Photographic Wander

I'm having a bit of a chilled out week after the mania of the show last week and have been pleasing myself what and where I go. ;o) On Wednesday I had to return a library book to Downham Market, a town about 20 miles from here over the border in Norfolk. I go there relatively often and spent quite alot of time there in my childhood as my paternal grandparents lived there after their retirement. It was a gloriously sunny day and I decided to go for a walk after I'd visted the library and I discovered a cemetery that I didn't know existed. Although I played in the adjacent park as a child I don't suppose I was interested in graves then! LOL I spent an hour wandering about taking photos and, in lieu of any artwork, I thought I'd share some of my favourites here! My archive of photos for my cemetery artwork project is growing at a rate of knots!



This is the top of the Downham town clock.



A view of the parish church. I love the colours of this style of brickwork.



The lock and handle on the main church door. The key that fits that keyhole must be HUGE!



Love the patterning on this grave adornment.



I've recently taking a liking to photographing things looking up at them!



Some glorious moss growing on the top of a horizontal tombstone.



This little verse on a Royal Norfolk Regiment war grave brought a lump to my throat. He was just 23 years old.



More fab moss!



I've always wondered how this little lane got it's unusual name!

Church Art Day

On Sunday FenVAC held an art day at a local church which is looked after by The Churches Conservation Trust. I couldn't stay very long as I had to be at a rehearsal but I had a great morning there and I thought I'd share some of my fave photos from those I took. ;o) It was a glorious day (although the weather forecast was for rain!) and the members who came along spent time sketching and painting and generally having a convivial time!

















Apart from taking photos, I did some sketching and also painted an acrylic! Although I use acrylic paints alot I don't actually paint with them as such so this was a first for me! I really enjoyed it and this is the end result:

Altered Compact

I was recently involved in an altered compact swap on Swap-Bot and this was my compact. Yet again, it wasn't very easy to photograph! I haven't altered the outside of the vintage compact as it was so pretty anyway but inside I have used tarnished copper discs joined with jump rings and added some stamping and a couple of my favourite quotes:

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here. Part of Desiderata.

Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be. Shel Silverstein

The bottom disc is glued in so the quotes aren't removable and I added some sparkly fibre as a little pull to open the discs out. I used dry transfer lettering to add the word "reflect" to the mirror. And, Bob's your uncle! :oD

Skinny Book

One of the members of my Yahoo group, Alter-NativeUK, recently had a beautiful baby boy and some of the group made her skinny book pages which I bound into a book as a little memento for her. Here's a few pics of it although it wasn't very easy to photgraph!

Assemblage

This is another piece I made recently, assemblage this time. The base of this is a vintage wooden table mat. I've used these before and they're really sturdy and can take alot of abuse! ;o) Added to the base is the lid of a vintage tin, attached with copper nails, topped with a cake mould of some sort, a vintage bottle of rusty pins and copper wire. Hey presto!

Pendant

Wow, it's so long since I posted to my blog! Fortunately my pc is back from hospital safe and sound and is behaving impeccably now. :o)

I made this pendant about the time my pc died so haven't been able to download the photos from my camera until now. I really enjoy making jewellery pieces and want to explore it alot more. The base of this piece is a squashed jam jar lid I picked up somewhere! It amuses me no end to take discarded objects and give them a new lease of life. ;o) So, we have the jam jar lid base and then a flattened petit four tin, a broken earring and some coloured wire. I've experimented with backing the piece with leather but I'm not entirely happy with it although it is comfortable to wear. Since I made this I've learnt how to pop rivet which is great fun and I can tell I'm going to use the technique loads! Anyway, not a brilliant picture but here's the pendant:

Urban Graffiti Altered Book

Wow, this is my 200th post to this blog! ;oD

Yesterday I finally finished my Urban Graffiti altered book for a swap on my Yahoo group. It's long overdue and has been a difficult project for me to complete. The idea for the swap was mine and was inspired by street art and stencil graffiti artists et al but not long after the swap was set up I began to feel totally blocked about it. ;o( I extended the deadline twice and still my Muse stayed on strike but inspiration finally struck in November and I was on the point of organising a trip out to photograph graffiti when I landed myself in plaster! However, my photographer friend, Rob, came to the rescue with some graffiti shots that he'd taken and I was off and away at last!

The book I chose is quite large - about 11" by 18" - and I removed alot of pages before I started on the six planned spreads. The idea for the book was to make the spreads look like the walls in the photos with the photos stuck on them if that makes sense! I tried to choose different parts of the photos to depict and I also used different media to get different effects on the pages. These included gesso (white and black), acrylic paint, watercolour paint, crayon, oil pastel, pencil, coloured pencil and marker pen. I wanted a layered look so that sections of different spreads showed whichever spread the book was opened at.

So, here we go with some pics of the finished book!


I used aluminium tape for the cover and used black Staz-On ink to grunge it up a bit! The stencilled title is done with a black Sharpie pen. I really like the look of the tape background and might experiment with the technique some more. I couldn't get the Staz-On to dry though and ended up spraying the cover with acrylic varnish.


First spread.


Second spread.


Third spread.


Fourth spread.


Fifth spread.


Sixth spread.


Close up of the end of the last spread.




Just a couple of shots looking at the whole book from different angles.

Zine Post Script

I thought it would be easier to answer questions from the comments on Elizabeth's zine here rather than in the comments. :o)
It took me a while to work out what Elizabeth meant by "spirograph stamp" and then it dawned on me that it's the stamp I used around the little intro piece on the first page! It appeared on my blog a good while ago when I first made it and it's the impression from the bottom of a plastic pie tray! ;oD I use it loads and it's still a favourite of mine!
The metal bits are rejects that M brought home from work. The joys of having a husband who is an etcher! :oD It's some sort of keyboard job and they always have trouble etching it so I get lots of the ones that don't make the grade!
For the CD I chose just a few of my current favourites on my iPod. I add music all the time, I love broadening my horizons musically and it was great to share some of my eclectic tastes!
I used zebra print for the cover once again (as I did on my one page zine for a recent swap) as I billed them both as "an Artful Zebra Zine" and I think I will do the same for any future zines and I thought a recognisable cover would be a good idea. I may end up changing my mind depending on the zine topic I suppose but that's the idea for the moment!

Zine

My lovely friend, Elizabeth, is celebrating her 50th birthday today. ;o) In honour of this auspicious occasion I decided to make her something special and as she loves zines I decided that's just what I'd make her. Now she has received her zine I can share some pics on here. ;o)

I decided the zine should be called 50 Things and would have just that in it - 50 things! It's a combination of facts, artwork, poetry, freebies etc. I wanted to number everything so all the pieces have a stamped number somewhere on them. I had whole page contributions from more lovely friends, Jill, Claire and Skippy which made my job easier! ;oD

So, here we go:


This is the front cover. The title is made from a piece of altered vintage photo. I loved these vintage red photo mounts!


This is the first spread. The glassine envelope contains a wee booklet all about the year of the rooster in Chinese horoscopes. The right hand spread is the back of Jill's page. Because the way I bound it would have obscured the text I had to bind it backwards as it were but I don't think it detracts from the page at all, well, hopefully not anyway!


The front of Jill's page, on the left hand side, has a pocket which is stuffed fit to burst with 50 things for Elizabeth to use in her art. :o) Elizabeth loves poetry so I searched about and found three lovely wintry Haiku to include. This page contains the one spelling mistake I missed, blast!


The right hand page of this spread is the front of Claire's lovely double sided spread.


This is the middle of Claire's spread, all about Twelfth Night. Unfortunately the thread I used to bind the zine covers a little of the text but I tried to position it in the best place so the least text is covered!


The back of Claire's spread on the left. On the right are a set of four seasons ATCs. The numbers are stickers stuck on the plastic envelopes not on the ATCs! The ATCs are printed underneath as well so the originals can be removed.


On the right hand side is Skippy's fab page. The pea soup recipe on the left is removable and underneath it says "In the USA, January is National Soup Month".


The final spread! As I was a bit pushed for space I used the blank portion on the back of Skippy's spread to add things to! No 36 is a fold out piece containing 50 journaling prompts. The rubbing of a fifty pence piece on the right hand page has a real coin over the top when all the freebies are added!


It would have been impossible to scan the zine pages with all the freebies in place so you can see most of them here. The freebies comprise of a vintage birthday postcard, a charitable gift from World Vision, Best Thoughts printable from The Toymaker, red beaded trim, bag of metal pieces, music CD with 25 of my current favourite pieces, 5 pieces of handmade background paper/card, vintage whist score card, vintage poetry booklet, vintage card of buttons, vintage bus tickets, unmounted rubber stamp, printed Morse code alphabet, fifty pence piece and a pendant.


The last item is the pendant I made which hangs on one of those round choker type wires but I couldn't think of a way to attach it to the zine properly as it was an odd shape so I ended up putting it in a suitable wintry themed box (see bottom right of freebie photo) and just putting it with the zine. It's made from a vintage fishing spinner, a vintage fuse and text. Elizabeth sings with a church choir and the line of Longfellow poetry seemed just the right thing when my eyes hit upon it. ;o)

This was my second attempt at a zine after participating in a one page zine swap on The Zine Pool. I think I have a long way to go yet but I've definitely caught the zine making bug! ;oD Both the zines I've made have been steep learning curves for me and I hope any future zines I make will all help to improve my techniques and see me become a much better zinester. Zine making is SO much fun though, I highly recommend having a go! :oD

Booklet

As a little diversion between projects with paint drying today I made this little dowel spine portfolio from instructions in More Making Books by Hand: Exploring Miniature Books, Alternative Structures, and Found Objects by P. Thomas.



This is the outside showing the spine.



And this is the inside showing the little pockets.

I made it using a sheet of hand decorated paper from a recent artist papers swap and it was really quite easy despite looking a bit difficult! ;oD Anything involving accuracy always makes me a little nervous! LOL I'm planning on altering the cards in the pockets but I think it would be good for all sorts of things. If it was made a bit deeper it would house ATCs nicely. ;o) My only problem is that I think I cut the spine slits a little wide as the dowel drops out given half a chance! Good fun though!

Altered Shoe

On my Yahoo group, I hosted a winter themed altered shoe shrine swap and I completed my shoe this morning. It's a baby shoe that I stiffened with Paverpol, spray painted and added embellishments to and then mounted on a vintage tin that I cut and bent to shape.

Art Journal Spreads

A few more art journal spreads to share, all created, sitting by the open fire with my leg up, from the never ending scrap box by my side!

Altered Book Spreads

I'm gradually working through my outstanding commitments and have finished with two more books in the children's literature altered book round robin I was participating in. There were two groups for this RR and both these books are from the group that I wasn't in. So, firstly, here are my two spreads in Secret Garden:





I thought the first was a little simple and looked like I hadn't applied myself very much so I decided to do another! As I may be the last person to work in it I used the back pages to make a niche for a key. Neither spread turned out how I imagined but, hey ho, isn't that just the way of artful things?! ;oD

And this is my slightly weird spread in Water Babies:



When I read the text about "ten thousand sea anemones covering the rocks" I knew I had to make sea anemones! ;oD The highlighted text just says "ten thousand sea anemones" as I haphazardly painted over part of the sentence! Doh! The anemones are made from plastic carrier bags using a pair of shredding scissors! It was great fun although I was a tad fed up with the static making the plastic stick to me by the time I'd finished! LOL

Journal pages

Just a couple of art journal spreads to show I'm still alive and kicking despite the plaster cast! LOL I've got a box of scraps and am using them up in various art journals while I sit with my leg elevated!!