Save the Bees!

I was thinking about bees today. I love bees. My name means "a bee". I worry about my buzzy little sisters and their plight. I thought I should make a card for them.

It's awkward and a little messy, but I'm thinking about making something bigger, and not as messy.

Oceans of Stars

I'm not particularly happy with this one, but I like the idea, and I'll probably use it again on something else. I have always loved magnetic poetry tiles, and I've been typing up random words in larger fonts and cutting them out. I'm not much with captions and quotes, so this makes it interesting.

I also don't consider myself particularly skilled with stylized faces and such, so I drew and painted her on some tracing paper, and then glued her down. That way I wouldn't have to can the whole card. Cheap paints and cheap brushes do not help. There are glittery stars which did not scan well, and it's a little lumpy. Oh well, all in a day's work.

Magnificat

This is a 4x6 card made from watercolor paper, which I cut up with my Exacto knife. I think I need heavier paper, because they are all curling up, despite my efforts to flatten them with my blowdryer.

I had done a watercolor painting of my cat Chip (1988-2004) some years back. I scanned it and reduced it to fit an index card. Isn't scanning a wonderful tool? I can go through old artwork and use it to collage with without ruining the original.

Chip My MagnifiCat

Chip was a Hong Kong rescue cat that I brought to Colorado, and then a few years later to Florida where he lived out his days. He loved kittens, and raised several of them throughout his life. The above was his favorite sleeping position, and I often thought he looked like he was flying. We lost him in 2004 after we were displaced by a terrible hurricane. He simply wandered from my parents' property and never came back.

I'm submitting it to the Cat Challenge over at Sunday Postcard Art.

Puzzled

What's Puzzling You is the Nature of my Game

This one is for the Puzzle challenge at Three Muses. It’s been a long time since I did a challenge. It’s also part of my Index Card Series that I started a few days ago. (I must remember to decorate the box) It is on a 6”x4” “index card” that I cut from watercolor paper.

So I found a random drawing in an old sketchbook of mine from the eighties. She had the direct look in her eye that I was seeking. I scanned her and printed her on regular copy paper. Then I found a puzzle pattern online, which I printed on transparency paper. A warning here—I had a few major paperjams doing this part.

Then I started layering the different parts, and toning the whites down.

I wanted her eyes to stand out, so I carefully tore that part of the puzzle layer out. I had printed the text, since I’m equally bad at hand printing and stamping.I added some puzzle pieces and some torn colored paper to balance it. Voila! My puzzled lady is complete.

Index Card Art

I can’t say if what I’m doing now qualifies as index card art, because I didn’t use any actual index cards. I found they don’t take paint and glue so well—they tend to curl up. So first I bought the box, and then I determined the size of the cards I wanted to make. I decided on 6”x4”. Then I pre-painted a couple of large sheets of watercolor paper, and measured them out.

A little background info on my skills: When I was in high school my art teacher taught us how to cut our own matts. Later on in life, I became a paste-up artist and a typesetter. This was all during the Dark Ages before computers. We literally cut and pasted in those days. So I am not at all shy around an Exacto knife.

I wound up with eight perfect cards, ready to decorate.

I managed to decorate two cards today. I’m not very good with stamping, but I did want to do some words.

I tore bits and pieces and modpodged the whole thing down. I ironed it twice because curly makes me crazy.

Here I found stumbled upon a picture of yours truly that I had photoshopped for a forgotten project. It was the perfect size.

So there. My first two index cards, and a third is on its way.

Tender Hearts

This was a fun project I did in my art group. I cut words from a child's book (bigger text) and glued them down to a sheet of watercolor paper, which I had painted, pasted patterned tissue onto, stamped, and stenciled.

I carried it home and mounted it onto a board that I painted. (Leftover wood from Hubby's project.) I really enjoyed doing this. I always liked those magnetic poetry words, and considering these came from a Hansel and Gretel book, not bad.

If you look hard, you can see my Goddess. That and the big leaf stamp were carved from this amazing stamping sheet, which is easier to work with than old-fashioned linoleum block, and much cheaper. It's made by Speedball, and it's called Speedy Carve Block.

I mount lots of paper projects either on canvas or on wood, since I'm too lazy to go out and have things framed.

Muslin and Leaves

I’ve been obsessed with leaves recently. Also obsessed with fabric. So I have been experimenting with painting on muslin and playing with leaves. I also love the rough edges of torn fabric. So I slapped some paint on a piece of material, and set it on a canvas that had been previously painted.

I had also been playing around with “tie-dye” with inks and alcohol. So I grabbed a few of those and arranged them on the canvas. The leaf was the fun part. I disovered that you can iron leaves flat. If they are old dried curling-up leaves, you can actually use steam. On a fresh leaf, you can iron it with a dry iron. I did this several times. I painted the leaf and and used a fine brush dipped in alcohol ink to bring out the veins.

I used Mod Podge to glue al the items to the canvas. This darkened all the colors, and I went back over with paint to give it better contrast.

I need to do a better job taking these pictures, and I need to do these posts on my computer, because Blogger is pretty wonky in my iPad.

I’m Back!

I’ve decided to revive this blog, even though I’ve moved on from digital art. In the past few years I’ve “unplugged” myself, and have been getting my hands dirty. So I’ve been painting and gluing, and generally making messes.

So since I already have my blog set up, and it’s been gathering dust for so long, I might as well share some of my work here. 

The Word Is Love

This one is for the Choose A Word challenge at Three Muses.

Click image to enlarge.

The challenge was to pick a word and illustrate it in journal form, so I made up a scene where I am pasting into a fictitious journal.

High Noon

Okay, I'm back! For those of you who suspected I may have fallen of the edge of the world, I'm back again. 2013 was a tumultuous year for me, with a whirlwind of challenging events. Halfway through my Dad died, and also two dear aunts followed in quick succession.

I got a newer Mac recently, but to my disappointment found that my old version of Photoshop is not compatible, tried out the monthly subscription to the Adobe cloud version, but I wasn't really impressed. I have the latest version of Photoshop Elements, but it is lacking some of the cool features that even my ancient version of regular Photoshop offers. So, I'm chugging along on my old Mac in the back to create my digital art and then surfing at high speeds on my new pooter.

Well, here is my first challenge in months, which is the Three Muses challenge, Still Life.

Click image to enlarge.

Naturally, I couldn't be content with fruit in a bowl and a bouquet of roses for a still life.

Please leave a comment and let me know you haven't forgotten me.

Go Fly A Kite

This is for the Kite challenge at Three Muses.

Click image to enlarge.

Ball of Confusion

This is for the Written Word challenge at Three Muses.

Click image to enlarge.

I went from thoughts of newspaper clippings to news in general, and pondered how we get over-saturated by bad news these days. I don't have newspapers lying around the house, so I started collecting terrible news headlines online and kept dropping them into layers (after a bit of formatting). Then I spherized them (spell-check doesn't like that word) and laid them over a globe. Then I did some swirly things behind it.

All the while, I had the old Temptations song "Ball of Confusion" running through my head. (You youngsters should look it up in YouTube--great song.) We were pretty pessimistic about the state of the world in those days. People still carry on as if the world is about to end. Did I mention we banned the news channels in our household about a year ago?