ORD as in FORD

ORD as in FORD

For the last few days I have been wondering if I found my niche.  Well, maybe my niche for right now.  I am so loving the architecture feel of what I have been doing.  So I am going with that feeling and today I am embarking on my second set of architectural pieces.  I am batting around how to change it up but if the feel is to do more of the same then I am going with that.  I let my art lead me anyway.  There are still several works in the first series to share.  I will let you know when the new series begins.  

Tomorrow I am teaching a class at Edmonds CC which is going to take me totally away from architecture but should be just as much fun.  The workshop is on creating a fishbone fold journal.  I have several new techniques to share in this class.

Nurse Joan

Nurse Joan

What a cute kid playing with her baby doll and carriage.  Kids need that opportunity to play.  Play reinforces what children see in the adult world and fosters creativity and imagination.  Kids need time off of computers and away from television.  Play is the way to go!

Mrs. Goldberg

Mrs. Goldberg

I have been asked what asemic writing is....it is when you just start scribbling your thoughts and those scribbles are only known to you.  It looks like writing but can not be deciphered.   Here is what the internet offers on asemic writing...

Asemic writing is a wordless open semantic form of writing. The word asemic means "having no specific semantic content". With the nonspecificity of asemic writing there comes a vacuum of meaning which is left for the reader to fill in and interpret.

Garage Blanchard

Garage Blanchard

Make up your own narrative to go along with this collage.  I have mine.  It involves a family who own both an eatery and a garage on the coast of France.  The businesses have been in the family for a long time.  The little girl is no longer little, but married, and runs the restaurant.  See how easy it is for imagination to take over. :-)

Broadway Cowboys

Broadway Cowboys

Can't you just see the wild west cowboys invading NYC?  I can! :-)  Happy weekend!

Sunday Afternoon

Sunday Afternoon

For me this has an industrial feel.  This particular series came together rapidly once I had all my ephemera out.  It probably took ten minutes to decide what pieces would be going with each other. The creation of the postcards is a six step process:

1. find ephemera

2. lay it out

3. glue it to the 4 x 6 cereal box cardboard

4. find a photo to go with the architectural features and adhere it

5. add graphite, white pen, and Stablio pencil to the piece

6. add asemic writing

Ma and Kitty

Ma and Kitty

When all the components go together in a pleasing way a new composition is born.  There is just something about this piece that is very pleasing to me.  It seems that there is a story there and the woman and the cat are about to tell it.

5%

5%

There are twelve postcards in this series, maybe even fourteen depending on how I count.  New math you know!  I just love Pinterest and I found a blog that has the most amazing photographs which I am saving to my Pins.  I use just a portion of the originals to create the collages in this series....a telephone pole here, a tree there.  The vintage photos are ones that I have gotten over time either from garage sales, flea markets, or new friends from online classes.  This particular cowboy photo appeared as a huge "gift" from Nicole in San Diego.  Thanks Nicole,

Shook

Shook

I just love the geometric shapes that each portion of this collage adds to the total composition.  The variety pulls my eye from left to right, but also the black cable lines pull me across the page. My eye is drawn to the words "City Jail" but then the sepia photo takes me in.  How about you?

CED

CED

At the moment I am so into architectural features whether it is the structure of buildings, plants, or whatever.  I do not know why I should be surprised but I am loving disparate images placed together to make new compositions.  In CED,  I particularly like each element separate as each can hold its own as a composition.  One might think that putting several "hold alones" together would make a mess of each. Somehow it does not create a disconnect but is brought together in a new way, in my opinion anyway.

George and Dot

George and Dot

Yet another postcard......

Left Out

Left Out

I think practically everyone has experienced being left out sometime in their life.  Left Out exhibits that feeling pretty well.  My friend Sally gave me the illustrations for this spread.  The one on the left probably came from a primer reader and the one on the right came from a children's book.  I recognize the illustrator but am not sure of her name.  Perhaps it is Judith Viorst.  I tend to think it might be from Alexander's No Good, Very Bad Day or one of the sequels to that book.  The background is all from magazine pages that I have been saving for awhile.

Dot

Dot

My mother was previously married and divorced before she met my father.  I only know bits and pieces of that relationship.  She moved from Iowa to Southern California when my brother was around 8 or 9.  Working for Good Year Tire she met my father.  This photo of my mother was taken most likely in Iowa but perhaps in S. California.   There were no markings on most of the photos that I found.

Lost in Thought

Lost in Thought

For me the Ferris wheel with the architecturalness of the openings with the architecturalness of the windows go so well together.  The man pondering seems to fit as well.  This piece is the last of the cigar box five plus covers.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn

I found several portraits in a shop that were tin types and since they were rather inexpensive I am using them directly in my spreads.  I also used ink tense blocks in this spread.  I like the intensity of the pigments.  

Herbert

Herbert

This photo was of an extensive brick building that I found.  I used only a portion of it.  There were many things about the original that I especially liked.  First the angle and then the contrast between the brick and the glass were important to keep.  I particularly thought the railing was pertinent for movement.  So when I cut up the photo I kept those features.  There was a political poster on the building for President Obama.  Although I support our president I did not want that in my composition.  Adding the abstract silhouette and the tree on the right plus the photo of Herbert completed the composition.  I then added the pen work.  I just love Stablio Woodies and white Signo pens.  I did a bit of stencil work on the background, too.

Mom, Dad, and the Kids

Mom, Dad, and the Kids

Well it seems that most visitors to this blog who have left a comment about the pen work think that it should be included.  Thanks for your comments.  I am thinking yes to that as well.

There are several things about this spread that I particularly like.  I really got into the chain link fence.  I thought the dot tissue really made a statement.  I love the telephone pole on the far left.  The photograph came from that huge area garage sale I went to in Everett about a month ago.  I am just loving the architecture of it all, too.

Come Play

Come Play

I thought it interesting in this journal to share without pen work and with it.  Sometimes I feel pen work can be too much and sometimes a spread needs it.  Thoughts on this one, too?

By the way, this journal is all about architectural features in the background.  I chose to create "new" environments using a variety of magazine illustrations.  There are five spreads plus the front and back covers in this series for the cigar box journal.

Cigar Box Journal (front and back covers)

Cigar Box Journal option 2(front cover)

Cigar Box Journal option 1 (front cover) 

I created a journal that fits inside a cigar box.  I have two representations of the cover.  One is a scan that does not include pen work and the other includes it.  I wasn't sure if I wanted pen work or not.  I am tending to think "Yes."  So I am showing both.  Let me know what you think.

Cigar Box Journal (back cover)

I have not done pen work on the back cover yet.  I am still deciding if I want it or not.  Perhaps the "snowflake" effect is enough.

Shelia

Shelia

This spread is in a round robin that was started after a Crystal Neubauer workshop.  Several of the participants agreed to create accordion journals and to complete a spread each month.  We will soon be done with the round robin and then the plan is to get together to share each completed journal.

This particular photo was in a bunch of photos that I got when cleaning out my mother's house. Speaking of photos, I received the best gift on Friday from a woman who was in the Roxanne Coble online workshop with me.  She sent me a huge envelope of the most wonderful photos.  Thanks Nicole.

New Pocket Journal No. 2 - Part III

Nothing

Politics Rehearsal

Here are the last two collages of the new secret pocket series.  I am especially pleased how my cut and paste worked for the two men and the preacher.  Originally there were five people including two women.  I just updated the vintage scene to accommodate contemporary times!  :-)

New Pocket Journal No. 2 - Part II

Happy Camper

Nancy's Letter

Here are two more of my collages that are in my second secret pocket journal.  The figure on the right is a bit unusual for me!  So crazy I like it! :-)

New Pocket Journal No. 2 - Part I

Cover

Coexist

Temptations

I created a new secret pocket journal from an old paper fold idea.  Six collages fit inside.  The people in these collages all came from a very old book.  The dealer in Seattle was selling each book page for 50 cents.  I got a bunch of them after sorting through for the ones I wanted.  I have altered some of them to fit my needs.  The pages were first published in the late 1800s.  I found a bunch of monkey wallpaper on the internet and am using pieces in many of my most recent collages.  I love monkeys.

Speaking of them I had a surprising adventure with a monkey in 1983.  I was visiting Indonesia where we went on a tour at a monkey forest.  We bought some peanuts to feed the monkeys.  It did not take long for them to spy those nuts.  Before I knew it I had a monkey attached to the front of my shirt and before a blink of the eye that monkey had the whole bag of nuts.  Greedy little guy but very resourceful.  I think he must have done that before.  I was sure surprised though.

Pinky

Pinky

I thought I had finished this piece quite some time ago.  It was framed and displayed.  I kept looking at it over the last two months and thought something was missing.  I added one detail this morning and it was transformed.  Time is a helping agent.  Like when you are hurting and feel nothing is going the way you want it to, time somehow helps relieve the stress.  It is the same with a piece of art.  If it passes the test of time then it is a done deal.  I think this is a done deal now!

Big Top

Big Top

Big Top was created for a round robin that I am in with participants from Colorado, California, and Washington.  Each month for eleven months we create a spread for someone's journal.  I have only been to a few circus performances in my life.  My father took me to see the Ringling Brothers when I was twelve and, of course, I have been to Cirq du Soleil performances.  While visiting China our tour was taken to a very sad run down circus.  We asked to leave.  I love the vintage clown photographs that I have been finding lately.