Catching Up, Mail Art & More

#124

#125

 I've  been having fun with a circle stencil and water soluble 9B graphite.

I added a bit of color with water color pencils.

#126

#127

#128

Cards

cards

In cleaning up my studio table, I found cool stuff to cut up into substrates. With only one added piece, I get an interesting composition.










This collage is on a piece of card stock that fits into a First Cover envelope. I made this specifically to send to someone who likes Mary Cassatt.








Here's another composition using the same substrate as in #125.












More circle Mail Art.












Here's how I created the circle pieces. I worked on large sheet of water color paper, making circles with the stencil and the graphite and pencils.


I added water and when dry, I cut the paper into Mail Art sized pieces, Artist Trading Card pieces, and left overs for book markers.

No waste!




After the pieces were cut out, I sprayed them with matte fixative.

Hmm, I'm thinking I should do the spraying before I cut them up, oh yeah, that'd be better. Right?








This is a view of the 23221 Post Office the other day. I was sitting in the parking lot and noticed that the clouds were gorgeous! Notice the light on the side of the building had come on because the light was low. The wind blowing was nice to show the flag better.








Here's my studio table post clean up. I'm so happy that I spent the time to clean up and organize. on the left is a plastic box holding received mail. I'm pulling pieces from that to send responses. On my wall, are new inspiration pieces.

I'm happier in my studio now that I have more making space on the table.

How messy does your space have to get before you clean it up?

Mail Art made on vacation!

 We went to Québec City for our vacation. I had hoped to find a Mail Artist there to have a meet-up with, but no such fortune. 

I did however make a lot of Mail Art while away. These pieces are a sample - I used scaps from found paper and added circles that I brought with me in my traveling Mail Art kit.






I altered commercial postcards and I made water color landscapes (not pleine aire, however.)

It was very relaxing to take a few moments each day and make little art pieces.








We were very inspired  by what we saw at museums and all around us, returning home with ideas for new work,

and memories of a terrific time in a new environment.


I had fun putting the bears into the postcard and am happy with how it turned out.

Mail Art, Little Free Library, and more

#98

#99

 I made this Mail Art to send to someone who sent me a lovely piece of Mail Art back in March and I've been sooo remiss in responding to people. I feel awful about it. Slowly I'm getting mail out. Oh everyone who sent me Mail Art, please know that I loved getting it.




I made this altered card using a postcard that we got at our most recent visit to the National Postal Museum on my birthday last week. I added the colorful old postage stamps to it. It's going to my niece and nephew in Wisconsin. They'll get a kick out of getting real mail.

#100

I've been having fun punching out circles from old Art magazines. I'm preparing for a workshop that I'm going to do in two weeks, and I'm going to offer up a tin full of these circles as part of the project. More on this after it happens.



My workshop last week went really well. It was on Artist Trading Cards. Super fun to share. The participants were all teachers, grades kinder through end of high school, all different subject areas. 

#101

So these two cards are the start of some fun for me, as I plan to make use of the circles, also.  I like circles a lot, and these are so planetary, and minimal.

 I'd seen this Little Free Library a few weeks ago when driving by the Richmond Ambulance Authority building. How cute, I thought, and today, with a book to deposit, I stopped there on the way home from playing with my grand-girl.






This is beautifully crafted and painted to look exactly like the ambulances.  It had a nice amount of books in it, not crowded like some of the other smaller LFLs. I hope that more people pay attention to it.

Do you have any LFLs in your neighborhood?

 My niece and her husband joined us to celebrate the American Independence day, 4th of July. She brought head bands for all of us to wear. Here she is modeling one. Cute, aren't they?

 Bizoo waits on my bedside table every morning waiting for me to wake up. He taps my head sometimes, and other times just sits patiently. The treats are in the top drawer!!
He knows it, as does our grand-girl, who likes giving the cat treats. We did, however, find her munching on a few herself, yesterday.

I just had to share these flowers with you. They were among the bunches at Amy's farmers' market stand last week. Gorgeous, like a painting, yes?

Mail Art, a blatant promo, and something else.

 Yet, another Cactus and Lily card. After I took this photo of the card, I "cancelled" the stamps with a rubber stamp. It looks better with that addition, but this is good, too.

 I made this collage to send to a friend, not that she needs a reminder to enjoy!

 Here's the cactus with a new "friend." Lily has gone the way of cut flowers. What would be a good caption for this scene! ha ha ha

 Bizoo keeps watch while I sleep. I opened my eyes to him the other day - I grabbed my phone and caught this. "Treats, I want treats!" I can read his mind!

BLATANT PROMO -
So the daily practice of making a skull every day for a year, set my son on a path that grew into something he didn't expect. Part way through he got a book deal - which became his first book SKULLS.   Since this book captured less than half of the project it was a dream of Noah's to have a book with the entire year's worth of skulls. Now, that's going to be a reality.
A new SKULLS book has been developed and it's on kickstarter now. It's going to be so good. If you like skulls (and we all should since we all have one) or know someone who does, then -
Be a supporter HERE.  

Mail Art and our grand girl

 I'm playing around with strips and circles again.  I'm using OLD scraps in new arrangements. I'm very pleased with how the circle looks transparent but not happy that I didn't line the edges up squarely with the edge of the substrate.

Doing landscapes vertically for a visual challenge.

Here, I decided to not worry about the lining up of the strips - I decided to just put them off kilter, which gives the pieces a bit more energy. I also like the circle that I chose to add. 

 As regular readers know, I don't post many photos of our grand-girl. I feel it's partly privacy and partly not wanting to bore people.

I couldn't resist. She's wearing the hat we'd just gotten for her - she loves hats.

She's eating fresh strawberry pieces from a little divided dish. It was serious business.

She was quite busy putting her soft toys on the couch, then she climbed up with them. The pink gingham doll bottom right was her mom's doll. Z calls it Pink!
The doll she's holding in her right hand is from her great-aunt E. Because the fabric on the back has a horse print, Z calls this baby NayNay.

She is very content to sit with all her babies and animals.

Lagging behind - a confession.

 I'm going to confess once more that I'm lagging behind in responding to people who've sent me wonderful Mail Art.

I'm too embarrassed to even post a photo of the two piles on my work table. Eventually, I'll catch up - won't I?

Meanwhile, I continue to MAKE Mail Art. My process is once again, taking bits of scraps out of one of my tins and seeing how I can compose them. 3 pieces of paper. Yes. Satisfying.

 Our garden is looking good. The plants are growing back now that we've had lots of rain and sun. Our formerly shady back area has been exposed to sun by our tree being cut back a lot.

The cement duck, one of a pair, looks quite content in the foliage.

Here's the motto again - don't forget this as you move ahead in your own practice.

And don't forget, this is the motto for The Alternative Speakers Bureau.

If you're a reader in the Richmond, VA area, here's an opportunity (click on this) to participate in a creativity experience. It'll help you get unstuck.

Flashback Tuesday - the Atlantic Ocean, N.C. USA

A bit of a break, now Mail Art & More....

 I made another of my Cactus and Lily series.

I have lots more of these cards, so I'd better get busy coming up with "poetry" for them.

I was inspired by seeing some collages made with old papers. I made a few like this the previous week, too. Very satisfyin.

 I have a very old, very falling apart, plan of Paris. The paper just about crumbles as I touch it. The colors are so nice.

 I made this specifically for Jo Maeder, the author of a book that I read recently - When I Married My Mother. It was a lovely memoir. I decided to send her a collage using one of my friend's baby photos. Other people photos, what to do with them? Make collages, of course.

Here's a lovely surprise. Many of my long time readers might remember The Shelf! Well, here's another one that appeared on a pole at the end of the block down from our house. It's very neatly constructed which leads me to thinking that it was made by the dad of the little boy living a few houses away.

I put a couple of things in it.

The original shelf is up again, after a brief period of being away. It's better than ever, and more sturdily attached to it's pole. You can see it in my archives searching under "shelf" or "elflog."

A couple of Friday's ago, we stopped in at the tango dance at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. I took lots of photos of feet that night.

Besides the regular dancers, a couple of professionals from Argentina did a demonstration of fancy dancing. It was quite fun and I'm thinking maybe we could try to dance Tango.

Do you dance? What do you do, ballroom Tango, Salsa?