Turning Over a New Leaf

Doodles, doodles, doodles. I am constantly doodling flowers, leaves, geometric shapes, alphabet letters, names, and faces. I often collect my doodles and turn them into a design, or just tape them on a journal page for later reference.

After I doodled a leaf on a little blue sticky note the other day I realized the symbolism--I am actually in the process of turning over a new leaf--a new job, new duties, with a new location, new co-workers, a new commute--so what could be more appropriate than a journal page about turning over a new leaf?

Then, yesterday morning, I got a package in the mail with some art trades in it, and the trade hostess had included some little cutout pieces of...guess what?...leaves of course. So, I painted them green, and also used them as a stencil while I was painting them.

I was in love with my old journal. It was square, which is perfect for Instagram. Perfect for a Virgo who likes everything neat and square and tidy. But the new journal is a horizontal rectangle, which has me less in love with it than my old journal. Previous to the square journal, I used, or made, journals that were rectangular, but vertical.

So, I decided to create a square space on each page of my new journal, and either leave the extra space blank, or do something unrelated in that space. Sometimes I incorporate it into my design, sometimes not. On the page below, I put the blue sticky-note on the top right, and underneath, some of the little stencils of the cutout leaf shapes I received in the mail. The main design is on the left. I started with a page painted in a bright yellow--one of my favorite colors.

"Turning Over a New Leaf" journal page

 I used acrylic paints, paint pens, and Jane Davenport paint-over pens. Once it was dry, I added white printmaking paint with a Nathalie Kalbach Versailles art-foamie stamp around the edges.

When I was done, I realized it was strikingly similar to a design I made several years ago and turned into fabric. Here is the link to the fabric I designed a couple of years ago, and the blogpost about it. Not only do I keep doodling the same thing, I also seem to choose the same color combinations. I guess they are my happy shapes and colors.

Below is an art journal page that I did a few days before the "turning over a new leaf" page. Again, I used the happy yellow acrylic in the background, then added whimsical vintage paper doll parts, a model's face from a fashion magazine, and some of my own fabric scraps. I finished it with some handwritten words, a Retro Cafe Art solar flare stencil and Artistcellar inspirational word stencils.

"Riding the Waves" journal page

I realized recently something I have always known, but had forgotten: that I love not only making art, paintings, and designing fabrics, but I love turning them in to a useful, beautiful end product. Below I took some paper I had designed in Photoshop and output with a color laser printer on 8.5" x 11" paper, and, using an old envelope as a template, cut, folded and glued my own envelope. I added paper scraps and assorted washi tape. I used the fancy envelope to send out my folding ATC doll to the winner of the Paper Traders June "winner take all" ATC lottery. Here's the link to last week's post in case you were wondering what is inside the envelope.

"Mail Art" handmade envelope

Altered 1969 Diary

Finished front of altered diary, covered with painted deli paper

Finished back of altered diary

A few weeks ago, I met up with some old friends in the Catskills. One of the women, who is dealing with an aging, ill mother, had been cleaning out the family home, and brought along some old diaries from her teenage years. She had a vision of burning them in the stone fireplace, but before destroying them, we took a look through. Surprisingly, there were very few written memories of wild escapades...it was more about what she had for dinner and how hard the math test was and what she was going to wear to the school dance and what favorite 1960s song was playing on the pop AM radio station at that moment in time.

As she was about to toss them in the fire, the "art light bulb" went off in my head--they would make great little altered books! I had been meaning to try making one, and had read about the process, so I rescued them from a flaming end.

Diary with painted and handwritten deli paper covering front and back
(unfinished)

Rather than starting with the pretty red one that most caught my eye, I decided to use the ugliest one since it would matter less if I made mistakes on the ugly one. I tore out every other page, plus a few more, then used matte medium, spread on with a credit card, to stick two pages together. The ink ran and smeared, which was a surprise since the ballpoint pen had been on the market quite a few years. I later discovered that she preferred an old-fashioned ink pen. The runny ink created quite a nice indigo mushy effect, so I embraced that happy accident.

I also decided to try covering the diary with painted deli paper. While in the Catskills, I did several paintings and journal pages, and had used up excess paint by randomly wiping it on deli paper that I also written on about our weekend adventures. I covered the brass locks with washi tape for protection from the paint, gesso and glue.

After the inner glued pages had dried, I painted some with gesso, and added leftover scraps of paper, printed teabags, plain teabags and a little washi tape here and there.

I had an old photo of the diary owner and another mutual friend that was taken in a Woolworth photo booth in the early '70s. It seemed appropriate to use that on the first page of the inside.

A whimsical photo of two silly teens, taken in a Woolworth photo booth series
is on the right page of the altered diary, after the inside front cover

The diary is still a work in progress, and it may take years to finish all four of them. I am looking forward to seeing how this ongoing project develops in the months to come.

Second set of pages of the altered diary

Inside back cover (left) and last page of diary, with dried teabag over runny ink

Arty Envelopes: Making Ordinary Items Beautiful

Mail Art. I love receiving beautiful, hand painted envelopes, especially when they have international postmarks and stamps. For a new Paper Traders exchange, we will be trading decorative envelopes.

Front of a finished envelope

Using a favorite size envelope as a template, I traced the shape on several pieces (double thick) of painted deli paper. They looked pretty good just with splashes of color, but I went another step and added stencils. 

I also was required to add a mailing label, which changed the whole look. To offset the big chunk of white in the middle, I added strips of other designs, washi tape and stamping.

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Mail Art envelope: painted deli paper, stamps, stencils, paper strips, newsprint.

For other envelopes, I used some ho-hum leftover artwork, traced on the template, and cut to size. Once it was cut and folded, a sort of boring design became a very striking envelope. I especially liked the NYC stencil, from Michelle Ward's exclusive collection at The Ink Pad NYC.

Stenciling experiment

Artwork cut to envelope template shape

Back of finished envelope

Shared Hands Project

An arty friend suggested that three of us do a fun mixed media project last fall. The idea was to make four hands--three right hands (we would each get one of the right) and one left hand, that would be the shared art project. We were to each add something to the hand then mail it back to the originator.

I traced my hands onto hot pressed watercolor paper and made three similar right ones and one left.

Click here for the link to my post about the start of the project, which I posted on January 9.

My artistic influence was the beautiful east Indian henna "tattoos" that are painted on women's hands for special occasions. I tried to create that effect with the stencils and colors I chose.

For the left, I used a stencil with molding paste, and after it dried, painted it partially with my favorite shade of turquoise acrylic. The stencil was one that I had used on the other three. I popped it in the mail and wondered how it would look when it was returned. I eagerly waited for the mailman to bring me the other people's art, and for my final, finished left hand to arrive. It was a loooong wait.

One of the artists decided to make a book of hands as the shared project, and made us each individual clay hands with an east Indian influence. The other artist made each of us a small art quilt of her hand, that is absolutely gorgeous and intricately made. There was a bit of confusion about who should mail what to whom and when.

There were holiday and health delays, but yesterday the finished left hand arrived, and I love it!

The left hand was done collaboratively by three artists; the right hand is one of three similar I kept for myself.

I love the way the paints and inks ran and created a marbled effect, and also the index finger that goes from blue to white with random dots, and ends in a pink nail. The font on the word Bloom is so pretty, as is the hand lettering on Joy. On the right, I used square mini-brads for texture. My art friends adhered dimensional stars which add a subtle texture to the turquoise hand.

I also couldn't resist drawing and painting and stenciling and stamping on both sides of the "hand book" pages that I made for my friend Karen. She traced her hand on some heavy watercolor paper and mailed it to me.  I used some of my favorite Artistcellar stencils and stamps from Ink Pad NYC and Julie Fei-Fan Balzer.

Top of Karen's left "book hand", which was unplanned and instinctively stamped, stenciled and painted.

This was the unfinished left hand that was mailed out.

These are the three right hands. Artistcellar pocket stencil words were used.

Reverse side (palm) of Karen's "hand book" page.

Abstract Sunflower ATCs

Sunflower ATCs should be easy, right? So why did I struggle with making them? I wanted to stay away from cliches, and decided to go abstract...maybe I should have just gotten out my paints and done cutsie little yellow petals with brown centers and called it a day. But I love abstract work, so I sat down at my art table and got to work.

Abstract Sunflower ATCs

First, I started by pulling out my gelli plate, brayers and yellow and magenta acrylic paint. Using various Artistcellar and other stencils, I made about 50 prints on deli paper. They were hideous. Colors too bright, prints too sloppy.

So next I tried layering them onto various papers that I had prepared with a white gesso surface. Some improvement, but still not great.

The next step was stamping some "petals" over the top using sepia archival ink and white printmaking paint on two different Julie Fei Fan Balzer stamps. Better, but not great still. I added a spiral center in sepia and black with an old Retro Cafe Arts stencil, then used a black stamp pad around the edges of the ATCs.

I set the ATCs in my unfinished art box thinking an idea would come to me to improve them. Then I went away for a long weekend to something called "The Letting Go Weekend" in upstate New York. My brother had a lot of insight from going to a previous weekend retreat, so I gave it a try. It was pretty healing and illuminating. I did quite a lot of journaling during the event and feel less stressed, even less compulsive about needing to make art--although I am not entirely sure if that is a good thing or not.

This weekend I decided to finish the ATCs and meet the trade deadline so I added some words with tiny round alphabet stamps and called it a day. So, they aren't the best art I ever made. I don't love them, but like the name of the weekend retreat, I am learning to "let go," move on, and accept that I am not perfect and will not always love my work but I can just meet the deadline and move on. AND maybe somebody will think the ATCs are terrific, after all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?

Muse-Scribe-Angel Painting Tutorial

The idea of painting some kind of angelic being that hints at a past life has been in my mind for a while. For years I have thought that if we have lived past lives, I would have been one of the monks in a Medieval castle or monastery who drew the big letters and decorative items in the pages of illuminated manuscripts. I always pictured myself the artist, but lately I think I was also a scribe. Not the writer of the manuscript...that would have been some kind of monk or holy leader, but I may have been the one who took down the words. Why? It's what I do. In my heart, I am an artist. I love paint, and color and design. But on a daily basis, at work, I am appreciate for my gift of language, for writing, editing, and proofreading, along with the design work. So, on my art staycation, I decided to paint. Of course, the picture in my head looks nothing like what came out. No one can see that image except me.

step 1, sketching the face

step 2, adding a little color and blocking out white spaces for the wings and body

step 3, more color and shading

step 4, more face details

I started with printouts of my Jane Davenport DVD on painting whimsical faces and did the face step by step. It looks a lot like the faces I have done in the past using her method. Here is the first Davenport-esque face.  Here is my yellow Davenport-inspired face.  But then I added wings, and a body and some background.

step 5, face is almost finished and wash of antique linen Tim Holtz distress stain in background

I thought about stopping at step 5 or 6. But, I wanted to add text to express my feelings about a past life.

step 6, a wash of pink acrylic was added to give femininity

I thought since the mood was about illuminated manuscripts, some gold was needed. I put it mostly on the top to hint at a halo effect.

step 7

step 8

I put some deli paper over the painting, deciding on the shape and placement of the words. Next, I used some old fashioned carbon paper in between the deli paper and the watercolor paper and transferred the words onto the painting. Finally, I used a calligraphy tipped indelible marker and wrote them on the design. 

step 9

The words seemed too bold so I added washes of color to tone them down and try to visually separate the wings from the body. It still seemed stark, so I decided to add my favorite stencils. Using a foam roller, I applied thick white acrylic to two of my favorite commercial stamps that had a bit of a Medieval feel to them. I also added some distress inks in golden brown, dark brown and sepia shades.

step 10

With brown distress ink, I added a hand-carved heart in the throat space, where there might be a dip in the neckline or a hint of cleavage. I also added the heart in the top left corner and in the middle of the right edge. A little indigo color was added at the bottom left and some brown tones to the space between the head and right wing. I thought I was done at this point, but hung it on the wall (with tape) temporarily to live with it and see if it felt finished.

step 11-final

After a while, it seemed that the words were too bold still. I wanted to be able to read then, but then I thought, "What the heck, who cares if someone else can't read them? This is for me, and I know what it says." So, I used thick white acrylic paint and a flat thick brush and pulled long strokes down the front of the dress under the heart, and also here and there on the sleeves and wings, intentionally achieving a dry-brush effect so that some of the words would still be visible. The question with art, for me, is often: "Am I done? Is it finished?" If I can't think of anything else it needs, and I like it, it is done. It was starting to get a little "muddy" so rather than risk unintended muddy sections, I called her finished.

Working in a Series: 6x6x6 With Julie Balzer at the Ink Pad

Yesterday, I was in art heaven at a Julie Fei-Fan Balzer workshop, sponsored by The Ink Pad, which was held at the Westbeth community art center in New York's West Village. What could be better than an entire day being creative, playing with paints, stamps, stencils and collage? And of course, being surrounded by like-minded artists is inspiring, with the exchange of ideas and tips.

 

 

I didn't know what to expect, all I knew was that we were to bring six pieces of 6" x 6" watercolor paper and a whole bunch of art supplies. We all showed up looking like we were about to take a flight to Paris, with rolling suitcases full of paint brushes and supplies rather than clothing and accessories ... but just in case we needed that one special item that was accidentally left home, we had to bring almost everything, right?

 

Unlike many classes where the instructor shows you a finished product and says: "This is what you will have at the end of the class," Julie purposely did not bring samples so we would create without a plan or vision in mind.

 

This piece was held out, and did not get the final layer of paint, stencils and stamps.

 

We worked in layers, having no idea what was coming next, working on all six at the same time. Well, I am a notorious over-achiever, so I worked on nine. After about the third step of the lesson, I decided I liked one of the pieces too much to go on, so I tucked it in my bag. I often wonder "what if" so I held it out to compare to the finished pieces and see which I liked more.

 

Julie is a terrific instructor. She is really funny and fun-loving, but also serious and real, and is able to be direct, in control, non-judgmental, and make everyone feel special and talented.

 

I used my favorite acrylic paint colors, some of my favorite stamps--commercial ones and hand-carved originals too. I also used some of my favorite stencils, mostly from Artistcellar. After the painting was done, we added collage materials. I had all kinds of papers, including some imperfect vintage magazine pages gifted to me from Susan Morgan Hoth.

 

I was deeply engrossed in my own process, but at one point, I looked at what the woman across the table from me was doing and saw an awesome stencil, which really called my name. I loooove urban industrial design, especially NYC manhole covers, doorknobs, and architectural grill work.  The manhole cover stencil she had used was from a set of designs by Michelle Ward, which are exclusive to the Ink Pad. Fortunately the Ink Pad had a mini shop set up and I ran across the room and snagged a set.

 

My last layer uses Michelle's stencils. It was late in the day, I was a little tired, and my artwork was a little damp (even after blasting it with a heat gun) so a few of the images came out imperfect, but the workshop was all about allowing yourself to be imperfect and pushing ahead anyway.

 

In the photo of the nine pieces, the one in the center is the piece that I held out and tucked in my bag. It is very "me" and a little too safe, a little too much of what I usually do. The eight pieces that have additional paint, stamps and  Michelle's stencils are a less safe, less predictable, but still have my style and feel.

 

In case anyone is wondering why I chose the words that are in to collages, especially the Heinz Baked Beans, it was pretty random. I like to use text--especially in foreign languages and assorted fonts--as a design element. I was tearing some of the vintage magazine ads and that text was the size and style that felt right at the moment. Not that I don't like Heinz Baked Beans...they were a staple of my childhood diet...but now my taste buds prefer the organic, homemade varieties.

 

 

Woven and Burned Paper ATCs, With a Quilterly Influence

Woven paper was the challenge in a recent Paper Traders yahoo group exchange. We were to make ATCs that included some degree of paper that had been woven. It could be a little section, or it could be the whole piece. The theme seemed a natural fit for me: I have tons of paper scraps, and I love weaving. The challenge for me was that ATCs are really small--only 2.5" x 3.5"--so weaving little teeny strips, without a loom for support, was a little tricky.


Woven ATCs using paper scraps, washi tape, lace and fabric scraps.
These used several sentimental scraps, so were kept for my own collection.

I rifled through my boxes and bins looking for thin, pretty strips of paper that were too pretty to throw away, and gathered them together. I used pieces of commercial paper as well as pieces from edges of paintings and painted paper. First, I arranged them in stripes, trying to alternate light and dark, and fat and thin pieces. As I went along, I incorporated washi tape and newsprint and fabric scraps to make it a little more interesting.



A little tape held the paper "weft" fairly secure at one end, but putting in the "warp", and then trying to glue it all down without knocking it all out of alignment, was really challenging. When I finished, I had five little woven pieces. They were cute, but cute wasn't enough. And I don't really "do" cute. So, I asked myself the eternal question: "What next?" They seemed to need a center piece, so I auditioned birds, butterflies, famous quotes and flowers. It all seemed so boring.

So, I stepped a little out of my comfort zone and tried something I had not done in years: intentional burning. Using a permanent black ink pad, I printed some of my favorite Julie Fei-Fan Balzer stamps on a cream "linen" paper. When dry, I cut them out, leaving about a 1/2" edge. Next, I carefully burned the edges. I worked at my kitchen sink, with the water gently running, and blew out the flame or wet it when it was burned to my liking. 

These three woven paper ATCs were traded.

The little geometric burned prints gave the woven backgrounds some oomph, and once the burned pieces were dry and cool, I glued them to the woven bases. The finishing touch was running a sepia stamp pad along the edges of the ATC base to give it an aged look.

The response from members of my art exchange was that they looked like mini quilts. I thought: "Quilts? That was not at all what I had in mind. They were not supposed to be teeny little quilts." But their quiltiness should not have been a surprise. I am a quilt lover and collector, a former art-quilter (retired from that art form due to shoulder injuries) and a former textile designer. So, quilts must be so much a part of my history and my makeup that the quilt style just bubbled to the surface. And it makes me wonder...hmmm, how WOULD this design look as a gigantic quilt?