Mad Alchemist Cabinet

I rarely ever post a picture of an unfinished piece LOL But I am breaking traditon ...

Michael de Meng brought replicas of the old fashioned printer trays with him for us to alter in this class. This is more of what I consider a collection-box type piece, which is outside my comfort zone. We did quite a bit of construction though ... more so than I have done on other pieces.

I'm a very outside-the-box type gal, so the thought of being restrained by boxes was very intimidating to start with. We did remove some sections to widen the areas though ... and I brought this huge and very ornate mirror to mount my piece on. This was one of those classic 70s ornamental mirrors ... heavy plastic ... and very brown and blase. I think I perked it up a bit though LOL

I took photos inside and could not get good light, so the top is very difficult to see. This is a collection of artifacts from Edgar Allan Poe's stories. There is an ornate P and E on the top, but it is shiny and doesn't show up in the photo due to the glare. I felt the clock in the middle could stand for the O. I have more pieces to add ... text ... some more blending and antiquing to do.

I think I will need a few more red items for the left, as it feels unbalanced to me right now and I think maybe a whitish piece toward the bottom to mirror the effect with the angel on top. It is still a work in progress.

Guess what? Mixed Media Monday has a prompt called Time -- and my piece has a clock in it --- wooo hooo!

Collage Art

Wow ... I can't tell you when the last time was that I did a real collage on canvas LOL This was a stressful holiday, as my Dad was suddenly diagnosed with a terminal illness and not expected to make it much longer. My sister is doing in-home hospice care for him and he made it out on Christmas Eve to be with his family, but is basically an invalid for the remainder of his days.

We were all fried between his hospital stay, last-minute preparations to bring him home, and all the normal holiday rush ... so we had a couple art nights to de-stress ... and this was the third of my pieces. The first one was a painting of my parents for my Dad's xmas gift, but no one had a camera to take a photo ... so I don't have a photo of that one right now.

The background was done with scrapbook papers and paint ... Kelly Rae Roberts style. The painted face was inspired by DJ Pettitt, but I did a little different painting technique and I really like the look ... so I hope you guys do too :)

This seems to fit in with several prompts, so I am posting it on Arty Girlz, Mixed Media Monday, and Wednesday Stamper.

The photo is not particularly good, so I also scanned as much as I could squeeze on my scanner bed for a better shot of the face I painted.

Late Valentines

Well -- a Valentine just wouldn't be a Valentine from me if it were in time LOL
I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do more fun mixed media hearts -- so here are some Valentine postcards I made and they seemed perfect for Wednesday Stamper and Mixed Media Monday this week.

Mona in the Bastille

This is a journal page in response to Mixed Media Monday's word prompt. I altered a picture of the Mona Lisa in a calendar journal. My first thought was to put her behind a brick wall -- but I've done a lot of molding paste brick walls already, so I wondered if I could simulate a stone wall. The thesaurus listed bastille as an alternative word for imprisonment, so thus the word Bastille.

I'm feeling a bit trapped by my workload lately -- being carless isn't helping either LOL