Something is changing...

So, I am working on a change. You can be a part of it. I will open the lid slowly. Stay connected with me here and see what happens.

April Art at the Library

Artist Trading Card Art at the Library this month is all about zentangles.

"Zen" as in the meditation tradition.

"Tangle" as in the intricate paths of our pens as we draw.

Does this sound complicated? Well, it isn't really. We start with a blank ATC card:

Then draw 3 curved lines:

And start filling in the spaces with simple designs:

After that we decorate the smaller shapes:

So why am I giving out instructions before we meet?

Because drawing like this is fun. Certainly. You know.

But drawing in a room with others is wonderful. It is a good time multiplied. And you deserve that.

So, we will see you on Saturday afternoon, 2 - 4 PM, at the Rockport Public Library, O.K.?

Choosing (a) God

I was challenged the other day to know whether God loved us. I said that I couldn't believe in a god who didn't.

So, I got to thinking about that. Imagine that the gods were lined up to apply for the job of being my god. I have a mental picture of the scene: YHWH, Ganesh, Bridget, Quan Yin, Kali, Zeus, Jesus, Allah, Astarte, y'know: a long string of the all-powerful and omnicient. I have a clipboard and am asking some questions: What is your definition of Love? How do you deal with Human Error? Would you be willing to use me as a channel for bringing your Blessings to Earth? Are you available for comfort calls in the deepest, darkest night? What creative act are you most proud of? What role do the arts play in your daily worship? How much do you love me and my kids?

Now I will tell you: the minute I start getting answers that include shame and violence I direct the applicant over to the tea and thank-you-for-your-time table. Thunderbolts are a weather pattern not a teaching tool. Patience is a necessity for us humans. They are gods, I am guessing that they have infinate resources: I expect them to use them, not just sit around cataloging their assets. One of them is not willing to shed good red blood for my family? It is a handshake and good-bye for Him/Her.

Maybe Jehovah and Jupiter were the only options we had once upon a time, but this is the age of the internet. There are a lot of choices out there. I want Someone who will teach with kindness and comfort with passion. And if the answer to that last question about how much they Love doesn't include some explanation about travel to the ends of the known and unknown Universe then I will keep looking. I love my kids that much. I certainly expect the same from my God/dess.

Great Party

We had a great party at the Library the other day. Here are a few pictures for fun. We had five "stations". The first was painting. (Complete with a hair dryer for drying speed.)

The next was collage.

We also had paper punches to construct little medallions and a little collection of rubber stamps.

So there we were nestled in the stacks finishing our ATCs with some doodling..See you on April 17th for zentangling. Ooooh.

ATC Party at the Library!

We are having an ATC party at the Library

Saturday, March 20, 2:00 - 4:00

You are invited.

I wanted to make it really easy this month to make a bunch of new cards all at once. You know, get a little stash of ATCs and fatten up your collections. There will be different stations - a very quick, really interesting paint technique, a couple of new ideas at the collage table, very cool medallions to make at the paper punching station, plus drawing and rubber stamping, of course.

All of the techniques are easy enough for school children, but, as always, the artistically dexterous get this stuff in their hands and come up with amazing little works of visual delight.

To entice you further I have put together some great door prizes: if you are a newcomer to the group, or the friend who brings a newcomer there is one prize, if you are a K-12 teacher or a medical professional then I have a different door prize for you. Other categories for door prizes include professional artists (visual, performing or literary), high school students and prolific ATC makers.

The Library staff will have some refreshments for us, and I will make time for trading at the end of the party.

I can hardly wait. I have been having a lot of fun planning (making sample ATCs!)

I will see you there.

portfolio

I am taking a class wherein we are making protective covers for books. This might be the kind of thing that I would expect that I knew how to make by now, but our teacher is very talented and takes a lot of pleasure in making her edges straight and having her corners match up. This is something I am not so patient with, and also there is the added bonus of having other artists to play with. Great.

We started out learning how to make a portfolio. Here is the back of mine, all neat and lovely.But then on the front I got overeager and slopped glue in the wrong place - see over there in the left hand corner? OFO: Opportunity For Ornament.

We were then supposed to glue ties into the center edges of both front and back to tie the book closed. Well, I had had too much fun with vertical bindings lately so I adjusted that direction, and glued my closure ribbon under a Model Magic (a Crayola brand air-dry clay) medallion that I had made by rubber stamping it and painting it gold with a leafing pen.Then I couldn't stop. I made pockets inside. The one on the right holds another paper bag journal, and the one on the left holds some decorative elements:I had the thought to use these painted paper and thread elements in the book, but I just got going on the pages ...

So that was fun.

beading a valentine

Yup. I've been beading a Valentine...

Painted Paper Freebies

O.K., so I have been painting all of these journal pages ... I also got out a block of watercolor paper to paint then cut up and use as embellishments and medallions on my pages.

Well some of the color combinations I liked a whole lot, some were O.K., and some have some colors going that I am really unfamiliar with.

So I am going to give them to you. For free. Just copy them and print onto whatever kind of paper you like. But then here is what I would really like to happen: Whatever you end up doing with them, take pictures and post on your blog, or Flikr or wherever. Comment here to link to your page so that we can all go get inspired.
Waiting to hear from you - and I hope that you have fun with it,

Robinsunne

Art Journaling

So, as I said, I have been studying this "art journal" thing, learning, perusing web (check out Teesha Moore among the many) and printed page (check out 1000 Artist Journal Pages among the more many) and delving into my ridiculously abundant stash of paper, scissors, glue and paint. I have come up with questions, answers and more questions. And: I have this relative who went to Cambridge University in England where they have the phrase "reading for one's degree". A concept that as a homeschooling Mom I love - as if we are all intelligent enough to read ourselves to Aptitude. Yes, well, I am reading for my degree in Art Journaling, even if I do not have the luck to also attend Cambridge. (Will colleges be outmoded by the elaborate profuseness - is that a word? - and facility of the Internet as they say the printed book will be??) (Ha, As if.) So I will show you pages that I have painted. Remember that I said in an earlier post that the pages were odd papers that I had hanging around? Maps, calendar photos, brown paper bags, not completely successful painting experiments...

Thus the crazy shapes of the pages.

This pink page was gessoed (the back of a calendar photo and so: upside down), then painted, then sprayed with water and after sitting on the paint for 20 seconds or so, a paper towel laid on top, patted gently, and lifted up to reveal the polka dots.And I have been wildly, and with abandon, playing with, not brushing the paint onto the pages but, scraping various layers of color onto the pages.
I have no idea why these pre-edited pictures have come out sideways...

And then I started to make medallions for the pages...Another paper cut. This might be the one I taped into place with packing tape. Or maybe it is the one I glued with Paper Mod Podge.

As I scraped the paint I made designes on the cardboard. I liked this one so mych that I let it dry and made an embellishment out of it.
I think that it looks like mountains.

Gold chocolate coin wrapper here (a favorite embellishment) painted into place with sequin glue, metal tape affixed to fun foam and embossed with the blunt end of a 1.25 crochet hook.A really favorite paper cut and layered medallion. (Glued together with bits of felt in between as I could not find my sticky foam dots.)

Another with a bit of gilding. And lastly this morning a few words about writing. On the dark pages I write with a white Sharpie poster paint pen, and on the lighter pages I write with either a blue poster paint pen or a Copic black pen. (Sorry, I don't know what the fuss about these expensive Copic pens is. I think that a Sharpie medium point does about the same job for about 1/4 the price.)I am being intrigued by my process with the pens. In order to make the writing visible on these colorful, visually noisy pages, I have to use these broad-nibbed pens. Not at all the control of a lovely fountain pen, or the clarity of a black fine point gel pen. But something is happening to my writing. Not the letters themselves but the forces unleashed by expression. They are different. I am different. A wildness? A released call just from the very slightly more gross motor movement of my hand? That much difference (between Bic and marker) can unloosen such a tongue?

And then I am here with my very pretty, extremely fun journal that has these beat up pages, altered through time, and paint, and decoration until they feel positively precious as I turn them; and I ask myself:

studio time

It is cold outside, and warm and bright in my studio. I made some presents this month: scarves amongst them: stitched scraps in various whites with black velvet on the backs.

And a crocheted ruffle scarf. (Easy: working the long way, stitch up and down the length a few times and then do a couple more rows increasing at the rate of 2 new stitches for every 1 stitch in the row below, or 3:2. Automatic Ruffle.)I also made a Christmas journal in November to use in December with Dawn Sokol and loved it. This process of using any old papers, of all different sizes, painting some, collaging others, doodling, writing sideways - and finally I am beginning to loosen up. The payoff to that un-lock is that I really journaled this past month. Not just daily planner stuff in longhand (which has its place - that Edwardian Lady Gardener), not just ranting and raving (which is important I think, especially in the privacy of one's own journal), but actually trying on thoughts and then the paint and collage work, maybe, allowing enough breathing time to listen to the answers from the Universe.

Here is the end product:

-ribbons sticking out from the tags I put into the collaged pockets - I even did an embroidery on felt (it was a prayer one day when I was desperate) and because it had come out of the writing I wanted to add it into the journal so I stitched it into the seam of the next page. It came out lovely, and thick, and rich.

So I decided to make a new journal, sort-of like the last, to take me into 2010. Here is the cover. Hmm ... that looks a little bland. Dawn encouraged us to draw on our covers... Later.

The construction was crazy - different from my Christmas journal: I machine sewed 5 signatures about 1cm apart onto a double layer of cotton cloth. Then I zig-zag stitched the cardboard covers to the fabric, here. Slowly, gently, my machine agreed to all of it. I painted some canvas for the outer cover. See the pocket of brown paper bag that I glued under the canvas? That will be for medallions or components that I have yet to collage into place.

And then for pages I used papers that I have in an I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-you box. Some are experiments like this orange monoprint I drew on freezer paper and then printed onto drawing paper. Some are old tourist maps from various places in Maine. (Next to a not very successful, uh, I don't know what orange page.)

A short fold of a calendar photo page on the left, between my fingers, and a Traci Bautista idea from her book, Collage Unleashed, on the right. (Dyed paper towel brayered, with wrinkles, onto drawing paper.)

A page of old photos I got at a yard sale 20 years ago that I sewed in upside down!! Which is getting ready for some gesso - I will just paint over that.
And an acrylic painted page, complete with sprays of red, watered acrylic.
So, I am off and running. I have lots more pages to gesso and paint. Then collage, draw and write on. God is in Her heaven, and the voice of the artist is heard in her journal. This is fun.