Longing for Spring

I used the same concept as the previous journal page ... I grabbed this piece of floral wall-paper.

It was calling to me ...



As I am sick of winter!
I did this page in record time and everything seemd to coordinate well , so my muse must have been having good day .

Mayhem - and How!

This was interesting. I had such a hectic week. I try to do a little art every night so I don't fall behind in the calendar journal RR. It just isn't happening here lately. I run around all day at work ... I have the largest workload in the department and my boss keeps piling on even more work, because he's stressed out and he doesn't trust the department administrative assistant to get things done.

I waited unti hours before I was to hand the calendar off to the next player and had to think up some pages fast LOL When this happens I start with a background. I just grab something and glue it down ... then I grab some kind of image or collage material and go with it. In this case ... the letter M. All I can think of is M stands for mayhem LOL It is interesting that I started out with absolutley no page concept ... and yet I got an end result that demonstrates perfectly how I feel.

Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919

I wasn't quite sure what to do for the next calendar spread, so I did a this day in history type thing. There is a detailed write up from the Smithsonian on the tragedy I found very moving.

Welcome to Colorful Colorado

It seems that I cold not let this month's calendar journal go by without something to commemorate 6 weeks ... yes 6 weeks of snow LOL I was starting to love the color white ... now I fear that color is tainted for it is the color of snow ... and this seems to be the only color we've seen in Colorado for some time.

Just Shoot Me Now

Aaaacccckkkk! Just shoot me now ... it is snowing for yet the 6th week in a row! What are the odds that every storm can roll in on a Friday or Saturday ... and yet it does LOL

Mona Bingo

This is an altered piece I did as part of a swap. I can't seem to stop my addiction with these bingo card assemblages LOL

I seemed to be in the mood for Mona, so tried something a little different than my others.

Hairless Drawing

I am determined if nothing else that my drawing skills will at least improve LOL So far I have learned that my drawings of things with hair and feathers bite LOL

I was so eager to try this bird the other night. I was drawing from a photo ... it was 2am ... I was exhausted. I didn't know what to do when it came to the feathers, so he got scribble feathers. If they ever decide to remake The Exorcist and need to recast Linda Blair he would be perfect!




Since that is not likely to happen, I took another stab at him during regular sorta hours. I took it easy on the feathers this time and he is somewhat presentable.

So ... I give you my new and improved bird and my toothbrush!

Drawing Exercise

One of the things I want to learn this year are some basic drawing skills. I do not anticipate ever being a drawing junkie LOL ... but I would like to learn enough to do some simple doodles and pen/ink illustratons in journals.

Last night I found this online site www.learn-to-draw.com
There was a neat exercise where they give you an upside down line drawing and have you duplicate it not fully knowing what you are drawing. This was an exercise to see if you could follow the lines. My results did not turn out terrible ... considering that I have never taken a single drawing class LOL

Loss of Innocence

I was aiming for the graffiti look for this week's prompt on Art Words. I lost the vision in my head and this is what came out. This piece gives me that uncomfortable feeling. Certain color combinations or dark colors get under my skin. In this piece it almost looks muddy ... but perhaps that is what loss of innocence is about ... losing that pure color.

This piece goes back to a common theme from my childhood ... and reminds me that the past cannot be undone.

Buca di Beppo

Buca di Beppo ...
What a fun place! A co-worker and I went here for lunch one day last week. I wasn't expecting a retro style when she picked this place. The walls are covered in old photos and memorabilia from the 50s in Italy. There are lots of little cubby hole dining areas ... my favorite was this one where they had a round table and there were all these colored Italian statues and stuff along the wall ... very cool! And the food was delish!

30-Word Challenge

For the Calendargirlz group I set a challenge to clip 30-40 random words from a magazine, newspaper, etc and rearrange into new sentences for a journal page. I wasn't counting all that close and I ended up with more like 50 to choose from ... and it still wasn't an easy challenge LOL

I arranged my words into a mini-story ... and when I came back a couple days later to assemble my collage I misplaced some key words and found my word Beach was way too large for the page LOL So I took my remaining words and came up with something on the fly.

One of my goals this year was to take a stab at drawing ... I have no training and it shows LOL I'm terrified of drawing people, so I started with a simple boat in charcoal.

Lesson Learned:
Do not quit your day job ... you do not have a future in marketing.

She Dreams of Paris

Boy ain't that the truth! Actually, I'm dreaming of any place that doesn't have snow ... or sub-zero temperatures LOL

I got way behind in the Eiffel Deco swap I am participating in, so I did 2 similar pieces last weekend and sent off. I only took pictures of the one since they were so similar.

More Ledger Calendar Work

I did a few more pages in my ledger calendar before handing it to Terry this afternoon. I have lots of ephemera, but I'm usually a cheapskate with it ... hoarding it LOL

I decided to be decadent and glue a bunch of ephemera type stuff to the pages. I think I got the vintage bug out of my system for now.

Song in My Heart

This is more or less the title page for the vintage ledger-style calendar I am using for the Calendargirlz RR. I had grand ideas for this, but ran short on time and couldn't seem to pull together the right imagery ... so plan B was to just glue down some neat vintage ephemera LOL

Divine Destiny

I started this spread quite a while back, but have had multiple interruptions over the last couple months, so decided I needed to get it wrapped up finally. I misplaced the cool image I intended to use on the right page, so had to make due with a rubberstamp.

I didn't have any brilliant ideas for the left side, so decided to just collage some papers and get it started. This is a different type of layout than I have ever done. I don't usually work in vertical or horizonal lines like this.

Can You Say Entrails?

Well ... I have not been all love and light here lately, so it is time for the dark side of my art to resurface LOL I made myself think about what was bothering me and then did a journal page ... and this was what came out.

I went back to the heart theme, but decided to use an anatomy heart. This was from my Da Vinci clip-art book ... somehow I doubt if this is what Da Vinci had in mind LOL

This was another case where the background just wasn't working. I wanted the heart to show inside this molding paste window. I mixed the molding paste with paint, which I have never experimented with. The color was not working for me at all. I added a second color over that ... also not working for me. 3 or 4 colors later I found something that was acceptably morbid and the colors seem to work.

Now that I take a step back and look at it ... all I can think is ... it looks like I spread entrails all over the page LOL

Happy Friggin' New Year - Grrrr!

Accccckkkk! So far my new year just isn't starting out right. I've barely driven my car the last 2 weeks between holidays and being snowed in, so I am eager for things to return to normal. I'm tired of daily shoveling ... tired of not being able to come and go with ease ... tired of going to the grocery store and finding out everything you need is sold out.

I get about 10 minutes into my drive to work and the car starts vibrating like crazy ... plop ... plop ... plop ... great ... a flat tire! Except it's more than flat. I pull into a parking lot and it is literally in shreds and is smoking. I walk down a block and take the bus the rest of the way to work. Luckily, my brother is off from the post office today in honor of President Ford -- so he takes care of my tire problem and picks me up from work to get me to my car. I'm happy ... I get in ... the battery light is on! We take it to AutoZone ... it's the alternator. So we have them charge the battery back up. 2 hours later I have just a smidgen more voltage ... sigh ...

So in the morning my car is going to the shop ... sigh ...

Oh yes ... my digital camera. It went kapooey last week ... or so I thought. It was like it wanted to go to sleep a few seconds after being turned on and the lens would not retract when you turned the power off. Replacing the batteries was fruitless. My camera is not very old, so being somewhat electronically inept ... I did what any 4 year old would do. I did the kamikaze thing and started hitting all the buttons like crazy thinking I'd get the right combination and it would magically start working. I did this on 3 different occassions with no luck.

I gave up and bought another digital which arrived today. Of course my brother picks up my old camera ... hits 2 buttons and it starts working ... grrrrr! So now he has his own digital LOL But I'm going to be an Indian-giver if this one goes on the fritz LOL

I miss my lucky streak ... sigh ...

Favorite 2006 Art

This week's Inspire Me Thursday challenge is to post a favorite piece of art from 2006 ... which is great since my new digital camera is still stuck on a UPS truck in snowland LOL

My art started morphing into something with a deeper meaning this past year. I'm not sure when this started occurring, but perhaps Lynne Perella's class was a factor.
This is a shrine I made in a class with local artist Claudia Roulier ... who's work I love! This was a stretch for me. Most of my work is theme-work; that is where my comfort zone is. This time I wanted to stretch for something with a deeper meaning, so I used personal symbols. I didn't realize I even had personal symbols until I started thinking about my shrine.

I was in a whole lot of turmoil at the time ... personal issues conflicting with problems at work ... which for me results in intense art. I was literally all tied up in knots, which manifested itself in this journaling heart to become the focal point of my shrine.

My other big symbol in my shrine is a rusted bugle, which I am using for my blogger logo.