Cards, Cards and More Cards

 I have a show coming up on Thursday. I wanted to make a bunch of collaged cards for the show as this is an affordable way for people to buy original art. I have been selling my cards for $3.50 this seems kind of low to me for the amount of time invested in each card.

 The cards all measure 4" x 5"

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think I should/could charge. 

Working Studio

 Here is my studio with everything open and in use, not cleaned up and perfect. I use shoe storage boxes in the closet, labeled with things such as glue, silk flowers, tools, tape, pencils, small assemblage stuff, broken jewelry, and notepads.

Hanging on the back of the door is a shoe holder, the pockets contain things such as rulers, scissors, jars of gesso, glue gun, heat gun etc.

I love my old desk, it has been repainted many times, but I am pretty sure I am keeping it this way for a long time. The bottom 1/2 is a collage of my life.

 Here is my main work table. I work on multiple projects at a time and seem to only clean it up and put everything away when I am finished with all the works in progress. By the time I am done I am usually working on top of the piles or in 1" of clean space! I am so lucky to have a space that I can just leave everything and come back to it. (Except when we have guests and yes this is the guest room)

Here is my lovely fireplace and space heater. I use the bins to store the art pieces that I bring to shows. On the side of the house was an old dog run which we enclosed and now use for storage, it is lined with shelves that these boxes fit on. I have a show this coming Thurs. so I better finish everything up and get it in those boxes! To the left of the blue bins is a a cart with 8 drawers that I bought on clearance at Jo Anne's...I think it was regularly $79 and I got it for 19.99 because the bottom drawer is hard to open. What a deal! as you can see I'm not closing them anyway!

 Behind the door to the room fits my wonderful little black shelf that hold many of my miniatures. I use the coat rack on the back of the door for necklaces that can be cut up and used in art as well as aprons. (which I never seem to use)

The back wall with all the cubbies of "stuff" and collections.  My inspiration wall. Another question posed was "do you like working with music, tv or quiet?" Really all 3 work for me, depending on my mood, what's on etc. 

Thanks to Ricë for starting the  discussion on studios at createmixedmedia.com  

G is for Giraffe

G is for Giraffe

7" x 3 1/2" 

Found Object Assemblage

The wood is from a new yurt up near Idaho City that I volunteered to help with and asked if I could take a few pieces of scrap. The hanger for the piece is (I think, a broken bracelet), the flat giraffe is from a mobile that someone gave me, the toy giraffe from Miriam cleaning out her studio. The metal giraffe from a thrift store and the ceramic giraffe on top from Bill's Aunt and Uncle in NY.

PLAY

 I bought this frame at a thrift store, I made the encaustic "play" in class, assorted game pieces I had collected. Giggle charm was received as a trade at Art & Soul.

Play

9" x 11" x 2"

I collaged pieces of  tissue paper and old illustrations to the frame, painted the edges and glued the monkey and game pieces. I tried to remember the "less is more ideal" that Marianne and I are always talking about and didn't add all the pieces I had collected for this one. 

Working with Alternative Materials

 Last Saturday I attended a workshop by Jan Hopkins, one of the Northwest Artists currently showing at the Boise Art Museum in the exhibit Critical Messages: Contemporary Northwest Artists on the Environment.  She is known for using alternative materials from the environment in her artwork. We were treated to a slide show of her work, showing her use of Bull Kelp, Rhododendron leaves, Sturgeon Skin, Black Bamboo, and many other materials.

We then got to do our own project using grapefruit peels. We used waxed linen thread and a chenille needle to do the stitching. We also used beads and brads that went through the peels like butter.

Here is my finished project. I am still working on the chair. 

My Dog Blue

My Dog Blue

5" x 5" 

plaque

No, I don't own a dog ( or any pet, for that matter) but just about everyone I know does. The main illustration for this piece is a wine label from  Chateau Morrisette. A great winery listed in the 1,000 places to visit book. We stopped there for a wonderful lunch on the Blue Ridge Parkway last spring and heard the story about how their wine sales were lagging. Then they changed the name of their signature wine to honor their dog that had died and sales tripled. Of course I had to buy a bottle of the white and the red and then saved the label for a future art piece and this is the result. 

From Valentines Mess to St. Patricks Day Art

 I rescued this canvas from my friends studios's trashcan. It was a new canvas she was trying and it never would tighten up and started buckling under the medium, she tried various things to make it work but then decided to and start over on a better canvas. Not being one to ever see anything thrown away, I asked if I could have it . I used an exacto knife to cut off the additions. Then flipped it over and coated it with modeling paste.

I had this cute little St. Patricks day bear that has printed on his paw "Me to You" He fit in the opening just perfect! He is not attached, so can be removed, if wanted.  I collaged tissue papers and stickers, added gems and an old really cool button.

Noah's Ark

     When I was given this Noah's ark plaque, my initial thought was this was something I would never use. Then I was trying to figure out what to do with all these little plastic animals and the Noah's ark plaque came to mind! 

     I started by gluing the plaque to the back panel of the shadow box and added paint and some of the animals. 

     Next I collaged all the sides of the box and glued alligators on the sides. Some of the quotes on the collage are "All or Nothing" and "Believe." Along the front edges of the shadow box I glued little rock beads and added dots of glitter and paint.

Teacher, You're My Hero!

2 3/4" X 2 3/4"

Collage

Last week one of the women on the Girls Weekend Trip brought all her valentines to fill out to give to her kindergarten students on Monday. She gave me the one that was intended for a teacher. I cut out the words, and collaged it along with a torn photo of a woman that looked like a teacher from the turn of the century, and added some charms and a broken necklace. Here is my result in honor of all the teachers either losing their jobs or taking pay cuts this year. Teacher, You're My Hero!

Weekend Fun

So now we are not only having Girls Night Out but Girls Weekend out. Got to spend a lovely 2 days, 2 hours out of town, hiking, downhill skiing and cross-country skiing with several of my friends at Marianne's place. I am a light packer, hard to believe but with so many winter sports, it's hard to pack light. I love the colors in this photo. (No retouching)

Even though it looks cold, we were skiing sans jackets yesterday afternoon. Apres skiing we got to listen to live music at two different venues downtown, now mind you this is a town of only 300 and the place was packed!

Came back to town a early this afternoon to temps in the 60's, noticed my Weeping Pussy Willow tree is starting to bud. Winter is far from over but it sure feels like spring.

Spent the afternoon organizing the studio. Not the funnest activity but I was starting to trip over things and you couldn't sit on the couch from all the stuff stacked up on it!

White Roses

Happy Valentines Day!

Studio Night at MK's

Echo came by to say hi. Marianne and Nancy being nice and making him feel welcome.

The non-dog lover is taking the picture. :)

Tomato photo I took on the kitchen counter and then used iphone photo shop.

Playing with the pieces and the layout. The postcard is what started this piece.

It is from 1907 and says" Come over and you can have a fine ripe tomato..."

Finished piece with background collaged with tissue paper and transparent acrylic washes.

This collage/assemblage is on a lumber scrap. The pitch fork is from a thrift store in Virginia and the ceramic garden fork sign is either from Idaho Youth Ranch or a garage sale.

The pitch fork, postcard, (from Terra Haute Indiana) and sign

are hanging on nails and are removable.

The little tomato's in the top left corner are buttons that I "antiqued" with acrylic paint.

Year of the Rabbit

2011- The Year of The Rabbit

This is the next in my series of 4" X 4" Chunkie's"

I dropped off 7 of the previous Chunkie pieces I made at the local art museum gift shop and the store manager accepted 3 of them on consignment. She preferred the less "cluttered" ones and liked the more thought provoking literary ones. We will see if they sell and then I may put more in the shop.

This has been a busy week art wise- Monday morning docent meeting, learning the script and tour for the exhibit: Critical Messages/Contemporary Northwest Artists on the Environment.

Monday evening- Treasure Valley Artist Alliance meeting. Several people came that I had invited. We met in the new VSA space which was very nice and good location and did a show and tell of our art.

Last night was BOSCO meeting, elected officers and set committees and date for our next Open Studios.

Tonight is making art at Mariannes studio, which will be a nice change of pace from meetings and really what it is all about.

Also, if you missed my show last Thursday at Atomic Treasures, I get to keep it up another week- through next Tuesday.

4 X 4 Chunkies

I have been so excited about this project that I have spent many hours working on it ever since I bought these 4" x 4" canvases. Over the last week, I have finished 7 of the "Chunkies" as I am calling them.

As you may recall from a previous post, I am using the canvases backwards.

I covered them all with modeling paste and let dry.

The fun part was figuring out a theme for each one based on items I have,

as I try to only use things that I already have or people give me.

The next part was collaging each piece with vintage papers, tissue papers, magazine,

book and map fragments and any other ephemera I may have on hand.

Star of The West

4"x 4"

While going thru my items I came across these small square glass pieces and low and behold they fit in that small square in the center of the canvas. On this particular piece I glued a black and white sketch of a horses head to the back of it and then glued the glass piece into the opening. The cowboy hat is made of real leather. The red horse is a vintage button.

Drama

4"x 4"

She's All That

4"x 4"

Land of Cotton

4"x 4"

Chicken or The Egg?

4"x 4"

One's Own Garden

4"x 4"

Art

4"x 4"

This one contains a sterling silver art palette charm as well as a real paintbrush and colored pencil.

Atomic Treasures

Last night I was the Featured Artist at Atomic Treasures. It was a wonderful night getting to visit with my friend Cindy who owns this great shop in BODO, and seeing all the people that came down to visit and look at my art. In case you missed it and would like to stop by -the art will be up thru Sat. (tomorrow)

I had TVAA rack cards set out and was able to talk to quite a few folks who might be interested in joining and sound like they might come to our next meeting in which everyone is invited to bring a work of art to share with others and get feed back.

and...I sold 2 pieces of art. woo hoo!...

...A collaged tin with a booklet inside

...and this encaustic wooden piece.

Tuesday Art

Today I was lucky to be able to stay home all day and make art, the only time I left the house was to go to Marianne's to make more art!

Last week I bought a bunch of small chunky 4 x 4 inch gallery wrapped canvases. I have had an idea I wanted to try and that was to use them backwards, so I would have the hole in the center to work with.

I bought some modeling paste and used a pallet knife to cover the back of each one and fill in the gaps and staples. I let this dry and then took 3 of them to Marianne's to work on.

These are not finished yet...but my idea is turning out. I will show the finished pieces in another blog post.

Tattoo $75

This morning I took 4 of my encaustic pieces and turned them into an assemblage. I added a Buddha Head by screwing the base into the background with an L bracket, the two dolls are glued as well as the blocks of wood are glued on. I had made the background piece after the 3 smaller pieces and didn't put any wax in those 3 spots, so the glue would stick. This piece is named "Tattoo" because of the Henna designs on the purple pieces.

More Goodies

This has been the week for collecting goodies, yesterdays blog I showed you all the boxes I picked up from Miriam. Then today I received the items pictured above in the mail from my daughter.

And on Monday one of the docents handed me this little packet of goodies, his wife had put together for me. There was a mini crisis as when I got home I couldn't find it and sent a note out to all the docents that I thought I dropped it in the parking lot but no one had seen it.

I had looked in the car, purse, coat pockets etc. to no avail. Then today when getting out of the car I saw something peeking out from under the drivers seat and there it was!

Now it's time to buckle down and put all this good stuff to use!

Another woman's trash...

...is my treasure!

Miriam (one of the gypsies from the Gypsy Gallery) was cleaning out her studio and asked if I would like to come get some stuff, and stuff she had... some neat shadow boxes, driftwood, beads, ribbons, tins and old violin and leather suitcase from auction and some stuff she bought in England. And this is just what is on the surface, I'm saving digging into it all and organizing it later. Now If I can just keep my husband out of the back room until I get to it.

When I asked what I could do for her in exchange, she said nothing, just make some cool art out of it!

Thank you Miriam!

9 years in the Making

Search For Meaning

36x60

Mixed Media Collage

This mixed media work had its inception in 2002 when I purchased the original canvas at a garage sale in Dallas for $10. On it was painted a man falling from a skyscraper and sprouting wings, which I can only guess was the artist's attempt to come to terms with the horror of 9/11.

During the following year I covered this with a very dark still life of bottles in a doorway. As I didn't care too much for this either, I started adding collage and 3-D elements such as a picture frame, a mirror, and some dog tags that read Every Little Thing. At this point I began to consider it a somewhat of a "self portrait", as it contained many elements drawn from my own life.

In 2007 when we moved from Dallas and purged many of our belongings, this unfinished monstrosity narrowly escaped a second garage sale. Since that time it has hung unfinished like an albatross in my studio, akin to a book you have been meaning to read, just not right now.

After doing some work at Marianne's studio the other night, I took home a handful of small items to work on including a wooden shrine/cabinet. After painting it the thought occurred to me that it would be a nice addition to this painting, thus began phase 3 of my self-portrait with a new title, Search For Meaning.

In this hopefully final incarnation, I tried to express how women, including myself, struggle with both internal and external expectations in creating their sense of self. Some of the myths and social icons I have tried to touch on are represented by:

* A gas station photo from the 50's with a sign stating, "Marriages performed with the purchase of 5 gallons of gas."

* Several Goddess-like figures, including a saint holding a badge that says "achievement"

* The quote "Who says you can't burn your candle at both ends?"

* A shrine holding little bottles and boxes that

might contain secret potions of eternal beauty or power.

* Above the mirror is the phrase, “you'll always be lovely to look at”.

* Two fortunes attached to the inside of the cabinet doors state, "your artistic talents win the approval and applause of others" and "Soon you will have a chance for a profitable transaction" (I received both these fortunes this past year in fortune cookies.)

I have entered this piece in the 2011 We Art Women Juried Show. I will let you know if my artistic talent wins the approval and applause of others. Who knows, it may even end in a profitable transaction.