upcycled sketch book - Day 29

Today I created a new sketch book for myself from recycled paper, mail brochures, and pattern scrapbook paper. After deciding on the size of the book I used my color staples to attach the white drawing paper and then ran the pages under my Elna sewing machine (great for handling thick, multiple pages). I capped things off with a little left over bling on the front cover from an old project.




Front cover of upcycled sketch book.





Enjoy,
Sandra

New web TV Craft show to start in August 2011.

A must read for all creative souls! Check out this blog to learn more about the new web TV craft show starting in August to feature such great artists as Christy Tomlinson.

http://www.mycraftchannelblog.com/

Enjoy,
Sandra

Discovering the work - Day 28

 

Before picture of ATC.

Today I am late in posting but wanted to post something before going to bed. Not much to say but that I revisited an ATC card I posted earlier. Check out the before and after pictures below.

I added some acrylic paint to fill in the vase and flowers and added the text using Photoshop CS3.

After picture of ATC.



That's it, I'm off to bed soon after checking out how everyone else is getting their art on. Three more days to go ;-)

Enjoy,

Sandra

See Something - Day 27

This is my offering for Day 27. It is an abstract painting using acrylic paints on a piece of wood sized 8"x8". I had a lot of fun using a plastic painter's knife to add the various layers of acrylic paint. What made it fun was the rough texture of the wood grain that became more visible as I played with the layers of paint.
I then took a picture and added text to the image using Photoshop CS3.

You might be surprised that I choose a quote by John Ruskin because he is known to have argued that the principal role of the artist is "truth to nature".

Yet, this particular quote is quite fitting to me, a visionary artist, with this painting for it challenges the purest ideas of what is "seeing clearly" in society and in art form. I "see" my art and the visions it conjures up within me as sharing some ties with that of Ruskin's belief of:

         "Good art is done with enjoyment. The artist must feel that, within certain reasonable limits, he is free, that he is wanted by society, and that the ideas he is asked to express are true and important."

Without overly analyzing the process and the materials I was using I became free to enjoy the creation of this painting and although it is not a "true" realistic painting of a forest it non the less is my vision of what an early morning walk in a forest would look like to me... call me unreasonable if you choose. LOL

8"x8" abstract painting on wood with computerized text overlay.

Blue skies and golden sun rays play hide and seek with each other within the mist of the thick, rough trunks of the trees shuffling by to reveal the next section of the path of my personal journey of a creative life. The purple shimmers extend them self deeper into the center of the painting holding perhaps the clarity that Ruskin speaks of - of poetry, of prophecy, and religion all in one.

Although Ruskin would argue with:
      
       "Even the most superior mind and the most powerful imagination must found itself on facts, which must be recognized for what they are. The imagination will often reshape them in a way which the prosaic mind cannot understand; but this recreation will be based on facts, not on formulas or illusions.

Although my views will never be mistaken for being pure Ruskin in nature (no pun intended) I admire the man - for Ruskin's ideas and views lead to the rise of the Arts and Crafts Movement and the importance of man made and craftsmanship over machine made to create beauty in society so powerful that it crossed over into our moral beliefs and values for living life as good Christians.

Yet I argue that God is so good to society that he provides us many opportunities to see spiritual peace "happiness" in unlimited forms and practices. Even (should I say it) by merging "fact" with "illusions" which I interpret as faith or belief. For it is the things we don't see and yet hold strong beliefs in that matter the most during our earthly time. Instead of arguing one extreme or the other I find enjoyment in interweaving abstract play representation of the unknown with that of personal storytelling conveyed by personal association to said abstract art based on the historical facts of a life lived.

How sweet it is to have freedom of personal vision and thoughts and to share them in purpose to experience peace within art making. What do you see?

Enjoy,
Sandra

Courage to GROW - Day 26

 I've been away for the past three days at a conference in DC. Although I took my mini journal with me I was not able to add any new artwork to the journal - my days just came and went with very little time then to wake up, attend the conference, spend time with my hosts (sister and brother-in-law), sleep and do it again. I did get a chance to take in two museum exhibits and I used my journal to take notes of some of the artwork I viewed for future research (I'm hoping to post and share at a later time).

But for today, my Day 26 I revisited a piece I blogged about earlier in this process. I actually finished this piece and you can see the results in the picture below. I would say more but I'm tired and need to head off to bed.

Hope you enjoy this one, I worked on for the better part of the evening/morning. It was a lot of fun. Check out the before pictures of this piece on blog Day 6.



"Courage to GROW" 8"x8" mixed-media collage on wood.

Enjoy,

Sandra

PS

Thanks for all your kind words and for following along. Even though I have not been able to participate every day on this challenge it is still the most art I have ever created in one month's time and the month is not even over ;-) I'll be posting something new for the following last 5 days and I can't wait to visit your blogs to see what everyone's been up to. Happy blogging.

Vision - Day 22

Today has been an extremely long, hot day - Lancaster, PA reached over 100 degrees today plus humidity, ouch! I put in 3 sweat filled hours at the Lancaster Farmacy this morning and YES I did jump in the creek ;-) See pictures below. I then quickly went home, showered and changed and did my rounds to pick up first my niece, Amelia, then my mom to take us to the Fulton Opera House for the annual Youtheatre production.   This year the subject matter was 'immigration' the play was called "For We Were Strangers In The Land". As a naturalized American citizen who immigrated with  my family from Peru in 1978 the story touched me in a profound way - at times almost bringing me to tears in rememerance of the emotional and financal hardship my family suffered in el Callo, Peru.  I have a sense of loyalty and honor for my homeland of Peru but I love being an American citizen with all the freedoms this land offers. It is not a perfect land but opportunities are abudnant. When you think you have it bad in the USA just go visit a third world country and you'll be kissing the soil of this nation mighty quickly. The youth did a great job with all the proceeds going to a local nonprofit that supports refugee immigrants in the Lancaster County area. One of my students from four years back was part of the ensemble - great to see him use his acting skills for such a good cause. Then dinner with family and finally crashing at home in my AC bedroom. I think I might of gotten a little heat stroke (yikes) the sun was brutal!

Me sweating up a storm on the farm this morning it was only in the 90s not yet 105.

The creek near the farm - its a favorite spot as you can tell by the rock staircase for easy entry.

After some quality time with my cat, Diego, on the couch just relaxing and resting I picked up my mini art journal and began to do a little "pulled art" on a page that had previously been painted with watercolors and stamped. In my state of relaxation I began to draw a soothing closed eye. I added some circles for a zen feel and tried to image what calming visions might be at the source of this image. What calms me down outside of doing art is music. I love all genres but my favorite is folk music. You might ask 'but do you really see music' I say yes because when I hear the music the instruments fill my mind's eye with images of banjos, mandolins, acoustic guitars, steel guitars, pianos, harmonics and so on ... The images of the musicans playing their instruments with such vigor and delight fill my heart with joy as it resembles the joy I feel when I am creating art with my instruments in hand (a pencil, paint brush, or my fingers). It's strange but the movement of the musicians similar to that of a working artist calms my soul and without effort my whole body relaxes and smiles inwardly in gratitude to be alive. My favorite band, these days, is Carolina Chocolate Drops - . I can't wait until September when I get to see them in concert for the second time this year. Live music is a blessing.



"vision" graphite and watercolors in mini art journal


I call this image "vision" and welcome you to add your story of what brings you to a state of calmness and gratitude and as always feel free to leave a comment to share your thoughts.

Enjoy,
Sandra

To see what the other artists are up to in the 30 Days challenge click here.

Join the CURIOUS GIRLS Club - Day 21

For Day 21 of GET YOUR ART ON I was inspired by the artwork of Roben-Marie Smith an artist I was first introduced to by Mystele from Little Glimpses Studio. I am a follower of Roben-Marie’s blog {Every Life Has A Story} that can be found at http://www.robenmarie.com. Roben-Marie is so generous in how she shares her art. In her blog posts she shares words of encouragement to new visionary artist like me through her storytelling of art making and also through her “Watch the Process” videos made just for us visual learners who have to see it to “get it” ;-) Her videos reveal a true love for play and spontaneous art making. I kept asking myself how she makes it look so EASY when I know it is NOT.  I also wondered how she KNOWS that the outcome of the video recording will yield an aesthetically pleasing piece of artwork.

In a recent email exchange where I wrote to Roben-Marie to thank her for the inspiration she provides me to keep going with my art making (especially the dreaded adding of text to art) Roben-Marie shared with me “I keep in all the mess-ups and show how I just cover things up and keep going!”. Her words stayed with me for over a week and today I awoke inspired to become BRAVE and play – PLAY like great artists like Mystele and Roben-Marie. PLAY without fear of the outcome but just to enjoy the process.  Thanks ladies!



8x8 inches on wood (white gesso and crayons)



To get myself in a BRAVE state of mind I first needed to relax so I got the old white gesso out and started to lay down some paint. I then hit it with my heat gun and then pulled out a set of crayons and started to just let loose with spontaneous zentangle design. Side note: I love the smell of crayons ;-) I still remember being in 1^st grade when my mom purchased a box set of 64 crayons for me and my siblings to share. Remember with the little sharpener in the back? I LOVED IT! I got a rush from seeing them all organized together in the hug box, all sharpened and ready to go. I spent many hours with those crayons coloring in over-sized coloring books and also making handmade board games and paper dolls. I was blessed with a mom who shared her love of creativity with me at a young age. Before heading off to work she would draw pretty little girls for me and say “now you can make the clothes”.  This kept me quite busy on those long hot summer days.

Finger painting with craft acyrlic paints.

Once I was warmed up with the zentangles I then moved over to finger painting, paint dripping, paint smearing, and paint flicking… oh, it is so much FUN! All techniques shared by Roben-Marie through her videos. This is just a work in progress for I do not wish to stop by just repeating the skills Roben-Marie shares but I want to keep playing; introducing my own style of doing things and allow my curiosity to move me towards an artwork that is all my own.  Thanks Roben-Marie for “Lifting Me Up, for I am a CURIOUS Girl”.



ATC with a twist - Day 20

Okay so I'm on an ATC kick but that's why they are so much fun - small and full of possibilities. For this ATC I added a twist with a handmade designer embellishment using some of my studio tools. I used my Imaginisce i-top Tool to create my own designer brad. I used the medium size 22mm brad backing with decorative scrapbooking paper to cover it. I then distressed the paper with a black ink pad. I also used my Imaginisce i-top Paper Punch Medium size for 22 mm brads to cut two flower style shapes (also using scrapbooking paper). I distressed both the flower style shapes with various color ink pads and then cut one of the shapes using my design scissors to makes an organic shape to the petal edges. I layered them all on top of a die cut embellishment also in the shape of a flower. To top everything off I added a Y for YARN rub-on letter to the brad. I attached the designer brad to my chipboard ATC card with my hole puncher after I decorated the ATC card.

ATC "Yarn"

I love this brad making tool - it is a bit expensive but if you use a 50% off AC Moore coupon like I did it's worth it. You can use paper or fabric, although the fabric is a bit more tricky to manage if you want me to share with you youtube videos and website links that I have found helpful just leave a comment. Below is a website for more details on the tools mentioned in this blog posting.

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=i+top+imaginisce&tag=mh0b-20&index=aps&hvadid=162711001&ref=pd_sl_2bc8bstvo4_b

Enjoy,
Sandra

ATC: Breath Well - Day 19

My offering for day 19 :-) This is an ATC I created using just found images and text. My inspiration was the intense heat we have been experiencing in PA. I suffer from major allergies when the humidity kicks in and the intense heat makes my breathing less then comfortable at times. I am fortune enough that I have central air in my home and it doesn't really hit me until I venture out in my car to run errands and the such. Yet, when I am at the organic farm that I volunteer at my breathing seems to improve - must be something in the air. Just food for thought of how much our daily activities (good or bad) effect our air quality and our personal quality of life.




Collage ATC "Breath Well"


Enjoy,
Sandra

Sunflowers - Day 18

Today I spent the afternoon with my niece, Amelia. She's a third grader with a love for creating art! We had a wonderful afternoon, making a healthy lunch from veggies from the farm, then we planted sunflower seeds in the backyard, and continued the theme by painting sunflowers on acrylic 110lb Canson artist paper. Below are the pictures I took of the process. It turned out super great! She decided to paint the red sunflower and I went for the orange toned sunflower. Amelia is amazing she has a true eye for color combinations - she selected the color palette for her painting including adding some bright Cobalt Blue for a punch of color... ahhh, a child after my own heart.


"Red Sunflower" by Amelia (3rd grader)


She was very patient and worked on layering color with varies applications of glazes to build up the tones and then using dry brush technique to add texture.
Her color choices inspired me and if you look closely I also added a little Cobalt Blue in my painting.

"sunflower" by ME ;-)

Enjoy,
Sandra

Tabs for Thought - Day 17

I took some Chinese fortunes from past meals and glued them onto a tab I created for a future art project. I just love the colors and I used a new edge punch to create the corner cutouts. I also used a floral punch to cut out the middle circle on the blue paper. I played with some glitter stamp pads and glued everything together with an Elmer’s glue stick.



Front and back of a tab I created for a future art project.

 Enjoy,
Sandra

Party Time! - Day 16

This is page 14 with an inside flap (page 15) out of my art journal “Process of Becoming”. This is also the last entry page of my art journal – stage 1: collage elements. Thus, the birds on the ledge with party hats – for they are songbirds with music in their hearts sharing in fellowship for as a wise church lady told me yesterday during our weekly book discussion group “God did not make man to stand alone… everyone needs community”. Now that stage 1 is completed I will move onto stage 2 to be shared in the coming days.

As always please post your comments and enjoy,
Sandra

Head Above Water - Day 15

This is page 13 from my art journal "Process of Becoming".  I call it Head Above Water because that's how I feel some times. I love trying new things, experimenting with new art forms and overall meeting new people; but sometimes I just need time for myself to relax, meditate and create art so I don’t drown in my professional responsibilities and my creative endeavors. I am sure many of you can relate ;-)

Enjoy,
Sandra

What is love? Day 14

Here is the next page spread in my "Process of Becoming" art journal. The topic for discussion on these pages is that of love. How do you define love, share your love, honor your love and can you ever truly protect yourself from the pitfall of being hurt by love?



Enjoy,
Sandra

heART of Friendship - Day 13

On Day 13 I started my volunteer position with The heART of Friendship Art Gallery located in Ephrata, PA.  Once a week, Wednesdays, from 9am-noon I will be working one-on-one with a heART artist (the same gal every week) in the creation and development of her personal art projects. This is a new and very challenging position for me for I have never worked with adults with developmental disabilities at this level; especially since I myself am not formally trained in the fine arts. I totally consider myself an Outsider Artist, my style is totally eclectic going from folk art whimsy to flashes of some fine art thrown here and there but never at the academically trained level – nor is that my goal for doing art.

I shared these concerns with Marsha Petery, Gallery Coordinator, and she reassured me that we were ALL here to learn and that’s what makes the process so inviting and exciting. Marsha explained to me that their volunteer staff is very diverse from accomplished professional artists to community people like me who practice art making outside of formal fine art training. I shared with Marsha that I had just started the 30 Days of Get Your Art On blog and how much support and learning I have been experiencing in just the first 12 days of posting. I asked Marsha if it would be okay if I blogged about my experience with The heART of Friendship and shared the heART artist work process to get ideas and feedback from my online art community. She loved the idea and gave me permission to blog away on the topic (to keep confidentiality I will not be sharing too much detail on the actual heART artist art process nor her personal information). My main goal is to open up the circle of creative dialogue - for my online art community to advise me on possible suggestions I can share with my heART artist as she is actively choosing for herself the development of her personal artwork. So it’s going to be me posting pictures of the work in progress and you providing comments.

HERE WE GO… Let’s create together:

So this Wednesday, July 13^th, as I began to discover what my volunteer role was I began to feel a lot of concern for how effective as a helper I was going to be, for all the reasons stated above.  I am to assist my heART artist with her personal artwork creation (I forget the ratio) but in the end she will be doing the bulk of the art creation and I am there to verbally direct and/or manually assist with some of the process.  The art project was assigned by the heART of Friendship fulltime paid Lead Teacher/Artist. So when I arrived the art project was what it was and there was no turning back or changing it. As it was communicated to me by the Lead Teacher, I had to help the heART artist work through the challenge of recreating the image which was assigned to her (I’m not sure if the heART artist choose the picture or the Lead Teacher) but there was no time to waste on that question my heART artist was eager to start creating art and she was looking to me to get her started.

The picture my heART artist was working off of was an image of Mexican architecture; she had already painted the background purple using acrylic paint on the watercolor paper and was beginning to trace a template in the shape of the main part of the building that she had decided to focus on recreating.  After much dialogue and hands on trial and error (becoming familiar with her cognitive abilities and artist skills) this is what was created – see images below.

Next Wednesday we will be picking up where we left off and I would like input from my fellow online art community on any suggestions, critique, feedback you could provide me to share with my heART artist. One thing my heART artist decided to try for next week is to play with cutting up the painting (cut around the main building and add it to a new background) playing with the three dimensional forms already in place (the terracotta pots on the right side were glued on using pop up dots) we plan to play with cardboard next week to make the building a bit more 3D. The final artwork will be housed in a black shadowbox. My heART artist really liked this idea of playing with the three dimensional form; a new experience for her and a fun element I love to experiment with. My biggest dilemma is how do we play with 3D but still be true to showcasing some traditional fine art skills already present in the 2D format (window niche and pots). The main building needs a glaze wash to add more three dimension to it but how should we go about introducing this now that that the acrylic paint is dry and the pots are glue on? How about the background, should we introduce any other building elements or do a sky background? My heART artist relies on the Lead Teacher and volunteers like myself to assist her with these types of decision making. I would love to hear your ideas and include you in the process; so what’s on your mind, as always please leave a comment I am eager to hear your thoughts.

More about The heART of Friendship Art Gallery

 “The heART of Friendship is an extension of Friendship Community located in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  The vision of Friendship Community is to be a community which affirms the worth of all people. The heART of Friendship empowers adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities to pursue the creation of art as a way of developing skills, achieving self expression, finding a meaningful role in society and moving toward economic independence. In addition the gallery holds classes for the general public, thus facilitating an artistic experience in the setting of diversity. 

THE DREAM!

• Aggressive marketing of art projects serves to promote individual artists and their work and provide artists with financial resources. We exhibit and sell our work beyond our gallery, by marketing on the internet and other local retail establishments. Public and private commissions, open houses, shows, libraries and commercial offices are also opportunities for exhibition and revenue.
• Ultimately, the heART of Friendship Art Gallery will develop into a self sustaining business offering people exposure to, and involvement with, the creative work of people with disabilities. By encouraging persons with disabilities to develop personal feelings of worth and value, the visual arts offer everyone an opportunity to communicate in a new language, while destroying the stigma often associated with persons having disabilities.

To learn more about the heART of Friendship Art Gallery click on the link below.

http://www.friendshipart.net/

Enjoy,

Sandra

WHY? - DAY 12

So this is a watercolor piece in my 5x7 sketchbook. I did the women's side view using graphite 2H pencil. I drew in the lines and will be back to revisit it with text in the near future. Sorry the last postings have been rushed! I've been quite busy outside of my studio (thus why I've reverted to the small travel sketch book) but I promise to devote some more quality time to posting in the coming days. I have lots of art related things happening that I plan to share.
As always I welcome your comments and feedback- especially on working with text and zentangles (a new found love of mediation).

"why?" mixed-media collage on 5x7 watercolor paper.

 Enjoy,
Sandra

Playing with Text - Day 11

Okay so I could not put if off any longer... I decided to take the plung and start playing around with text. I did some cartoon sketches to make it more fun for me to work around. I tried to also play around with some zentangle features.
It's not the best, but hey it's a start.

Enjoy,
Sandra

Hillside View - Day 10

This is a small collage I did in my watercolor sketch book. It measures 5x7 inches. I tore up text paper, adhered using Golden Soft Gel Medium (Satin), watercolors with graphite drawing layered on top of found images of rocks and grass.

"hillside view" mixed media collage 5x7 inches on water color paper.

This is not done yet, I'm looking forward to adding text to this in the coming days.

Enjoy,
Sandra

A Paradigm shift - Day 9

Today has been a very busy Saturday and as you can tell I am posting later then my normal time. I normally like to get to my art in the morning and post no later then midday. But today I got up at 8am, did my yoga practice and then I was out the door by 10am to run errands, spend time with family, until 7pm when I just got home. So lucky for me the next page in my art journal was an inside flap - yeahhhh! A small layout page;-) So below is my offering for today.

This inside flap will house my views inspired by the idea of a self paradigm shift in how I view my life. How I measure worth and values in the people I engage with and the work I do: purpose of self and discussion on who the real me is and the people in my life who support me (including my online community).


"Your spirit is the real you. The bible teaches us to live by the things of the spiritual realm, things we don't see. The only way to have a truly satisfying, happy life is to be led by the Holy Spirit."



The image of a one-eyed brain as the face of "man" sparked excitement in me when thinking of possible associations and metaphors for when I add my future text. Upon looking at the collage I created I began to associate a story of a struggle to balance my personal beliefs/morals that keep me well (my cerebral self which is not derived by vision alone) and my disappointment with humanity (self included) based on aesthetic potential to make something discarded and rejected by society into a restored object of peace to inspire joy and healing without judgement. In other words do I create art to live well or do I live well to create art? By well I mean wellness of mind, body and soul.

Broken down into a basic question - can art be enjoyed without judgement?

So many times I feel guilty after spending money to buy prefabricated embellishments, buttons, rub-ons, and so on to add to my artwork's aesthetics's.

I think to myself that was money better spent on buying healthy groceries (not cheap) or putting into my savings for future house emergencies or employment layoffs. I also think there are so many yard sales, flea markets, and second hand stores I could find similar items for less money and in the process stop adding to the consumer obsession of more stuff to buy and support recycling and re-using discarded treasures for art making. I then think what does this say about the art I create is it better because it has "brand new" details and features or am I missing out by doing the work of discovering what's out there for me to explore, to enjoy in my artwork? 

Have you ever gone down this path of questioning what your artwork reflects upon the people who view it? Have you ever felt robotic to create art that will sell verses art that is pure peace and joy without judgement of aesthetics or $$ value?

For now I will enjoy the process of questioning and know that the art of "becoming" anything takes time and if I'm lucky I will never stop its development of asking and reflecting on questions of a life lived and a life shared with art. As always I welcome your comments and feedback.

Enjoy,

Sandra 

The devil is in the details - Day 8

“The slang term “the devil is in the details” has a number of different senses. All of the meanings for the term boil down to the fact that it is often the small details of something which make it difficult or challenging. These details can prolong a task, or foil an otherwise straightforward dealing. Like many proverbs which involve the devil, it is meant to sound a note of caution. It may also be used to excuse or explain the obfuscation of an otherwise very simple project or task." source: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-the-devils-in-the-details-mean.htm

As you can see in my latest spread in my art journal "Process of Becoming" pages 7-9 at first glance looks quite simple and yet it is perhaps to become one of the most challenging pages I tackle to complete.

I started the page by laying down some beautiful bright warm Golden fluid acrylic paint "Hansa Yellow Medium". While the paint was drying I went exploring in my stash for some collage papers and images that would complement the background. Sounds simple, right?

Well - as you can see the images that caught my attention that made their home on this sun filled page spread are that of the Devil in all his glory pitch fork in hand (I cut the fork off to make the picture more inviting and less scary, providing a sense of vulnerability to the figure since the image size was so big in comparison to the small angel in the right hand corner playing her horn). I perched the Devil figure image over a row of nameless people's pictures (yearbook style photos) so he can do what he does best (pass judgment). Below the row of photos I decided to add a row of bright healthy green colored trees (a little play on the garden of good and evil and the tree of wisdom). Remember I am setting up these pages to later add my personal thoughts and views (journal text) based on readings and verbal discussion with my church book group.


Art Journal "Process of Becoming" spread - pages 7, 8, and 9. Collage, Golden fluid acrylic paint and black 3M Vinyl Electrical Tape.


So, what do you think am I setting myself up for a MIGHTY Journal Entry … details (text to follow in the coming days) thus, the title of this post “The devil is in the details. What appears as an overly simple layout with abundant room to journal is going to become a process of major reflection for me in my thoughts, beliefs and ideas of what I interpret as sinful and God like – good.

There’s a lot of open spaces (yellow background areas) for me to journal on – maybe too much… they say “give a man enough rope and he will hang himself” maybe I’ve given myself too much free space to journal. Only time will tell what will become of this page and my thoughts as my church group moves forward in our reading of the book “Discovering God’s Will For Your Life” foreword by Sheila Walsh. For now let’s just enjoy the pretty yellow color;-)

Enjoy,
Sandra
 

ATC cards keep me cool in hot weather - Day 7

In PA the weather is HOOOTTT and humid! As I woke up this morning praying that my Internet connection was working (My Sprint 4G connection has not been working properly since July 4th - I called to ask why and they could not answer me just told me that it would improve in the following days)... got to love technology LOL.

At times the Internet connect works great - just like earlier this morning when I was commenting on fellow artist’s blogs then it goes down without warning, just like a minute ago when I decided to blog my new art and then I play the waiting game. OK enough venting... did you know art is also a great way to vent?

Not knowing how much time I had to work with this morning before Internet would work I started playing with new ATC cards. The backgrounds were already collaged - these were ATC leftovers from a larger collage project down earlier in the year... what I like to call Artist Surprise Extras!



A) ATC - girl, B) ATC- mushroom, C) ATC - Flowers in vase, and D) ATC - lemonade jar.



So I quickly started sketching simple images in each of the four ATC cards. After the graphite sketch I then sprayed them with a thin layer of Krylon Workable Fixatif (you can purchase at your local hobby or art store for about $9) this protects pencil, pastel, and chalk drawings preventing smudging, and wrinkling, in the end allows for easy rework and layering with other mediums.

 

After allowing the Fixatif to dry I then added a watery (1:1 ratio of gesso to water) layer of gesso to fuse the background and drawn image together to prepare for future addition of paint and text. That is where I am right now… check out the images below and as always leave a comment with any feedback or suggestions.

EnjoyJ
Sandra

PS
Not sure how to get images to post side by side as you can see the last ATC pic is a bit lower then its neighbor. Any suggestions? I'm new to using this blogger layout, post editor. The only other thing is to lay it out in Photoshop and save as one image (but that's more work and makes for larger image size). Thanks for any suggestions you can give me.

PSS
I edited this post with a new image (I used PhotoShop to layout the ATC cards side by side and up and down). Thanks for the feedback!

Out of frustration comes art - Day 6

So as you might notice I am posting day 6 on July 7th. The reason behind this is because on July 5th my cell phone short circuited and stopped working. Note to self do not use phone as ipod player when working on the farm in 90 degree weather (heat and sweat combined is not a good thing for a cell phone). So it took all of yesterday to get my phone working - I use my phone to connect my lap top to the Internet for posting and stuff makes it easier on my eyes and loading images.

The good thing that came out of it is that I had so much energy I started a new project (8x8 wood collage) see images below. The theme is celebrating the flowers at the farm. I plan to take a quality photo of the final project to make into magnets to give to my friends at the farm with the following quote added "It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are" e. e. cummings.

enjoy;-)
Sandra


Collage on wood 8x8 mixed media titled "Courage to Grow" not yet done.



You can see the thickness of the wood from this angle. I still have to add text and flower details. I plan to post the final results when ready. Enjoy;-)



Gone crazy with color! - Day 5

Did I mention that I love bold strong COLORS!! A favorite is the color -tomato orange. This time around I decided to go dark with my images instead of ghost tones as in my last page on Day 4. I've already started to break up the darkness with some fun 3D glitter embellishments that I glued on around the eyes on the image on the left side and to balance the layout I glued some "sweaty" pink glitter embellishments around the upside down figure on the right side.

The page lends itself to speak about how Opposites Attract or the Yin and Yang philosophy. I won't know really what the outcome will be until I start to add the text... so you'll have to wait and see as the "Process of Becoming" continues.

Enjoy:-)

Sandra



Three Page Spread (pages 4, 5, 6) - Used GOLDEN fluid acrylics, 3D glitter embellishments, magazine images, various scrap paper designs and recycled junk mail.



Welcome Little Glimpses Studio Artist!

Just invited my friends from one of my art communities to join in on "30 Days of Get Your Art On" with Traci Brunkers (click on badge on the right for more details or read my Day 1 blog below to join).

For readers new to the Little Glimpses Studio click on this link below to view my page or click on the badge on the right to go to the main home page to join the group. http://littleglimpsesstudio.ning.com/profile/SandraGranthon

Mystele is the host and she is fantastic!  Check out this link to one of her many inspiring youtube videos. http://www.youtube.com/user/littleglimpses

As always enjoy;-)
Sandra

Happy 4th of July with Art - Day 4

Happy 4th of July! This morning I decided to tackle an inside flap which opens to page 3 of my art journal "Process of Becoming". While exploring my image stash (I precut images and store them in color related baggies - this makes the collage layout process much quicker) I found this great picture of a female body... I'm working on losing some weight this summer and this picture just called out FREEDOM from body image... with her full curves and arms up in the air. Enjoy;-)

Now for something different - Day 3

Okay, so today is Sunday the day before the 4th of July and I've been busy with family gatherings and taking advantage of the lovely summer weather with a bike ride at a nearby bike trail.

Ahhh, what a wonderful summer evening. So instead of working on my art journal in my small attic studio I've gone mobile with my sketch book and lap top to practice my drawing skills.

Below is my offering for day 3. Although I love spending hours creating in the attic I have to admit it is nice to get out and get moving. Happy 4th of July!

Enjoy;-)

Making new friends! - Day 2

ArtiphyTheHeart - Barbara Hagerty!

WOW!! I <3 your art journal pages. Thanks for your interest in my blog.

I also follow and love Mary Ann Moss (looking to save money to take her Remains of the Day workshop) and Teesha Moore - how much fun it is to play and be inspired by these women and many, many more on such diverse online artist communities.

Thanks Traci, again for creating an opportunity for me to be fearless and become active in the storytelling art community - not just a viewer.

I look forward to sharing and learning from all my new blogger friends;-)

As Barbara put it "here is my offering for the day" the next spread in my "Process of Becoming" art journal.

This art journal is inspired by the many youtube videos posting by Teesha Moore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Aadcfmpwc.

Enjoy,
Sandra

30 Days of Get Your Art On! starts today

Okay, so I love the design style of Traci Bunkers and follow her blog to keep myself pumped to do art as much as possible. Just recently she put out the challenge of committing herself and her followers to blog "30 Days of Get Your Art On!" starting July 1st - TODAY!!

Click on her button on the right for more details - this is my first attempt at blogging and I don't want to start off long winded;-)

I am following Traci's rules see details below:

• I’ll make art every day for 30 days and post what I have done.
• I don’t have to finish what ever I’m working on that day, I just have to work on something.
• I have to work for 30 minutes, but can work longer if time permits.
• It doesn’t matter what I do for the art making, as long as I work on art.
• I won’t feel guilty for taking the time to work on art and I won’t have to justify why I’m doing it. 
• I don’t have to go into detail in my post about how I did anything or what tools, materials I used (unless I want to).

July 1, 2011 - DAY 1
This is the cover for a new art journal I am starting titled "Process of Becoming".  Collage mix media on watercolor paper 120lb cold press.
Enjoy;-)