Happy New Year 2012

I spent ringing in the new year with my brother and his family. My niece Amelia and I created ATC cards to welcome in the new year... we had fun exploring the many, many, many papers, pictures and text I carted over in my craft shoulder bag. Here are the results of our discoveries may it bring you some joy.

  MY niece Amelia's ATC series she did a combo... she really had fun.

ATC collage 2.5 x 3.5 inches by 9-year-old niece Amelia.

ATC collage 2.5 x 3.5 inches by 9-year-old niece Amelia.

MY ACEO ATC series which I titled "Three Cups of Tea"

"Three Cups of Tea" series ACEO ATC collage 2.5 x 3.5 inches.

 I came up with this series because for 2012 I want to be mindful of my time spent on ME. I've been told one too many times by people who really know me that I GIVE too much and I need to find BALANCE and JOY for myself. That it is okay to be selfish and focus on my needs and wants. So for this year I want to be more mindful of my fashion (ahhh, I'll have to forfeit buying art supplies and books for new clothes), of my fitness and allow for outdoor playtime like hiking our beautiful trails in PA, and mindful of my tranquil mind by enjoying at least three cups of tea a day. I already start my days with a cup of tea, I now have been adding a cup at lunch and a cup before bedtime. Of course different blends to meet my different needs. Black Tea is great in the morning to get my energy going, Green Tea at lunch with a little honey is warming and keeps my immune system up and Camille Tea at night relaxes me and gets me ready for sleeping.

It seems to make much sense just like the tea custom says:
"The first cup of tea is sour as life. The second cup is sweet as love. The third is soft as death."

Fits so well for me since I am not a morning person and the first cup is a bit sour and the last cup brings me to a soft sleep as sweet as death... don't get me wrong I am not done living my life but there is no peace, like that of a deep sound sleep to restore your spirit and undo the man made stresses of our earthly lives. So we may awake again; restored and ready to rebuild our purpose driven lives.


How did you ring in the new year, have any art ventures in mind for 2012? I welcome your comments and storytelling.

 Enjoy:-)
Sandra

Discovery Wednesday - Amongst Friends

Here is my inspirational mosaic for this week's Discovery Wednesday.

1. Hole Punch Flowers ATC, 2. Flower ATC, 3. Watercolor Flower ATC's, 4. Summer Flowers, 5. ATC_ violet flower, 6. ATC Pretty Newspaper Flowers 2/2, 7. Landscape: Spring Flowers, 8. Flowers ATC, 9. 3 flowers, 10. Traded: Springtime ATC, 11. flowers ATC, 12. ATC Traded - Button Flowers, 13. flowers - atc

Here is the ATC card I was inspired to create.

"Amongst Friends" ATC 2.5 x 3.5 inches mixed media.

Here are some pictures I took as I worked my way through the process of creating this ATC card.

(1) I used Strathmore Watercolor cold press 140lb paper as my base, glued a thin sheet of white tissue paper with Golden mattee medium, glued a hand torn piece of (single sided printed) designer scrapbooking paper half of the way up to start my composition for the field of flowers and finally added a glaze of Golden (heavy body) Titan Buff mixed with Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid Gloss (1:1 ratio) over the entire surface and dried with my heat gun.

(2) I then began to play with my permanent color ink pads (golden yellow for sky and green for grass) and dried with my heat gun.

(3) I then continued to add more acrylic paint to build up depth, shadow, highlights and dried with my heat gun.







(4) I then played with texture adding marks using a metal ring and bubble wrap.

(5) Finally came the time to dive into my homemade collage paper I had painted the night before on Canson Mixed Media 98 lb paper. I have found this paper weight and brand to be my favorite so far for collage; especially on an ATC sized base so that it does not become to bulky when I overlap sheets. I hand cut various circle sizes and glued them on 2/3 of the way to add to the composition.

(6) The next step for me was to play with my oil pastels to continue to highlight the texture from the tissue paper and add depth to the overall image.



Hope you're having an excellent Wednesday and are inspired to go out and play and create art and of course stop and smell the flowers;-)


Enjoy,
Sandra

My entries for ATC Creative Swaps - August Theme "I AM"

For my second art challenge I registered for the Creative Swaps ATC - August theme "I AM". This is my first ATC swap and I am so excited!! I think I am finished with my entries (see image below). I figure I'll let it sit on my art table until Friday and if it calls to be altered or edited I will do so if not it will be mailed out as is so I can make the Sept. 3rd deadline.

 Mixed-media ATCs for Creative Swaps (August - "I AM") 2.5 x 3.5 inches.

The August theme is "I AM". I started off exploring what I had to use in my stash and scraps bags/boxes where I found the cute chipboard letters, and text. For my background I used old library index cards (purchased at the Lancaster Creative Reuse) cut down to size, stamped different winged animal images (humming bird, owl, and butterfly) using archival black ink, then just started playing with my ink pads and finished off by adding pink chalked heart rubber stamps all over.


Exploring design ideas for my ATC cards for the August swap.



I allowed the ATCs to sit like that for a couple of days before I added the chipboard letters and corresponding small text underneath. I then added the "I AM" on the top using rub-on letters, allowed them to sit again for  some days and then tonight I found some small images that helped me finish off the ATCs.



Each ATC color scheme was inspired by the small color image above it.



The small images above each ATC were there to help me with the color scheme and harmony so I had some direction. You can see what type of color mood I was aiming for within each ATC. What do you think - did I match the ATC to the small inspiration image? I finished off by adding the words "be yourself" on top of the "I AM" as a subtitle to the main theme. It fit for me since that's what I aim for - to be myself; whatever that happens to be;-) 

I think they are finished but like I said I'll keep them on my work table and wait until Friday to mail them out for the swap - just in case I find something that MUST be ADDED to each ATC before mailing... although I like how they are I don't want to overload them with too much stuff. What do you think?

Enjoy,

Sandra

FYI: Starting tomorrow, August 15th, I will be starting a new art challenge - the Big Idea Festival (check it out) at Big Picture Classes website. It's FREE and self paced ;-) Of course I'll share and post my progress along the way. Let me know if you sign up and I'll follow your progress too;-) Can't wait!



PS
I can finally post the ATC card I made especially for Lenna. Thanks Lenna for your personal emails and comments on my blog site.

"I am on a journey"
ATC 2.5 x 3.5 inches mixed media

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!