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!

Learning by Scrap Art

Nothing exciting or earth shattering to share today. Pretty much seems to be the norm. I am trying to start the entrance project but somehow having no place to put anything out of the way and trying to work around a husband just isn't being productive. He'll be gone all day and evening tomorrow so maybe if I put my mind to it, I can make some headway! Trouble is, I always have a hundred things lined up for when he might be G. O. N. E. for a day! He hasn't yet done his part of the entrance room, either, and I really need him to do it. I don't do heights at all, so washing and then painting the ceiling is for him to do. It's not a ceiling that you can do from the floor with a long handled roller, too many little corners to get to.
 I'm still un-cluttering a bit at a time also. Hard to go through piles of art related things, tho. You find pictures saved for this or that, art started and left, tons of ephemera to be sorted and saved, art magazines that make you sit down and start reading and then the piles remain! I'm just not organized anymore. I did much better when I worked and had just so much time to do anything! Have to learn to stay off  FB when I decide to work at anything, too! Once you get on there you can count on losing at least a hour for sure! But I love it! And I have to be wary of blog hopping, too, I'll lose a whole entire day to that!!
 The ragged piece of so-called art I'm going to show is one of those things I came across while sorting out a pile. This wasn't meant to be art. I keep a old larger paperback book on the table to use for protection when gluing, painting smaller items or as a protective sheet when working in a journal or found words books or something. Use it for just cleaning a pen or paint brush, also. Somewhere along the line, I just started another face and as time went on, kept playing with her. Now I found her buried in a pile and wondered why she wasn't thrown in the trash bucket. So being me, I layed her down and decided to just play some more before I gave her the toss. She has so many layers of different media that she's starting to flake off! As usual, I ended up with too big wonky eyes. Don't know why I continue to always do that. There's only one reason I even show this. It because there's a hint of a break-through with her! And the break-through is that for the first time I can actually see the beginning of some contouring in her face! I have never got out of the flat face mode but maybe, just maybe, I'm beginning to! So maybe all this playing on scraps is actually starting to pay off! Now if only I wouldn't do wonky eyes that always look the same! Truth is, I didn't even notice that parts of her were pretty nifty until I considered her played with enough and let drift down into the trash can. As she landed, I happened to look down and thought, h'mmm, I think she might have some good beginnings of facial features. Now she's back out so I could scan her to show. She seems to have a life of her own so now rather than let her be trashed, I'll save her for a journal or collage or something someday. No, not going back in the pile; she's going in a drawer of  'someday I might use this' stuff! And if I don't ever use her, oh well, she's had her day in the spot light and served a purpose.

          Guess my scan is rather dark, she does look better sitting beside me.....colors are more real than here. Maybe the bigger version of the picture is better, I haven't looked.  But oh well, I dared to show something! Yea for me!                                                                

Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS to EVERYONE! Wishing you peace, health, love and exactly what you need to make you content!

       This was myself and baby sister way back when, after a long Christmas Day of Santa, food, relatives & fun! I think we were sleepy and tired of picture taking!                                    

Found Words

I wanted to come and put up another 'Found Words' page to start getting in the habit of posting more regular again. I've been busy on FB with some old friends and family just having a 'hoot' remembering our childhood and what a truly magical place we grew up in. Too bad you don't realize that until you're too old to go back and live it some more! Of course, the old stomping grounds and places we roamed don't stay the same, either. It's really a shame, but none the less, we're having such fun remembering and sharing photo's, teasing and catching up. There  was a slew of us from a 'location' of 15 houses and the world was ours back then! The computer can be a wonderful tool to keep in touch with everyone; almost like showing old home movies of good times!
 But the reason I came on was just to post a page from a found words book. That was about 2 hours ago! I had to peek at my dashboard, then at who made some posts I hadn't seen in a while, then some graphics to save and then I landed on Lynne Hoppe's blog and wonderful paintings!! I got lost there for a while, I tell ya! I just adore her style of painting and drawing so much! I could look at her faces all day long, they just do 'something' to me.....I think they feel like me.
 So now it's late and my ever faithful tiny doggy is letting me know we should be heading for bed. She doesn't know I'm not sitting here forgetting bedtime, I'm getting hundreds of images in my head, followed by ideas chasing them, which means it'll be a while before I go to sleep! Besides that, I get to start a new book to read tonight when I do get to my bed! There's something just exciting to me to end a book one night and start a fresh new one to read the next! Sometimes I do have to wait a couple nights before starting a new book because the last one was so good, it lingers a while!
 The 'Found Words' page I'm going to show, is again not meant to be good art. It's just relaxing and meditative to me to search out the words to save and then just do some sort of art to block out the unwanted words on the page. No rules, right or wrong, just simply cross them out or blot them out with some form of doodling, zentangling, practice art, colors, whatever!! I only show it because it is fun and even tho' there are multitudes of mistakes in today's picture, it's still a assignment in showing the good and the bad. It's a very very hard thing for me to do.

       As usual, I played with this one too much. She was better when I just had had her in pencil with a touch of color. But, nope, I just had to keep on. This is page # 8 in the Inspirational Verses calender I'm using.
I do have more to show from another book but I keep forgetting to get them scanned.
 Maybe I'll be back tomorrow. We'll see; depends on whether or not I get going on a big project I want to do. I have a hard time starting things, I worry over them and procrastinate, re-think my idea a hundred times and finally get to it. Then after all that it usually never ever ends up the way I envisioned.  Oh well, such is my life! I doubt I'll ever change.                                                            

Altered Pages with Found Words

I did promise I'd come back and show some pictures of something! I searched for envelopes that I've sent but I can't seem to find one I didn't show and sorry to say that one I was really proud of, was sent and I forgot to take a picture first! Oh well, there will be more, I hope!
 In the meantime I'm still doing found words and altered pages. I have several books I'm working playing in so I'm just going to show some from the latest book I picked up. Sorry to say it's not great art! There's couple I shouldn't even show but as I said way back, It's good to show complete goofs along with the good. The altered pages / found words are mostly for fun or trying an idea. The designs never have straight lines or perfectly matched designs because I don't do these seriously. I carry them with me and while sitting in the car, watching a game or playing on the computer, i just play in these books.
 This one I'll be showing 7 pages from what is one of those "Bible Promises for each day" flip booklet. It was at the thrift shop for .25 and just looked interesting for art purposes. I can't stop picking up books to play in!!
 so here they are:

This one is probably my favorite so far in this book. I do wish I had tried a bit harder to get the checks right because I think it was looking kind of cool except for messing up the pattern. It did block out the words nicely just leaving the Found Words I liked. I have a bad habit of getting carried away and all of a sudden looking down to see that I've drawn a line right through a word I meant to keep! So on this one I used some laminating glaze to see if it would protect the words and it did but it also made the ink run a bit, which doesn't really look bad. Somehow I listed the pictures in the wrong order, if it matters, but this is actually page #7.

 This is the first page. This was just done with no design in mind ahead of time so it just evolved into this. There weren't too many words to have to hide. This was just a "La-La-La" design while playing Words With Friends on face book! Not great but not bad.

 This is the 2nd page and I pretty much flubbed it. This was a blank page and so I added a word of my own. Then tried a new Zentangle pattern and as I said completely botched it. I had a sort of design in mind but bad just went to worse so I quit. I even got carried away shading and didn't leave the right highlights. Oh well, It kept my mind occupied for a while!

 This the 3rd page and I quit because I just wasn't making it come together in a way I liked. So eventually someday I'll go back and work it some more to finish. On the Found Words I used Diamond Glaze this time to protect and highlight the words.

 This is page 4 and I scanned it crooked! But all in all this didn't turn out too bad. I seem to not pay attention when shading and the book causing me to continue shadow in the wrong places. I'll get that right when I do this more seriously, I hope.

 This is page 5. I shouldn't even show it but oh well. This started out as balls with a stripe and then I made them into eye balls but the shapes were all wrong. So then I went back and tried to fix the shapes so they'd be more like eyes but it was just too time consuming and a lot were beyond fixing ....so I quit! Another total Flub!

        This is page #6 and the same story here....I got carried away and forgot what I was doing and completely flubbed the design! Good thing I don't do this for pay or I'd starve! I'll try this one another time on a different page and maybe get it right.   


  So there! I posted again without going away for 6 months and I even finally showed some sort of art!! Yea for me!