Inspire Me Thursday #5 (Monochromatic)

The colour here on my monochromatic Inspire Me Thursday entry isn't too good because I can't seem to get the true colour ~ I'm taking it in the evening ~ you know me ... a great procrastinator.

Gotta keep a few, once in a while.

Today I completed the 9 ATCs for Nicolette's Elvis swap. It was fun to create these ATCs ~ too bad I didn't have an Elvis CD to listen to while I created. Oh well. I also made a little something special to go along with the ATCs for each participant.

I'm also trying to finish off a few pieces for other people that I promised to complete. Hope to have them all done in time for the Pointy Hat ART Posse meeting on Monday night.

The ATC shown here is one that I made to keep for my personal collection. Although I've traded hundreds of ATCs over the past three years, I've kept very few for myself. It's nice to have some to show when people ask to see some of my own ATCs. I've gotta keep a few, once in a while.

The hats these ladies are wearing read: "create", "know your style" and "magic" ~ appropriate I think. When I make pointy hats using words, I don't always pick and choose, but today I was in the mood to do just that.

Just had a thought ... perhaps I should make an altered book, with this ATC on the cover, and display some of the many ATCs that I've received from fellow posse members. I do have quite a collection of ATCs from my local art buddies here.

Well I'm off to the library to return some books and maybe find some inspiration for the last project I have to work on for Monday night. See you again soon.

Inspire Me Thursday #4

Theme this week is BIG. We were encouraged to make bigger art than we normally would. Since I most often make ATCs, anything bigger than 2.5"x3.5" is BIG.

I decided to work on a page for my friend Nicolette's Vintage Grunge book which features all hand-made paper. It measures 8.5"x11" ~ bigger than my usual comfort zone. To make it, I used some of my handmade stamps, brush markers, crayons (my favourites!), acrylic and some vintage images. This page also features moving parts, hand sewing and dangly beads. I loved making this and I hope Nicolette will enjoy it too!

Snow Day!

I woke up this morning and looked out my window to see my large spruce tree weighted down by tons of snow. Seems we've got all our snow during the month of March. Strange winter.

Here you can see my husband shovelling the walk. He's standing in front of our car which was buried under the white stuff.

Well at least since we didn't go ANYwhere today due to the storm, I got lots of artwork done. I'll upload a photo of one of the things I did too.

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.