Love Letters

Been away far too long...

Howdy! 

I'm hoping I still have followers who actually stop by once in awhile, but if not, I completely understand! I've been negligent, careless, thoughtless, selfish, and just plain lazy when it comes to my blog. My blog was my baby for the longest time, then SCHOOL got in the way...

 

Bronson School of Nursing, Kalamazoo Michigan

(I lived in a great big, beautiful old house with gorgeous oak trim, with five of my school mates, what a trip!)

 

No, not that school, but a couple years ago I was in school to finish my BSN and now I'm in school to earn my master's in nursing, and it has kind of taken over my life. I never knew what a procrastinator I was until I went back to school! It's fascinating all the little things I can find to do rather than doing my school work! Washing windows, scrubbing out the vegetable drawer in the fridge, giving the cat a bath... no, wait, scratch that! Giving the DOG a bath! Organizing my junk drawer, you name it, I've done it to avoid the work I need to do. It's really pathetic. I keep telling myself "I'll do better next week" or "I'll work ahead so next week won't be so much of a crisis to get my work done". Do you think it happens that way? Well, so far, no it hasn't. Honestly it's my calligraphy pens and paper that keep calling me! So I'm trying to fit in just a little art time everyday, no matter how small, so that I don't feel like I've left the creative side of me in the dust somewhere. 

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it! I hope my art world friends and acquaintences are doing well and I promise to make time for your posts! Whatever you do, please don't give up on me and please be patient with me!

Oh! I wanted to turn you on to a magazine I may have talked about before, but it's worth revisiting even if I did...

MAGAZINE

This is a little gem in the publishing world of art magazines... I guess you'd classify it as an art mag. The tag on the magazine is:

 

and the topics run the gamut from issues about writing (including lot of typewriter information) to issues about linens and textiles to issues about my favorite, COLLAGE!!! (Current issue, number 18). So I hope you'll check the magazine out... a subscription for a year is not inexpensive, but the quality of the paper used for the cover and the internal pages is marvelous from a tactile standpoint, and the writing and information contained within is well worth every penny I've spent to get it delivered to me from CANADA... O Canada! Terre de nos aïeux, Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux! (Sorry, I couldn't help myself...  everytime I hear Oh, Canada I hear the Canadian Anthem in my head... I think it's because we watch so much hockey here in the Detroit area, eh?!?)

So, check it out, I think like me, you'll really love it... it's definitely a keeper! I've saved every issue I have, though I'm sad to admit I am missing the very first issue :(

OK, till next time, Bonsoir!

Now go make something!!!

So Sweet!!!

Recently, I visited an Etsy shop called Edelweiss Post, which is owned and curated by a handsome young man from Minneapolis named Patrick...

  

this is his photo from his Etsy site...

And here's the envelope he sent me after I wrote him the old fashioned way (snail mail)...

I love that Patrick has saved his grandfather's stamps and is using them to make beautiful stamp collages. Patrick is my new pen pal and I was absolutely thrilled to receive this beautiful envelope in the mail!

It's fun to find a kindred soul who appreciates the beauty of old things, things that aren't made any longer, things that become precious to us because of this.  

I hope you'll visit his Etsy shop and support his endeavor.  

Spring greeting...

Spring greetings! 

Just a quick reminder, the Brooklyn Art House' Sketchbook Project 2012 is on its way to Chicago, May 3rd, 4th & 5th!  The exhibit will be at the Newberry Library, and if you are in that neck of the woods, I hope you'll go see the exhibit... it's FREE and it should be VERY interesting!  

 

Here's a link to a VERY cook sketchbook from the 2011 project: http://www.arthousecoop.com/library/77#page-slide_1

I hope if you take a look at it you'll let me know your thoughts.  I love the addition of what I think must be screenprinting in the sketchbook... I wish I knew a printer who has scraps like the graphics printed in this sketchbook.  I would happily pay for the imperfectly printed images to use in my journals or collages.  Any ideas? (I apologize that I cannot show any images from the book, but it's not mine to access).

I hope you are enjoying spring and find yourself making SOMETHING everyday!

Seth's upcoming book debut!

If you aren't familiar with my friend Seth Apter, you need to head over to his site, The Altered Page, now!

He has a new book coming out very soon and is doing a promotion during the month of March.  Each day in March he is highlighting the artists he has chosen to collaborate with in his book, and it's a great opportunity to learn more about Seth and his work, along with the work of the very talented collaborators!  

Seth is a terrifically talented, humble, & kind man who has an entirely different daytime occupation, but manages to wear his many hats extremely well! He has been one of my most supportive "online friends" for quite a number of years now, and I am always amazed at all the things Seth has managed to create &/or organize.  This is one busy, dedicated artist, and I'm so proud to call him my friend! 

 

Crossroads...

I am unwittingly at a major crossroads in my life and I am sending out a request for positive energy from my friends and supporters in the "blogosphere"... I've been interviewing for a new position at the hospital, and I really, really, really want this job... I'm SO hopeful that I've been able to come across well in the interviews, with honesty and integrity and grace... during what can be a very intimidating experience!  

This is the front of the thank you note I made... since yesterday was Valentine's Day, I went out on a limb and used a heart on the front of this card.  I've always sent handwritten thank you notes after an interview, and this time I made my own card to send.  I sure hope the recipient likes it!  

Final Sketchbook Project 2012 covers, etc.

This is the final edition of the front cover of my Sketchbook Project 2012 book... I love the "Choose authenticity" arrow and I love the white strip down the right hand side that is embossed with "MADE WITH LOVE"... it's cut out of a Neenah paper give away piece from last year's XPEDX paper show.  I put a little Golden Titan Buff acrylic paint, mixed with a little bit of iridescent gold over the white so it wasn't quite so stark.

This is the back cover... I love the hand and the heart...

Here's a couple of close up sections of other pages I hadn't posted previously...

So what have you been up to that's fun and different from your usual work?  

More Sketchbook Project 2012 images...

 

Time is drawing nigh (boy, how often do you get to say "nigh"?!?) for me to put the Sketchbook 2012 project in the mail, in time for it to travel with all the other sketchbooks to various locales around the country.  I thought it might be fun to share some of the layouts with you... I hope you like them. (Keep in mind I may end up adding to some of the pages, tweaking them just a bit.) It has been a departure from my traditional "signature" style of collage, and it's really been fun.  

(BTW, clicking on the images will open them up in a larger window).  

A lot of the cut out images came from paper samples from an xpedx paper show, and were very carefully cut out (note Rocky Racoon's whiskers above left).  

Same with this page spread... the flowers on the left were cut out and applied over a very busy page that I made even busier by writing all over it, and on the page on the right.  How cute are the little bumble bee men on the top of the right hand page?

This spread is a little goofy, but it's meant to be humorous... the bike and the wording "slow your roll" were recycled from a bicycle catalog.  I prefer the spread on the right... I love the ampersand and the pink flower to the left of it.  

In this spread I love the porcupine, and trust me, he took forever to cut out!!!  Those quills are sharp! :D  

I absolutely LOVE paper and the quality of the samples from companies like Finch, Appleton, French and Domtar are superb!  Both the paper quality and the image quality are absolutely first rate in my opinion!

I love this spread... the face on the left is just so cool, with the colorful image of the world superimposed...   The flower on the right side was another of those really labor intensive cutting jobs!  

This is a bit of a silly layout... have you picked up on the repeating stripes that appear on a lot of the pages?  The stripes came from a printed catalogue from UofM's School of Public Health that was really nicely done.

more images placed in no particular place... just for fun!

The cougar images that appear here and there are from Domtar's line of papers called, appropriately so, "Cougar".  It is a gorgeous paper that takes ink just beautifully.

I really like the spread on the right page... the colors work really well together. The spread on the left made me think of the movie Babe, which is one of my all time favorites!  Babe... "a little pig goes a long way".

This is one busy spread... the two little old ladies in the bottom left are my great-grandmother and her sister... they reportedly loved nature so I put them outside! :D

next to last pages...

The back cover is on the left and the front cover is on the right. I think the  front cover in particular needs some love! Perhaps I'll have to make some sort of title for the book that mentions how much I love letters!

I hope if the traveling Sketchbook Project 2012 comes to a city near you that you'll take the time to go see the books!  

Sketchbook Project 2012

 

                                    

Is a really neat way of sharing your artwork with the world... here's some more information on the project, hosted by the  Brookly Art Library:

 

Join the community. The Sketchbook Project is a collaboration that unites a unique community of creative people from across the globe. Exchange tips and techniques, share visual inspiration or just make a new friend.

Share your story. The Sketchbook Project is an opportunity to express yourself to a global audience. Participants can upload a bio and share future projects, personal links and stories with other creative people.

The Digital Library travels far and wide. With hundreds of thousands of visitors and climbing, the Digital Library is an amazing platform to share your work with a wider audience. Choose to have your book professionally digitized and we'll give it a home on the Web.

The Brooklyn Art Library is your home. Our storefront exhibition space will archive your sketchbook and make it available to patrons from all over the world. We're open every day, so please come and visit us soon.

After the tour, all sketchbooks will enter into the permanent collection of The Brooklyn Art Library, where they will be barcoded and available for the public to view.

                                       

I thought I'd share preliminary pages from my sketchbook, which still needs a lot of work in order to be completed... (The large expanse of orange on the left is the inside of the cover of the journal)...

 

Here's the first page of my sketchbook... if you click on the image, it will open in a larger format...  This is in someways the most random collage work I've ever done... there really is no rhyme or reason for how it's put together or what images I chose to use... I simply used whatever appealed to me at the moment, given what I had on hand...

 Next spread:

This little book needs to be completed by the end of January, if I want it to go on tour with the rest of the journals, so I have to get busy...

I'll keep you informed of the progress...  It's a really neat project and I'm pretty excited to be a part of it... usually I'm scrambling to finish things two days before the deadline, but not this time! 

Now, go make something!

Mixed media journaling

Hey there!!!  My new year's resolution is to post more often!  It's been a crazy couple of years, but I'm done with my degree, I'm healthy again, and it's time to rededicate myself to pursuing my true passion... MAKING ART AND STUFF!!!  So here is a sample of a couple of facing pages from a journal I made using 90# cold press Arches watercolor paper. These are a couple of my favorite pages so far...

The color was put down using Golden liquid Acrylic paints with some Super Loaded Matte Medium added to it, which helps keep the paint from getting sticky, and leaves a great surface on which to write. The word JOY was written with acrylic ink and a folded pen, and the white letters were written with a gel pen.  There's some metallic marks on the page which doesn't scan in well at all, and the little spotted areas were made with a rubber type of shelf lining that leaves that sort of impression.  Pretty nifty, huh?!?

Not all my journal pages are this well put together, if you know what I mean, but I sure would like them to be! And truthfully, I could do more to "dress" this up, but I'm not going to mess with it any further... 

So Happy New Year, friends!  I hope you have set some gentle resolutions for yourself, the kind you can keep with JOY in your heart and the kind that will help you learn new techniques and grow as an artist. 

Christmas envelopes

Just for fun, I thought I'd show you the back of some of the envelopes I've sent out this Christmas.  I like to not only make each card by hand, I also make each envelope to match or coordinate.  And then to give the outside of the envelope a little more character, I add a tiny bit of collage to the back flap of the envelope. 

I like to use elements in green and red and white or cream, that may or may not even have anything at all to do with our typical or expected Christmas images, simply for a little variety and something unexpected. 

On the first envelope, I used a strip from a vintage dictionary, glued down under the hearts, and intentionally chose the words "merry" and "merry making" to use on this Christmas envelope.

 

 If you look closely, the middle envelope has a dark green strip on it that is a scrap left over from some painted tyvek I used for a completely different project.  

 

And on the bottom envelope, I used a scrap of handwriting from a 100+ year old German journal (it's a little bit hard to see, sorry).

 It's not exciting, but it is unique... and in this world of mass produced products it's kind of nice to put your own signature on your own work, no matter how small!

Now, go have yourself a very