Inspire Me Thursday #3

Okay, I'll be the first to admit I did not enjoy the Inspire Me Thursday (IMT) challenge this week. It's very important to me that my art conveys a message of some significance, and when I saw the "senseless" challenge, I immediately thought of Jackson Pollack's drip paintings ~ senseless. So here's my artist process for this senseless piece ... I grabbed a piece of blue cardstock (about 2"x5") and packing tape. Next I stuck the packing tape sticky side down on my work table. By doing so, I collected bits and pieces of paper that were sitting there. Yep, I think it's senseless.

Birthday Challenge

Sally Turlington (of MMCA fame) had her birthday this week and asked people to post photos of themselves as children on their birthdays.

Here's the photo of me on my first birthday. Sorry about the quality of the snapshot ~ that was a long time ago, ya know. My mom made the cake and my dad was holding me behind (see his hands?).

Happy birthday Sally ~ it was fun to meet your birthday challenge!

Wheeeeeeeeeeee ~ I love Dollarama

This morning I was in Dollarama and found theeeee most incredible thing to add to the calendar I've been working on. Look at this!

Not only is this Asian shirt gorgeous but it's simply perfect for Ruth's calendar. I feel better about my contribution to Ruth's calendar now because I was feeling like I need to add fabric somehow to the mix but didn't think I could ~ until today.

March's desk calendar RR spreads

Here are the four pages I created in Ruth Rae's calendar. Although most of her book is in fabric, I stuck to my Vintage Grunge look on paper. Anyone who knows me, knows I've got an acute case of Fabricphobia! I love and appreciate the work others do with fabric, but I have difficulty in using it in my own work.

On the fourth page, I ripped a photo of one of van Gogh's Asian influenced work of a pear tree in blossom. Then using my latest favourite medium, soft pastel, I added my own impressionism to the page.

I think I'm finished with Ruth's calendar ... but you never know ... I may just have to add some more embellies if I can find the right ones!

On another note ... it's snowing like cats and dogs this morning. Strange winter ... no snow all winter until March. Go figure. Anyway, I'm off to Tim Horton's to Rrrrroll-up-the-Rrrrrim (Canadians will know what I mean by that) and have coffee with my friend Nicolette. She wants to see Ruth's calendar before I send it off in the mail again. Have a cozy day!

Spendin' a little time with my friends

My art buddy Arlene and her two great kids came over yesterday to play. I showed her the RR calendar that I'm working on currently (which I received in the mail the day before ~ perfect timing, eh)? Lots of eye candy in it for sure. Ruth, the person who is the original creator of this particular calendar did an absolutely beautiful job on setting the tone for it.

The theme is "Asian Victorian". Pictures certainly cannot show just how lovely this book is ~ but I'll show a couple here anyway. The first is a side view of the calendar. Look at the side view of this thing! And this is with only 3 people having worked on it. Imagine how it'll be when it's completed.

I wish I'd taken a photo of the recyled soup tin Arlene created while she was at my house. It had a tea theme and was absolutely gorgeous!

Creating with the 5 senses

For Inspire Me Thursday this week, the challenge was to use all five of your senses in the creative process.

At first I thought that this was going to be a difficult exercise. But it was a good one in the end because it got me to think about the sensory aspect of creating a piece of art.



WHAT I DID (& what senses were used):

• took Irish Spring soap out of its box (smell)
  - here I could have used the sense of taste, but didn't
• flattened it (touch)
• scribbled with my favourite medium ~ waxed crayons (smell)
• used acrylic paint as a wash over box (see)
• sandpapered parts of box (hear)
• then used felt marker to write "embellie" on box (smell)
• glued on bottle cap that i'd previously created (touch of warm glue gun in my hand)
• rounded up unused some bottle caps and closed box (touch ~ picking caps up)
• shook the box (hear)

So I wonder what the challenge will be next week ....

What do you do on a snowy day like today? Create a spread for Karen's "Weight Wars" book, of course. 

This is how much snow we got overnight. We haven't had much of a winter this year, so this kind of a dump is a bit of a shock to the system. 

Jumbo-sized ATC for an exchange with my art buddy, Arlene. Hope she'll like it! 

Inspire Me Thursday Self Portrait 

A self portrait? Noooooo!

Okay, this week's challenge was to create a self portrait. Not my favourite (Just for the record, I didn't make a spelling mistake folks ~ that's how we spell *favourite* in Canada) thing to do. Self portraits are a weird thing to create. It's hard to protray oneself. If you've ever done it, you know what I mean.

Anyhooooo, determined to meet the challenge, I grabbed a brown paper bag and just drew a quick sketch of myself. The necklace looks like one I made ... and it's winter, and I often wear turtlenecks this time of the year, but other than that ~ you couldn't pick me out of a line-up if you tried. *smile* What scary thing will they have in store for next week? Hmmmm ...

On another note, it's the Pointy Hat ART Posse (PHAP) meeting tonight. I'm quite proud because I have quite a few ATCs created and a couple other art items to show. I even made a new pointy hat for tonight's meeting ~ perhaps I'll post that later. Hopefully the snow will die down before 6:30 tonight so that people can make it to PHAP.

My first "Inspire Me Thursday" effort. Check out what this is all about on Misty Mawn's blog at: http://mistyeyedart.blogspot.com/ or click on her name under my links.
 

Here's a close up of "Nurse's got a Tonic"

"PHAP Chicks" Vintage Grunge style ATC. This is a tribute to the wonderful art group Pointy Hat ART Posse (PHAP) which I am fortunate enough to be a part of. Can you read where it says "Learn to Scribble"? :)

A little Vintage Grunge for you. I love making art in this style because I am NOT a "neat and precise" artist! 

Valentine altered board book I made for Greg 

Altered Valentine tin I made to hold candies for my husband  

Making art like it's goin' outta style!

Wow! I've been creating like crazy lately. The Paris calendar got me going. It was so much fun to work in Marci's calendar and to stretch a little by taking on a theme that normally I wouldn't. Doesn't it seem to take a long time after Christms to get back into the "art-groove" again? I think I'm finally there. Wheee!

So what have I been doing?After looking through the latest Sommerset mag, I made a altered tin can which I used for my husband's Valentine's sweets. For his card, I created a small altered book (2.5"x2.5"). I'll post some photos here for you to check out. I am so thankful for the gift of art! It's so great to be able to express myself through mixed media. Oh ya, and this week, I got a belated birthday gift in the mail from one of my nieces. It was a gift certificate to Michael's. Mmm ~ it's gonna be fun finding goodies to buy with that. Thank you Thina!

Today was like the coldest day of the year. With the windchill it was like -39 Celcius. That's MINUS 39! Couldn't start the car until the afternoon, the kids were home from school, I needed milk because I can't drink coffee without milk. Whoa is me! I want spring and I want it now!! Where's this global warming stuff, eh? I eventually did get out to buy some milk, by the way, but coffee does taste yummy with Lite Cool Whip.

Well, here are a few photos of stuff I've been working on.

February Calendar: Page 1 for Marci Glenn's calendar. I used soft pastels and collage on this page. This page looks pretty good ~ hope Marci will like my work in her calendar.

February Calendar: Page 2 ... Made a huge mistake on this page after it was almost all done, so I had to cover up. I used silver tape to cover the mess and I must say, it worked out quite well.

February Calendar: Page 3 On this page, I went for the super simple look.

February art for calendar RR

I received a desk calendar in the mail from Marci Glenn which I will be creating art in for the month of February. I'm in a 2006 Calendar RR (round robin)in the Mixed Media Collage Artist online group. The calibre of art on this site is extraordinary, so I'm excited to be a part of this project. There were so many people interested in participating in the RR, two RR's had to be started to accomodate everyone.

Marci chose a calendar with the Paris theme. I'm having fun with it so far. I'll upload a few shots of some of the art I've created for her calendar.

This Art card was made for me by my dear friend Arlene for my birthday. My nickname at the Pointy Hat ART Posse is HRH the Queen CEO (Creative Eccentric One). What a beauty, eh?

I've been tagged ...

For the first time, I've been tagged. I was tagged by the lovely, the talented, Charlotte (Lolly) Kemsey of Scotland.
4 jobs I've had: retail salesperson, campground attendant, newspaper layout artist, & Mommy
4 places I've lived: Edmonton, Alberta; Vancouver, British Columbia; Fredericton, New Brunswick and Barriere, British Columbia (all Canadian locations)
4 shows I enjoy: Monk, Corner Gas (a very, very funny Canadian comedy ... Canadian comedy is most often an oxymoron ~ but not in this case), Canadian/American Idol, Extreme Home Makeover
4 places I've vacationed: Jasper, Alberta; Nova Scotia; Vancouver Island, British Columbia
4 websites I visit daily: Mixed Media Collage Artist, Pointy Hat ART Posse, art-e-zine (I don't visit EVERYday, but often ~ excellent site)
4 favorite foods: Anything from the Olive Garden Restaurant, nachos, Greek Salad, Tabooli Salad
4 places I'd rather be right now: Jasper, Alberta; Victoria, British Columbia; Australia; Wales
4 bloggers I'm tagging: Nicolette Anderson, Karyn Gartel, Cindy Hogg, Deryn Mentock

A gift for a friend 

Valentine Hanger

This is a 4x4 Valentine decoration that I created for a gift to put in a package for a MMCA Valentine exchange. Hope the person that I sent it to will like it!

Valentine Angel of Maple Ridge ATC 

A belated Happy New Year!

I'm ever so slow in getting back into the groove of creating again after the Christmas holidays here. I've found that this is the hardest time of the year to be productive in the creativity department.

Finally, though, I'm getting some art done. I've started in on altering a 2006 Desk Calendar for a round robin through Mixed Media Collage Artists' (MMCA) group. I have to have that ready to mail out by the 27th of each month.

The other thing I was working on last night was some Valentine ATCs. In fact, I made 5 cards in one evening. I want to have some on hand when we have our regular meeting of the Pointy Hat ART Posse (PHAP) meeting on the 30th.

On the 20th, I'm hoping to get some work done too when I go to the PHAP all-nighter create-a-thon. Hmm ... I'll have to think of something spectacular to work on then. We may do a group project for possible submission to Somerset that night if enough of the group shows up.

I'll post a photo of one of my Valentine's for you here. It is much nicer "in person" but you can get the general gist of the card.

I made this star tag for a gift for my husband. I love using crayons in my art.  

A collage gift tag I made last week when I was not at home ~ therefore I had limited art-resources to work with. Sometimes the challenge of creating something out of "not much" is a good one. 

My star "Love" 

Christmas is fast approaching

It seems like there aren't enough hours in the day at the moment as we try to get everything ready for Christmas. I haven't done much art lately ~ the arts are always the first to suffer, ya know. Here's one of the stars I've made lately. I'm actually keeping this one ~ it's on my tree.

Zach's yummy looking mail art 

Altered Art 101 ~ Class 2

In the 2nd class of Altered Art 101, we discussed mail art and everyone was given a chance to produce an altered postcard to mail to whomever they wanted to. My son who is in the class decided to create one for his dad. He figured that way, he'd be able to keep his first piece of mail art that way. You will see his chocolate collage in the above photo. If you look real close, you will see a beaver camouflaged among all the chocolate!

Hope to see lots of creative ATCs created in the upcoming Altered Art 101 classes I teach. 

Getting ready for classes

My foray into teaching altered art starts soon ~ November 6th. A couple days ago I went down to the library to decorate the main display case which was a lot of fun. Hopefully it'll spawn a lot of interest for Altered Art 101. I love what the library wrote as the age group for the sessions: 12-99 years. Wonder how many 99 year olds will attend ~ hehe. I want the 4 classes to be a real hands on experience for the people who take it. I don't want to give a bunch of instruction ~ I'd rather be a facilitator for their artist process. Wish me luck!