It's Friday again, and I'm still therapeutically working to overcome my fear of canvas. Even though these are cheap-o canvas boards and I will gladly cover my mistakes with gesso again and again and again, I freeze when I approach canvas. So I continue to troll for ideas and inspiration in my own stuidio. I decided to try and recreate one of my favorite index cards from the Index-card-a-day project over the summer. Here's the index card:
I love it, but it's only a flimsy 3"x5" piece of paper and it wouldn't make great wall art.
Here are the many steps I took in my attempt to recreate it on 8"x10" canvas board:
First, I smeared on modeling paste with a palette knife and made some circle indentations
gesso and two shades of aqua
black acrylic
white acrylic
light aqua
dark aqua over the whole thing
wipe off some of the dark aqua
spritz of black spray ink
a few more smears of light aqua
glue down circles of painted newspaper
color around the circles with black and white paint pens, drip on some white and silver acrylic ink
Add a few small circles with black and white gel pens. flick some black ink withe a toothbrush, drip some black ink straight from the dropper.
It was interesting trying to recreate my own work. It made me realize just how much of my art is accidental. I didn't create that index card with a particular vision, it just "happened" and I liked it. Obviously I started this canvas with clear intent, but I don't like it anywhere near as much as the happy accident. Copying is never as good as creating.
Meanwhile, I'm so excited to see that my turquoise circle paper is still being used! Go check out what Carlarey did for paint party Friday. And the lovely Lee used it for a postcard and blogged about it here. And our PPF host Kristen (who already used it for an awesome painting weeks ago) put a bird on it just to be cheeky:
This joke never gets old!
The paper is still available for downloading and printing if you'd like to use it. (See the upper right hand corner of the blog). Let me know if you've done something with it so I can add your name to the list of links!
Amyasks: 9. are you a hermit? I think I'd really enjoy being a hermit because I'm kind of a misanthrope. People bug me. Except for the ones that don't bug me. THOSE people I adore beyond reason. It's everyone else that bugs me. Except you. You don't bug me. I once told my husband I married him because he bugged me less than anyone I'd ever met. See what I mean?
I also think I'd be a good hermit because I really really really like to be home. Home is awesome. Away from home is crowds and hassles and uncomfortable undergarments and tedious small talk. Home is comfort and calm and love and laughter and safety and space.
And even though I make a living building relationships with children and families and I'm really good at my job and and have excellent people skills, I'm pretty content to go through a day without any human interaction. I'm good at being alone and I get very cranky when I don't get regular time alone.
But I would really really miss my family if I was a hermit. And after too much time alone I might convince myself that I am both unloved and unlovable, and it's really hard to take those crazy pants off.
So, bottom line? I want you to be near me and leave me alone at the same time, okay? Thankfully, this works out nicely for my cohorts. I think a large part of why my love and I have been successfully hanging out together for the past 24 years is because we know how to be home alone together. It's the best of everything.
8. are you afraid of the dark? Yes, yes, yes. I am a total chicken and I am easily freaked out. I hate to be scared. The meanest thing you could possibly do to me is jump out at me. Not funny. I can't fathom why people go to haunted houses and pay good money to be stalked by people dressed like axe murderers. How is that entertaining?
One of my first irrationally scary experiences was in third grade when my best friend told me a story about getting into bed and having her ankles grabbed by something, but when her Dad came into her room there was nothing under the bed. I took this as gospel truth (rather than mean, sadistic friend messing with me) and altered my bedtime routine for decades. I might still be doing it if I didn't have a platform bed with drawers filling the underneath space.
For no particular reason (other than being a total scaredy-cat), I would NOT go into the basement of my childhood home by myself after dark. I'd get all creeped out and shivery and almost start to cry and have to RUN out as fast as I could. Now that I'm a homeowner I can do it in my own house, but to this day I get chills if I have to go into my parents' basement at night
So, as a life-long wimp, you have good reason to question this next part. The summer I was 13, I stayed up late with a friend and watched "The Exorcist" on TV. This was before video tapes. Heck, this was before cable. Channel 38 was one of the six channels we got, and it ran a great program called "The Movie Loft". They played all kinds of un-cut movies that you couldn't see anywhere else. If there was a movie you were too young to see in the theater when it come out, chances were you'd eventually see it on the Movie Loft. So for some reason, I got it in my head that I wanted to see the Exorcist even though I HATE SCARY THINGS. Big mistake.
Okay, so now I'm totally creeped out. Thankfully it's daylight. I wrote this post in the morning before work so I could have all day to recover. Wish me luck at bedtime.
Blogtoberfest is halfway over so let's get back to the serious business of my interview with Amy
7. have you ever had plastic surgery? I'm fortunate that I've never needed plastic surgery for any kind of medical/reconstructive/injury type of reason. The dog-bite-to-the-jaw I sustained at age 13 didn't leave any lasting scars (except on my mother).
As for elective surgery?
and for the record: no tattoos and only one hole per ear. Guess I'm just not a body-altering kind of girl.
Have you ever seen the show Portlandia on IFC? Hilarious. "In Portland you can put a bird on something and just call it art".
(and can I just swoon for a while over Carrie Brownstein - bad-ass guitarist from my favorite, now-defunct band, Sleater-Kinney, whose new band, Wild Flag, is also totally bad ass? Because who knew, until Portlandia, that she could act, and was funny? not me. damn, she's cool. I want to be her when I grow up.)
Anyway, while looking for the video link, I found this little tasty tidbit from IFC: (putabirdonit.com) that allows you to (you guessed it) put a bird onto any website. I don't know why I find this so hilarious, but I kept doing it all morning. Here's what this blog looks like with a bird on it.
See? Now it's art!
ANYWAY, I really do have a point AND some art to share. Because in spite of birds being SO five minutes ago, I still love them.
I just created a series of 9 bird-themed ATCs for a swap-bot trade and absolutely loved making them. All nine cards went to the same partner and we were required to send nine different birds. I tried to mix it up with different styles and techniques. I was having so much fun, I could have easily made nine more. It was hard to let them go.
(look! an image transfer that doesn't totally suck! yippee!)
