Cemetery Pics

In view of the lack of creating I've done this last week I thought I'd share some of the many cemetery photos I took in the cemetery in St Jean de Braye on my recent French trip. Even though it was pouring with rain I dragged my two long suffering friends round to gather inspiration for the cemetery theme I'm working on for Creative Journey.



This little glass cross was just lovely. the colours really pinged out on the dismal rainy day although this photo really doesn't do them justice.



I loved the yellow lichen on this stone cross.







These wrought iron crosses were really popular in the cemetery. It was difficult to get decent photos of them because of the backgrounds but I tried!



Another lichen photo! There lots of these ceramic ornaments on the graves, mostly floral, and although they're generally not my cup of tea I did love the way the green lichen was creeping over this one.



This reminded me of a wood block print!



These ornaments were really popular. I don't know what they're made of but I'm guessing it must be some sort of resin. Again, I didn't particularly like them but I love the idea of exploring my cemetery theme using resin. It's not a medium I've dabbled in before but I'm looking forward to investigating and getting down to some experimentation!

Altered Game Cards

In a week of so many other things, this was one of very few artful moments! I altered a couple of game cards to send to friends.

Necklace

Spent a little while this morning rummaging about in my lovely metal stores! :oD On a whim (oh, aren't whims just fab?!) I made myself this necklace:



I was in something of a strop when I went up to my art room this morning and making this has eased my mind considerably! I've got my appraisal (groan!) at work this afternoon and I shall be wearing this as a reminder to myself that I'm not a sheep and nor do I ever want to be! LOL

Poppies

In pursuit of getting back into the arty groove I sat in the garden this evening and had a sketching moment, drawing the poppies.

Chunky Book Pages & Sketch

It's SO long since I posted anything and at last I have have got down to some artiness and have something new to share. :o)

Last night I went to my friend Becky's for some art time and inbetween laughing hysterically about pasties (NOT the Cornish kind!) I managed to make three chunky book pages. Here are two of the pages:



No great shakes but it felt good to get back to actually DOING!

Inspired by meeting Anita Davies,chair of the Fenland Visual Arts Collective, earlier this week I decided to resurrect my abandoned policy of drawing every day in an attempt to improve my drawing skills. Today's effort was just too poor to show the world but this was yesterday's:

Watercolour

Whilst trolling around Sainsbury's fruit and veg section yesterday I was seduced by the gorgeous shiny aubergines and bought one with the express intention of drawing it! This morning I had a bit of a splosh about with the watercolours and this is the end result:



I had a slap dash brush moment hence the wee tail! It does look like it's floating in mid air too!

Charms

Haven't posted anything much of late as I haven't been doing much except some drawing and a few odd bits and bobs. Earlier this week I was asked if I'd like to join a charm swap being hosted by member of my Yahoo group and I felt like doing a little something so I decided I'd join in. ;o) These are my charms, the bases are threepenny bits nad sixpences. The scanner doesn't cope with scanning these knobbly babies very well but hopefully you'll get the idea!

AB Spread

This is my spread in the latest round of the Literatura Infantil AB RR I'm participating in. This time the book is The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner, which I didn't manage to read so was a little stumped as to what to do. After checking it out online I discovered that the stone of the title is part of a bracelet so I decided I would draw a hand and then add a bracelet. Voila!

I used acrylic paint as the background and then drew (again and again!) in pencil until I was relatively happy (there's still something a bit odd about where the fingers join the hand), went over it in pen and then this morning I hunted about and found some bits to make the bracelet with. I've no idea what colour the stone should be although I gather it is a tear drop shape so hopefully Alis (whose book this is) will allow me this bit of artistic licence!!

Drawing

My last Kiss Me Kate drawing is a sketch of the opening set for the show. The perspective is a bit cockeyed but if you've not seen the stage you'd never know!

Drawing

This is the second day in a row that I've drawn something. :o) Another backstage Kiss Me Kate drawing, this time of part of my messy table in the dressing room. I'm quite pleased with what I've done but feel more pleased about the fact that I did it in a room full of people, most of whom don't have an inkling about my artistic leanings. I didn't feel bashful at all, I just plunged in and it felt great!

Drawing

I fished out this little notebook today, I started using it for drawing purposes back in the New Year. I want to try and get back into a daily sketching habit again to try and improve my drawing skills and so I whipped my book out in the dressing room tonight and drew this rivetting subject - the bottle of Febreze for destinkying my costumes after the performance each night! No great shakes but just wanted to share the fact that I'm doing something creative again. FIL's death has made me reassess some of my thoughts about my creativity which I won't share here because I'm not entirely certain I could explain them adequately at the moment but this first little sketch, or rather the act of doing the sketch, is representative of how I've been feeling.

Altered Egg

I've got a few outstanding art commitments that I'm working on and this is one of them which I completed this afternoon - an altered Easter egg swap running on my Yahoo group. We were sent a little polystyrene egg each, they had a yellow/green paper covering with rabbits on and a little bit of yellow ribbon to hang them from. We could alter them in any which way we liked. I knew I didn't want to do anything glitzy, sparkly or sequinny and given that we've just inherited eight hens this is what I came up with:





The base is half of a cigar box that I gessoed and inked. I gessoed the egg and then painted it with acrylic paint, hacked off the end with my craft knife and used more acrylic for the inside and the yolk on the spoon. Then I just wired the egg cup and spoon to the box base. It was a little difficult to get a decent picture but this is pretty much the best of the bunch!

Kilt Pin

It's so long since I posted anything on here! On Wednesday I decided to have a break from funeral arrangements and have some arty time at my friend, Becky's. I made this kilt pin for a swap I'm in on a Yahoo group. It was good to distract myself for a few hours and I enjoyed making it.

Collage

This is the little collage I mentioned in the previous post. It's 2" x 2.25" in size and I used all scraps for it.

Chunky Book Pages

My productivity level of late has been really low :o( but at art group last night I managed to make a wee collage and these two chunky book pages so maybe things are starting to look up a tad.

Chunky Book Page

Having crawled out the other side of my recent creative schlump, this morning I made this chunky book page for the monthly swap running on my Yahoo group. This month's suggested theme was white and although this just looks grubby the feather really is white I swear! LOL It's more greeny coloured IRL but the scanner has made it look mucky for some reason! I found the little clay bird tag whilst rejigging stuff in my room and just added some metallic ink to it.

Yet more kilt pins!

These are my three pins for the kilt pin swap currently running on my Yahoo group. I've had great fun making these and don't think I'm kilt pinned out just yet! :oD I find it devilish hard to get good scans of them though, they just will not lay in neat straight lines whatever I do! LOL

Kilt Pin

This is a kilt pin that I made for my lovely friend, Laura. :o) I'm really enjoying making these and every one makes me think a little harder! This time I used wire coiled around the pin to help stop all the charms slipping along one end and bunching up and it seems to work quite well.

Journal spread

I finally finished my spread in this lovely little moley on the theme of mornings. The background is watercolour pencils and the silhouettes are a fibre tip pen. I'm really pleased to have got it done as I've had the journal way too long! The angles of the turbine blades are a bit suspect but I love my little trees! ;oD The trees and wind turbines use a degree of artistic license in their placement but we really do get FENtastic skies like that!

Drawing

This afternoon DD and I drove over to Peterborough where she was meeting a friend for some girlie shopping time. After a bit of shopping I still had an hour before meeting up with the whippersnapper so I went into Peterborough Cathedral. There was a visiting choir practising for Evensong and it was like an oasis after the retail hell I had been partaking in! I lit a candle for a friend, had a wander and a think and then plonked myself down and did some drawing. This is the first spread in this notebook and the first of many I hope! I even let some blokie look over my shoulder without freaking out and running off shrieking! LOL

Decos

I've been struggling through some decos this week and these are four of them. I say struggling because I've gone off decos lately for some reason. :o( I think I'm just all deco-ed out for the timebeing, maybe I'll come back to them at some point in the future but for the moment they're not my favourite pastime. I've got three more to finish and then I'll be deco free for a while.



Inked background, stamped embossed violin, text.



Inky paper towel (from Traci Bautista experiments), text, image, foil.



Stamping on monoprint (Traci Bautista again!), alcohol inked backing from number plate number, foil, pen, text.



Encaustic wax background, image, text, ribbon, safety pins.

Hand Art!

Well, I've scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed my hands but they still look like this after yesterday's inky adventures! LOL Mind you, I'm not at work today like Becky is! :oD Might print it out and use in my art journal! It is a one of a kind artwork after all!!

Assemblage

I made this assemblage piece for my friend, Becky, whose birthday is tomorrow. I love the way the piece turned out and couldn't wait to give it to her! She opened it tonight while I was there and not only does she love it but all the family do too! :oD I was really pleased as this piece definitely came from the heart. That's the kind of art I want to make more of, the kind that feels totally right for me, that comes from inside and speaks my art "language" for all to see if that makes any sense! On a lighter note, when Becky asked her 12 year old son where they should hang the piece, his reply was "In the toilet"! LOL He did quickly follow this up with "where we put all the other really cool stuff we have" though! :oD I've had a fab day - Becky and I spent it in painty, inky heaven playing with techniques from Collaged Unleashed! I'm absolutely pooped but I'm feeling at peace with the world and like an artist with something to say!

Drawing

One of the Yahoo groups I belong to has started a project working on techniques that are out of your comfort zone and the first of the topics is good old drawing! I haven't drawn anything in ages although I've been wanting to try and get back to some regular drawing. Anyway, last night I plonked myself down in the living room and drew the fireplace while I was waiting for the breadmaker to finish! And here it is:

Altered Book

My friend, Kari, is hosting a new altered book RR on my Yahoo group. The theme is children's classics and is entitled Literatura Infantil. My book is Anne of Green Gables and this is my sign in page:



The paper I wanted to use wasn't big enough for the spread so I improvised with paint (not a brilliant colour match it has to be said!) and pencil! The players are all snuggled in with their Avonlea classmates in the school register!

This is the first spread in the book:



I wanted to do something simple to start the book off with, using my current favourite colour scheme of beige and black. I'm now wondering if it's a tad boring but I can always add to the spread when my book comes home later this year.

Also, can't resist sharing the dust jacket picture:



How lovely is that picture? I think I'll incorporate it into the covers when the book comes home.

Kilt Pin

Still on a kilt pin kick, this is another that I've made for a friend's birthday:



I had a job to get it laid out prettily on the scanner so it's not looking at it's best! I'm learning something every time I make a kilt pin so by the time I make some for the swaps I'm participating in maybe I'll have cracked all the little problems I've encountered!

Chunky Book Page

I'm running a monthly chunky book page swap on my Yahoo group and this is my page for January.

Background Papers

Had some arty fun with my friend, Becky, today! Collage Unleashed by Traci Bautista finally arrived at the library yesterday so we just HAD to have a play, of course! We didn't have a huge amount of time but we had a bash at the scraping technique, the first one in the book! These are the four sheets that I made:



They're brighter than the pic in real life. I think I may use some of this as backgrounds for some chunky book pages. We were just getting going when we had to pack up but we're planning another day of creative fun and frolics next Wednesday! :oD

More 2006 pieces!

Blogger is being temperamental and wouldn't let me add all the pics in the last post, so here they are:

2006 Review

I've shamelessly stolen this idea from my friend, Kari. :o) On her blog http://www.inkytinker.typepad.com/ Kari reviewed her art work for 2006 and posted some pics of some of it. So, I thought I'd have a look through my artwork for this past year as well. I started off by looking through all my scans and totting up what I'd created. I then had to sit down with a very stiff drink! I was stunned at the total! LOL This is just SOME of my output for 2006:

• 51 ATCs
• 7 greetings cards
• 86 collages
• 54 art journal spreads
• 28 assemblages
• 34 deco spreads
• 46 altered book spreads
• 5 entire altered books
• 93 chunky book pages and
• 7 other pieces that don't fit any of the above categories!

That lot totals 411 pieces of art! Bearing in mind that I don't scan everything I make and I also have artwork that I took digital photos of rather than scanning and they aren't included, I reckon I could be looking at near on 500 pieces of art which has absolutely floored me!! Anyway, while I pull myself together, here's some of my fave pieces from 2006:

Kilt Pin

This is the kilt pin I made for my friend, Elizabeth, for her birthday today. Now she's opened it I can post without spoiling the surprise! :o) The word on the altered button that's a bit obscured is "faith". This was my try out for a couple of forthcoming kilt pin swaps I'm in and I learnt alot from making it!

AB Spread

This is a spread in my friend, Laura's, nature themed AB that I created at my art group this evening. I have a bit of a bird thing going on in my head I think after the birdie mini collages and now this! LOL The background is acrylic paint over black gesso then I added eggs cut from a vintage encyclopedia page, whizzed round them with metallic oil pastels and then just added a wee bit of stamping. :o)

ATC

Finally got around to doing these house themed ATCs this afternoon, there's four and the only difference between them is the text (courtesy of Longfellow, of course!) in the bottom right corners, "broken stairways" is my fave and here it is:



My to do list has shortened to 22 with this one crossed off! Ho hum....

Deco

I have several decos to work on at the moment and this is one I've finished this evening. The theme is "where do you get your zest/heart/vitality?". The scanner didn't take kindly to the shiny silver heart so it looks a bit dark and the wording isn't very clear (it says "being myself"). On the back of the big heart it says "of all the things I am, the one that gives me my zest is...".
The background is watercolour paper.

New Year Assemblage

This morning, whilst up in my studio (well, if I'm going to be an artist it's about time I used the proper words! LOL) I was inspired to create a piece of assemblage to celebrate the New Year. The pictures I took are awful and this scan isn't much better but I wanted to share it anyway on this first clean slate day of 2007. :o)



As the pic is so bad, I feel a little explanation is required! So, the base is a piece of plywood (found in the outhouses) with some paint slapped on. attached to this is a sweet little cake tin with a lightbulb wired on. You can't see at all clearly but I have added the word "hope" on the lightbulb. Last additions were the verdigris screw and the wire with beads as a hanger. I wanted to make something with meaning (to myself) to start this new chapter in my life and I think I have achieved that, in alot of ways this piece sums up what 2007 is going to be all about for me and I'm really pleased with it. ;o) Just wish I had a decent pic of it to share - trust me , it's better in real life than it looks here!! Wishing everyone a happy, creative, inspirational, whatever you wish for yourself, New Year!