Halloween

Not a fan.

I totally diagree with the commercialism of Halloween.

Imagine the MONEY that is made from commercial costumes and masks?

Not to mention the ridiculous amounts of CANDY that is bought and distributed.

Not a fan.

52-Card Inspiration Deck

Yayyy! I'm part of Jess Brogan's Inspirational Deck Swap this year!

I've heard great things about this swap.

The rules are easy:

1. Create a deck of 52 cards in your own art style following the theme of inspiration

2. Mail your deck to Jess

3. Receive a full set of 52 unique cards from 51 other artists!

Cool, right?

I'm going to show you my process.

First I chose a backing paper and glued all of my cards to it.

This is the adhesive that I used.

 I laid the paper face-down on my surface, sprayed the whole back with a fairly good layer of my adhesive, and placed my cards out in a grid. This layout made it easier to cut out later (thinking ahead!) 

Here you can see the pretty paper that I chose for the backs of the cards.

Once the glue had dried, I covered the faces of the cards with a turquoise acrylic paint.
Again, MUCH easier to do this when they're all in one large sheet.

Once the turquoise had dried, I got out my turquoise metallic Lumiere and sponged on some texture.
Isn't it lovely?

After all of my paint was dry, I decided that my backgrounds were complete, so I cut out the cards.

So pretty!

I love copper and turquoise together, so I edged my cards individually in metallic copper acrylic paint.
I did this with my fingers, dipping my finger into the paint and then rubbing it along the edges of the cards.  

Then I added my collage elements.
Since the swap is based in the US, I wanted to show my Canadian pride by adding Canadian postage stamps to each card.
Then I added the "Inspiration" part of the card (remember, that is the theme of this swap!)
I found 52 inspirational quotes relating to creativity (this last part is my own spin).

On the backs of the cards, I spritzed a light spray of Adirondack Ink in Espresso and added a sticker with my name and blog address so that recipients can find me if they want.

Unfortunately, I spelled my blog address wrong - Realties instead of Realities.
I'll have to see if I can peel them all off and re-print them. (yeeesh!)

 Anyway, what a GREAT experience! The cards took a lot less time that I had thought. I think that planning ahead and doing as much as I could on one sheet helped speed up the process.

You should check out her swap! The decks have to be to her by November 15th, so you have two weeks!

Words To Live By - Art Journal Play

In my Sisters in Art Society (SAS) group, we are doing an exchange of altered books. Each month, we receive a new altered book to work in. Usually we do a spread; sometimes we do a series of pages.

This month I have Wendy's book. Wendy and her husband are the owners of Stampadoodle in Bellingham, WA. Stampadoodle is perhaps the most ridiculously awesome store for paper arts. From binding materials to stamps and inks, they have EVERYTHING you could ask for. Or at least everything I could ask for.

Materials:

acrylic paint

magazine clippings

copic markers

Staedler Mars graphic markers

I love how the book pages show through the light yellow that I painted for the base coat.

My marker bled into the magazine flowers a little bit - not very happy with this, but luckily the overall effect isn't affected.

Working on a Cover

I'm planning out a cover for a freind's art journal. I was given a watercoloured background to start with, and found some magazine textures that I liked.

I cut the textures into shapes and assembled them in a creative way. Next step - doodling!

For the back cover, I looked for textures in monchromatics.
I chose greens and brown tones for this. I cut the textures into strips and layered them.
A very simple technique for a great effect!

I chose images that appealed to me for the front cover.
I started with a cutout of a dress and then built around it with strips that I had cut out in a subtly wavy pattern.

A Huge Mixed Media Collage

This mixed media piece was a wedding gift from me for my husband.

I made it for him in the Spring of 2010, and it's still hanging today. I get inspiration from it when I'm having a hard time creating art.

First I chose the main colour that I wanted to use. I went though my fabrics, ephemera and papers to find pieces in that colour.

I painted the background of the piece in varying shades of blue.

It's a little hard to tell, but the piece is about 4 feet wide by 1.75 feet high.

After I had collaged all of my papers, ephemera and fabrics, I unraveled a full roll of light blue thread to use over the whole piece.

I then collaged a smaller canvas with shades of white and made a stencil on my computer with the words "I love your everything."

The piece is above our sofa in the living room - a secondary focal point for us.

Mixed Media Collage Art

Recently I invited a girlfirend over for a crafternoon.

The exciting thing is that she is JUST getting into art, painting, and mixed media, and is like a SPONGE when I show her the things that I've been working on! It's pretty great having someone ooh and ahh over everything I put in front of them!

We each created a piece of mixed media art - taking turns completing various steps and adding textures, objects and artistic elements.

We started by choosing a colour that we wanted to work with, and then sifted through my stock of papers, ephemera, fabrics, textures and objects to find pieces of our chosen colours to combine into a cohesive work. 

Laura chose pink (which is great since I tend to not use pink so much in my own work and had LOADS of materials for her to use!) and I chose blue (surprise, surprise!)

I love mine so much that I've hung it in the living room beside the fireplace!

It features light blues and an image from Alice in Wonderland of Alice staring at the fleeing white rabbit with bewilderment.

Lastly, I put tissue paper around the edges using an acrylic medium to create transparent texture.

I love it! :D

A Real Piece of Work

I've been working like mad getting stock ready for my upcoming shows!

A Real Piece of Work takes place on November 17th and 18th and features a huge mixtures of art and fine crafts

A Real Gem is on November 24th and 25th and features jewelry and accessories.

Both are at the Ocean Park Hall in South Surrey at 1577 128th Street.

The shows are organized and juried by myself and a close friend of mine - the selection of artists and crafters this year is UNPRECEDENTED!

And when I say I've been working like mad, here's the proof:



42 bracelets - glass beads and semi-precious stones



I looked at my leftover stock from last year and realized that I had a lot of necklaces but hardly any bracelets. Obviously my bracelets were the big seller from last year so I went for it!



Here is a close-up of some of the bracelets.



28 pairs of earrings.



17 necklaces - only some of them are shown here.

Not bad for three days of taking up the dining room table! :D

Water-Soluble Pastels in My Art Journal

Playing around with my Portfolio Series Water-Soluble Oil Pastels today.

They're so fun to work with - scribble your colours, add a bit of water and blen them together.

For the trees I used three shades of orange plus brown, and they blended really nicely!

The ground was a mixture of brown and two shades of green.

And the mountains were created using gray, two shades of blue, and white.

I think this looks great and makes me feel the crisp Fall air.

Art Journal Work

Playing around in my art journal this week.

Collage, watercolours, and musings with coloured pens.

Magazine cutouts showing different patterns... They'll be good inspiration for drawing.

Musings on my day, and in particular about how great I feel when I am active.

A watercolour background with felt marker Fall and stickers from a liquidation store.

We Have A Winner!

The winner of my Blogiversary giveaway from last week is...

Karen Roberts Fitzgerald!!!


Karen commented that she is just getting started with Art Journaling, so it's perfect that the random number generator fell on her comment!

Congratulations, and thanks to everyone who entered! I LOVED reading your comments!!

Inspiration - Art Journal Page

I'm working in a friend's art journal, and here are some details from the finished page :)

The Materials:

magazine cutouts

washi tape

Sakura gel pen in white

white acrylic paint

ephemera papers

copic marker in black

The Quote:

For pleasure has no relish unless we share it - Virginia Woolf

Adventures in Tyvek!

My friend Tammy Murdock has introduced me to Tyvek, a fibrous plastic material that is as thin as paper and SO easy to work with!

Tyvek is often melted to create cool bubbly textures, but I've been using it for journal covers - what else! :)

Essentially I painted the Tyvek sheets, collaged on them using some glue and my sewing machine, and then fastened them to composition writing books with an industrial adhesive. The result is AMAZING!

Have a look at my handiwork from last night!