Some Mini Collages Again

Some more beeswax embellished canvases. The bird ones are 2 3/4 by 1 3/4". The girl is 3 by 5".

I have to report in on my watercolor paint class. I have really started liked it! I've discovered that I Really enjoy a wet on wet technique. Next week I'll take a photo of one and post it.

Seems like I'm always on the run this summer when I'm posting...when I even have a chance to post. Tomorrow I'm going away for the weekend again to a Renaissance Faire with my middle daughter and her family. Cool, huh? Should be interesting!

Have a good weekend!!

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look around once in awhile, you could miss it." from Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Award, Camping Report, and early Prompt

As I reported in my last post, Kerri gave me an award. Looks pretty sharp, huh??
I'm supposed to 1-post a link to her blog
2-put the logo on my blog
3-nominate 7 others and post links.
Well, Kerri's would have been one of my 7, as would Marilyn's and Dyani's. But they've already been named. My daughter Alissa has a very cool knitting and occasional recipe blog, but didn't want to go through the award procedure, so I won't name her.
These are some of my other favorite blogs to visit. They are either people that I "know" from yahoo groups or just have stumbled on their blogs and now visit regularly.
Mary, Aimee, Bernie (has done miraculous things for dogs and cats), Judy, Cynthia (I used to participate in a monthly creativity book discussion via conference call with her), Shari,
and Lelainia. Enjoy visiting them!

Camping was very nice! I came home in one piece (yahoo, yahoo) and it actually didn't rain until Saturday evening. We got a tremendous thunder and lightning storm about 9 p.m. (which is a little scary when you're in the woods), but all day was beautiful. We sat in the car, figuring that was the safest place.

This week's prompt a touch early 'cause I'll be out of town tomorrow. What would you tell your younger self? If you could go back to an earlier age that you were and tell yourself one thing, what would it be?? Write about it or make art about it.

"Every second is of infinite value." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

YAY!! I won an award!

Don't have time to really post as we're going tent camping* this weekend and I still have stuff to do, but.....My friend Kerri has given me the Brillante Weblog Award!! Talk about excitement!! Talk about honor!! I will do the linking and all when we get back, but I just couldn't wait to at least announce it. Thanks, Kerri!

*Of course, the weather forecast is rain the whole weekend! Nothing like tent camping in the rain...believe me, I know from experience...lots of experience. Everyone that is familiar with our track record of weather for camping trips always says "Don't plan any outdoor activities for this weekend - Laura's going camping". This is also our first camping trip since I fell coming out of our tent (had gone in to get my art supplies 'cause it had stopped raining for awhile) and dislocated my ankle and broke it in 3 places totally shattering 1 bone. Well, 2 surgeries later, plus a metal plate and screws and pins that were in and then started coming out so were removed (deep breath), I'm ready to go camping again. Hope for at least a little sunshine!

Collages, a Prompt, & Magic Erasers

These are three more small collages that I've done recently. Today I got quite abit done, so now have more photos to take!

I can't believe that it's Monday again already! Time just goes so fast and summer really flies by!

When I explained doing gel medium transfers, I mentioned that I had heard that Mr. Clean Magic Erasers worked well for helping get the white fuzzies off. Can't remember if I ever reported back that I had tried it or not. Well, I did and it worked very well! I got most of it off and then dampened the Magic Eraser and did some more and it really cleaned it up nicely.

This week's prompt - This is fun! I did it in a journal once and came out with a very cool page. Cut out the letters in your first name - each letter from a different color paper. Cut each letter into 3 pieces. Now glue down on a piece of black paper in an interesting scattered way.

"Any fool can marvel at the bizarre. Only the wise can marvel at the ordinary." unknown

Gorgeous Greene County!

This is the piece that I made and that was accepted for the Beautiful Greene show. It's a 4 x 12 x 1 3/8" canvas and is collage embellished when done with melted beeswax. The location is the photograph is shot from the Catskill Point Flagpole in Catskill, NY. It's a lovely little park on the Hudson River and you'd never guess from this shot that only a stone's throw away are gigantic oil tanks!

I'm taking a 4 week twice a week class in watercolors. After the second class, I have actually completed a simple 5 x 7" landscape, but I don't really think I am a painter. I just hope to get a little knowledge of how the paints work and using the brush and all and probably won't use it for much except my art journal. I am totally outside my comfort zone and, I guess, it's never a bad thing to venture there.

My Moo cards arrived and are in the mail to the swap coordinator. They are very cool and I'm anxious to get the return cards and see what they're like!

I can't believe it's Friday already! This summer is just speeding by...but then don't they all!!

Have a good weekend and "see" you next week.

"You're never too old to do goofy stuff." Ward Cleaver on Leave it to Beaver

Prompt Day and More

The first photo is a 5 x 7" collage (beeswax embellished) I did recently. The other two photos are Artist Trading Cards. I talked last week about doing art with junk mail. These weren't exactly junk mail, but they were postcards from art exhibits that I added bits and pieces to and made ATCs.

I had a fun weekend. Saturday a friend and I went to Sharon Springs. She had danced there professionally as a teenager in the 1970's as a summer job. She showed me the old resort she had danced in (no longer in operation) and showed me alot of other parts of the village. We walked down to see a mineral spring (very smelly) and went to a very neat shop. From my friend and from the shopkeeper, I heard alot of stories about concentration camp survivors coming there for the mineral spring treatments. It was really fascinating!

Sunday I got together with some art friends for an art project. That was alot of fun!

The prompt for this week is to think of a label that has been applied to you at some point during your life. For example, maybe you were always considered the sensitive one in your family. Whatever the label write or do art from that point of view or with that label in mind.

"Oh, nobody understands anything. We're all just here, blinking in the light like kittens. The older I get, the more I see that nothing makes sense but to try to learn true compassion."

Elizabeth Berg the novel The Year of Pleasures

Late Breaking News.....

I just found out that a piece I entered in a juried show in Greene County was accepted into the show!! I'm very happy. This was a really neat concept - They selected 6 specific spots in Greene County. You made art from any one of those spots. One of my daughters lives in Greene County (see Lavabo in Aquam in my links), so we drove around and took photographs at 4 of the spots. We each did art work for 1 spot (coincidentally different ones) and submitted it. She'll probably talk about hers on her blog, so I don't want to here. Mine is a beeswax collage done with a photocopy of a photo I shot at the spot in Catskill. It's a riverview and I ended up really being happy with my photo. The collage I had a really hard time getting started on...in fact it was about 48 hours from the deadline of emailing a photo of the finished piece and I was still saying "I'm just not entering." Well, happily, that is all behind me (thanks to my daughter "talking me down off the art ledge" so to speak) and I've been accepted into the show. So, until the next show I'm calm and collected. ha, ha Oh, yeah, this show will be August 2nd - Sept 20 at the Greene County Arts Council gallery in Windham. They have 2 galleries - one in Catskill and one in Windham - Some counties apparently actually value the arts. I don't think my county has even heard of the arts. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but you get what I'm saying.

ALSO, just found out that I'll be in a show with 2 other artists in Albany as part of the First Friday Art Night in September. So, that'll be very cool, too.

Shank Button Book

These pictures show a recycled book binding. I really enjoy doing these. I've only done a few so far, but have gathered shank buttons to make a couple more. First you gut a hardcover book taking out the text block (and keeping it for other projects!). Then you put together signatures of whatever types of paper you want your book made from (this one is handmade-type papers and napkin covered papers). Prepare the spine (this one is done with hand-dyed muslin, cardboard, glue whereas sometimes I use book cloth). Put eyelets through the spine, punch holes in your signatures with the awl, and start binding. You will be stitching in a shank button on the spine as you stitch. You'll need the same number of buttons across as signatures and the same number of buttons down as holes in the signatures. That's a general idea of the process for these type books. I really liked the cover on this book (an old Wordsworth book) and was even able to salvage the inside cover papers.

Next time I'll show you some collages and/or the atcs I talked about last time.

Today I taught a workshop at my library to 6th and 7th graders - Artist Trading Cards. I haven't taught a kid's workshop in a couple years and I really enjoyed it. It was reported to me later that they were all saying it was awesome when they got upstairs, so that made me feel good. That can be a tough age to please! At the end of the class we had a trading session and I gave each of them one card that I brought that I had made and they were really thrilled with that, too.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be." Douglas Adams

Time for a Prompt!

Here's hoping everyone had a fun three day weekend! It was hot today, but I didn't have to go out, so just kept the house sealed up tight...it never got bad in here. I opened the door once and this heat wave pushed against me, so I closed it and left it closed!

I got a bunch of collages done over Saturday and Sunday. Of course, since I wasn't going out I didn't take pictures yet (I usually take my pictures in the backyard...I find the natural light works best). When I do, I'll show you some. I have this very high-tech studio system for taking my pics -- go in the backyard, drape a black t-shirt over the back of a lawn chair and another black t-shirt over the lawn chair seat, stand the collage up on the chair seat, and sit on the ground. Professional, huh??! ha, ha

Today's prompt is as follows----Make something using some junk mail. It could be an Artist Trading Card, a greeting card, a journal page, or whatever you come up with. I made a few ATCs with this technique and it was really fun. I'll post a pic next time I post. Have fun with it!

Today's quote - one of my favorite poets - "When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms...
I don't want to end up simply having
visited this world." Mary Oliver

Hi, everyone! Happy 3rd of July!!
These pics are a couple I did awhile back. The first is a 4" canvasboard and the second is a 10" stretched canvas. Both are beeswax.

Yesterday I made a run to Albany to the art store to get some more canvases. I need to get an order ready to go out to Dick Blick, but I wanted a certain size that I didn't have and didn't want to wait.

I've been trying to come up with a piece for a show that I wanted to enter and am totally drawing a blank on inspiration!! I've done other art -- so it's not a block, but this has to be a specific topic...on that I'm blocked apparently. Well, I'll either get an inspiration this weekend and produce the art or...well, or I won't. I'm not going to beat myself up about it.

I just joined a MOO card swap on-line and am really looking forward to it. The person (Lelainia Lloyd)that recently wrote an article for Somerset Studio about MOO cards is doing the swap. COOL, huh??

Have a great long weekend! Hope you'll be spending some time with family as I am.

Happy Independence Day!!

"Our siblings. They resemble us just enough to make all the differences confusing and no matter what we choose to make of this, we are cast in relation to them our whole lives." Susan Scarf Merrill