A New Year...A New Series

The new packages of baby wipes I noticed have these cool little doors that can be removed...so one day...the weird person that I am, I cut off the hinged door and started playing around with it. I covered one with modeling paste and added paint.

I started seeing what they might fit on and how they could be used. I started with two used canvases from a thrift store with paintings on the front. I covered the backs with modeling paste for texture and fit the doors over the openings.

My First piece has a mountain climber theme as my husband wants to get back into doing more climbing this year.

This one I call "Alpine Adventures" It is covered in modeling paste with layers of paint and small pebbles. I drew an ice axe on the front of the door. The dots around the edges is metallic fabric paint. available for $50

The top of the piece is a collage of Patagonia peaks tempered with acrylic paint.

The inside holds a small test tube of rocks and a rock climber on belay. The inside lid is a collage of some mountain peaks and a compass.

 

 

This side contains a collage of mountaineers with a piece of real granite.

This side has accessory cord tied in a climbers butterfly coil.

My second piece was the theme of "Under The Sea" or a "Pirates Booty" This one is based on my childhood memories of Disney Land and the "Pirates of the Caribbean Theme Ride"which I loved.

This side has jewels, blue sea glass and a green sword.

The entire front was covered in modeling paste, black paint and then blue interference paint. Then all kinds of jewels and bead's and jewelry and the text "do your own dirty work" This piece is available for $50

The inside opening contains a drawer filled with shells and jewels.

The top has more jewels.

A view of the front with the baby wipe "door" open. In the center is the drawer full of more treasure.

This side is covered with more jewels, glitter and a game piece with the word "water."

Stay tuned for more fun pieces in this series....

Bikes and Biking On My Mind

Collage on top of shadow box

3D shadow box of a little girl with dog and tricycle looking out over the fence at a woman riding a bicycle and thinking someday I want a big girls bike. $65

Bikes are still on my mind as snow has not come to this part of Idaho yet.

Our ski resort is losing $100, 000 a day! The snow markers register- nada! so what am I doing? Riding my bike in January. I got a new mountain bike for Christmas which I rode yesterday- 16 miles, and lots of climbing! There were a few patches of ice and mud but overall it felt like a spring day. The temp. registered 52 on my bike computer!

I was never much of a bike rider until my late 40's when I got my first bike. My first big ride was the "Hotter Than Hell"  in Wichita Falls Tx. 60 miles in 112 degree heat! Since moving to Idaho four years ago, I got my very own mountain bike at age 50 (the previous 2 years I was riding my husbands hand me down) and am now registered for my first mountain bike race coming up in April!


Maybe I was that little girl looking over that fence, it just took me a while to get there... those of you who have followed my blog for a while may recognize the red trike in the shadow box. It was left mysteriously on my doorstep a year ago, I found out recently it was a fellow artist and neighbor who had left it there. So for a year I have been making a little pile of papers and ephemera related to bikes around the red trike.

Tuesday at Studio Em was the time to make it all come together. First I went through my little pile and divided up the ephemera into 2 piles, one that was more related to mountain biking and one that was more related to casual riding around town. The mountain biking ephemera will be for a future piece.

side panel collage

me on my new bike in January and no snow!

Other side panel collage

Art from the land of no skiing yet.

I went to Marianne's for studio night on Tues. Nancy and I worked on tins for the Tinstalation at Art Source Gallery for First Thursday coming up next week. This is a fund raiser for three different arts organizations. BOSCO the open studios collective, TRICA, a childrens art school, and Art Source Gallery.

 Marianne cutting something to add to her art.

Nancy is working on some intricate details

A painting I had started many moons ago...I added some bright colors and some texture...

I am then going to collage the whole thing with the new approach spoken of by Jonathan Talbot in his book Collage without Liquid Adhesives. I heard Jonathan speak at a National Art Education conference also many moons ago and even bought the book and stood in line to have him autograph it and then never tried the technique! Not sure what got me thinking about it but I dug out the book, bought the medium he suggests and santa brought me an iron.

He recommends Golden Polymer Medium (Gloss) #03510

You apply the medium to every piece of paper you might use in your collage. On one side, let dry and then on the other side.

One idea in the book was to hang them to dry. This didn't work for me as they got stuck to the clothespins. Maybe another project would be to apply Teflon to the clothespins. Subsequent sheets of paper I just layed down to dry and that worked fine.

After both sides of paper have been coated, as well as the substrate (the canvas in this instance) you layer your papers and iron them down. If its not a hard surface like a board, you need to put something under it so it doesn't move. I put a book under the painting. He also suggests release paper between the iron and paper. I used some Teflon cooking stuff I had and that seemed to work, other than you can't see through it.

This is what I have so far...not done yet but virtually no wrinkling of papers.

My third project this week was to work on some "Mail Art." this was the forerunner to the Artist Trading Cards and I thought that is was a virtually dead art form until I ran across 2 calls for mail art last month. If published I get a free magazine from Stampington and Co. and a free subscription to Mountain Gazette.

And last but not least I must have dragged my sleeve in some acrylic and then got it all over the front of my shirt, didn't see it until it was dry. I have an idea for it though...you'll see it in the next blog entry, next year!

Last Minute Deal- Free gift wrap and delivery on Christmas Eve

If there is anything you have seen of mine that you would like to purchase and need it by Christmas AND live within the city limits of Boise, I will personally wrap and deliver it for you on Christmas Eve.  

$20

$20

$20

Most of my projects can be seen in past posts on this blog. You can also look on my flicker page. My facebook art photos. My Facebook Fan page , Green Chutes and my TVAA Gallery Page. If it is at one of my retail stores I will go get it for you, but you have to let me know before 10 am tomorrow, so that I can coordinate this for you.

Have a great holiday! 

iphone blogger failure

I was so excited when I down loaded the new i phone blogger, Now I can blog whenever I want. I took the i phone with me to Denver when I visited my daughter and took lots of pics. and then wrote the blog complete with photos while at the airport. It was so simple, then hit publish and nothing... but PUBLISHING ERROR- the operation couldn't be completed. (Invalid category term.)  I thought no problem, I'll publish it when I get home to the computer- well the draft doesn't show up on my computer..but this draft (I just checked, shows up on the phone!) I went and typed in my problem on the help forum but have gotten no responses. Anyone have any ideas???

Green Chutes Open House

 Today I set up a table from 1-3 and did a make and take, ATC's and collage but then wound up doing packing tape photo transfers, it was quite the hit with the young and old. The really cool thing is that a woman that saw my Week As Art on Create Mixed Media (when you go to link, scroll down a bit), lives in my town! and came down to see me today. Wow. The world wide web is a small world.  We had a great time visiting.

Also got to visit with my photographer friend Eric Obendorf, check out his work...I really like it.

The Marketplace in Green Chutes

All decorated for the Holidays and many artists were set up demonstrating. If you did not get a chance to go they will be open tomorrow with many more make and takes and demo's. I won't be there as I will be out on my new mountain bike.

My First Mixed Media Workshop Under My Belt

 Fun was had by all at Twigs and Twist as we collaged and assemblaged our mirrors to our hearts content.

 Ephemera included tissue paper, vintage photos, jewelry....

 Ronna shows off the piece she did in honor of her mother. 

 attaching eye hooks at the bottom to hang some crystals. 

Allison displays her Music and Dolls theme, with some additions to add at home.

Allison had some really old miniature porcelain dolls, I asked her if she bought them on ebay, she said no...she dug them out of her back yard in Silver City years ago! Now that is pretty cool!

December 8th class- still room!

Back in October I was going to teach my first mixed media workshop  "Homage Collage" click on the link for details... it has been rescheduled for this Thursday Dec. 8th from 5-7 pm. If you are interested please let me know ASAP, there are still a couple spots open.

This past weekend I was invited up to a friends cabin in the mountains. Boy was it cold!! But we kept busy making art and venturing out to the local thrift stores.

The picture above is Mickie's example of what  we will be making in the class. She made an excellent homage to her grandmother using photos, jewelry, perfume bottle, playing card and magazine flowers.  For the class I will provide the mirror and basic supplies, you bring the ephemera related to your theme.

This week I was fortunate to have some friends hand me bags of goodies for my art!

"Found Objects" given to me by my art museum docent friend Kathy C.

"Found Objects" given to me by my friend Lynn F. at the Gypsy Show

Mountain Town Thrift Store Finds

A personalized piece for a back country skier friends birthday.

The Week As Art

 The Week as art - literally and figuratively. This has been a busy but fun week of art. Tonight was  the Gypsy Gallery; which I have been a member of now for 4 years. Sold a couple of pieces and met a whole bunch of nice people. We even had live music performed by Gail Chapman.

Besides getting ready for Gypsy, I have also been busy making new art for The North End Organic Nursery's Christmas Market. As well as Brown's Gallery show for December, which they invited some non members. I had 3 pieces accepted. I also entered a piece in the Juried Show at Boise State "The Intersection of Food and Art" and I made 3 pieces for a Sheep Show.

And I was selected for the Week as Art for the website Create Mixed Media .com I created an assemblage based on numbers for the dates December 4-10. The pieces are below. I already sold #10! The others are all available for $25 each.