"Use my stuff" week - part 3

As the hostess of "Mail Me Some Art" I get a lot of mail every week. 

Many of the envelopes people use to send their swap items are works of art themselves.  Sometimes I reuse them, but since most of my own mail art takes the post card form, I don't use that many envelopes.  Some are just too beautiful to recycle, so they've been piling up in a basket.

I finally had a great idea for using them.

I turned them into pages in a hand-bound journal!

 I folded each envelope in half, and used three envelopes per signature.

There are 8 signatures, and I used a long-stitch binding.

 

It's pretty fat, so I incorporated a stretchy band into the back cover so I can hold it closed.

 The front and back covers came from a cardboard envelope sent to me by Valerie.  The spine is duct tape.

I'm not sure what I'll use it for, but I'm in love with this book.

Here's a shaky one-handed flip-through if you want to see a little more.

"Use My Stuff" week - part 2

I'm involved in a junk journal project with members of my "super mail artists" group.  Each of us has an old book or journal that we are using as a place to make collages using papers sent by other members.

It's not a round robin - we keep our junk journals are the only people who work in them, but the collages will be made with materials sent by different people.

We've had two rounds so far.

Here are the collages made with Gina's stuff.  She sent a huge fat envelope of wonderful stuff and the day I got it I sat right down and whipped out two collages before dinner, but I haven't revisited her stash since then.

All of the next collages were made from Tina's stuff.

I was sitting at my coffee table Friday night watching a "Parks and Recreation" marathon and I was on a roll with Tina's papers.

I really like the challenge of working with a limited pile of materials, and it was far more satisfying doing this with friends than with strangers (like yesterday's cards).  Though all of us in the SMA group have different styles, we share an overall sensibility.  The papers I've received for this project have all inspired and excited me rather than frustrating and disappointing me.  Lesson learned - don't swap with strangers.

"Use my stuff" week.

I've been working with other people's papers lately, both through formal swaps and by digging through my basket of treasures I've received in the mail.

Rather than writing the longest blog post in history, I've decided to give you a week of different "use my stuff" projects.

First up, a Swap-bot trade with randomly assigned people I'm not familiar with.

Here's how the swap worked.

I sent an envelope of collage fodder from my stash to two different people and they sent me back a postcard they made with my stuff.

And of course I got two envelopes of stuff from two different people, and had to make postcards out of their stuff.

Here are the two postcards I made.

This first one was using Angela's stuff.  It was really hard for me because she sent a lot of scrapbook paper and cutesy black and white rubber stamp images (which you know is not my thing at all. ) There was one page from an anatomy book which kind of saved the project for me.

 I don't really like these at all, but I couldn't bring myself to make a more traditional scrapbook/stampy kind of card.

 The next one used Cynthia's stuff.  The envelope had a wide variety of stuff in it and was more fun to play with.  The materials and colors are not things I would have chose for myself, but I like the end result slightly better.

 

Next are the two postcards I got in return.

It was really fun to see what these people did because it was not at all how I would have used the pieces.

This is what Amy made with my stuff:

And this is what Joyce made with my stuff:

None of these cards really look like my work, but it begs the question - which looks more like "me?"  The ones I made with other people's stuff, or my stuff used by others. 
Is my style more defined by technique or material?

and the winner is....

The winner of issue three of "Art Together" is ....

Gill

Gill, I just sent you an email to the address linked to your blogger profile- can you confirm that's your best email address so that I can pass it along to Amy?

She will email you the file for the zine.

Thanks to everyone who entered.

Arrested development

This sweet boy just turned 13.

Over the past few weeks I've noticed him revisiting favorite things from his younger years.  On the brink of mysterious and unknown adolescence, there's comfort in the safe and familiar.

This is the conversation we had the night before his birthday...

Him:  When I wake up tomorrow I'll be a teenager

Me:  What will that feel like?

Him:  Weird

Me:  You know what's even weirder?  When I wake up tomorrow I'll be the mother of a teenager.  It's weird because I don't really feel that much older than 13.

Him:  You don't really seem that much older than 13.

Me:  ummmm.....thanks?????

Him:  don't worry, that's a good thing.

So there you have it.

It's evident, even to my son, that for better or for worse, I'm a 13 year old trapped in a 46 year old's body. 

 And true to form, Max is not the only one doing some revisiting this week....

 I needed to send a sympathy card to a dear friend, and I wanted it to be hand made but I had no new ideas. Days were slipping by and I couldn't come up with anything I liked, and so I went back to some of my old work and made these three blank note cards:

#1

#2

#3

Prior to this I'd been struggling to do something - anything - on canvas.

Feverish layers of paint...

No vision.... 

No direction....

Just frustration and a stack of ugly canvases leaning against the wall. 

(There may even have been hand-wringing, teeth-gnashing and profanity.)

It felt so good to take a break and do something that came easily to me that I just kept going with these small index card collages.   And no, you haven't seen these before.  (you've just seen these, these, and these)

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

No new ground has been broken, but I will take a lesson from the other 13 year old in the house and rather than berate myself, find pleasure and solace in the familiar, knowing there is big growth ahead.

"Art Together" giveaway

 Amy Hood speaks my language.

She publishes a wonderful e-zine called "Art Together", which (in her own words)

"is designed to inspire confidence in adults to explore open-ended art-making alongside children. Each issue is full of activities, information, a featured artist and material, and friendly encouragement about how fun (and yes, easy!) it is for adults and kids to play with art materials together."

Issue three was just released last week and Amy has generously donated a copy for me to give away.  This issue is all about printmaking – a subject I adore!

 Amy's zines focus on exploring techniques and materials rather than working toward a completed project or specific end goal.

Her philosophy is near and dear to my heart.  As an early childhood educator, I've spent my entire professional career preaching the importance of the process of creating rather than the finished product or outcome.  Very young children do not sit down to paint a masterpiece, they simply immerse themselves in the experience - often using their whole bodies, all their senses, and any surface they can find.  They create for the sheer joy of creating.  It's something we forget how to do as adults, and I love Amy's writing because she reminds us of the benefits of this type of exploration at any age.  (Her three part series on "process vs. product" should not only be required reading for anyone who interacts with children, it should be required reading for everyone who likes to make stuff.)

 But back to the zine....

It's 35 beautifully written, gorgeously photographed, thoroughly researched pages.

She starts with basic background information on printmaking to ground us in the techniques, goes on to highlight the Japanese artist, Hokusai (and his famous woodblock prints), then shares five fun ways to explore printmaking at home (with or without kids!). The zine also includes an extensive (and annotated) list of books, websites and other resources to further your explorations into printmaking.

It's highly readable, thoroughly unintimidating, and full of ideas, tips and suggestions.

One of the techniques Amy highlights in this issue is Collagraphs.  (prints made from collages)

As a lover of both printmaking and collage, this is something I've always wanted to try.

Amy's zine was just the encouragement I needed.

In her spirit of play and experimentation I stopped worrying about my final image and just started grabbing any textured item I could find in my stash.   I didn't put a lot of thought into composition - I just quickly glued my items to a heavy piece of cardboard.  Here's the crazy collage I ended up with:

After letting it dry under a stack of books overnight, I loaded it up with green acrylic paint:

I pressed a piece of copy paper on top and rubbed.  Here's what my print looks like:

I decided to try a two-tone print, and so I added black paint to a few areas of the collage without adding any more green.

Here's the second print:

It's pretty cool.  I can see myself ripping these up and incorporating them into other collages.  For now, I saw the perfect opportunity to make an interesting envelope for an outgoing letter:

This was just a quick experiment, and it's got my head buzzing with ideas.  What other materials can I use in my base collage?  What if I use ink instead of paint?  Will it work with tissue paper?  What would happen if I layered a second print on top of the first print?

I'm excited by the possibilities.

As you can see, even if you don't have young kids, Amy's zines are wonderful spring boards for your own creativity.

Want to find out for yourself?
Leave a comment by Friday, March 21st to be entered to win a copy of Art Together - Issue Three.

The winner will be announced Saturday, March 22nd.

(or click here to read more about Issue Three and to buy any of the first three issues of Art Together.)

Update:
The giveaway has closed.
Congratulations to Gill for winning the zine.
Thanks to everyone who entered!

Have glue stick, will travel

Post cards made on the road using my in-flight travel magazine and a variety of other stuff picked up in San Francisco.

Doesn't take much to keep me entertained.