Lovebird Ladybird

Illustration Friday - Unbalanced

Illustration Friday (blur)

I've been wanting to use this image for a long time! It's from this old book I have about photojournalism and is choke full of amazing images. Anyway- I've been messing around quite a bit with packing tape transfers and that's what I did with this one. I then glued it down over some painted newspaper. I'm really loving me some packing tape transfers! Here's a good how-to if you wanna give one a shot.

p.s. I arrived to work in a pretty sweet mood after having a good car dance to this little number and OH MY-this performance of it is pretty amazing:

Illustration Friday - Fast

Here'e my entry for this week's Illustration Friday theme: Fast.

In the course of messing around with the photo that eventually became the outlined figures of Mr. Bird and Sid the dog- I got to thinking about how fast the weather can change on you or just how quickly snow can pile up.

I have severely edited the background photo but it is being remixed under creative commons- Here's the attribution info for the original photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elventear/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

What did I learn from this challenge? I learned that when making your own photoshop brush of snow falling you must invert the source image! Keep it under yr hat and have a lovely evening!

one last gasp of summer.

I've been hanging outside trying to get as much heat and vitamin D as i can before it's gone, gone, gone. You have to do these things with purpose when you live where I do and spend 6-8 months of the year living in a rainy gray world.

This has been such an amazing summer weather-wise. It's been hot, bright and beautiful.

I got to do tons of swimming and bike riding and adventuring and most enjoyable, I was able to spend hours and hours on the back patio making art! Naturally, I had to get my fix on these last couple days of summer.

The piece above is about 2' x 2' and has been (and continues to be) a work in progress. A little here, a little there until it feels done.

Art from the library

The library provides a lot of material to a lady. On top of all the rad books, movies and music that I'm surrounded by- I overhear all sorts of interesting things, see a variety of people and come home with tons of scraps.

This usually means that I have a call number or two in my pockets every night, but sometimes it means that I have a funny note that I found or that my sweet pals in circulation found inside of a book.

I started using them in a big ol' mixed media project! Combined with a variety of collage elements I use carbon paper to trace the writing onto the surface and then I go over that with permanent black marker.

This is a really large piece. I'm not sure of its exact dimensions right now, but it's big! I'm just gonna guess that we're talking 4.5' x 2'.

This piece is a major work in progress and I'm constantly adding to it.

As it comes along a little more, I'll get a better photo of the whole thing.

Birds of a feather

The market is coming up and I've been working on all sorts of pretty new things! Journals, jewelry, cards, etc. Here are a few of the new journals!

 

I've been painting and stiching and gluing up a storm!

 

Must get back to work! Hope to see you this saturday! Huntamer Park in Lacey.               10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Art Journaling Magazine - Autumn 2009!

Yesterday I mentioned that my copy of Art Journaling had arrived. I figured I would post a couple photos and also say that there is some flat out amazing work in there! It's more like a book than a magazine and is definately worth the price. I'm really thrilled to be a part of a publication so full of amazing artwork!

I really like how they photographed my work! I haven't seen those journals for awhile so it was a fun surprise to see them again like this.

How weird and cool! haha. Needless to say, I'm stoked. And like I said, this issue is so full of great ideas, tips and techniques. It's totally worth picking up.

Mixed media party

That's right!  I've been having a one lady party and have been busy busy busy. I managed to finish a couple pieces even though it is deathly hot! Sitting in front of the fan is the only way to do it. I'd be drowning in a pool of sweat if it weren't for this sweet machine.

Onto the good stuff:

This guy got a hairdo last night with some gel medium and a prickly brush. He also has this dashing jacket courtesy of my poor judgment at an overpriced vintage shop a while back. It was this cute skirt that ended up have a waist A LOT smaller than my own that for some reason made it home with me. Oh well, onto a bigger and better life as artwork.

So he's all done and is available in the shop!

I also finished up this little lady:

 

And you can find her over here, too.

In other exciting news, I found out that I'll be selling in the Lacey Farmers Market! So if you happen to live in the Olympia/Lacey area stop by!

Saturday - August 8. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Saturday - September 12. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

See you there!

dear fans, thank you for you powers of cooling

good. grief. It is HOT here. I think it hit 96 today and it's only supposed to get hotter as the week goes on. Today was a work day and I think I'm designating a good part of tomorrow to swimming. I'm sure the puppy and mr. bird won't argue on that one.

Like I said, I've been hard at work. I'm getting things in order and trying to fall into the groove of this whole working a lot less thing. The practical thing to do at this point, would be for me to get another part time job at sears or to try my hand selling cars to make up for lost income (I've always thought I would be good at that for some reason). But seriously? Practicality has never been one of my strong suits & I've decided to keep it in the closet for right now.

I've gotten a much needed kick in the butt and I'm gonna go for it and do what I've wanted to do for quite some time- make some sort of an income using my creative talents. Whew! What an adventure that lays ahead! Yeah, maybe it's crazy- but I'm doing and I'm going to get there. Yeeeehaw!

I've been working on the piece below. I'm reusing this old print:

I found it at a thrift store for a couple bucks and for a couple years now I've been painting on it and using carbon paper to trace over the writing from slips of paper that are found in the library and in books that get turned in. I have a huge collection of them and for a while, I was dead set on using them in a zine. I'm glad I didn't because I think this is a lot cooler.

So it's still in progress, but it's getting close.

I've also been playing with another project:

 

This baby is 98% done (he's having a bad hair day...)  & then he'll make his way over to my shop! Okay, I'm off to do a little more work and then scope out the garden. I have a feeling that there will be some lettuce casualties..

xo