And now back to art...

Whew! The Olympics are over! Now I can finally tear myself away from the TV and get back to making art. I had been puttering here and there during the last two weeks, but nothing like I normally do.

On my agenda is to try some new paint techniques Penn told me about that she learned at a class at Artwerx. Last night I got playing with black paint and gesso and made an alpha background. I'm not sure what I am going to do with it, but I would like to try playing with the paints and make several pages of painted backgrounds to use in future collages.

On Saturday, Penn and I went to the Bellingham ATC swap. As always, we did some shopping for bits and pieces to add to our art supply collections. (Which I have decided is really turning into an excuse for me to hoard stuff.) We also got inspired just spending time with fellow artists at the exchange. My latest set of ATCs is titled "Bad Seed" and is based on twisting words and phrases just enough so they are mean. As in "It's always funny when somebody loses an eye." instead of "It's always funny till somebody loses an eye." This was met with great amusement and I have plans for the next ATC in the series. *evil grin*

I have several projects on the go over at Nervousness. It's nice that the site is so active-lots of project to choose from. Okay off to get my hands covered in paint! Ta!

My page for Tracy Roos' chunky book-"Sky's the Limit " (Unembellished.)  

Thoughts

Lately I have been taking a bit of a break from being the art machine that I am. This is due to the Olympics consuming most of my waking hours. I figure they are only on every 2 years (Between winter and summer Olympics) so I need to watch while the watchin' is good. Go Canada! *grin*

I have managed to work on pages for the "Do Not Go Gentle" collabrative book project I am doing on Nervousness. I am really excited to see what everyone does. I also am waiting for the arrival of a chunky book I participated in organized by the amazing Tracy Roos, who tells me will be in my hot little hands mid-September. It's called "Sky's the Limit" and has 69 artists in it. I can only imagine how think this baby is going to be! Everyone used images from Tracy's collage sheets.

Other than that, I am planning a trip next weekend to Bellingham for the monthly ATC swap with my friend Penn. I am looking foreward to seeing everyone, especially Gretchen, who is a phoniminal artist and is just *so* kind and pleasant to be around. It is just so wonderful to have friends in real life who love the same art things that I do. It inspires me to play hard and get really good at what I do and to learn more, which in turn just feeds my spirit and makes me enormously happy.

Artwerx

I went into Richmond on Friday night to Artwerx . They were having a vendor's market that was open to the public and I thought I would go check it out. There were all kinds of good things to be had. I bought a cool unmounted alphabet stamp set. I also got some angel wings and crowns and a couple of mini compasses I wanted for an altered book. It was inspiring to see so many neat altered art things in one place.

I have been working on making some new collages on canvass and some on bookboard. I also prepped some other pieces I want to make by working on the background so that when I am ready to work on them, I have the base for the piece ready.

Saturday I am heading to Bellingham for the ATC swap, but I have to get my cards ready today since I am going out of town this week and today will be the only chance I have to make some. Last time I ran out and so I am now in card debt. I have to make extras for the ones I owe-I hate being in the hole! LOL!

I am also working on a collaborative book called "Do Not Go Gentle". The theme is grief and my friend Penn and I are co-hosting it. She is such a great book binder and *so* creative. I am sure this project is going to come out fantastic. I will have to post some pics when it's done.

In the meantime, the struggle is between wanting to create art and waiting to watch the Olympics, my other favourite obsession. My work space is not TV accessible and I don't think paint and glue belong in the livingroom. (My carpet would be in peril! I am messy when I work.) So far, I keep bouncing back and forth between working and watching. In a perfect world, I would have a proper studio with space for a TV and my computer. I need to win the lotto!!

Doins'

Hello everyone! I have been busy the last few days working on a project for Nervousness. (If you have no idea what that is, check it out!) I finally bit the bullet and became a member, thanks to my friend Penn. She invited me to participate on one of her collabrative books and now I am hopelessly addicted. We (Penn and I) are currently working on a new project. It's another collabrative book, this time with a theme I wanted to explore-grief. Penn came up with a great title- "Do Not Go Gentle" based on a poem by Dylan Thomas, which we are using as a jumping off point. I have my first set of pages done and have ideas for a few more in the works. I can't wait to see what everyone does.

I am also in the middle of another collabrative book project with the ever enchanting Tracy Roos. She is hosting the monster of all book projects-this one required a whopping 70 pages per artist! This will be one thick book by them time it's assembled and every page will have an embellishment. Very exciting! I will have to post some pics here when it arrives. It will be like Christmas!

My quilting sits forgotten in the corner and calls my name each time I pass by. I am largely ignoring it till the fall when it will be cooler and I might be able to think about sitting under it as I work. In the meantime, I am plenty happy puttering and fiddling with paper and paint and trying out techniques from Claudine Hellmuth's Collage Discovery Workshop book. I even picked up some bee's wax to try, but I have to figure out what I am going to melt it in first.

TTFN!

Welcome to my blog!

Jan Smiley's latest book which includes art by yours truely. See the link for Amazon on my links page if you are interested. It is available for pre-order now with release in January 2005. 

All Better Now!

Okay so I think I have fixed all the boo-boos on my site. (See me with my fingers crossed?!?) I have also added some new sites to my links page for those of you who love to surf. The newbies are:

Amazon
Ink and the Dog
Green Frog Studios
Dan Brown

Have fun!

Glitches

Just when you think you've got everything straightened out, the cyber glitch informs you otherwise. While I now have this blog linked up to my website, I am missing images on a number of pages. Frustrating, but true. I am going to have to figure out why that happened and work on restoring the images, so my apologies to anyone who sees this and hopefully it will all be fixed PDQ. Please bear with me!

"Every Family Has One" is about all the different types of people you find in every family. There is the adventurer, the clown, the rebel, the hero and the diva. I thought it would be a fun concept to work with. I married paper with fabric and this was the result.

I also sent in this daytimer since it had a quilting quote on it. It reads: "Of all the things a woman's hands have made, the quilt so lightly thrown across her bed-the quilt that keeps her loved ones warm is woven of her dreams  and love and thread." I just love this quote. 

"Angel of Lost Buttons" daytimer was right for this project, since it had lots of sewing related images. 

"Three Ring Circus" is a flip book with blank pages for journalling or taking notes. The picture on the cover was made by transferring a vintage photo with added text onto fabric. This is a method I really like using. It's easy and the results are great!

"Time" is a fabric and paper tag book. I had a this wonderful piece of fabric that had vintage time pieces and had yet to use it. When this project came up, it seemed perfect. Each page has some of the clocks on it and is embellished with various watchmaker's parts. The text is from Jim Croce's song "Time in a Bottle" which is a song I loved as a kid.

At Long Last!!

Thanks to my darling and oh-so-talented friend Farrell, I now have the blog set up and linked up with my website so I can blog away! YAY! and a big hug to Wonder Girl! You are the BEST!

So the newest of the news is that in January of 2004, I was invited by Jan Smiley to participate in a book she was working on for C&T Publishing. Having been a quilter for over 12 years, I am quite familiar with that publishing company and was very excited to be asked. Her book is based on textile related altered art and will be released in January 2005. "The Art of Fabric Books: Innovative Ways to Use Fabric in Scrapbooks, Altered Books & More" is now available for pre-order via Amazon if you are interested.

You can get a sneak peek at the artwork I created right here! (The 5 pictures appearing above this post are the pieces that I submitted for the book.)