A Sentimental Season

Do you still mail holiday cards to friends and family?

I do!

But I must confess, I struggle with throwing out the ones I receive…

The cards are so beautiful and I enjoy the family photos…

It is a sentimental season for me. How about you?

What do you do with all the cards and photos at the end of the season?

I look forward to your creative ideas!

Happy Holidays! 🙂

Pattern and Color Play

Sometimes I make art for classes that are just for practice but I dislike wasting good art paper.

Yesterday, I decided to add pattern and color to two of such papers.

My first experiment were repetitive triangle shapes on 90 lb hot press paper.  I added more pattern and color with water soluble crayons and then softened them with water:

Next, I mixed a tiny bit of transparent orange acrylic paint with matte medium and brushed it onto my paper.  I added more pattern on top with a plastic tool by Plaid.

My second experiment was adding to shapes I had done with sumi ink and water soluble crayons to create a feeling of rhythm.  I added additional pattern and color similar to my first experiment.

I mixed a tiny bit of transparent red with matte medium but got a little too much red so I softened it with more matte medium for the second half on the left.

I used the end of my acrylic brush to make marks into the wet paint on this one.

Orignally, I was going to use both papers for collage material but I’m not sure I will cut up the first one!  I like it too much.  It reminds me of sailboats and summer.

I encourage you to experiment with pattern and color play over some artwork you’d like to repurpose.  You may surprise yourself!

Cheers! 🙂

In Stitches…

I’m having fun sewing on paper in my art journal and adding collage papers.

I can only sew in one direction since my journal is bound but I like the challenge it adds:

I start by gluing a piece of paper randomly on a page that I explained more about here: It’s A Splash!

Since the stitching is on BOTH SIDES of the paper, one side is a total surprise:

These paper collages are keeping me in stitches!  I enjoy using two different colors of thread, one for the bobbin and one for the top stitch… they add an unexpected color surprise!  And each collage is unique!

What have you created or discovered this last week that brought you unexpected joy?  I hope you share it with me!

Cheers! 🙂

And That’s How…

I was gluing paper scraps to create a collage on Saturday…

And that’s how this collage came to be on a 6×6 inch piece of paper:

I made a color copy of it to use pieces and parts in future collages:

This is one thing I LOVE about collage, you can ALWAYS copy, reuse and repurpose any art you make!

Cheers! 🙂

A Poke In The Eye

Somehow I irritated my right eye…

I don’t know if I got something in it or if I scratched my eyeball.  I’m going to an eye doctor this morning to find out.

It just reminds me how wonderful it is to SEE colors and EVERYTHING!  I am so blessed.

I’m very excited about this new online class I just started, hosted by Carla Sonheim – go to CarlaSonheim.com to learn more about the online art classes she offers.

The name of this class is The College Techniques of Anne Marie Grgich.

Check out Anne Marie’s art on Pinterest  if you’d like to see her AMAZING detailed collages!

I found a few more books at a different thrift store yesterday to add to my collection and I got the Senior Discount!  Yes, there is a plus to being 55 years old and older! Lol! 🤣

I figure what images I don’t use in collage, I could use as references to paint! ☺️

Sorry to report, I did not see any Nancy Drew mystery books at this store but I did find a great book on container gardening for only $1.00 – YAY!

Anne Marie Grgich’s collages are very detailed with MANY layers of images.  One of the things that inspired me to take this class was to learn how to create more transparent layers in my own collages.  Plus, what a bonus to watch videos of another artist’s process!  I’m learning so much and the class has just started!

So back to the process of cutting and sorting images by color for this class…

It is much more fun than a poke in the eye!

Cheers! 🙂

Nancy Drew And Dapper Dan

I decided to add a little mystery to my post today…

I was at a thrift store yesterday, buying old books for a collage class I’m taking…

I’ll share more about the online class in Thursday’s post! 😉

I found several old Nancy Drew books, like this one:

I remember reading the book series as a young girl.  How about you?

This book was only $1.00 so I bought it, thinking it might be fun to read again!  😃  And possibly, include a page or two into one of my weird birds!

Which brings me to today’s post… Dapper Dan:

Dapper Dan almost turned into Dapper Damn when I was creating the hand lettering for his name and messed up!  Ugh! 😬

Thank goodness for white pens (much like white-out!)

Apparently, the “Old Maid” card game was subconsciously on my mind… Do you remember these cards?

Funny how one memory leads to another one…

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!

May it bring you happy memories of your childhood…

Cheers!  🙂

Recycled Art

I have several paintings that I created in experiments that I wanted to recycle into something else.

I started by painting over my images with Golden fluid acrylic paints.  I added random marks and scratched into some of the paints while they were still wet with the end of my paintbrush.  Below is a frog I did on hot pressed watercolor paper:

I liked how the marks revealed some of colors underneath, like this pear painting I did on cold pressed 140 lb paper:

I found this very meditative to just play without thinking about the outcome.  Next, I decided to cut them up into squares and rectangles and draw on them with Uniball gel pens:

I then attached them to notecards:

I really like how they turned out!  What do you think?

How do you recycle your art?  I’d love to hear your creative solutions!

Happy Recycling!  🙂

Angel Food Cake

Lately, I have been struggling with creative ideas… So I decided to start a collage!  Here is my beginnings on a 8×10 inch canvas board – doesn’t she look like a sweet angel?

I randomly chose pages from these books (and fabric pattern) I purchased at thrift stores, yard sales and antique markets:

The papers I choose help me create a story yet I do not think too much about which papers I’m selecting before I glue them down.  I also like to include an old photo of someone I do not know.  I usually make a copy to preserve the original photo.

Next, I glue them to a surface with Liquitex Gloss Medium and use an old credit card to remove any air bubbles.

A morsel of trivia – According to Wikipedia, the first cookbook to contain an angel food cake recipe was in 1878 from Isabella Stewart in The Home Messenger Book of Tested Recipes.  

Tomorrow, I will show you my next step!

Happy Creating!  🙂

Happy Accidents

Yesterday, I had an “Ah-Ha! moment when I was cleaning up after finger painting for Carla Sonheim’s new online class, which you can find here.

I had all this leftover paint on my plastic palette, that I didn’t want to waste:

So I took a sheet of paper and pressed it into the paint!

I got all these cool squiggles and layers of color!

So I pressed a larger sheet, 9 x 12 inches and got this abstract:

I added a few lines with my fingernail for trees, dabbed on a little paint with a sponge for leaves and stood back in amazement!

It looks like a lake with the trees reflecting into the water.  What do you think?!

Happy Experimenting!  :-)))

It’s In The Bag or Um, Envelope?

Sometimes it is fun to repurpose items I have around the house rather then purchase something new!

And I found making these items just might help me be better organized!  Are you curious?

You see, one of the things about collage is that I keep every little piece of paper!  And sometimes, the pile grows so that it takes on a life of its own…

The creative envelope to the rescue!  YAY!

I made the above one from a recycled gold padded envelope.

And the one below, I made from a piece of junk mail that I folded in half –

And then glued some of those little pieces of collage paper that were floating around to one side.

I used a little bird I created from a leaf print for the other side:

Punched holes in the sides of the cardstock and then sewed the edges closed with embroidery thread.  The perfect place to keep my bird feathers!

When hubby came home with a Starbucks bag, I cut it in two:

And made envelopes out of each section – here is the top half:

I used patterned tape to seal the bottom.

And decorated both sides of the bag….  a perfect place to keep my postage stamps!

I hope I inspired you to repurpose an item you have around your home as a storage container!  I’d love to hear what you did!

Happy Creating!  🙂