Only one more Sunday night in the school year.

Life with a 12 year old who doesn't like school means a whole lot of Sunday night drama and angst.

I have a choice:  get completely sucked into the vortex of tears, or throw myself into art making while saying "I'll be right here if you need me."

Tonight I chose the latter.

(remind me next Sunday to do the same)

I mean, if I'm going to be up way too late and be totally bleary eyed and crabby at work tomorrow, at least I'll have something to show for it.

Here are four index card collages from the past few hours:

I really really really want a "withdrawn" stamp of my own.  It's such a relevant word for me.  This one was cut from a discarded library book. 

The arrows are the plastic safety seal from the neck of a new bottle of mouthwash.  It's all fair game!

 

The theme of this week seems to be recycling.

I have a friend who works at Smith College and she started saving the glossy little posters advertising campus events - giving them to me instead of tossing them in the recycling bin.

Each of the above collages feature bits of those flyers.

It's wonderful to have friends who look at trash and say "I bet Karen would like this."

I also visited my favorite local recycling center this week - Extras For Creative Reuse in Lynn, MA.

I was primarily there to get things for the kids to use in my summer camp program this year, but naturally I found all kinds of interesting tidbits for myself, including a big bag of vintage dress patterns, some scrapbooky type papers (that silver lattice stuff in the red and black card above) and other delightful bits of crap rescued from the landfill.  

This one features a phone book snagged from the lobby of an office building, some sticker waste snagged from the recycle bin at work, a girl from the newly acquired dress patterns, and text from an ad jammed under my windshield wiper while I was grocery shopping.

The green paper is part of an envelope I got from Ria.  More of the cool lattice stuff from "extras", text from that same windshield flyer.

the orange bits are from a flyer Gina sent me.  The security envelope with the holes in it is the scrap leftover from the air bubbles I made in the card above.  The background is a napkin that someone sent me a hundred years ago.

Fun with big chunks of text cut from one of the Smith College flyers.

It's nearly midnight.  The boy is finally asleep.  I am almost hallucinating with exhaustion, but I haven't missed a day of ICAD yet, and I'm closing the gap on the 365 collages challenge.  (Only 29 days behind!)

One more Sunday night, and then a two month reprieve.

Here's hoping we all survive the 6th grade.

ICAD and collages

I'm happy to say I'm totally on track with the index card challenge and I'm only 32 days behind on my 365 collages challenge.

To close the gap on the 365 challenge, I'm making two collages a day, and at least one is on an index card.  Here's what I've been up to:

Orange collage using magazine images and gum packaging

should I pat it or push it?

Not an index card, but a 6x8 postcard for a "brown" swap

Making use of some pretty papers that were gifted to me

collage from random crap that has been laying on my table for a long time

more random crap and some paint

The colors on the left are a packing tape transfer from the gelli plate.  Such a fun technique.  See the tutorial here.

collage made from stamped and stained papers leftover from my Jane Davies class.

I brought my camera on my evening walk and took pictures of all the pink things I saw.

I had a bunch of these circles (punched from my own marbled papers) leftover from birthday garlands I'd made in March.  They were still sitting next to my sewing machine so I stitched them willy-nilly onto an index card.

more of the above, plus some stamped tissue paper.

Mail Art Mondays

There's a new feature at Mail Me Some Art!

I'm hosting a biweekly blog hop, devoted to all things mail art.

Every other week there will be a new tip, tutorial or guest blogger and a "Mr. Linky" tool where you can add links to your own mail-art related posts and pictures.

Click here for all the details and the inaugural link-up!

Published!

Wah-hoo!

I just got an email that a piece of my art is being published in Featuring Magazine's upcoming issue.  They are running an article about mail art and put out a call for submissions months and months ago.

This is the piece I sent:

You can see a preview of parts of the magazine here.  (My piece is on page 18)

I've already pre-ordered my issue.

I'm not sure I've ever talked about how much I love this magazine.  This is only issue #4, but I've been reading since the beginning.

It's published in the Netherlands by Marit Barentsen (of Marit's Paperworld fame) and it is so unlike any of the other art journaling/mixed media publications.

It offers in-depth and original articles, interviews, and inspiration.  It's way more than just glossy eye candy.  It's a gorgeous publication, and a pleasure to hold in your hand, but it's the content that sets it apart and makes it worth every penny.  

I'm a huge fan, and hope they see a great deal of success, and even wider distribution.

Go check them out if you haven't already.  Back issues can be purchased from the website and the new issue can be pre-ordered right now.

Today's the day

Index-Card-A-Day starts today!

I've decided to focus on collage for my index cards this year, since I'm still fully intending to keep up with my 365 collages in 2013 challenge (even though I stopped making collages in mid-April)

After a six week collage hiatus, it's almost like I've forgotten how to do it.  ICAD will be good for me - small format, not precious, just do it.

Here's my first official card of the year:

(sadly obvious that I've been reading this book again for inspiration)

and since I won't catch up on the 35 collages I've missed by doing just one a day, here's my second one.  (also done on an index card)

oooh, I absolutely love ICAD.

reworking

One of my class assignments involved creating a loose grid of various materials and attempting to unify then in different ways.  The exercise was challenging and informative.  I made five studies, and while I certain sections connected well to other sections, the pieces as a whole didn't hang together as compositions.

 

And so , in typical fashion, I cut them into quarters to use as postcards.  I want to get better at working over collages with paint - to obscure certain areas, highlight others, unify elements.  It's not easy.  I'm always afraid to put down too much and ruin the parts I like.  Plus it's hard to decide what should be the focal point, and what needs to recede into the background.

Here are some before and after shots of the postcards I've been re-working.

I didn't do very much to these first two, and they may not be finished.  (original on left, revised on right)

 More was done to these next ones:

 

These last ones were reworked to the point of being unrecognizable

 

Here are a few more, in varying states of "doneness."

 What's in store for your weekend?  Any creative plans?

composition series

One of the exercises for my extreme composition class was to create a series in an exaggerated vertical format using one of our previous pieces as a starting point.  These are two pieces from lesson two:

 

I used the elements of these pieces as a vocabulary and made ten variations.  Which one's your favorite?

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10