Hearts, hearts, hearts

 These are some hearts from last year. 

Spray paints and stencils.

Watercolor abstract

Collaborative collage

Mixed media February

Continuing our heart theme,  we used spray dyes with stencils on rice paper hearts Amazon.  My mixed media group enjoys spraying in my studio.  Its set up with supplies at hand, aprons, gloves and loads of deli wrap to spread hearts and stencils out to dry.  And to use behind the hearts as we

Spritz them.  That way interesting oversprays can be kept for future collages. By the way the London Times deli wrap is another awesome Amazon purchase.

This and that

Here is a quick peek at the new owl books I made for the gallery.    I'm particularly fond of the green one.     

This is one of the Paris signs I painted  that hangs in my friend Cat's house.     It's the perfect spot and changed the whole atmosphere in her private bathroom.    this the one I sprayed on the back with the Krylon mirror spray paint which gives it a kind of mercury glass look. First of course I sprayed the stencils with black paint.    I was glad to see the mirror spray did not affect the black paint.   whew!  I was worried about that.     If you spray with the mirror paint, do it outside - the fumes are horrible.

Mixed media meets NeverDull

One of our members had used NeverDull to alter some magazine pages for her journal.    Hmmmm.... looked interesting, so we asked her if she'd lead us in some experimenting with it at the next meeting.  Thursday arrived, and so did we, with our magazine pages, gloves, table coverings, and texturing plates and/or stencils.  

  There were ten of us around the big tables, and we just set to work.  We didn't like the smell but turned on ceiling fan and finally opened the door.      Some of the gals had old tins of the stuff from ages ago, and we found that they did not work as well as the fresher stuff.   If it was at all dried out, it was just harder to use, but the fresher newer ones were also damper, so we could see faster results with less effort.       We placed the magazine pages on the table over a texture plate or anything that had a texture, and took a wad of the stuff that has the product on it, and worked it over the parts of the pages that we wanted to alter.    The texture does show through, and we can erase a lot of the ink.     We also used some alcohol to erase more inks.        Some of the gals brought National Geographic pages that we used CirtroSolv on years ago.    They worked really well.      

I consider it a kind of science project, something to do once, file it away in memory bank for the odd occasion I want to move ink around.    And then move on.    I really don't see myself doing it again.   But, who knows?     There might be a moment when it is just the right solution to get a look I want.      

Gelli printing with Carolyn Dube's One Pull Workshop

This is my big treat this month.     I've been pulling prints left and right.   Literally.       Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday she sends out the invitation to join her by watching the next video she posted.  And I go straight to it and enjoy the experience.      My results are not always good, but I'm having fun and learning something new every time.     Learning some not to do things also.   LOL   

 The first two were done with one of my favorite stencils.    These are photos, not scans so you probably can't see the color shifts as well as I'd like.

 These are a batch of stitched enveloves using the bright colored experiments with stencils.

 The next two were done with a floral stencil.    Oddly, the top one looks kind of like an owl peering out.    Must be the way I cropped it.

This last one was done with the sencil when the paint on it had built up but was just wet enough to move the layers of paints onto the page by pressing really hard with the brayer.   I was so delighted to see the colors come through.  This is one of the  things I learned from Carolyn's class.

Whizzing by

Time?    Where does it go?      the 30 day art challenge is on again and this time I'm not painting.  Too many other things to do.     Here are some of them.

these are my son Matt's awesome jet ski pants.   I hemmed them to fit better.    Quite unusal materials and such a sporty look.   

 Friday evening was Art Hop in Lodi.    We started at the gallery, bringing food and drinks.    Then we just looked at the art and visited with people.    

 Our featured artist was Leland Choy.   Frances sat down next to him and he started a portrait of her on the spot.      Leland is the husband of our friend Vivian, who was also there helping out.  It was really a fun time. 

 after we left the gallery we went to the library where the Pen Women were doing poetry readings of their work, and they were also showing their art.   Our friends Elizabeth, Caroline, Charlene and Pepe were there so we had more visiting.      Then we went to another art venue in a little shop where they were featuring the work of Patti Wallace.    You can't put ladies in a room with hats without us trying them on.   LOL    

This is yesterday's journal page spread.    Stencils, acrylics, collage and rubber stamps.    

 Thisi s one I did a few days back.   

 And the blue eyed conductor.   could it be my cowboy is disguise?   

 Here is on of the pages I did today using an image from a fashion magazine a friend brought me.     I decided it would be more fun if the model was a bird too.   

 This skeleton stenciled page is on the opposite page.   Just for fun.

At our mixed media group this week, we made victorian or grunge tags.    

This next one was my favorite  project of the week.     My stenciled windows.   My very best friend gave me some old windows that were sitting around her garden.
I stenciled them in reverse from  the back side, then sprayed the backs with paint for the green one, and mirror glass spray on the other.        the next day she picked up the mirrored one for her house.     The green on is on my fence in the back yard in a little are I've been reworking.    it's my favorite corner of the garden now.

As you can see I  may not be painting every day, but it's all art whether sewing a hem or painting a window.   

post cards coming and going

here are some of the delightful post cards I've received lately.     

The beach scene done in watercolor is by Debbie for the California Art Girl summer swap.     it's delicate and precious with the tiny little footprints behind the people.






This charming bicycle post card was stamped over a map and then hand colored by Beth.   The addition of the stamps makes it pop.  

 You may recognize this next one from Roberta, who painted the face over a piece of something recycled.  some paint, some scribbles with pencils and crayons, and here it is.     i suspect it is on a grocery shopping bag.     Good for you, girl.  

The armadillo is from Suzanne Denker from the Carving Consortium summer swap.    The only parameter is to use a hand carved rubber stamp.     I love her little armadillo.   Using it in a repeat pattern makes such a good design. 

These next two are ones I've done to send for the Carving consortium summer swap, and the second one is for the Mail Me Some Art monoprint swap.    We were asked to use the gelli plate if we have one, or any other printing surface.    I have the 6 x 6 inch gelli plate which works well for post cards.     I pressed my chicken stamp into the paint on the surface of the gelli plate and then pressed it onto a recycled post card.     On the right side, I used a stencil and three colors of paint on the gelli plate.    Printed several layers.




Here is the last one using only stencil and paints on another recycled card.   The gelli plate is fun to play with, cleans up easily and is a big favorite tool now with many artists.   There are all kinds of you tube demos and web sites which show videos of how to use them.  I only used craft paints and a little gesso .  I'll send them with mail labels on the other side with the postage and return address label.     soon as I get to the post office for more stamps.     

if you want to play with a gelli plate and don't want to invest in a commercial one, there are a number of good videos on you tube with recipes and demos of how to make your own.    A few of my friends tried them and had varying degrees of success.    For me, I like the commercial plate with it's container to hold it safely.    I've had it for several years.   It has not deteriorated in any way.   Some of my friends have the larger sizes which are awesome, but also quite expensive.   The small size fits my studio and the type of work I do with it.   But some day I may find I need the larger one..... you never know.          

Art Journals

Here are some of the new pages I finished in one of the art journals in the last few days. .  

The hen face is a rubber stamp I carved yesterday at the senior center while chatting with friends.   It helps to carve there because it forces me to look up from such close up work, and it gives my eyes a little break.

 This is a quickie portrait based on a face I traced from a Rennaisance
painting.   

 Another self portrait done in pencil and then cut into rubber stamp.  

Wouldn't I love it if this was a self portrait?   LOL   Nope, it's just a drawing in colored pencil of a  generic face. I was more interested in layering the colors in background, than the face itself.   

 This is the new Mixed Media group journal.   In it, I'm recording who attends each meeting and what the project is.    Also, I'm acturally doing the projects in the journal itself, or attaching it later.    So far, everything is in there, including the directions for each project.

I used one of my hand cut stencils for the face, over a beautiful cotton batik fabric.

 This is yet another journal, one I started this week, to try out new things and to record the directions, since I have such a hard time trying to remember how the heck I did something later on when I want to do it again.

This page was done witha paint soaked string flopped down and pressed with opposite page when journal closed.      Then the string was removed to reveal an abstract line in which to doodle.     Kind of a fun little technique.     You can see the darker pink/fuschia string lines which is the paint.   

This page was done by layering acrylic paints dragged over a collaged background - with a credit card.     I do this a lot, it's my favorite way to spread paint.       Then I used an advertisement cut out ofa man, three times, with one overlapping.     The red scribbles are just for fun.

I have not covered this one yet.      The top one has a cover I took from wall of studio.  I had painted a face on a piece of tapestry fabric found at a thift store while on an outing with art pals.     She is actually a 3/4 figure, so the bottom part is folded back under and glued at outer edges to create a nice pocket for my drawing pencils and smudger.  Also a stray post card or two seem to find their way into this pocket.   LOL

 This page was painted as I watched a video on flower painting in acrylics.     Colors a bit out of my comfort zone.    Fun exercise.

This is a drawing of a self portrait by Theophilus Brown.     He did quite a few self portraits and I'll probably draw more of them for practice.   I love this one best so it was my first choice.  

 There is no end to what can be done on a journal page.    This little sketch of people waiting at Kaiser was done early on in this journal, but I jsut decided to doodle a border.    Going back to do little changes happens all the time, expecially if I have a new pen, or technique to add.    

Here is more doodling on an earlier page.     It is so much more lively now. l  Someday it may have a face.  LOL  

Revisiting an old stencil project

Years ago I went to Art and Soul in Asilomar with some art friends, including Roberta, Sally, Nancy, Rosemary and Char.  Did I miss anyone?     The first workshop I attended was the one by Albie Smith.

She led off the day by showing some previosly made art journals to give us inspiration.     It was a huge class and we were jammed close together.    We started by making background papers, one after another.  I chose my color scheme based loosely on one of her samples that attracted me, and was out of my comfort zone.   Albie had supplied the materials, so that made it easy to proceed with everyone having the same papers and paints available.   I think it was paste paints we used for backgrounds.

We had to lay the papers out all over the floor in this big room so they could dry and then we could work on the backs of papers.       After both sides were painted we had access to a wonderful stash of stencils.    Working with colored gessos, we pounced our stencils, washed them off in the sink, and went to find another one.       She encourages us to over stencil.   She also had some really good stamps we could use ( like the big leaves shown here).      It was a madhouse and I felt very pressured to get things done so we would move on the folding and making the book and doing the binding.      

When I got home I added my own cut stencils and some of my friend Jackie's that we traded back and forth.     She made a collection of goddess figures. She cut ;them in small, medium and large sizes.    I made the elephants and the religious figures in assorted sizes..

Since stencils are so big on the art scene right now, I thought I'd show this as a reminder that it's nothing new - it is just evolving by clever marketing and involving the internet art groups.  They have caught on to making it more interesting by offering so many ways to use them and so many different looks can be produced using the same stencil.   I'm glad they are back and HOT!    I like using them.     Now that I look back at this handmade book,  it makes me want to create another one some way, without doing the binding.   The stitching and binding look pretty good, but I found the painting and stenciling the most fun.     I stayed with a limited palette and like the sort of batik like jungle look.

Not all of the pages were so busy, I used the busier papers for the covering for each signature in the journal.  There were four signatures consisting of three folded over sheets of painted paper inside each one.   I forget the terms for the structural details.     We had to work so fast to get this all done in one day, I didn't really learn what I was doing, I just did it in a rush.     That was a lot of work, but the results were awesome.  To see everyone's books out on the table at the end and to see how different each one was - such a good experience.    

Some of these photos were taken at the workshop.   I understand Albie is not teaching right now.    Check her blog to see what she is up to now.    Soon as I got home I ordered colored gessos from her source and also a bunch of stencils.     I was so glad she shared the supply information so we could find them.