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!