For Crowabout, Illustration Friday, Theme Thursday, and Three Muses...
Sometimes the lines get blurred, and it's hard to tell the heroes from the villains.
I'm extra busy right now, so there's no long post to go with this one.
Have a great day, Everyone!
... For Crowabout #58, Creative Catalyst #85, Created By Hand, and Theme Thursday
The Carnival...
We all know that there's a first time for everything, and often its the singular impact of those "first times" that set the stage for the "rest of the times" in our lives. My first onset of bravery and outspokenness, together with the way it was handled by my parents, set the stage for a lifetime of not being afraid to speak my mind, but also taught me to think before speaking.
The theme for this week's creative catalyst is "the scariest or most daring thing you've ever done". Before I begin to tell you about my scary and daring moment, it's necessary to consider that bravery is a relative concept. An act of bravery is dependent on many variables and factors. It's relative to fear, time, place and perception. So when I tell you about my experience, please keep in mind that I was five years old, attending my first fall carnival. It was outdoors, Halloween night, pitch dark, and occurred at a time in history when parents weren't as afraid for their children as they need to be now. For some reason, I found myself not quite lost, but temporarily separated from my parents, and holding a big bunch of tickets in my hand. So I walked into the bright lights of the midway all by myself.
The Scary Thing...
In the midst of all the open games, there was a closed, draped, tent which was beyond my power to resist. I had to know what was inside, so I parted the curtains and went in. It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust, not only because it was much more dimly lit than the midway, but because the scene was in complete contrast to the noisy booths outside. The walls and ceilings were lined and draped with multicolored silks, and glittering specks of light moved about the room. Finally my eyes settled on the turbaned figure in front of me, eyes deeply shadowed, face lit from below the chin by the light of a glowing crystal ball. At first I was too enchanted to be afraid, but then she grabbed my hand, at the same time taking about half of the tickets I was holding while she forced me into the seat at the table in front of her. Then she proceeded to read my five year old palm. I have no idea what she said to me. All I heard was the deeply mysterious sound of her voice while I tried to look away from her shining face, but my eyes remained fixed. Somehow I knew that this was exactly where I should not be, and as soon as she finished talking and let go of my hand, I tore out of the entrance and found my parents. We stayed at the carnival another hour or so.
The Brave Thing...
Before I continue, there's something else you need to know about me at that time. I was an only child, a bit shy, and I really spent my days just going with the flow. I got along with everyone, and didn't push issues, throw tantrums or rebel against anything. I didn't tell my parents about the fortune teller until just before we left, but they knew something had spooked me, and were waiting to give me the opportunity to say what it was before they asked questions. As I told them the story, my feelings about it began to change significantly. What had been my fear, converted into a sense of righteous obligation, and as we walked by the tent on our way out of the carnival, I dropped my father's hand and ran back inside. The "gypsy" was bent backwards toward the exit, boxing up the decorations and entrapments, and I guess I startled her because she had a look of mixed surprise and anger on her face when she turned to look at me, but that didn't deter me. I told her off. Inside my brain, I was seeing the faces of kids I knew who were younger than I, and I told her she had no business scaring the beejeebes out of children and taking their tickets to buy things for herself. She stood up and began a sentence: "You little...", but my dad had walked into the tent so she stopped. He stared at her with stone, cold eyes while he took my hand silently and steered me back outside. I thought he would be angry with me for running back in there like that and for talking to a grown-up that way. But the only mention he made of it at all was once, in the middle of the ride home, he said, "Sad, how easily some people will abandon their freedom for the hope that someone will determine their future." I don't think we ever spoke of it again.
The Seer...
As I was cutting up this week's collage sheet for the Crowabout group, the only thing on my mind was color. I had painted the background a few weeks ago and it was perfect for the colors in the images. It was while I was arranging the pieces that memories of the carnival and the fortune teller came back to me. And I still think it's funny that I don't remember a word she said. In fact, I remember distinctly that I wasn't hearing her the entire time she was speaking as she read my palm. But I remember my father's words, verbatim.
Now I'm ready to
Brew another cup of tea
Finish filing collage images
Get back to work on a series of papers I'm designing
And try to stay awake (it was a night of interrupted sleep), and
Put some music on!
Have a great day, Everyone!
Zetti
What makes a Zetti? We all know various components of Zetti, but how is it defined by its creators, Tracy and Teesha Moore? Am I correct that Teesha and Tracy invented all things Zetti? If not, then please set me straight. I'm really interested, not in a personal interpretation, but in the actual definition, and in how big a role personal interpretation plays in this, if at all. Why? I don't know why, must I have a reason? I just am. And not from a legalistic standpoint; more from curiosity.
At any rate, here's my Zetti, apparent in image, border and concept, but just what it is that makes these things "Zetti", I couldn't really say, at least not precisely.
Conceptual Art
I choose to illustrate concepts, not words or phrases. If I'm asked to illustrate "chair", for instance, I don't rush around looking for images of chairs, or draw a chair before I've internalized the concept and made it relevant to a part of my life. I don't find it necessary to explain the relevance, but I believe that you are more likely to find something in it that speaks to you, if something in it speaks to me. The meanings can be different for both of us, and are more meaningful if they're personal and individual. But for a piece of art to be relevant, the meaning must come from somewhere other than the observer's making it up on the fly, and while you probably won't see my story in it, hopefully you'll see something of yours. Not everyone works this way, nor should they, necessarily. It's just what I do.
Suffering
You can't study art without noticing how often the word "suffering" pops up, and in so many contexts. At some point or other, students always ask if suffering is a necessary component of creating art, and if so, why this is so. It depends on how you define suffering of course, and if your definition is ghetto poverty, then the answer is, no, it isn't necessary, in fact, it can be a hindrance, although it doesn't have to be.
But unless you're just mindlessly knocking off crafts, and hey, I'm not knocking this, it can be fun and relaxing, but in creating a piece of art, each piece has a growth cycle, and there's always some suffering involved in coming to grips with getting to know the piece and what it needs. There's a period of struggle, a push and a pull, sometimes even a fight, before you can move into the phase of peaceful execution. This type of suffering, like suffering in raising children, and working at relationships in general, carries with it an aspect of beauty and nobility.
If you separate the act of suffering, the work of it, from physical pain and the fear of death and failure, then you extract the beauty. This, simply stated, is the work of the heart. It's the added components of fear and physical pain that give suffering a bad name and conjure up the definitions that western society has saddled it with. Purely, it is in suffering that beauty is wrought, not the suffering of pain and fear, but the suffering of patience. The patience of listening and waiting, as long as it takes, for a creation to develop, working surgery when necessary to remove unwanted aspects and providing the necessary elements at the right times for growth. In Greek, "pathima".
Right now I'm:
Sitting in a public library at closing time
Getting ready to run the last few errands of the day, and
Wondering what to make for dinner.
Have a great day, Everyone!
Dia de los Muertos...
This just may be the absolute most fun I've had making anything---ever!
The minute I set my eyes on the Spooky Bingo collage sheet, the red bottle caps, and the Colorful Skellie Rounds from Ten Two Studios, I knew they were the perfect choices for making a Day of the Dead tic tac toe board, complete with game pieces! The Skellie rounds are perfectly sized for a 1" circle punch, and you'll just have to click on the link to take a look at the spooky bingo sheets because for this piece, I just cut out the centers. You've got to see the originals because they come complete with spooky words and sentiments that you can bet will make their way into another project of mine before too long!
The skellie rounds come in an array of skellies and flowers and skellies with flowers. I picked five skellies for the "X" player, and five flowers for the "O" player. I poured a little resin into the bottle cap after I glued in the image, let it set and cure over night, then glued the sequins onto the rim with diamond glaze. Easy, fast and fun!!
I must confess that even before I photographed it, first thing this morning Amy and I played a few rounds with the board while sipping our morning tea. We're too good for each other, it seems! Each game was a stale-mate, but we kept on playing because it was so much fun to hold the little pieces and soak in all those gorgeous Day of the Dead colors!!
Orange...
Speaking of color, Theme Thursday wants to see some orange this week, and since this piece abounds with yummy bright orange, along with all the other colors in the vibrant Day of the Dead rainbow, it's a "go"!
Relaxing A Bit...
I must say that after a few of the most trying days, life is finally easing back onto an even keel. Now I'm:
Off to the kitchen to conjure up dinner
Listening to the sounds of blessed silence, as everyone else is napping
Recouping my energy after a hot and humid afternoon!
Thinking about a vodka tonic--hmmmm...
A warm bath, comfy clothes and a good book!
Have a great day, Everyone!
The Book...
This pair of 4X4s is part of a set of 38! Am I crazy? You all know how I hate mass-producing things, and I always swear that this one will be the last! But I couldn't resist getting involved in this project, since it will be part of a book of lock and key themed pages for an art group I belong to. There are 38 of us participating in this project, and each of our pages will be bound into a book of 4X4s, hence the little bit of room on the left side of the page.
Guilty Pleasures...
So what does one keep under lock and key? A diary? Secrets? Skellies in the closet? How about our guilty pleasures? Cake is something that took me years to acquire a taste for. When I was a little girl going to birthday parties, and there were tons of them, I remember asking for "Just the ice cream, please". After the birth of my son I found myself eating cake, and enjoying it! Funny how our tastes can change. And now with a trillion gourmet bakeries in this city, including Sprinkles of Beverly Hills, cupcakes really have become my guilty pleasure.
4X4s...
These are two of several color palettes I've used in making the pages for our book. I chose to scan these two, since upon reflection it occurred to me that they could as easily double as baby shower invites, which is the current Cardvaarks theme. And they are 4X4s, which makes them perfect for Theme Thursday, too.
Other stuff I've been up to...
Listening to deep tracks on Sirius XM
Watching episodes of Manhattan, Arizona on Hulu
Reading Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Novels; Finishing Titus Groan and beginning Gormenghast
No longer fighting Adobe for my Photoshop upgrade--letting the professionals handle it
Painting, journaling, collage-ing, binding and glueing
Looking forward to a collaborative project with 5 of my favorite artists
Needing more sleep and more exercise, but in this heat, merely existing is an accomplishment, and
Now to get something icy to sip while I cut some book boards...
Have a great day, Everyone!
Traveling Circus
I really have a thing for the circus, carnivals and clowns, especially those of the slightly creepy variety, so Theme Thursday's challenge this week was right up my alley! This also led to thoughts of circus performers spending so much of their lives on the road, and living out of suitcases, which in turn led to thoughts of just how much one really needs to carry with them, what is important, and which things really add to quality of life, and which constitute excess baggage. Page seventeen was the outcome.
Before I go, there's an award that my great friend Rosie Rowe bestowed upon me which must be passed along to ten other bloggers, one day at a time. You can see the award and read about it HERE. Today I'm passing it on to my daughter for her wonderful blog, My Pointe Of View. Amy, you make my heart smile!
Right now I'm:
Thrilled with some glittery new paints that came in the mail today
Wanting to make some fonts and stencils
Still smiling from a fun night out with my kids and their friends
Glad that I cleaned the badges and blinkies from my sidebar
Hope no one's upset or offended that they are gone
Have a great day, Everyone!
On Gifts and Flowers...
It's "Flowers" at Theme Thursday this week, and page fourteen is filled with the beauty of the impermanence of flowers, as well as my thoughts on gifts, in general.
I love contrast: Contrast in light, contrast in color, contrast in theme, contrast in material, contrast in texture, contrast in general! My use of contrast is so instinctual that I often scan (with my eyes) my own artwork after I have finished something and look for the contrasting elements that I did not place consciously.
Aside from what I "meant to do", I found the contrasting autumn colored background with the images of spring in the foreground. It made me think: Are these colors really exclusive to fall? The top left is the glowing sun of summer, and the mossy greens of spring are in the lower right. Are there really colors that are indigenous to seasons? Or do we just make connections and assumptions about color, as in "pink for girls and blue for boys"?
I knew I needed to add the antique doll, but it wasn't until the piece was complete that I noticed the significance of her aging body in illustrating how time is precious. And I did not consciously contrast her with the new growth and buds of spring.
If we can learn about an artist's psyche by studying works in art history, then how much more can we learn about ourselves by studying our own artwork?
Right now I am:
Listening to the March wind outside my window
Breathing in the scent of freshly picked Rosemary
Getting ready to bake a turkey
Anxious to get it in the oven so I can paint while it cooks
Glad for the "quiet" in my home today
Before I go, I'd like to share something with you. It's a powerpoint presentation featuring Sam, the Koala that was rescued from the fires in Australia. If you're interested, click Download Sam's_Story to view it. I have never inserted a file in a blog post, so I'm hoping this works, and you'll need to have powerpoint, or a powerpoint viewer to see it, I think.
Have a great day, Everyone!
Theme Thursday's challenge this week is to make vintage valentines. Here's mine:
The dog and cat are unmounteds from StampFrancisco, stamped with black VersaFine onto plaid patterned paper, and the valentine sentiment is from the dollar bin at Michael's. I penned the dots and the 'love' with a black micron pen, and crafted the lace border with one of Martha Stewart's lace border punches. The script background paper is from Pink Petticoat's newest valentine collection.
It's way past my bedtime, so I'm planning to unwind with a good book and get six hours of blissful slumber.
Have a great Friday, Everyone!
Theme Thursday's challenge for the week is "road trip". I found this wonderful photo of VW vans cruising through Kruger National Park in South Africa on safari, and decided to add my own little orange VW van to it, courtesy of a sheet of freebies from Mad About Cards.
The safari photo was further altered with flowers, an African postage stamp and a bug. The bug is there because, if you've ever been to Africa, you know that insects, especially the flying and crawling varieties, are like nothing you'll ever encounter anywhere else! The fire ants are as big as tractors, and their sting is so acidic and poisonous that a friend of mine has 15-year-old scars up and down one entire side of his body from ants that stung him while he slept on a camping trip....he almost died!
The flowers are from the same K&Company cardstock that backs the photograph, and to me they evoked memories of the colors of African sunsets, and African daisies. The postage stamp is from the Congo. Unless I pull the stamps off the letters myself, I'm always a little skeptical. I never know if they're real, or if they're simply an "art" stamp, but this one fit, and I think it's real. So there you have it: An altered photo of a faux memory, now part of an art journal.
And while we're on the subject of road trips, let me digress for just one moment to cross-promote my DH's blog, TireKicker, which is all about cars, and other things automotive. One of Michael's ventures in life is auto reviews, and even if you're not really into cars, he's a great writer and you'll find lots of information packed into each post, complete with photos, and usually a bit of humor as well. It's fully search-able, so if you're looking for information on a particular make or model, it's easy to find.
Now I'm not at all what you could call a car-lover! But I am the "second opinion" driver for his reviews, simply because I am a different sex, a different size, and use cars as tools, to haul kids, groceries, gear, and art stuff, and I'd like the "haul" to be as pleasant as possible, without having to take a 10-day course in gadgetry each time I move from one car to the next. Michael uses them for transportation, for pleasure, and because to him, they can be items of beauty---that last part, I don't understand at all! But since automotive transportation is a necessary part of each of our lives, in one form or another, I'm sure that you, or someone you know or live with, will find his blog interesting and informative, so please go take a look!!
Have a great day, Everyone, and Happy Driving!
Another journal page. Theme Thursday's challenge this week is to illustrate Halloween or Autumn. It's still over 100 degrees here, and thoughts of Autumn in this heat takes more than my over-active imagination can muster!
Halloween is a bit easier and gives me the excuse to use 3 pieces of virgin rubber from StampFrancisco" The skull, the sinister bunny and the butler. The background is orange tissue paper applied with matte medium under and over. Each of the images were stamped onto 140# cardstock, cut out and applied with more matte medium. All the treats are stickers from Japan. Some are from Sanrio, the others I'm not sure about. Aside from the cute little treat bag I made for the bunny, everything else is done with an 8mm black Micron pen.
And just to remind you....Sherry's month-long blog party with give-aways and goodies is just a click away! You can find information on my blog HERE, then click your way over to Sherry's blog and join the party!!
Have a great day, Everyone!
Theme Thursday's challenge for the week is "people with wings". I added a 2 page spread to my journal, this time a little darker than usual, just to reflect a mood.
It's been an odd day. Our 10-year-old rescue Bichon Frise, Mr. Hoot, has never had a health problem, but like all of us, he isn't getting any younger. Still, he isn't old, and has always been healthy. Out of the blue, just after midnight, I noticed that he wasn't in our bed. I found him trying to sleep on the floor under the piano bench, so I carried him to bed. It was clear that he was in distress, but not really in pain. He slept curled up in one spot all night long, but I didn't sleep much. This morning he wasn't any better, and when at one point he shrieked in pain, we took him right to the vet. Once there, he perked-up, and truly acted as if nothing was wrong. He got a full exam, and the diagnosis was slight arthritis in the hips. Nothing more. He got a shot, and left the office as if he were a puppy. But once home, he reverted back to listless, not eating nor drinking. So it's been a day of worry, hope, relief, and now worry once more. I suppose it could be the medicine, but the vet seemed to think that the shot would make him feel almost too well for the good of his hips, and not the other way around. It's the beginning of a long week-end, so we'll just have to watch and hope for the best. You can see pictures of the handsome guy by clicking HERE.
As for the journal piece, the winged boy in the center of the page is from the pack of unmounted rubber I received from Arty Girlz when I won the draw. The stamps are from Stampattack, and they are absolutely wonderful! Other stamps used were the trees from Inkadinkadoo, and Invoke Arts "blackbird". All of them were stamped with black Staz-On. Everything else on the page is either German scrap, or handwritten or doodled with a black Sharpie pen.
Have a great day, Everyone! And an early Happy 4th of July!
Theme Thursday's challenge for the week is to make ATCs featuring "men". I hope it's OK that my man is purely fictional.
A couple of weeks ago, we went to the Saboten-Con, an all-week-end-long anime/manga convention and festival. Saboten means "cactus" in Japanese, so Saboten-Con is the Cacuts Comic-con, or comic book convention. My kids read/watch these, and I devour the music and the artwork. My ATC man is gently altered from a deck of anime playing cards that I bought specifically to use in artwork. This guy was the 8 of diamonds. His name is Nobu, and he's from the anime/manga series Nana.
I gave him rub-on wings from Vintage Transfers to wrap around his shoulders like a shawl, and then poured a generous helping of diamond glaze over all. When it was just beginning to set, I added the button, lock and key, and the German scrap around the perimeter. It had to cure overnight, then I was able to finish it with the rub-on text from Creative Imaginations. I wish you could see the dimension and the shine, but alas, my photography skills are limited. He's also a bit lighter in real life (or as *real* as life gets for a fictional character) and he is a blond, not a red-head. But you get the general idea. Young, handsome, and fictional. Who could ask for more in a man??
Have a great day, Everyone!!
The Final 2-page spread in the "divas" section of my art journal is about going places, transporting, and about transportation, which is Theme Thursday's challenge for the week.
Simply dreaming is a form of transportation, pondering where you are, where you want to be, and how you might get there. This page contains lots of thinly layered acrylics and mediums, gesso, Marvy markers, fine point markers, black micron pen and clear stamps by Kelly Panacci and Studio G, stamped with black VersaFine. The image is an altered face from a magazine ad.
What are the colors and the numbers of your dreams? Fame? To be a sought-after supermodel photographed while basking in the sun, reclined on the hood of a car? Is Paris a destination? Will you arrive at the Eiffel Tower in a red limousine? What about numbers? No one alive escapes traveling the days and years of life. We "get past" the week to "arrive" at the weekend. The turn of the century is now "behind" us, and it's "a long way" to the year 2100. Even if you stay in one place, travel is inevitable. A friend of mine met an old man in Turkey who told him that he had traveled farther in his dreams from the place where he sat than most men could go in ten lifetimes. You don't have to be in motion to realize that you are heading some place. The question is: "Where"?
Page 2 includes number stamps from Close to My Heart and Paperbag Studios, the Eiffel Tower rub-on from Anna Griffin, a red car sticker from Paperchase, as well as more acrylics, mediums, gesso, pens. black VersaFine, and a magazine model on the hood of a car.
Have a great journey, Everyone, and travel well. Even if only in your dreams!
My Little Diva 2 page art journal spread uses snippets of paper from my scrap bin for the TGIF challenge and celebrates girls, which is the Theme Thursday challenge of the week.
The little divas are cut from a several year old Oilily catalog. The decoration at the bottom and upper corners are hand-cut from pieces of magenta paper right out of my scrap bin.
After priming the paper with acrylic paint, I stamped All Night Media's Chinese Coin stamp randomly with black Staz-On. The flowers and the stars are stickers, and the rest is written and doodled.
Have a great weekend, Everyone!!
Tea holds such an exalted place in my life that it deserved a two-page journal spread. The entire "Tea Or Coffee" theme for this week's Theme Thursday deserves a whole journal section of its own, as they are part of my daily triad of power-ups which include tea, coffee and sometimes, chocolate!
The journal from Kelly Kilmer's workshop has 4 sets of 4 signatures, or 4 - 16pg. sections. The theme for my first section is Divas. The second section is Power-ups, or What Gets And Keeps Me Going. Tea plays a large role in this, not only as an energizer, but also as a tool for calm, center and focus. I have LOTS of tea in my house! So much, that a focal point is my huge basket of tea canisters. If you look closely, there are two close-up photos of items in this basket in my journal pages.
Speaking of close-ups, here is a detail of the first page which has a close-up of my tea stash basket in the background.
And just so you know about this and don't go away empty-handed, the teacups photo album on my left sidebar has some cups of my own making that are yours, free for the taking. If you do use them in your artwork, please let me know so I can see what you've done!!
Have a great day, Everyone!
