasp's nest.

Yes, wasp's nest.

So, hang on - I need to tell you a story.

A few years ago I met this really cool woman named Debbie. She's an artist and puppeteer and all around fascinating person. We met because she works with the open land foundation in the town where I work and I was planning some nature programming for my after school program in one of the local nature preserves. We spent 3 glorious hours in the woods together, sharing our passion and wonder for the beauty of the natural world.

Here's a picture she took of me poking at a pile of coyote scat with a stick.

ANYWAY - last week, I came to work one morning and there was this beautiful amazing piece of "paper" on my desk. It was clearly a piece of a wasp's nest

only it has the most amazing colors in it. Grey and brown and cream and moss green and yellow ochre. There was a post it note from one of my employees saying "from the puppet lady".

Debbie had stopped by my office because she knew how much I'd like this and want to share it with the kids. Here are some pictures that do not do justice to it's beauty

( I'm certain my staff thought this was the WEIRDEST thing ever. This lady shows up unannounced to give a piece of a wasp's nest to their boss and she's positively GIDDY about it.)

Now back to the art. The colors in this paper were so inspiring, I thought it would be cool to work some of it into the collage.

Sadly, once it was covered with beeswax, it ended up looking like a piece of burned bacon.

Lessons learned.

(mmm....bacon....)

I added a thick layer of natural color beeswax on top of this whole mess and blew it around into puddles with the heat gun. I colored with brown oil pastels and turned on the heat gun to melt them into the wax. I jammed some bottle caps into the hot wax to make the circles. I found a spiral paper clip on my work table and made some impressions with it in the upper left corner and then embedded the actual clip into the lower right corner. I sprayed the whole think with walnut ink to let the brown stain seep into the cracks in the wax and then wiped all the excess off the surface. I declared it sufficiently mutilated and called it a day.

Overall it's a big muddy mess, but I'm oddly pleased with it.

I'm already well into my next wax experiment. If things go well I'll show it for paint party friday.

The Bee's Knees

2011-11-06T19:42:00.000-05:00

I had a feeling I was going to like beeswax. Since the first time I heard the word "encaustic" I knew this was something I needed to try. It's been on my list of things to do for a long time, but it's easy to put off. First of all there's the issue of a heat source. I didn't have one in the studio. THEN there's the whole intimidation and supply factor. You start looking at supply lists and safety precautions and think you'll be both broke and dead if you try this. And the encaustic artists? So incredibly talented that you just want to curl up in a ball under your work table and never show your face again.

But TODAY was the day I banished "Encaustic" from my brain and just started messing around with beeswax.

I found this funny little warming tray at the Salvation Army for a few bucks and grated my block of beeswax with an old cheese grater and dumped it in a soup can to see what happened. It melted beautifully and made the studio smell great.

I had a cardboard collage in my stash that I got in a swap and didn't really like. It seemed the perfect thing to start with. It already had some built in texture, it was sturdy, and I could completely mess it up without feeling bad. I had no plan or clue - I just started covering up the board with all kinds of layers of paint. I made some concentric circles with paint and various round objects and hastily dried it with my heat gun so I could get down to the messing-about-with-wax part of my day.

of course LATER I read that encaustic won't stick to acrylic. good thing I didn't read it first or I wouldn't have tried. my wax and subsequent layers of acrylic-painted papers are sticking just fine, thank you very much. (and SEE - I just used the "e" word again! stop it! this is just playing with wax and nothing more!)

so here's my first experiment messing around with beeswax on top of and underneath paint and paper.

The picture doesn't do much to show the cool sheen and texture it the wax leaves. There's not a LOT of wax on here, mind you, but enough to carve a few circles and leave some cool ripples.

This was SO much fun and I'm already melting more beeswax and trying to color it with cheap-o oil pastels. I feel an obsession coming on. I'll let you know how it goes.

Cracking myself up over here

2011-11-04T06:39:00.000-04:00

Face painting efforts continue.
I painted this face over one of my marbled papers from my scrap basket.

I used cheap acrylic craft paint and some black and white gel pens and felt I'd taken this face about as far as it could go. No clue what to do for hair. I hate hair. I tried a blue-black mixture, but EEEEEEK!

(does this hair make me look fat?)

This is so horribly scary. Get the baby wipes and gesso, quick!

Next I tried cutting a different marbled paper into strands of hair. It wasn't working at all, but when one short "strand" fell on the face, I was inspired to do this:

Now THAT's funny. I almost glued it down and called it a night.

But I wasn't ready to give up my quest for hair.

I turned to the old magazine stash and cut out pieces of Julia Roberts' hair from a make-up ad.

(this ad had long ago been doctored with devil horns, fangs and glasses by my son and was pretty hilarious. I was reluctant to cut it up. I bet he doesn't know who Julia Roberts is. I bet he thinks she's an old lady since she's the same age as his MOM.)

Anyway - I fashioned JR's tresses into this bizarre bun, and then glued another random scrap of marbled paper on top.

This is also pretty damn funny, but not as funny as the moustache.

I KNOW....I'll add the hair AND the moustache! Hilarious.

Here's the finished version. One of you talented and funny PPF-ers needs to make up a story about her.

Happy Paint Party Friday, one and all!

Makes No Sense At All

2011-11-03T21:56:00.000-04:00

Morning commute.
Grouchy.
Tired.
Headache.

Radio On.
Familiar Opening chords.
Turn it up.
Louder.
Top of my lungs.
Day transformed.

Walking around with your head in the clouds
Makes no sense at all
Hüsker Dü - 1985

I could make art about rock and roll every single day for the rest of my life.

Linking up to the Butterfly Effect. Go see other music-inspired art!

NoGoPoNo

2011-11-01T22:04:00.000-04:00

I did it. I survived Blogtoberfest and managed to post every single day. It was fun, and it got easier as I went along, but I’ve gotta say I’m glad it’s over. I was getting a little crazy and stressed last week and don’t ever want to feel like art and blogging is a chore.

In light of this, I’m signing up for NoGoPoNo.

Not Going to Post every day in November.

I might make myself a badge.

But now that I've given myself permission NOT to post, all I want to do is post. So I thought I’d show you how I spent my day. Work was cancelled for the second day in a row due to lack of power, so to keep myself from devouring all of my son’s Halloween candy, I decided to clean the studio.

Here’s the really scary corner before I started cleaning:

(not visible under all the other piles of stuff: large pile of drift wood and beach stones that have been on the floor since our August vacation)

Here's what it looks like now:

Okay, maybe it doesn't look that different to YOU, but it's downright amazing to me! The biggest thing I did was pack up all the old children’s books and professional books I’ve accumulated over the past 20+ years. I’m such a ridiculously sentimental person that I can’t bear to part with them, but I no longer need them taking up prime studio real estate. They are now neatly boxed and stored in the attic. The step ladder is back in the garage, everything's off the floor, and some of the art supplies that were overflowing from the other shelves have been moved to this side of the room.

I failed to take "before" pictures of the closet, but trust me, I took my life in my hands every time I opened it. Much better now.

I even made FILES. (files!!!)

This shelf still looks like chaos, but it's a HUGE improvement.

And my work table is still in it's perpetual state of disarray, but that's not a battle worth fighting.

I'm feeling very accomplished. Everything's more accessible and there's a lot more room to move. There’s even room to fold down the lumpy futon into it’s rock-hard bed formation, which is a darn good thing since we’re having an actual GUEST Friday night. Imagine that. I might have to start accepting reservations.

And then, since it’s sort of like Sunday night (and we’re all reluctant to go back to school/work tomorrow) we had our traditional end-of-the-weekend family movie night. We watched Rio and ate quesadillas in front of the TV and I doodled in the sketchbook to keep myself awake.

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T20:04:00.000-04:00

Thankful

2011-10-30T17:54:00.000-04:00

Thankful to find all of these gorgeous trees still standing this morning after our freak October snowstorm here in Massachusetts.

Thankful the forecast was wrong and we only got 8 inches of snow instead of 12-16.

Thankful the day dawned sunny and warm and much has already melted.

Thankful that the many broken tree limbs did not fall on our house or car.

Thankful I did not need a chainsaw to get out of the driveway.

Thankful our snug little house stayed warm in spite of the power outages.

Thankful the power came back on in time to cook the overnight french toast.

Thankful schools are closed tomorrow due to downed power lines and blocked roadways, giving me a windfall of time to spend in the studio.

Thankful to have witnessed so much beauty.

I hope all my fellow Northeast friends are safe and warm tonight.

mutant face painting

2011-10-29T22:41:00.000-04:00

So I sat in on Amy's totally awesome FREE live video workshop today. I was supposed to be attending a family anniversary party in another state, but a freakishly early snowstorm hit the region and cancelled our plans. DARN - have to stay home and do art all day!

So Amy's workshop was about painted collage faces and I painted along in real time while she made hers. It was totally fun and I made this freaky face. please keep in mind that the bizarre quality of my painting is in no way a reflection on Amy's talent or teaching ability :)

I seriously wanted to rework this 10 times before posting, but I'm afraid this storm is going to knock out our power or cable and I'm SO close to finishing blogtoberfest and don't want to miss a day.

If I don't post tomorrow it's because I'm in traction from shoveling 16 inches of wet heavy snow and hauling away all the broken tree limbs.

The recording of Amy's class is up on her website for those who missed it.

go check it out.

Change in perspective

2011-10-28T11:19:00.000-04:00

The two best things I learned this week:

Use a viewfinder

Take off your glasses

I've been feeling stuck when it comes to painting. I see work that inspires me, but I don't know how to turn that inspiration into original ideas. I'm a very literal person. Using someone else's painting for inspiration always turns into copying their work. Rather than stealing someone else's work, I've been turning to my own work for inspiration and I still end up copying. The end result feels stiff and forced and it's easy for me to get discourage.

It's a short drive from inspiration to despair.

I've been stuck in the parking lot for the past few weeks, but two things have helped me get back on the road.

First, I was reading an article by Jane Davies in the Sketchbook Challenge eZine in which she mentions that she uses a "viewfinder" made of old mat board and then searches for interesting composition in magazines. She turns these little bits of inspiration into sketches, which later turn into paintings.

This is genius and I couldn't wait to try it. I didn't need to look at art to be inspired by color and shape and form - I could look at life. I cut a rough rectangle out of a piece of black card-stock and grabbed an old issue of Architectural Digest and started flipping pages.

At first, I was still looking at bits of arm chair or appliance inside a rectangle and I couldn't see past it. Then I remembered something Amy said in one of the tutorials she posted this week. When she's working on shading faces, she takes off her glasses so she can focus more on the areas of lights and darks. This, too, is genius. Off came my glasses and I was left with lovely, blurry blocks of inspiration.

(Squint and look at these)

I turned these images into rough sketches with notes and scribbles of color

The sketch became the starting point for my painting. Having a loose plan and color scheme took the panic out of the blank canvas, but wasn't so precise that it limited me. I played with layer after layer of paint, changed my mind a few times along the way, and just kept playing. Here's where I stopped.

The whole process was interesting, fun and energizing. I can't wait to try it again. Don't be surprised if you pass me on the street half-blind and peering through a window in my card-stock. I promise not to do it while I'm driving.

Happy Paint Party Friday!

2011-10-27T21:23:00.001-04:00

I got this really great postcard from Lee this week. She used my background! She already blogged about one card she made with this background here and then she sent me this one as a surprise. I think I have to finally accept the message on the card since it's snowing here in Massachusetts tonight.

I've been fantastically grouchy this week. Disliking my job, tired at night, overwhelmed.

Here are all the things I'd like to be doing right now or feel like I should be doing:

1. painting more poppies for the Poppy Spree! (seriously, go see Margot - this is fun)

2. catching up on Jane Davenport's "Supplies Me" class by practicing more faces

3. finishing the exercises in Carla Sonheim's "The Art of Silly" class even though it ended last week

4. Watching the video of Amy's free class that she taught on Wednesday while I was at work. She's teaching another Saturday and I probably won't be home for that one either. But if you like art, and you like classes and you like FREE, you should totally go check out Amy's site because she's really cool and talented. I watched about 5 minutes of the video so far and already got a great tip that I used to get started on a new painting. I really want to check out the rest of what she's so generously offering. go to her website and check out the links on the side bar.

5. Answering Pamela's mail art call (document what's in your traveling mail art kit)

6. Working on my day of the dead ATC's for swap-bot. Due Monday, haven't started, have to send 6.
7. drawing in my new sketchbook for my commie-traveling-sketchbook group
8. working on a surreal painting for the butterfly effect.
9. Working on Crusade 56 for Michelle Ward's Street Team
10. Filling in the last week and a half on my calendar

and really those are just the things I told myself I'd do. The list doesn't even cover the the classes I want to take, techniques I want to try, ideas I haven't pinned down. Okay, so maybe I take on too much. I realized I'm starting to feel panicky. I need to remind myself that no one's life hangs in the balance if I don't squeeze this all in before morning. Art is supposed to be my outlet, not my obligation. (Can you see that I'm not very good at RELAXING????)

I'm really truly going to try and chill out. In the meantime, I'm finishing up something for tomorrow's paint party, and I drew this silly sketch:

Don't leave home without: gum, hair-clip, lipstick, sharpie pen and your rubber monkey wearing a fez.

Phyllis is being particularly unreasonable tonight

2011-10-26T22:22:00.000-04:00

Sister Dear

2011-10-25T06:31:00.000-04:00

It's my sister's birthday, and in the grand tradition of my adult life, I haven't mailed her birthday present yet. It seems a little public celebration is in order.

She's the big sister. I'm the one in the background looking pathetic.

Sometimes it seems like we're REAALLLY different. But then I once asked my nephew "who's bossier, me or your mom?" and he wisely chose not to answer because we're really not so different after all.

this might be my all time favorite picture of my sister:

She claims she is laughing in this picture. She's kidding herself. She is totally yelling at the neighbor's dog. I look at this picture every single day and it never fails to crack me up. I mean really. Look at those faces. That dog isn't budging and my sister is SO PISSED. That's about 40 years of hilarious right right there.

This might be my other favorite picture of my sister:

Jee-zus! How do you even get out of bed and go to high school when your sister is that cool? She drove me crazy. I don't know if she knew it. Once, in 9th grade, I screamed "I hate you" at the top of my lungs. I think I'd been bottling it up for 14 years. I never felt the need to say it again. I bet she doesn't remember.

I'm hoping that since we have 43 years and 11 months of shared history, she does remember the toy pictured below and can shed some light on it.

It used to have ears. Now it looks like it has male pattern baldness. It's made of wood. It's been around as long as I can remember. It might have belonged to our mother, or I might just be making that part up. It sits in my studio now. Is it a dog? Is it a deer? I've never known. Does my sister know? Maybe this will taunt her into figuring out how to leave a comment. (maybe it will even make my mom comment instead of just sending me fan mail).

Here's some stuff about my sister:

She had more records than anyone I knew (until I met my husband)
She let me read all the dirty parts in Judy Blume's "Forever" when I was in the fourth grade
She once drew a picture of Peter Frampton based on the record cover of "I'm in You." In my memory, this is the single greatest piece of art I've ever seen. This may be the event that kept me from even trying to draw for the next 30 years. I used to sneak into her room and open her sketchbook just to gaze upon his loveliness. I wish I had it now.
The maddest I ever saw my father was when my sister got a D in gym. I don't think I've ever properly thanked her for lowering the bar. When I got a D in Spanish the next year, I got off pretty easy.
When she went off to college I mailed her a care package of silly stuff. One thing I sent was ten dimes, wrapped in green tissue paper, with a note tied to it that said "10 reasons to call home". (remember when phone calls on pay phones cost a dime? remember pay phones?) Anyway, she saved it. It still sits in an old printer's drawer on the wall of her house. And she's moved like a 100 times. It always goes back up. When she started following my blog she used a picture of that as her profile. I got a little verklempt.
She may have watched more TV than any other child in America during the 1970's, which means you can always count on her to settle a bar bet.
Once, I asked her "What would your Karaoke song be?" (which is my favorite question for anyone who would never in a million years do Karaoke). She didn't have an answer. About 3 months later I get a phone call. She doesn't even say hello. She says "Mrs. Robinson".
She publicly "outed" me as an artist on facebook yesterday by posting a link to my blog. If she had more than 2 facebook friends I might be pissed. This post might be my revenge.
She asked for a digital copy of the painting I used as my blog background. She uploaded it to skinit.com and made it into a laptop cover. seriously. how cool is that?
she gave birth to two of the most amazing people I've ever met
Finally, NOBODY on earth, except my sister, can make me laugh until I cry. and I'm not talking damp at the corners of the eyes. I'm talking tears streaming down the face, doubled over, can't breathe, stomach hurts kind of laughing.

So leave a happy birthday comment for Nancy.

(you can stop crying now, mom)

wardrobe malfunction

2011-10-24T21:23:00.000-04:00

This morning, when I woke up, I declared today "international dress like a grown-up day". However, when I realized my best Career Pants made me look like a sausage, I put on the same pair of jeans I wear every other day and stomped off to work. Good thing I kept these on my feet.

I think I'm just really tired

2011-10-23T22:14:00.000-04:00

Takeover

2011-10-22T08:00:00.001-04:00

Finally. That person who flings the paint has gone away for the weekend and carelessly left her Blogger account open. We’ve been waiting for this moment for months. All of these other artists are forever posting pictures of their cats, and featuring them prominently on their blogs, but have we had our moment of glory? NO! Little miss snooty-pants clearly thinks she’s too good to stoop to this level of pandering and has totally failed to acknowledge our guiding force in the studio. Seriously, if we weren’t around that woman would get NOTHING done.

Allow me to introduce us. I’m Jake, and this is my studio.

My sister, Lucy, likes to sleep here in the studio, but she is far less influential in the creative process. That guy who lives in the house? He says she’s the “good cat”.

Whatever. She’s nice and everything, but she pretty much just curls up in out-of-the-way spots and purrs. How is that helpful?

(See? she doesn't even understand the importance of being a paperweight.)

I, on the other hand, never run out of ways to assist.

Making sure nothing bad comes in the window

she doesn't even thank me for my watchfulness. Instead she sprays me with water.

She doesn't understand how menacing this rug is. I teach it a lesson on a daily basis.

She didn't even realize she wanted the book I knocked down on her head

This futon is a serious flight risk

these papers would have blown away without me

Can you see that it is only my eternal vigilance that keeps this studio from collapsing into total chaos?

What thanks do I get? This pathetic "blind contour" drawing:

So she'll be back tomorrow night, and we should just keep this post as our little secret, but next time you're like "this blog is so awesome, and her paintings are so great" you'll know who REALLY deserves the credit. Just sayin'.