Armadillo Nightmare

Armadillo Nightmare

When I attended basic training in the army many, many years ago we went on night maneuvers.  Our task was to avoid the "enemy" at all cost and to make it safely to a predetermined point without capture.  My four buddies and I were quite successful  and avoided the "enemy" but I am surprised we did because an armadillo scared the bejeus out of me as it ran past.  I was sure my "scream" could be heard for miles around.

Although I do not dream of this incident it would make for a perfect nightmare and thus this piece evolved this week in my overactive imagination.  Since it is a dream everything can appear and the jack rabbit and cactus play roles in the composition.  According to Wikipedia, armadillos and cactus do not share an environment.  They do in my "dream" though.

Grab Morning By the Biscuits

Grab Morning By the Biscuits

The new year has been busy, in fact, I can say I have been swamped.  Although I have not posted, I have not forgotten to find time to do art, but my time has been shortened as I was asked to help test students in the school district where I use to work.   The money earned will pay for three art classes I am taking this year at the Pacific Northwest Art School on Whidbey Island, Washington.

I have also been taking two online classes with Mary Ann Moss.  The first was A Trip to Venice and the second Stencils and Stitchery.  Both classes have been tremendous fun and I have three new journals as proof that art has remained in my life.

The Trip to Venice class followed Mary Ann on her journey each day in that wonderful city.  My journal is about our trip to the US Southwest last October.  I am still working on finishing it up.  In the Stencil and Stitchery classes I have created two journals using stencils, spray paints (both alcohol based and canned paint), fabric, washi tape, an abundance of paper scraps and painted canvas.

My altered book journal has taken a back seat until yesterday and today.  The piece Grab Morning By the Biscuits was started many weeks ago.  I love creating backgrounds and then coming back and finishing up the pieces as I mull over what the outcome will be.  In this work, I found two focal points, the woman and the chimp, glued them in over the background and set the journal aside.  The statement Grab Morning By the Biscuits came next, but the rest of the spread did not gel until just a few minutes ago.  Let your mind come up with the story for Biscuits.

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

Several years ago on a trip to Paris my partner and I met a man in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery who claimed to be a prince.  He said that he visits the cemetery many times a week and he must as he is very knowledgeable about the cemetery occupants.  This man took us to Oscar Wilde's tomb which had been vandalized.  The tomb, designed by Sir Jacob Epstein, is a modernist angel complete with all male parts.  As the story goes, the cemetery superintendent walked past the tomb one morning and discovered that vandals had struck during the night and the angel's parts were lying on the ground.  Those parts are now used as a paper weight on the superintendent's desk.  According to Wikipedia an artist has restored the tomb's missing appendages in silver.  It seems that even in death Oscar Wilde was tormented. 

Camouflage

Camouflage

I have been dabbling with stencils for quite awhile, but decided to take a stencil workshop from Mary Ann Moss online.  Not only is it good to refresh skills, but one, me, always picks up new techniques or tidbits on where to get something in a workshop.  This time I discovered that there is a wealth of stencils for bakers.  Not being a baker of much, except I did make two different kinds of Christmas cookies this year, cranberry/white chocolate shortbread (YUM!) and a very light ricotta cheese cookie (ANOTHER YUM!), I did not know of said stencils. 

Much of Mary Ann's workshop is done with spray paints.  It is much too cold and damp to be outside in the Pacific NW right now.  So I only have ventured out once to spray paint (see previous blog entry).  Thus, I am using spray ink inside.  One thing that I really like about this piece is the stencil that I found in the cake decorating section of Joanne's.  It is the clover shaped background.  I actually did that stenciling first, however, in many places it seems to pop forward, check out the blue silhouette on the right hand side of the journal spread.

I started this piece not knowing where it was heading and finished it in about three hours.  I simply picked up baggies of stored ephemera papers and here it is.

Ideas Creep in During the Early Morning

Ideas Creep in During the Early Morning

I started this piece weeks ago and today was the day that the remainder of the ideas crept in.  January is self-portrait month for my gentlemen's ATC group.  Perhaps I need the monthly theme to conclude this piece.  The background on the right is surgical tape that I colored with Inktense blocks before collaging.  The left hand side of this journal page is gesso colored with Inktense.  I created the stencil and spray painted the image.  Then I added washi tape and stamped the words.  The finishing touches include Portfolio pastels stenciling.

It seems that Blogspot has a new method for uploading photos to blogs.  The photo must first be uploaded in Picassa to a Picassa Web Album.  This is a new step as previously I could upload directly from computer files.  Something new to me is adding a watermark which is kind of nice as I can now put my initial signature in the corner.

 

Self-Portrait ATC

 

 

Happy New Year!  I am involved in a Gentlemen's ATC group.  For January it was decided that we should do self-portraits.  For my piece I took a profile photograph and manipulated the color to black and white in PhotoShop.  I then printed both the color version and black and white version onto tissue paper.  After tooling the metal tape from a hardware store I glued the color portrait to the metal first and then I glued the black and white version over that.  I added some distress ink to the portrait.  Finally I added the heart and hand which were trinkets I had found at garage sales.  Each ATC is different as the trinkets vary.