RE-WORKING ART

Last year or so I did a collage on a 5 x 7 flat canvas board. I showed it and then promptly shoved it aside because I didn't like it at all. It had potential in places but it was just too busy for me and I don't know, just not pleasing at all. I was searching through piles, looking for something a couple weeks ago to do another canvas and I found this in the middle of a pile, still just sitting.

    An idea came to mind, so decided to see if I could re-work it somehow and use it; if not well, I'd just paint over the whole darn thing and start something else on it. Didn't want to waste even a small cheap canvas board. So I got busy and changed a few things. Now I like it ....sort of. It's still too busy  for my tastes but unless I start completely over, it just has to be. Now it looks like this:

 

  Now it's maybe even even busier but the new butterfly is definitely better and flowers are more defined. The scanner always shows you what more could have been done or had removed but too bad, it's covered with 2 coats of triple glaze so no more fixing. Next, I'm going to layer it onto a 8 x10 background and frame it IF I happen to have the right size frame around here somewhere.

As for the Abandoned Art piece, "FLY"....it did get picked up almost instantly after I left it and it did in fact fly and land in Ontario, Canada!! How sweet is that! I had a wonderful note from the lady who found it. Not only did she keep it but she was here in town with her DIL who is a artist and was showing here at the ARTARAMA show!  They like the explanation of the magical effect of the canvas and of Art Abandonment and they will start doing some abandonment's in Ontario!!   I was thrilled!! Since then I've abandoned several button Fairies but no one has left a note saying they found any of them. I know they're gone so they're hanging somewhere.
Before I abandon anything else, we are helping a guy up in Vancouver, CA  to spread his butterflies into every state and every country! Harry sends you a packet of his pre-made butterflies already with a magnet (free), then you can embellish them further or leave them as is and leave them all around with a tag added explaining what they are. To date Harry Grunsky has sent out over 2,500 butterflies! He hand cuts each one and assembles them!  If you would like to help you can go to the Art Abandonment Group on Facebook, join, and find Harry's address in the file section. It's easy peasy!! Then you can also see all the wonderful pieces of art being left all over the states and other countries!! You will also get to see the most wonderful HUGE piece of art just abandoned in Phoenix, AZ by ANDREA MATUS DeMENG   after the classes they held. I cannot even fathom the joy of finding her beautiful art with a note saying FREE!  The gal who found it....hanging in an elevator...was indeed thrilled!!
                                                                                                                

Magic Happens

I just love it when something unintentionally magical happens. I can't say I've been in a slump...it was worse than that. The problem being, you truly don't know it until you start coming back. It's one of those things you can't explain to someone because most times they thought you were there all the time. It usually takes some eye-opening happenings to occur which begin to bring you back to your world. Then you know how far away you were.
A little while ago I found a old school friend. It was just an amazing thing for both of us and tho' we weren't close friends way back, we are now and it started a spark as she also does art and we have many of the exact same dreams, many of the same problems and lifestyle. So to find someone who truly understands is a blessing! Slowly by talking and showing each other our art and speaking of life and secrets, the spark started to come back. With the piece "Fly" in the last post, it came back full blast!
I've had so many compliments on this piece that my head is spinning and and I'm having a hard time toning down the huge SMILE on my face! When I was describing to someone the steps in "FLY", I totally forgot the beginning step and the MAGIC it lead to. I found it again last night and it just amazes me. I know why the magic appears but just to think of someone finding this piece of art and then innocently watching it transform and the MAGIC shine through brings yet another smile!
 The first step in this was covering the whole canvas with a pretty napkin. It's gold with a pretty cream scroll design all through it. My idea was that it would be a simple design border around the face to write on. Well, I got carried away playing and ended up covering the whole design and forgot it was even there under layers of paint, ink and glazes. (yes, I now finally see the reason of using glaze over layers and seeing some floating depth come through! whoohoo! ).
Quite by mistake when I was holding it up late at night to look for blatant mistakes, I held it to the light here at my computer and VOILA! there was my first layer of scrolls shining through and nearly perfectly placed at that! Couldn't have done that purposely, had I tried! Therein was the MAGIC as it instantly changed one design into a different mysterious sort! I was giddy with excitement! Today I want to 'release' and 'abandon' "FLY". But first I'll have to write and include a note on how to bring about the magic that lives in this piece. As a child I would have been totally enthralled with it, even as an adult providing I didn't know the secret hiding within.

Isn't it great? It reappears out of nowhere! You've seen other bits where I've had background design show through but it never totally disappeared and then showed it'self at the unexpected time! Just look at the placement on the face!!! Could it be more perfect? Just amazing!

Art To Share!

I really didn't disappear again. I was here off and on, just didn't have anything much to say that I thought anyone would be interested in. Mainly a lot of whining and that gets old, I know.
But now I do have a bit of art to actually show!
I joined the Face Book group, "Art Abandonment". It's a easy group, user friendly and pure fun. The idea is to spread some art love through the countries.....FREE art, left somewhere for a unsuspecting person to find and claim as their own or to do as they please. Meaning, keep it, leave it, pass it on or (EEK) throw it in the trash! Odd are you will never know anyway. You need to be able to release a piece of your art and let it go free, not worrying about it. You consider it a RAOK and hope you brighten someone's day. Just like "Book Crossing",  where you release a book into the wild to be found by another person. I love the idea of leaving and finding treasures...always have. I like to imagine that a child or person finds the book or art and exclaims in joy and treasures that book or art piece forever! A tag is left with the art telling the recipient of Art Abandonment and how to contact you or the group to say they found it! That part doesn't always happen but it's certainly fun to hear what they have to say when they do!

Here's my first piece of art to release. This is a 8 x 10 canvas and the tag is made on a shipping tag. As usual the face is another one that I did on a note pad while playing 'words with friends'. I was sorely disappointed that I thought I would show some progress but still ended up with a face looking the same as all the others. I let it lay around and then when going to drop it in the trash, came the thought that maybe I could just mess with it and make something of it. So begins the face....again. Luckily I ended up with it looking much much better, still needing work but showing improvement. I used it as the central focal place and went from there. Finally an idea came to me and while the picture in my head didn't come out on canvas like I imagined it was close. I always imagine perfection, of course, and I always come about as far from it as possible! So the canvas is mixed media. I used 3 colors of paint to start and then used some clear glaze to mix and wipe them together. The butterflies are either printed out or cut from magazines. The flower on the top butterfly is a gorgeous vintage earring but didn't scan well. I used tea stain for the first staining. See the spots on her face that shouldn't be there  ( no, they are not age spots! LOL! )?  That's what happens when you don't seal or glue down the paper properly....it leaked! Then I used Pitt pens to further darken places and used metallic gold here and there on the butterflies and to make checks on the canvas sides (not showing in pic). The writing was done with a Porcelaine 150 fine point pen. My first attempt at trying to write with that pen and also found that writing after the layers full of bumps, glazes and gel medium wasn't the best idea. At least not for the more perfect even writing I imagined when adding song lyrics! Enough of the words show to get the meaning and tie the piece together anyway. The lyrics are from the Mariah Carey song, "Fly Away (Butterfly Reprise)". All in all I don't hate this as I usually do, I kinda like it. Art to abandon does not have to be perfect anyway....just art; fun, simple and free.

The tag to go on the clear plastic bag this will be in is 2 sided. I used the napkin technigue, covering both sides completely. Then I used water color pencils, pitt pens, a white jelly roll pen and a sharpie to go over the design and add some bits. The tag from Art Abandonment was printed out and glued on with gel medium. I added the yard and there you have it. I meant to add a tiny butterfly to tie both pieces together but I forgot!

So there you go....I finally had something to show! I'll have another canvas piece tomorrow, I hope. It's a 'do-over' of a collage I did and showed a long time ago and never did like it. Now I like it much better. I think it's just too busy and I don't usually like my things to be too busy. Now that I finally really got my fingers dirty, I've got the art fever really bad!

Still Here!

I haven't disappeared again! Just really haven't had much time to post. Although, I could have if I had anything great (or not) to show or tell. I do have a photo to put up tonight. It's simply a bookmark for a friend. BUT, when I say simple, it means I made simple, hard, and ended up with a finished piece that will, again, prove my favorite saying, "Do as I say, NOT as I do!"
Normal people should be able to do a handful of bookmarks in a day, right? Well, I'm never normal. I started this way back in the early Summer! I found some napkins before the 4th of July and because a friend was running a campaign for the WI. Senate, it gave me an idea for a small token gift as a memory of that time. As it happens, I started doing a collage bookmark but then got busy on the computer for the campaign and never finished the bookmark. Poor thing sat neglected in the art room, got buried a few times, found again a few times as I searched for one thing or another and last week I laid it right out in the work area so I would get it DONE!
I finally got to it and then lost time again over a stubborn idea of needing a DOVE and couldn't find one one I liked, didn't want to paint one, either. I finally decided this was silly, it could just be finished without the dove (peace dove). I got the bookmark done and then decided it needed lots of sparkly yarn with patriotic and meaningful trinkets attached. I found some perfect buttons in my button stash, wanted some beads and remembered I gave nearly all my beads away and what I kept had openings too small. Took forever but I finally got the buttons and charms on. I was so proud for finishing, finally! But, whoops! I already had the yarn dangly attached and sure couldn't get it off.....I forgot that I needed to give the bookmark a final spray of acrylic sealer to make sure the top medium didn't get tacky. So, I knew it would create some 'words' from DH for spraying in the house (it's way too cold here to go outside to spray anything) but I went in the art room, tried to hold the yarn out of the way and sprayed.
The glossy spray really made it pop and I was happy with this poor bookmark that took so long, even without a dove! Rather than walk to the washroom to use my blow dryer to help it dry, I decided to just carefully use the heater gun instead. I knew better, I really did, but I picked it up anyway and used it on both sides of the marker. Yup! You know what happened, it got too hot real fast, caused little bubbles to appear and even worse melted the glitter glaze I had so carefully placed on the "fireworks"! I let it dry, decided to maybe do another spray and using the hair blower, it would fix the damage.....maybe NOT!
It could be worse, I mean, it's a bookmark, it can still be used.....it's just NOT a masterpiece, not something that one would want shown in the hopes of orders or selling some. I know my friend will like it anyway and even be graceful enough to say, "I don't see anything wrong", even tho' it's blatant.
Such a tiny thing for a long post, hey? I did remember to scan it so I'll show it now. Haven't done anything else to show; although if I download the pics from my camera I might have some pics of a beginning project. No hurry, it may take me a year to do it anyway!  LOL!

                                                                   
The top pic. is where I wanted a dove but that's ok, the gal is looking at the fireworks. The fireworks that were all perfectly glittery but now have tiny bubbles traveling down right across the poor little girl's face. Or maybe it was starting to rain! Ya, that's it, it was starting to do a misty rain and that's what you see in the picture....right? So that's it. Hopefully, tomorrow it will finally be given to the sweet lady who should have had it a long time ago!