Artpassage

Hollanders Excursion

2008-11-18T21:33:00.009-05:00

Well, myself and "jackie" as I fondly call her, travelled to Ann Arbor, Michigan this weekend. It was the usual, 3 hours of non-stop gabbing (contributions from both parties) as we drove like demons to get to our destination.

Once there, it was a shop-fest!!!!

The first image is the set of covers and signatures prior to "sewing". The second image is a close up (a little fuzzy) of the sewing procedure, which was confusing at first, but TOTALLY logical once you understood it. This next imageis the final product.Lastly a close up of the "Icicle Stitch"

Hollander's was a wonderful store. Beautiful building. Amazing selection. And the class was great.

Summer at Blue Mountain

2008-07-26T16:14:00.004-04:00

Wow - we had a great adventure at Blue Mountain. Left on Monday; stayed in a beautiful 1 bedroom suite with a kitchenette. It was on the ground floor and faced the pool.

We swam A LOT. Walked around the "village", took in the music. At night they had a big screen that they played movies on (27 dresses when we were there). As a family we took the Family Hike up the Mountain. Thought I was gonna die. Had to carry Chase on my back, piggy back style. Got about half way up, and I had to pass her off to Fletcher.

The view was amazing.!!! We made it to the top. It was VERY muddy the last half of the journey.

We went on paddle boats; early morning walks; I spent a couple of hours in the BEAD store trying my hand at making a bracelet (see above). The chain was purchased as is, I added the heart clasp, and all the beads. I managed to make one for myself and for my daughter Chase.

The weather was great. We couldn't have asked for a better week!!

February ATC - Red and White

2008-02-07T22:45:00.001-05:00

Well, I finished it...took me about a week to come up with the composition. As usual, I questioned myself and what i was doing. But, once the composition took shape I felt ok. It was soooo hard to restrict myself to just RED and White. Plus using nothing but stamps what even more difficult. Once the composition was finalized, I wanted to add depth, so I took the punched heart and placed material behind it to raise it off the card. Then deciding that I was going to sew a clear plastic cover onto the card, allowed me to put some red hearts floating within the sewn card.

Looks cool.....

I am glad I am posting my comments before I get to ATC night. This way I am not posting based on other peoples card.!!!

Monthly ATC night

2008-01-13T17:03:00.000-05:00

On Friday night, I went to the Bizzy B's monthly ATC night. It was light as there were less than 10 of us. The theme was MEN/MALE. I did mine this past week. Tried not to be so critical of what I was doing and just did it..I felt freer than I had the other ATC nights. Wasn't as embarrassed.

But, I am mesmerized by all the other ATC's when we swap.....what am I not getting? I am told there are no rules but WHY do I leave there thinking mine didn't match the standard that everyone else created? Standard in terms of composition, interest. I don't know. I am hoping that one of these days I will break free and feel that the quality of what I have produced is on the same level as the other artists. I know that art is art, to each his own, but, looking at other artists ATC's I say to myself, hey, it has composition; mine seems unfinished. Not well thought out....Take it to the next level.

I will keep trying. I am not embarrased to show my art as it will help me to move forward. I need to keep trying.

Christmas Presents

2007-12-27T22:56:00.000-05:00

Wow, what a wonderful Christmas. Not only did I enjoy the last ATC swap night of 2007, for 3 reasons: 1. because I finally was brave enough to attempt sewing on my cards. And 2. because of all the wonderful artists that I was honored to sit shoulder to shoulder with that night. Lastly, 3. I participated in my first exchange of ANYTHING other than ATC cards. I didn't take a picture of my ornaments, but here are the ones that I recieved in return.

Now for Christmas. My wonderful partner, James, and my son, Fletcher, went together and bought me a Japanese Caligraphy set along with a How-to book. PLUS, James bought me a paint by number of Van Gogh's Sunflowers. This is the FIRST time ANY MAN has bought anything resembling art for ANY occassion.!!!!! I am still in shock. Now I have NO EXCUSE!!!

Lastly, my gift to MYSELF from DJ Pettit arrived just prior to Christmas. I was sooooo excited, BUT, refrained from opening it....I waited....put it under the tree....until Christmas morning.....forgot about it....until the next day!!!!!!!!! Here was the wonderful package DJ sent to me. It was the first time I had ever purchased anything from an artist. The care she took in packaging the piece in old pattern paper, stitched it up; wrapped in colorful thread, topped with a copy of one of her recent paintings as a note card. Inside was this heavenly 2"x2" DANCING ANGELS ornament. The photos do not do it justice!!!!

I have lots to do for January. And, time is running out for me to figure out what I am going to do for Artfest ATC swap book and fat pages.........tick tock tick....

Domino Art Girlz

2007-11-19T14:57:00.001-05:00

Today was a wonderful and full day!!!

After dropping my 10 month old daughter off at babysitting, trying not to feel too guilty (as all moms due), I fled Brampton for Toronto and visited a new friend in search of art experimentation!!!

There were four of us, and we talked and talked, exchanged ideas, our hostess was continuously scrambling up and down the stairs fetching items for us to use or to show us.

We had a blast. We ended up working with dominos and alcohol inks and stamps.The application of the inks and how they interacted on the domino was incredible. My favorite domino was the one that I used an orange inkpad to color the background and then used Silver alcohol ink and dripped onto the domino. The result was amazing.

I did stamp one domino, and it looks good.

The progress of all the dominos as we added more and more color resulted in very deep rich colors.

Thank you to our hostess for a wonderful visit!!

Xmas Thoughts

2007-11-14T21:13:00.000-05:00

Wow, I was in Zellers today and they were playing XMAS music!!! How bizzare. The first comment that came to my mind was "it's not December 1st yet??!!"

Then in my email tonight I recieved my first POSTSCRIPT email from Stampington - this was the project of the month. And ohhhhhhh, what wonderful links I managed to find my way to.!!!

From this project I managed to get to Kristin Hubic's blog, and she was displaying some wonderful xmas mixed media. Another blog was by Audry Hernandez her cards are wonderful.

I ended up purchasing some stamps from Oxford Impressions. They have wonderful paper and Ephemera (including vintage prescriptiion sheets and French vocabulary cards.)

Can't wait for them to come in the mail!!!

ATC night

2007-11-11T19:10:00.000-05:00

Well, I participated in my 3rd (really 2nd time creating an ATC) ATC swap night. It was a blast to sit shoulder to shoulder with other artists, especially WOMEN.

The theme of the night was ALL ABOUT ME. I kept picturing in my mind what I wanted to do. But I never put it down on paper, other than a list. I ended up creating everything on the computer. I scanned the image of me when I was young; digitally photographed the tea cup and close cropped it in photoshop; the piano keys were from the web somewhere; and the background are the words to Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

I felt kind of guilty for creating everything on the computer, but, that took "expertise". Then, during our swap, one of the ladies made a negative comment about doing the ATC on the computer. I didn't take it badly, but found it rude that she said it, and then stated it again, and again. Thank you to the two ladies who were left at the end of the night who made me feel much better about it.

It turned out pretty good.

Here is a copy of what it looked like.

Does this get easier?

2007-08-30T21:55:00.000-04:00

Well, does it?? I have spent the better part of tonight working on this blog. Setting it up, looking around at other artists' blogs. How do they do it.? How do they see what's out there, and work on art? I guess you get into a rhythm. I haven't found mine yet. I am afraid to go downstairs to my art table. It sits in front of the furnace. It's cold down there. Gotta spend more time down there.

My first art piece

2007-08-28T21:27:00.001-04:00

This is my first attempt at an art piece. It began as an online classe from Joggles, and ended up going in the direction of a birthday present for my sister Roberta who lives in Australia.

I decided to assemble it with images of her, myself and my other sisters when we were younger. Kind of a tribute. It was very time consuming. But, it was interesting as I looked at us as kids, and remembered some of these times. Even though we were young.

Its the beginning

2007-08-28T21:24:00.000-04:00

Well, I am committing to document my travel into art. I am on maternity leave for 1 year and thought that I would do SOOOO much art while I was off. It's August----I have been off since January 8th!!!! So, here goes.....