Lovebird Ladybird

perfecto

Yesterday I painted my wall this amazing raspberry sorbet color that I've had sitting around for a couple years. It is totally fabulous and makes my house feel even nicer than it did.  Edible for sure.

I've been weeding the picture books and coming across some AMAZING illustrators. Completely fantastic, I'm telling you. I'll do a post here in the next couple days with some of my favorites. Dreams of new tattoos have begun.

Yeah, you buckle with the weight of the words

Mr. Bird & I went out to my friends birthday party last night. We sang 'stop draggin my heart around'. Funnnnnn! However, I'm paying for the amount of fun I had last in a bad, bad way today...

I've been working on a few things here and there in between trying to finish an article about using board books art journaling.

It's pretty exciting actually! I'm going to have my first published work in the second issue of Art Journaling magazine. Hooray! So anyway, the deadline is fast approaching and I'm mostly done, which is really good because it's been taking up a considerable amount of mental energy just thinking about all of it & keeping my brain from focusing on making art. I'm still doing things though, finishing up things that have been sitting around half-done:

Like this little baby! I've had this frame with the lights in it for years but I never could figure out what to do with the middle of it. I also added the papers around the sockets- those are just torn up pieces of old books and sewing patterns. I stenciled the middle and I'm really liking it. All I need to do now is get some working lights. haha..Figures that I'd finish it when it's really not the season for finding christmas lights!

I also finished the cover of my big art journal. This is the big old family photo album I got a long time ago. I took that cover off  to make this:



So the big journal has been needing a big cover. I had another one laying around and painted and collaged and printed over it:


I've been way into stenciling on top of newspaper lately. It's so beautiful the way that the type shows through the paint. Fabulous.

What else? Our living room turned into a candy palace the other night. Candy palace = lots of fruity colors of t-shirts that were freshly screen printed. Mr. Bird's brother and I each came up with logos for the Warning Track and then mr. bird made the screen and printed all of these fantastic shirts! They turned out amazingly well:



I'll post close-ups soon. Have a fun weekend! xo - k.

make your outside fun.

Since getting a patio, I've been seriously dreaming about making it into a sort of outdoor living room type space. The kind of place with lights and candles and plants- a place to chill and drink beer and relax. A dreamy space... Last weekend I got to work on doing just that and so far, I'm loving it! There's more to do but I think we're off to a good start.

You can use tree branches and sheets to make curtains! These are old cutains I used inside for awhile. Here's how I did it:

1. Cut a flat sheet in half
2. Scavenge some branches out of your yard. They need to be a least a little longer than the sheet.
3. You are going to put the top of the sheet onto the branch. Runch it up like you're putting on a pair of stockings and then slip it onto the branch all the way to the end and pull the fabric back towards you.
4. Center the branch on the sheet and wrap twine around one end of the branch. Tie it so that you have enough remaining to tie a loop. (This is what it will hang from)
5. Repeat this step on the other end of the branch.
6. Put some hooks up and hang that baby!
7. Optional if you get lots of wind- sew or staple (way easier!) rocks into the bottom corners.



I made planters (made=drilling holes in the bottom) out of little old suitcases, plastic and metal flour, sugar and tea containers. I have some pieces of glass that I hooked together with wire hanging from the rafters along with a crazy glitter heart mobile.


Puppies like to have nice outside spaces, too!


Additionally, I hung up some art, chalkboards (out of the photo), lights (also out of the photo) and used old bottles for vases. I'm all about the impermanence of art-- so I'm cool with things getting 'messed up'. I wanna find an old rug to put out there too. That would be pretty sweet!

we can find new ways of living.

 The ocean visit was so productive! It was relaxing and amazing. I've used the handy poladroid to make some nice photos even nicer:

 I got to work on tons of art.

Puppy took lots of naps.

 Mr. Bird wrote songs.

He also did this  'Where the Wild Things Are' impression. ♥ it!

  I did a lot of painting while we were there. Figured I would try something new so lots of watercolors were used. Kinda scary and unfamiliar but good and exciting, too. I can see the possibilities of this medium.

 I just posted recently about scanning images and then collaging within Photoshop (see post below). I printed off that image and then painted on top of it with watercolors. I love it and can't wait to try some more stuff like this.

get stoked!

Ocean adventure is on the horizon! Excellent! I should have been rounding up all my stuff, but I've been scanning photos and textures and spray painted ephemera all morning/afternoon. I don't really like computer generated art but I messed around with a scan of my momma and some stenciled stuff in photoshop. I like it a lot but I  won't be using these methods very often- experimenting is good for you.

On paper and in 1 & 0's, layering is key.

I messed with a really old polaroid of my brother also. I used some scanned bubble wrap as a background texture. This picture always cracks me up:


Okay, now I have to get my act together and start packing!