Pages for Funky Fusion

Still working on that book title LOL
Here are some pages I did for the inside. My favorite is the geisha picture. I've had that image for a long time. She was on a pink background, which I loved -- but I do have to say I like my background even more LOL

Fantabulous Book Class with Kelly

I love all of Kelly Kilmer's classes, but this one was my absolute favorite -- the one that was absolutely calling to me! This was her Reclaimed Artist Book class. One of my favorite things is to create new and eclectic pages for gutted books.

There were some nature things on the front cover. I cut new paper to cover those up and I was really happy with the vintage look of the black ruled paper. On the back I used several punched circles from a recent project. I couldn't bear to just toss them out and I knew they would end up on this cover :) It makes a neat texture with all the raised circles.

I haven't quiet figured out a title -- that's the only thing I need to add to the front at this point. I know it will have Fusion in the title, but I haven't figured the whole thing out. It will be about various cultures from the Old World -- but sort of a fusion between Old World and funky LOL

Fabric Book

Wish I had more to show, but all I have really is a cover -- except for a few background pages inside. I suspect it will be a long while before I get any work done in this. This was a fabric covered art journal I made in a Kelly Kilmer worskshop. She just has the best book classes ever!

On the Career Front

This was a stressful week. My future boss in Information Technology worked out a deal with my current boss to share me between the 2 departments. I am being given tasks with little direction and I have to basically figure out how to do them -- and then do them LOL I am also getting paid to study the architecture and set up of this new enterprise system we are getting ready to test -- and then I have to figure out how to test it.

I just got scolded a week ago for trying to solve my own IT problem -- and now I am expected to be the problem solver, so this may take some adjusting to. It's also kind of weird, because I come from a very social department where everyone is nosy and in each other's business and we know everything about each other professionally and pesonally -- and now I am in a group full of computer nerds who eat lunch at their desk every day LOL

The good thing is that they placed me in the old desk of my mentor -- and that is a bit comforting.

But the stressful part was this backstabbing --- grrrrr! There is a co-worker in another department that was using me as his go-between to get things from my new IT boss ... and he is upet that he just lost that leverage. He volunteered to send me some info I needed on a project and as soon as I accepted his offer, he sent me a nasty e-mail copying his boss on how he could no longer assist people in IT. He's getting quite the reputation for temper tantrums and back-stabbing.

Bird Art

Here are some more poetry pages I did. I'll get them all uploaded eventually --- I was on a bird kick that night LOL

Footsteps

I recently did some painted pages for a poetry-themed bag book. I did the images and then wrote the verse. In this case, I put the verse on the wrong page ... so I decided to use the same verse on both.

Painted Feather

Long time no see LOL I'll end catch-up post after my finals are over ... I just decided to post this now. I'm doing a mail art round robin with painted face envelopes with some other great gals from the Guild. You can see the start of Kelly Snelling's envelope here.

Rather than just paint a plain envie, Michelle Ward's Street Team post got me to thinking about how cool it would be to take advantage of some of the neat textured papers out there and alter them. Here are scans of my original papers.



Here is the back of my envie made with textured paper and molding paste:


And this is the front:


The background had a very earthy feel, so I felt inspired to draw and paint an image of a Native American girl -- cutesy as she is LOL I have a lot to learn about painting faces yet -- but I'm still in that stage where I am amazed it more cloely resembles a human than a Martian LOL

Chameleon's Breath

I started this page quite a long time ago, but it is a Picasso-like self-portrait. The drawing was pretty quick and easy, but I set it aside for a while and just completed the journaling to go along with it. This style of drawing was a stretch for me -- but so were the colors. I tend to do really complicated backgrounds, so lots of solid colors was waaaaay outside my comfort zone LOL


This also goes along with the GPP Street Team prompt this month on adding words to your art journal pages. I started out adding very little text and am slowly learning how to blend the journaling with the art. This was an unusual style for me, so it took a while for the words to come. I used to use rub-ons and rubberstamps for lettering, but have been getting braver about writing my own.

There is no grand meaning in what I wrote on this page. Sometimes I like to just write things that evoke a certain feeling or require imagination to visualize it. For this one I brainstormed a few words that popped into my mind based on my portrait and spun them into sentences afterward.

Riveting Metal Book

Yeah --- I have internet access again LOL

I wanted to psot pics of all the completed books from a metal book swap I hosted with an amazing Guild of altered artists. I had a vision of a fun and very eclectic compilation of metal pages -- and they did the most amazing pages ever! It took me a while to think up covers that I felt would do the interior justice.

My front covers are altered copper mesh attached to old Bingo cards and I embellished them with copper pieces that were sooted, stamped, sealed, and embossed. I just love this technique and haven't done it for a long time. It has a lot of steps, but is fun if you assembly- line it and do a bunch at once. The images turn a rich brown after they have been sooted and sealed.

The back cover is torched copper that was embossed and wrapped over a chipboard cover.