Peas Be With You...

 

I love peas!

My Mom sent me a Country Living magazine in her last package, knowing how much I love magazines.  It is so difficult for me to throw them away. I gradually cancelled all of my subscriptions. I have pretty much cured myself of the hoarding of them by cutting them up before I throw them away. So now I have boxes of garden pictures, funny pictures, animal pictures, etc... which is great for doing those "one of these days" collages. I love cutting up paper too. It's a wonder I don't do more collage than I do. Last night I made this piece while watching The Voice, then promptly put it in the can. (proud of myself haha) I may not have a magazine addiction now,  but Pinterest is it's replacement! I think I am going to challenge myself to do it again, make a collage from the next magazine I have, on the spot, spur of the moment, spontaneously creating it then letting it go...  

English Pea Salad Recipe by Country Living

2 large hard-boiled eggs, whites chopped and yolks crumbled      

1 (1/2 cup) yellow bell pepper, finely chopped

2 ounce(s) (1/2 cup) Cheddar cheese, shredded       

1/2 cup(s) mayonnaise

1/2 cup(s) sour cream

3 tablespoon(s) dried basil

2 tablespoon(s) finely chopped red onion

2 teaspoon(s) chopped pimiento

1 teaspoon(s) apple-cider vinegar

1 teaspoon(s) sugar

1 teaspoon(s) soul-food seasoning or seasoned salt

1 teaspoon(s) granulated garlic

\ 1/2 teaspoon(s) freshly ground pepper

2 dash(es) hot sauce

60 ounce(s) (four 15-ounce cans) early peas (such as Le Sueur), drained

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In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients except the peas, mixing well. Then stir in the peas. Refrigerate the salad for at least 10 hours or up to overnight. Serve at room temperature.
 

Ta Da I Tried It Thursday...

...This week, mixed media art play.  I'm trying to quit listening to my left brain tell my right brain what to do and just live in my right brain for a while. It's happy there. haha  I actually tried several projects that got me inspired and in create mode.  I made 2 lace books like these by Scrappin Happyxo for friends over the past week or so. Each took several days for me to do solely because of not being able to make a decision on how the fronts should look. Rearranging them over & over.  Just Click on her name to watch her video.  I'm not going to share mine right now because they are in the mail as I type. Maybe a post for another day.  I will say that I really had a lot of fun constructing these with paper like her, however, I put cereal box cardboard in mine on front & back covers & pages to make them sturdier, a little more functional.  The more you create the better you will be at it.  It made me want to learn how to do different bindings & make lots of art journals to play with.  Honestly I have never painted an art journal. I have many many spiral notebooks with notes, lists of things to do, sketches, ideas, plans, etc... but never have really painted "art journal".  While I was daydreaming of starting one & looking for some inspiration & helpful tips, I came across this video by Alma Stoller. Painting on a magazine page.  This was a fun & partly a major fail project so I am going to share this one.  

As soon as the video started I knew I had to try this! I bet you want to now after watching and I hope you do!  I "needed" to try this because I feel like my backgrounds just got boring.  In 2008 I sold mixed media paintings (not glued paper though), very folk artsy, incorporating sand, but somewhere along the line I just got too simplified, or out of touch.  Anyway, I found an old Fine Cooking Magazine, I must have been saving it for some reason. After doing my first pages I decided to use it as a funky art journal. (I did end up ripping 1 page out but the rest will be left in tack)  I feel the need to explore new products & try new techniques. I almost feel like burning everything and starting all over.  Reinventing myself. I actually know of an artist who did just that - but then spent a little time in the hospital if you know what I mean. Happy to say she is back to work but she is also back to creating the same art. So can we ever really reinvent ourselves?
Doing this project/exercise, I found out that I love painting on magazine pages with acrylic paint! It turns the stiff paper into a fabric like texture with a matte finish almost suede like.  I love the feeling of it. Could it be varnished with acrylic & then sewn on? hum...

 I also learned that it doesn't adhere to canvas very well or I'm a bum gluer.

My first pages...

I started off having so much fun, no plots, no plans, then all of a sudden I am painting food! hahaha

 There was a pea pod on this page upper right corner -  I call this "Minding my Peas & Q's". haha

 I ripped out a page  (see below) so I looked to the next page for inspiration.

I left the backs of the painted pages unpainted for now but may end up painting over them. 

I love tomatoes.

The words on this page are  from the collage sheet in my last post. I'm glad I saved this magazine. :)

This portrait page I cut out to put on a canvas...  Also realized that since it's a cooking magazine that I will leave all the paintings food related.  I do like to paint some food. Love kitchen art.  (Sushi paintings & veggie paintings are in my Etsy Shop)

Major Fail. This canvas turned out to be a hot mess, I don't even want to show you how it ended up but I will.  I used Golden medium to adhere it to the canvas but as the magazine paper dried it began to lift off. Then as I started to paint over it, it began to wrinkle & bubble.  Perhaps next time I will gesso the canvas first, or use a different glue. 

 I have to admit I did feel a twinge of guilt for spending so much time on a go nowhere piece but I have to admit that I think it was worth learning what I did, and I must say that the background isn't boring! Some of these might find their way onto a canvas in my Etsy Shop.

I hope this inspires you to try something new.

Create a Great Day!

It is Love...

Tiny But Mighty

This sweet tiny but mighty little Angel's face changed about 4 times before she was finished. I love how she turned out & her sweet face. I wish a photo really captured the original. She's small measuring 5x5x.50 perfect for a little spot that needs some love. I listed her here. I have a few more of these small canvas that I plan to paint. They are so sweet.

Hubby & The Spotted Dogs are playing tonight in Auburn so I will have the house to myself. I'm not feeling all that terrific so I don't know if am going to use this quiet time for painting, collage, paper bag albums or just veg out in front of the tv.

I did another collage last night out of one of my many Gourmet magazines. I love them! Art & cooking, 2 of my biggest passions. I'm thinking I will hang them in my kitchen. I have little Italian glass tiles in my kitchen as a backsplash and they really look cool up against that. I feel a little guilty spending the time to make something for myself instead of something to sell. I have more Gourmet magazines than I'd like to admit so maybe when I've finished mine... I took photos of the process yesterday which I plan on posting soon or making a video out of, if I can get my son to help me with that. I have to tip my hat at Collage artists. Collage pieces are sometimes unappreciated or underrated in my opinion, which is sad because they are a big undertaking, no matter how organized you are, and a piece takes an enormous amount of thought & time. Not to mention the mess & space it takes, well for me anyway! I'm so visual I have to see it all. I usually struggle with composition on collage pieces, which is why I am loving this new project! You get what you get and make something out of it. Of course you still have to think about it but at the same time using what you just randomly cut out gives you a lot of freedom. The one that I completed last night isn't embelished yet but again I have all the recipe pieces around the edges. I want to do at least 2 or 3 more. I will post a picture when I get them all done & hung up.

Quirky Night

Tonight was my monthly "QAG" meeting ( Quirky Art Group), a sub-group of the Swell Sister Society. I had so much fun. We did a journal project from Keri Smith. Collages with a catch. We had to tear out 15 or 20 pages (or as many as you can cut through) then pick a shape, I did approx 2x2 square, then cut your shape through all pages, no peeky. Then you had to collage with your cut out pieces only, no tearing, ripping or altering them. You get what you get. I used an old Gourmet magazine so mine came out with a little bit of a theme. The squares with recipes or writing is on the sides. Sister Juliana, a fantastic collage artist, brought Caran d' Ache crayons which now I have to have. They are like butter. The colors are great, they smear, blend & seem to just melt into the into paper. When you have all the paper glued to your canvas or wood, (I used wood) then you can embellish with crayon, ink, paint, whatever you want. Every time I get together with my Swell Sisters' I step outside my little box and I always have a big surge of creativity. I embellished mine with the crayons & black paint that I put in my henna bottle for a thin controllable line. I did some ACEOs last night using this wonderful little bottle. I'll take some pictures & post them. I think I am going to try this collage technique on some ACEOs and see how they turn out. So grab your old magazines & have some fun!

Surprise!

Nope not this "tuna surprise" that was actually breakfast the other day. haha Breakfast of Champions right?! I did not eat it out of the can, I did that purely for the photo. I had an uncontrollable craving for Kraft mac & cheese, then felt guilty coz I was going to eat mac & cheese -pretty much pure carbs so I added some protein to it. That makes sense right? haha The real surprise was a visit late this afternoon from some friends that just moved back from Texas. We got to meet their baby boy for the first time and he's 18 mo, so cute & sweet. Hard to believe that he is almost 2 already. Toward the end of their visit he goes up to his mom & says "hotdog hotdog" then turns around to everyone in the room and says "bye bye & heads for the door" hahaha I had made a big pot of chicken & dumplings but they didn't stay. I think they were going to have hotdogs. haha Sadly I missed my Swell Sister monthly meeting. We were to have a guest speaker tonight too. I missed last month too and was really looking forward to going & being with my art sista's. Just as I was getting ready to go our friends came by. So I'm a little bummed about missing the meeting - feeling out of the loop with everyone- but very glad I had the time with our friends tonight.

I need to apologize to my Entrecard bloggers for not dropping much & to you for not posting much lately. My computer is still not working right and it's been a few weeks. (I am saving this every few lines just in case it freezes up). The guys have determined that it is some nasty virus in our registry and we are going to have to wipe out the computer and start from scratch & hope that fixes it. We still have some back-up to do before we can erase everything though. Hopefully Hubby can do that next week and I can get back into the groove.

I am babysitting JJ until Monday while Mom & Dad are in Las Vegas for a wedding so I won't be working too much on anything. I'm still in a painting funk and have been playing with paper. I have made some charms out of recycled magazines. I will be posting a picture in a few days. I think the charms are pretty cool if I say so myself. I will probably be listing them in my Artfire shop, as it's empty at the moment. If you follow my blog you know about my problem with magazines & jars. Well I needed to get rid of some magazines. Before I can do that I have to cut out all the words & pictures I like, only then can I place it in the bin. I have boxes of cut outs and going through them is fun & full of inspiration. I could collage until the cows come home. I love collage but don't do it often. I spread out and have it all over the place. I'm a messy collager/scrapper. I could use a bigger studio. I have to hand it to full-time collage artist & scrapbookers. It is so time consuming. I'm not sure people realize just how much. I certainly didn't before I started a few years ago. I haven't sold any of my collage pieces but maybe I will in the future. I dug into my box last year & made a Vision Board. That was fun and I would like to do that again soon. My mom swears that she was finding cut up bits & pieces of paper here & there 6 months after I moved out of the house. haha One thing I liked about my old job was flipping through a loan file & sticky notes, the paper. Now it's all paperless. I fell in love with paper when I was a kid while living in Japan. I used to do all kinds of origami and the gold sheet I could never fold. I'd save it. If I have some money of my own I'd buy yarn or paper with it. I've been having lots of fun with the eyelets I bought the other day. I love how they look in paper. So polished and hammering them is thrilling. I've never used them before so I am fighting the urge to eyelet everything! Kinda like that label maker you bought then had to label everything. hahaha I am also going to be working on an album that will have lots of altered pages that have been posted on my Altered Pages Altered Thoughts blog. I've had several inquiries about selling the pages so I thought it might be cool to put them in an album. Perhaps a paper bag album & have some of them on tags as well. We'll see.

A big shout out goes to Pieces of Paper for including my Feathered Feline Friend in their great Etsy Treasury. You can check it out here.

In Piles of Paper...

That's where I've been the last few days. About every 6 months I go through this. I mess up everything I paint so I pull out all my paper, bits & pieces then dive into the big mess. However, yesterday I did paint some scrapbook paper bright colors then stamped it with copper & silver designs. I love paper. I've been busy making journals out of paper bags (that I bought last time I went through this) and out of old legal size envelopes. I made this little scrapbook for my son & put the pictures of him on our trip to South Carolina last April. I thought he was going to think it was cheesy but he loved it. He went to Michael's with me today, took off on his own & found stickers for it. I must say they did make it really cute and he even found them in the sale bin! Here are a few pictures. I won't bore you posting pictures of the whole thing, that might be like making you watch family home movies! I am working on a book with lots of Altered Pages that were shown in my other happy place: Altered Pages Altered Thoughts. I may list that one in my Artfire shop if it turns out, and if I can part with it, as well as some little journals or ACEO books.

A big shout out goes to KittyKent for featuring My Incorrigible Carnie in her wonderfully whimsical Etsy Treasury! See it here. Thanks Kitty Kent!

A Great Day!

I had my little JJ today. We had fun out in the yard. It was another beautiful day. It's been 2 weeks since I've had him and I couldn't believe how grown up he's getting. He's sitting up and crawling everywhere. He's the sweetest thing. I got lots of slobbery kisses today!

Tomorrow I am finishing up a collage/altered piece for a gallery show on April 11th at the Marco Fuoco Gallery in Sacramento. It is my 2nd attempt on this piece. My last try I messed up an altered photo that was to go on it. I'll be going solo to the gallery show because my husband will be playing a gig up in Lake Tahoe. He found out yesterday that The Spotted Dogs will be playing at the California State Fair this year! That will be so much fun! He doesn't have the date yet but he's really excited.

My purple Aura Angel was featured yesterday in the most beautiful Etsy Treasury . Thank you BusyBeads! Please check it out! Purple in all it's glory!!

Ok *heels dragging* I decided to check out Twitter. I joined and it's actually more fun than I thought it would be. I can see how some people are so addicted to it. Just click below on the blue flying bird if you'd like to Follow me getting my Tweets on!

Feeding My Southern Soul

My husband fell asleep in his chair this afternoon with a baseball game on, so I put my flip flops on, quietly opened the door, went out and picked 4 of his green tomatoes! I had them just about fried before he woke up. He probably woke up from the delicious smell. I couldn't resist them just gleaming at me out there! If I had told him I was gonna pick those he most likely would have poo pooed that idea, however, when I handed him his plate that put a big smile on his face. I call them his tomatoes because as I said before I don't water anything! You can see my recipe down below. I don't really measure anything out much but this is as close as I could get it!

Last night the kids stayed over and watched National Treasure II. I was watching and knitting at the same time. I watched DIY's Knitty Gritty the other day and they made the cutest baby hat. With a grandson on the way I decided to give it a try. It's a very simple pattern. http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/na_knitting/article/0,2025,DIY_14141_4826209,00.html I made a small baby blue one just like the pattern and a larger denim blue. I enlarged the pattern on the denim blue one which is probably a more appropriate size come winter time. Each one only took about an hour to do.

Yesterday I finished up a few paintings that I was working on & a Swell Sister stopped by to give me my last Indi collage project. This one is going to be a tough one! I know that 1 person still has to work on it and there is little room now for me. I am stumped. I looked at it and looked at it and really have no ideas or a direction to go on it! I have until Thursday which seems like plenty of time but I'm freaked out! That's only 3 days & I'll need to think about it at least another 2! I listed the following mermaid angel on Etsy & Ebay.

Tomorrow I will be working on a commission, mailing paintings and working on some new greeting cards for Etsy. I was really disappointed in my sales on Ebay this week. Not sure if it's Ebay's new best match thing, my art, the time of year or maybe time to find other outlets to sell. The art that I sold will only pay my listing fees, so I made no money. Ebay's fees are so expensive which makes it difficult because you have to pay dearly to even be seen. Ebay buyers tend to want original art for thrift store prices and Ebay does nothing to promote the artists or original art that is sold there. I did check through the art listings and it doesn't look like I was the only one who is having a bad week there. So enough of my Ebay rant! Hopefully this week will bring many blessings for everyone, including you!

Ooo La La !

I spent all day on the collaborative book project and finally finished & it's ready to pass on. Remember my room yesterday.....well it's worse today! I went with a Josephine Baker/Paris theme. She was quite a fascinating person ! I put a little accordion pop out piece that tells a little about her on one page. I stumbled upon her story a few months ago while looking at pictures of the 20's & 30's. Of course I had heard of her prior to that but never really read anything about her. There was a movie done about her and I'd love to see it, but will have to buy it to see it, as they don't have it at my nearest video store. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Baker.

I had a lot of fun doing this book! It really gets your art on ! As you can see my 2 pages are completely different from one day to the next! You can click on the pictures to see them larger. My son came in at 2:30 this afternoon and I had a cold cup of coffee, still in my pajamas thinking it was about 11 & time for another cup! The day just flew by. My son & his girlfriend even cooked dinner! I think I'll keep the mess a few more days and work on some journal covers with some of my angels on the front. If you haven't tried altered art yet what are waiting for? Get out your scissors & glue! Let your imagination take you away! You might end up somewhere you never dreamed of!

Ripped, Rubbed, Painted, Glued & Glittered!

Wow! I got a lot done today! I listed lots of things on Ebay today (new works are in my slideshow) and I started working on my collaborative Indi project which is an altered book. I did 2 pages and I am going to be doing 2 more. Hopefully I can get it done tonight. I'll have the house to myself & I'll be up late! There is lots of room in the book and only 2 more people to work on it. I cut a hole in one page, so I figured I would go ahead & do the pages that have the little something that shows through the hole. Besides the pages that I just finished are a bit busy & cutesy, a little childish, I guess because there are children on it and yes... I used glitter! The next 2 pages will be much more mature. Doing altered art or collage is so messy for me! I have boxes & boxes of things spread out all over. I told you I cut things out of magazines! Now you can see a portion of what I'm talking about! I am posting this picture of my coffee table to show what it took for me create 2 pages, for your enjoyment, or disgust! hahaha It would be nice if someone could put it all away for me! Any volunteers?No? None around here either! hahaha It's hard for me to start with a firm idea. It just evolves and so does my coffee table.

Life is really Swell!

TGIF!

Last night I went to a Quirky Art group which is a sub-group of The Swell Sister Society. I had so much fun it's a great group of women. I did a picture inspired by Freda Khalo. The owner of the shop we were meeting in told us that we can have an 2nd Saturday art show December 13th! Very exciting! Elizabeth, who started the group, has been working very hard and we now have the beginnings of a website. Also exciting! I just can't tell you how wonderful I think this group is! I am blessed to have found it & be included. I am also in a sub-group "Indie project" which is a collaborative group. Last night at the meeting we swapped projects and I spent most of the day just staring at my large canvas I have to do! I can see that this project is going to really stretch my imagination! I did some work on it. We are swapping again next Thursday. The canvas that was given to me was very abstract as you can see & when I turned it upward I saw 2 women pop out at me, so I am taking down that road. Totally different than the idea I had in my head for it last night! I think I am just going to finish her hand & a few more touches before passing it on. I don't want to do too much as 3 more people will be working on it & don't want to paint over the initial artist's beginnings. I am loving this project and can't wait to see how mine returns to me! Here's some pictures so far. I volunteered to teach a crochet & knitting class on July 3rd for the Swell Sisters, so next week I will be putting things together for that and it should be fun. Maybe I will finish the baby bibs I started a couple of months ago!

I stumbled upon the Ophra show this evening. I normally don't watch it but this episode was on the Laws of Attraction. It was so interesting! I spent this evening making my own "visualization board". Cutting up magazines. I can spend hours doing it. I have boxes of things I have cut out too. I think my board is pretty good, it looks like a big collage, don't know where I'll put it yet but I'll look at it everyday and hope it works! oops. Know it will work! hahaha I'll keep you posted on that. If you like to learn more about this you can go to Ophra's site at http://www2.oprah.com/index.jhtml.

Hope you have a great weekend!