January APCs - 04, 05, 06

January APCs - 04, 05, 06

While working on the APCs I got to the point of is this enough?  I had not used the Stablio Woodies nor the transfer paper yet.  When I am not sure I usually scan what I have completed and then try out techniques on the scanned printout.   Putting the added techniques next to the originals really helped. I decided to go ahead with the Stablio Woodies and transfer paper.

You might be wondering why one of the images is smaller than the others.  Something happened in the scanning process.  Technology is like magic for me.  I might know a process but when something does not work like I thought it would then it is like magic.  Just go with it and don’t spend a lot of time worrying about it.  It just happens.  There are times when I really want something a specific way and spend loads of time on it.  Not this time.

January APC - 01, 02, 03

January APC - 01, 02, 03

My APCs for January are done and ready for mailing to their new destination as soon as I get my list of recipients.  I made twelve this time hoping that it will be enough.  If  not I have leftovers from previous months to send out.

I pretty much simplified this month using napkins, semi-circles, a focal image, and Stablio Woodies.

Spider Book No. 4 - 10 and 11

Spider Book No. 4 - 10

Spider Book No. 4 - 11

This is the last of the series.  I did publish one of them twice because there are really only ten in the series.   So I will have to look to see which is a duplicate.  No. 11 is on the cover of the book that houses these bird collages.  Today I worked on January APCs and finished twelve of them.  I usually make 15 but I miscounted again and so there are only twelve.  My math skills are really slipping.  Hmm!

Spider No. 4 - 07, 08, and 09

Spider Book No. 4 - 07

Spider Book No. 4 - 08

Spider Book No. 4 - 09

Collage artists are a special breed.  We see ephemera possibilities where ever we turn.  In this case I noticed that Splenda packets now have some sort of saying on them.  In this case “Be Happy” was on one of them as was “I will”.   I also noticed I must have included one of the collages in this series twice because there are only ten in the series and tomorrow I have two more to publish.  Hmm!  I also made another mistake that I will tell you about tomorrow. :-)

Spider No. 4 - 04, 05, and 06

Spider Book No. 4 - 04

Spider Book No. 4 -05

Spider Book No. 4 - 06

I usually use white transfer paper to create white asemic writing on a piece.  I used a grey version of the transfer paper this time and like how it shows.  White would not have worked as well.  All the birds come from Russian match boxes.

Spider Book No. 4 - 01, 02, 03

I have shown many of the collages that I have included in various spider books.  I am on spider book no. 4 at the moment.  I was asked for a photo of a spider book.  I have shown the covers and the books open as a book should open but never the actual head or tail of the spider book as held by the spine.  The photo below is the tail of a spider book where you can actually see the spider.  The triangle at the top is the head of the spider and the pages are the legs.  The head of the spider is attached to the cover which wraps around what you see.  When the book is closed the legs slide up and in next to the head.

I was sent a care package of ephemera from West Virginia.  My art friend, Julia, has been going through her mother’s papers and found a slew of old photograph envelopes, you know the ones we use to get when we picked up photos after development.  They are mostly all from the 1940’s.  So I used pieces of the envelopes for this series of ten.

Spider Book No. 4 - 01

Spider Book No. 4 - 02

Spider Book No. 4 - 03

Most Comfortable

Most Comfortable

A gentleman in Vienna, Austria scours flea markets for old passports.  He actually has been very lucky with his finds.  He decided to send those passports out into the world for artists to create works in.  When the passport is full it is sent back to him.

I have done several pieces in various passports of his and this is the latest.  Now it goes on to a Seattle artist.

Happy holidays to you all!

Spider Book No. 3 - 09 and 10

Spider Book 3  - 09

Spider Book 3 - 10

This is the end of the third spider book collages.  I have started a new set of ten which will debut soon.  I have the backgrounds done and am searching for the just the right focal images.  Happy holidays to you.  There is a lot of cooking going on in our house.  The cheesecake is made.  OMG!  The chicken Marbella is marinating.  Au gratin potatoes are in process and the Brussels sprouts are ready for the cranberries and sautéing.

Spider Book No. 3 - 07 and 08

Spider Book 3 - 07

Spider Book  3 - 08

Each of the collages in the third spider book has dress pattern pieces.  Some are numbers and others are words.  Some are lines and others are darts or arrows.  I did not use to of the techniques I frequently use....Stablio Woodies and transfer paper asemic writing.  Maybe I should have.

Spider Book No. 3 - 05 and 06

Spider Book 3 - 05

Spider Book 3 - 06

I love the red in 06.  It unifies the piece.  For me it seems that the black line with the "dart" creates a boundary and causes movement toward the center of the collage.  The woman in the lower right does the same with her profile looking inward.

Spider Book No. 3 - 03 and 04

Two-fer or two-for depending on your preference Saturday.......

Spider Book No. 3 - 03

Spider Book No. 3 - 04

I love how 03 turned out.  I think these ladies have seen a great deal in their lives.  I hope they kept memoirs.  :-)

Spider Book No. 3 - 01 and 02

Spider Book No.3 - 01 

Spider Book No. 3 - 02

I love the faces that I found.  The one in No. 3 is a bit odd but maybe not with all the tattoos we see nowadays.  I love that word “nowadays” and it seems so odd to type it out.  I was just gifted two huge and I mean huge boxes of postage stamps from a friend who is clearing out his mother’s stuff.  The mother does not know that I have the stamps and the family is not telling her.  It is quite a collection.  Much of the “gold” that I was gifted is from Asia.  I am in heaven going through this collection.  The family was told by a  philatelist that the collection was not worth much.  At least they had it evaluated.  I am so lucky to be the recipient.

Tiny Collages for Spider Book

Tiny Collage 04

Tiny Collage 05

Tiny Collage 06

My emphasis on the tiny collages is the background.  I call it painting with paper. While working on them I imagine them as huge pieces of art.

Another Spider Book Full of Collages

Spider Book

Small Collage 01

Small Collage 02

Small Collage 03

I love making the small collages.  Painting with papers is a blast and then figuring out how to put them together to make a composition is the most fun.   LOVE!

Small Collages in a Spider Bound Book

Spider Book

Tiny Collage 01

Tiny Collage 02

Since I am going to be teaching how to make a spider book at the Newport Paper and Book Arts Festival I wanted to have a completed book with collages included.  I have been playing around with ideas for the interior of the books and decided on tiny collages using papers that I have adapted.  I call the process painting with papers.

Clam Shell Boxes

Clam Shell Boxes

I am working on clam shell box number 17.  It will house some CDs.  The ones you see in this photo house postcards, collages,  and miscellaneous small art pieces.  The clam shell box workshop was fantastic and probably one of the top five workshops I have ever taken.  It is serving a major art storage issue I have had.  Containing small art so that it can be easily seen again is a benefit.

Teabag Series 30 and 31

Teabag Series 30

Teabag Series 31

This is the end of part one of the teabag series.  I have 25 or so more to share from the part two series.  I may take a break and share other things on the blog for a few days.  I have been working on spider books and Japanese stab bound books and the collages that go inside them.

Teabag Series 28 and 29

Two-fear Sunday....

Teabag Series 28 

Teabag Series 29

I noticed that I am behind by two blogging days for 2019.  So there is a bonus collage for today.  There have been days in 2019 that were so busy that I forgot to blog.  I thought I had caught up but my math must have been fuzzy.  Hence, two-fer Sunday.

Spell check does not like two-fer.  It keeps changing it to other words.  I guess it should be two-for but I have used two-fer for so long that I like it.  Everyone knows what I mean anyway. :-)

Teabag Series 27

Teabag Series 27

This one is another of my favorites.  I used two photographs to complete it.  The little girl was added to a different vintage image.  Works for me.

Teabag Series 25 and 26

Teabag Series 25

Teabag Series 26

One technique I have not mentioned is splattering.  Each of the works in this series have black paint spattered on them.  I use spattering as a unifying technique.  It is the last thing I do to finish off the piece.

Teabag Series 23 and 24

Teabag Series 23 

No. 23 is one of the collages that made it into the final 25 that I kept and that are housed in a clam shell box.  There are many things I like about this piece.....the stitching that mimics the cancellation stamp;  the look that the man is giving; the overall composition; and the use of three languages.  I often hold this piece and just take it all in.

Teabag Series 24

I like how the dominant color in this collage causes the eye to rotate around the piece.

Teabag Series 21 and 22

Teabag Series 21

Teabag Series 22

Last evening I was fortunate to have a ticket to see the musical Mrs. Doubtfire that will open on Broadway after its Seattle world premier.  OMG!  I loved this musical!  Everything about it was amazing theater.  I laughed, actually laughed out loud.  A smile never left my face I am sure.  It just might be the best musical I have ever seen and that is saying something because I have seen many musicals in nearly 69 years on this earth.  I want to make a prediction.  It will get a Tony award soon and the actor, Rob McClure, will get a Tony award for his performance as Mrs. Doubtfire. This is a smash hit of a show.

Teabag Series 19 and 20

Teabag Series 19

Teabag Series 20

Nothing much to say today other than someone might tire of a series when techniques are repeated.  I have thought about this quite a bit but then thought "Well, it is a series with techniques in common!"  I also thought about the purpose of the series which was to create 25 pieces to send to Germany as a collection that would be distributed to different parts of the world.  So yes, the pieces are similar.

Teabag Series 17 and 18

Teabag Series  - 17

Teabag Series  - 18

I pretty much created all day.  I have to finish a spider book that I made.  I only had the book assembled but the pages were blank.  So today I created twelve collages for the book.  I am getting it ready to photograph as I have to send images for the online catalog for the Newport Paper and Book Arts Festival that will be held in April.  I will be teaching two workshops, spider books and Japanese stab binding.  I like how the spider book collages turned out.  I will post them sometime in 2020 after this series has been shared.