Sees Into the Future - 02

 

I had been holding onto this photo for quite some time.  I guess boys will be boys and try stunts like this.

Seeing Into the Future - 01

 

This journal is an ATC sized one so each collage is less than 2.5 x 3.5 inches.

Aunt Georgia Journal - 13

 

Flowers were so important to Georgia.  She did an amazing job of showcasing different flowers. Her interpretation was so vivid and larger than the life of the flower.  This is the end of the journal.  I guess I forgot to video the journal and now it is in the NW Collage Society Spring Show at the Fogue Gallery in Seattle.  So I will share the video in May once i have possession of the journal again.

Aunt Georgia Journal - 12

 

I call this piece Paps (paparazzi). Georgia would have had a difficult time with paparazzi or the tabloids.  This piece in the Aunt Georgia journal was accepted into the spring show for the NW Collage Society.

Aunt Georgia Journal - 11

 

I will wait for the unveiling of what is behind the skull doors when I share the video of the journal.

Aunt Georgia Journal - 10

 

Georgia love the skies of New Mexico.  She frequently would arise before sunrise and go out onto the desert to wait for the sunrise.  She always took a long stick in case she came upon a rattlesnake.

Aunt Georgia Journal - 09

 

I think the contrast between the young and the older Georgia in this piece are like bookends.  So much happens in life between.

Aunt Georgia Journal - 08

 

Georgia was a very independent woman.  She kept her maiden name and she took vacations to the southwest without her husband.

Aunt Georgia Journal - 07

 

Georgia loved working in her garden.  She was also an excellent cook until her eyesight started failing her and she got a woman to help her in the garden and kitchen.

Aunt Georgia Journal - 06

 

I like the desert tones in this piece.  The little trinkets that I got are from an Etsy shop which has a southwest theme.

Aunt Georgia Journal - 05

 

Aunt Georgia loved vivid colors which you will see especially in her paintings of flowers.  One of her favorite flowers was the poppy.

Aunt Georgia Journal - 04

 

That is my art in the photo on the left along with Aunt Georgia’s shadow.  She is explaining to me about the high desert and the light at different times of the day.

Aunt Georgia Journal - 03

 

One year I actually spent 144 days with Aunt Georgia.  You can imagine how much fun roaming the desert was.  Every morning she took a walk to see the sunrise.  She always had a stick in case she encountered a rattlesnake.

Aunt Georgia Journal - 02

 

In my fictional representation of Georgia O’Keeffe I imagined that I would spend summers in New Mexico with her.

Aunt Georgia - Cover and 01

 

This past weekend I taught a workshop celebrating women's history month.  I asked the students to choose someone in their life who was an influencer.  That is not easy for some including me.  So I chose Georgia O'Keeffe pretending she was my Aunt Georgia for my shabby chic journal.  Above you see the cover the first spread.

Shabby Chic Journal Video

 

Shabby Chic Journal Six - 12

 

This spread is the end of this journal.  Tomorrow I will have the video of the whole journal so you can see it almost as if it were live.

Shabby Chic Journal Six - 11

 

I spend quite a bit of time with the image of the woman on the right.  PhotoShop helped me with creating her in grey scale so that I could then use her in an image transfer.

Shabby Chic Journal Six - 10

 

This spread shows the other side of the moving playing card.  I love how things work out.  I found ‘Look. At. This. Face.”in a magazine and the sheep seemed appropriate to go along with the those words.

Shabby Chic Journal Six - 09

 

It is hard to tell perhaps that the playing card addition on the right with the photograph actually moves into a pocket.  It will be obvious when I shall the journal in the video this coming weekend.

Shabby Chic Journal Six - 08

 

This probably is my favorite spread in this journal.  The portraits on the left are ones that I did in Procreate.  I love the portrait ephemera that I found of the peacock.  The grid system works for me on this spread.

Shabby Chic Journal Six - 07

 I am trying something I know very little about and that is to set a date and time for publication of posts on this blog.  I am hopeful that this will publish Monday morning at 12:30 a.m., March 6.  If this works for me then I hope to never miss a publication day and have to do two-fers again.

Shabby Chic Journal Six - 06

 Two-fer Sunday

I got busy getting ready for my two workshops next weekend and the time just flew by yesterday.  So I missed posting, hence today is a two-fer. I find the red so lush in this piece.  On the right you will see a woman on a deep red with some yellow.  This ephemeral background  actually is a waxed bread bag that came to me with two books wrapped inside from Ireland.  I was not sure I could even adhere the wrapping to the substrate but PVA glue did the trick.

Shabby Chic Journal Six - 05

 

One thing I love about the shabby chic journals is that the pages differ in sizes a things peek through from other spreads.  

Shabby Chic Journal Six - 04

 

The smiling ladies out for a good time on the beach perhaps although my background does not say beach.  I guess it says garden more than anything.  No matter they seem happy and make me smile.

Shabby Chic Journal Six - 03

 

Sometimes less is more.  I love how the large hand and the charm hand compliment each other.  The flower ephemera came to me in an artist playing card exchange.

Shabby Chic Journal Six - 02

 Two-for Wednesday….

I got so busy on yet another journal I forgot to post yesterday.  There is a lot going on in this piece;  Many many layers.  I do not know about you but my eyes are dancing up and down as I look at this spread as it is such a vertical piece.  I like how the red piece of ephemera cuts the verticalness on the left. 

Shabby Chic Journal Six - 01

 

OK.  I admit it.  I am addicted to making the shabby chic journals.  I am spending hours and hours making them and other tasks are taking a back seat.  Hey, I am retired right!  So I should be able to spend time doing what I like.

This journal’s substrate is made from a grocery paper bag.   I left a little of the writing from the bag on this spread.  I also did a double transfer which is on the flight side of the spread.

The Juggler - High School Project

 

This is my second collage for the NW Collage Society high school exchange.  Glad to have these mailed off.  Can't wait to see what I get back in return.

The Gardener

This trifold is one that I did for an activity hosted by the NW Collage Society.  We are creating and exchanging with 60 high school students.  Participating members created one or two trifolds and will receive that many in return from the high school students.

Postcard Exchange February 2023 - 03

 

Loving the large letters and the photographs in these postcards.

Postcard Exchange February 2023 - 02

 

I love how the transfer of the woman turned out on this postcard.

Buck Up, Buddy!

 

I was invited to create a piece for a show that opens next month in the Pioneer Square art gallery called Shift.  Toxic Masculinity and Gender Roles is the theme of the group and solo show.  Craig van den Bosch is having a solo show at the same time.

My piece is 3D but that is more obvious in person.  There are many threads to my piece which include:  coming out of the closet as a gay man; being raised in a society where boys are told that they should not cry; men on the down low;  men struggling with racism; and the acceptance of one’s self.  All the materials used in my 3D collage are recycled materials including a potato bag, tea bag strings with paper; old ephemera; dictionary pages; and old ledger pages,  The show opens on March 2 and runs through April 1.

I See You - Postcard Exchange - February 2023

 

I have had a stash of partially started postcards just waiting to be finished.  They are or were at the point of needing a focal point.  I just did not know where they were going and as you know I frequently let the work lead me.  Then all of a sudden the right pieces fell into place.

Video of Cardboard Journal No. 4

 

I am entering one of the spreads in this journal in the NW Collage Society Spring Show that will be at the Fogue Gallery in Georgetown, part of Seattle, beginning March 25, 2023.  I had a special plexiglas holder that I designed to house it.

Cardboard Journal No. 4 - 18

 

We have reached the end of this journal.  There are lift ups in this spread which will be shown on the video of the journal tomorrow.

Michael Phelps is the guy who you might have guessed from yesterday’s post.  The teddy bear is in the upper left….kind of camouflaged because the CitraSolv papers are coming through the transfer.

Cardboard Journal No. 4 - 17

 

Do you know what famous person’s lips those are?  Can you find the teddy bear?  I will tell you tomorrow if you can’t.

Cardboard Journal No. 4 - 16

 

This is one of my favorite spreads in this shabby chic art journal.  The reason being because of the happy accident that happened prior to creating it.  I subscribe to The NY Times on Sundays and once each month there is a magazine section that I particularly like.  I found an image of the two women on the left holding a fish.  On the reverse side was a man who evidently was dancing or at least moving his body excitedly because his hair was flying.  I have a bright light next to my chair where I have been doing most of my collage work.  I happened to hold the image up to the light and both images were visible.  So I took a photo of it and now the man is superimposed into the photo of the two women.  It is pretty cool looking.  Here is the photo that I took….

Cardboard Journal No. 4 - 15

 Diamonds are a girl’s best friend right?  At least Marilyn Monroe sang that in a film and so did Carol Channing on Broadway.    The colors in this spread seem pretty grey to me.  That is what is fun about journaling.  One can go back and work on a spread later on and make changes.

Cardboard Journal No. 4 - 14

 

Using a part of the photo that one crops off but put aside for later use is the case here.  I used the upper portion of the woman’s image in a different spread.  Having the legs and feet for this one makes for an interesting addition to the spread.

Cardboard Journal No. 4 - 13

 

This one is dark but there is a cool thing going on.  I used CitraSolv papers on the substrate.  The transfer of the man being transparent allowed those papers to show through.

Cardboard Journal No. 4 - 12

 I have so gotten into packing tape transfers.  I keep trying new experiments with the process.  Some of my experiments will come up in the next art journal that I share.

Happy Valentine’s Day. :-). 

Aunt Georgia Journal - Cover and 01

 

“Aunt Georgia” was created in honor of Georgia O’Keeffe.  March is women’s history month and I was asked to teach a workshop honoring women.  My premise for the workshop was to choose a woman who had been an influencer in one’s life.  I had trouble coming up with one person who I would wish to create a whole journal on.  Then I got the idea of creating a journal about an artist that I love.  I decided to become Georgia O’Keeffe’s nephew and created this journal about my Aunt Georgia, hence the title “Aunt Georgia”.  It is a shabby chic journal.

Cardboard Journal No. 4 - 11

 

Eyes are so expressive and this guy’s eyes are no exception.  I like how this spread came together.

Cardboard Journal No. 4 - 10

 I thought I would open a hinged portion of the collage on the left side so you could see what goes on behind closed “doors”.  When I show the video you will get the full effect of this spread.

Cardboard Journal No. 4 - 09

 

You might have noticed that the backgrounds are dark.  The last journal I shared they were white.  I wish they were white.  It took a very long time to import the photos into PhotoShop and to remove the dark background last time.  More time than I wanted to spend.   Using the tools that i know some of the actual collage would disappear when I tried removing the background.  So that is why I decided to go with the way it photographed.

You might not be able to tell in the photo but there is a man behind the large square on the right.  You can see him in a good light.  Maybe if you enlarge the image above you will notice him.

Cardboard Journal No. 4 - 08

 

In this spread there is a lot of lifting that needs to be done to see photographs and pullouts to see hidden collages.  I love that the journal is interactive with the viewer.