Mixed Media Monday

  

I started this piece a while back (you can see it here and here), but the La Catrina image got misplaced. She reappeared in a box of miscellaneous papers one day, to my delight, so I immediately got to work on it again.  The substrate is Masonite, covered with papers, paint and gesso. La Catrina has been hand-colored and UTEE added on top. I"ll be adding metal bits, some skull beads and wire to finish it off.
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  I love using up extra bits of paper, paint, inks, etc by making ATC's.
ATC's are a great way to have a finished piece of art quickly, which can be quite satisfying! 

Four mixed-media ATC's made 10/15/11
The top heart is grunge board.

Journal Pages

A few journal pages I hadn't shown off yet. Even though the pages were journaled individually, when you open the mini folder it creates a cool two page spread. 

I used my Fastenator to staple the mini folder into my journal,
adding a nice, fold out section and some extra pages.

Food As Art

Tonight's dinner, made by my son. Homemade pizza with fresh mozzarella. Yum! Another one in the oven, with sliced Roma tomato from the garden. Now that's art!

Favorite Friday's

    My favorite this week is the visit I had yesterday with my art buddy, Raine. We hadn't seen each other in eons so a visit was long overdue. As usual we chatted, laughed and acted like our goofy selves, all the while sharing art work while sprawled in her living room. I love the fact that we hadn't been together in ages, yet it was like we'd seen each other just the day before. That's the beauty of a real friendship. No matter how much time has passed you can walk through the door, kick off your shoes and feel at home!

    After the requisite ooooing and ahhhing over each other's journals and art works we then hung out in her back studio. Raine has an amazing amount of art supplies, many of which I hadn't seen yet, so we spent a long time looking though them, talking about ways to use them and brainstorming new ideas. There is nothing quite like a day spent with another Creative Soul to get you inspired and fired up. 

Raine's Living Room Bookcase. Love the displaying of her own creations!
Art is meant to be seen and she definitely shows it off!

Some of Raine's journals

More of Raine's journals

and yet more of Raine's journals!

Raine's back studio

Some of Raine's back studio storage.

The back studio bulletin board with a nice display of her art.

The sign outside the door. LOVE this!!!

The full view of Raine's studio sign

The pile of grunge board Raine sent home with me. Am I lucky or what?

 FAVORITE EYE CANDY INSPIRATION: Teesha Moore's Journals

Creative Spaces

    I don't have an official "studio". What I have are various smaller creative spaces throughout the house. A small desk in the family room where I do block printing, ATC's, journaling & other creative tasks which don't require a lot of space. A bin full of collage supplies and a bed tray that I use when the pain levels are high and being in bed is my only option. A small backpack full of journal supplies I keep by my chair, and a 6' folding table on the back porch for larger projects or multiple projects in progress. The porch is my favorite creating spot. The light is good, the view in two directions overlooks my gardens, and there's plenty of room to move around. I'm of the mind frame that any space can be a creative one. It doesn't really matter where you create as long as you do it! Where do you create? I'd love to hear about your sacred space.

Back porch space

My supply closet. Granted, I have a whole lot more stuff that doesn't fit in here!

My on-the-go and by my chair backpack.

Journal Pages

  A small dose of journal pages for you to enjoy! There's a whole lot more where these came from. Yesterday alone I journaled at least six pages. I was in a writing mood & lucky for me had plenty of painted and collaged pages to work on.

Mixed Media... Tuesday?

A day late for Mixed Media Monday! Having everyone home yesterday had me thinking it was Sunday. I confuse easily. All I know is if I have the house to myself, it must be a week day and if there's people around, it's the weekend. Which explains why having people around yesterday had me thinking it was Sunday!


I signed up with Traci Bunker's second round of 30 Days of Get Your Art On and these creations are part of my 30 days. If you want to check out what Traci did for her 30 days either follow the link above or use the button at right.

4" x 6"on book board

8" x 10" on gesso board, LOVE the transfers and layering

8" x 10" on art board

11" x 14" on canvas, Really like the look of this one. It has an ethereal quality to it.

Vintage

  There are few things I like more than vintage clothing. I actually bought & sold vintage for years to make some extra cash to live on. Filling my own closet with vintage treasures was a bonus! The clothes of days gone by have much more character & uniqueness than today's cookie cutter fashions. The two dresses, shown alongside a vintage car collection, are two of the best I've seen outside a fashion museum.

Journal Pages

  In one of my last posts I mentioned how certain themes pop up over and over again in my journal pages. Here are a few pages done on different days, but once you read them you can see they have the same theme. Obviously I have a large personality with no shyness issues or indecision about being a bit eccentric (That's the nice way of saying crazy) and this comes through loud and clear in these pages!

Favorite Friday's

It's been a busy week, full of inspiration and fun moments. Seems like every time I turned around there was something new to discover or something old to see in a new way. A few of my favorites I share with you.


1) By far my favorite moment of the week was my son and I getting to meet Steven Cotler, author of the delightful children's book, 'Cheesie Mack is not a Genius or Anything' . Mr Cotler spent a few days in our town, meeting with the middle school kids and taping a segment of the town's Celebrity Readers program for our local access channel. My son's class spent one class period with him on Monday, which thrilled him to no end. On Tuesday we attended the show taping at the library and I had a chance to meet Mr Cotler. He is a really nice guy, easy to talk to and has lead quite the interesting life. He also had some very nice things to say about my boy which obviously made me like him even more!

2) Tuesday nights I usually take my art journal and go sit at this out of the way, hole in the wall bar called  Vincent's. From the location, a seedy part of Worcester, and the exterior you'd never guess what lurks inside. One of the funkiest, feel right at home places with the best acoustic music in town. This past Tuesday I was at my usual table (And yes. It IS mine. People move away from it when they see me walk in, art bag in hand.) listening to the acoustic duo of Scott Ricciuti (who happens to be a good friend) and John Donovan. Scott and John are two thirds of The Friday Farewells. The other third, Michael Thibodeau, was missing that night. They did some great classics by the Beatles and Who along with a bunch of originals. Between the atmosphere, the music and the eclectic photographs and various weird decorations (giant tarantula under glass anyone?) this is definitely an inspiring place for any artist.

3)  The art of Niki de Saint Phalle has always intrigued me. Especially her Tarot garden. It inspired me yet again this week when I stumbled upon her web site while looking for something else entirely. Alas, she passed in 2002 so no more unbelievable sculptural works in the future. But at least I have those from the past to continue to inspire and intrigue. If you aren't familiar with her work do check it out! It's amazing!!!