Life throws a loop

Hi folks,

I'm Emelie's daughter, Angie. She asked me to post for her. On Saturday she missed some stair steps, fell, and broke her leg. She had surgery on Sunday. She is doing well, got out of the hospital today and is in transitional care in her home town just to get some strength back and some good physical therapy. So she has time to plan all sorts of new face ideas in her head while she heals some. Thanks for all your well wishes in advance.

All The Wrong Bits

Ihave this pile of bits on a tray, torn paper, bits of napkin, birds, alphabet, stamped tissue, magazine clippings, I like things from home decorating magazines,
The bits get messy, they float to the floor and mix with other bits, books, music sheets, torn book pages and it gets really jumbled. When I sweep this up I pick out the good bits and they go back on the tray.

My work area is horrible right now, but yesterday I saw that there was a piece of brown paper bag with a background, and I sat down to do a small face, only 1 1/2 inches, I also thought just keep going and use off the floor and the bits laying on the table, I had to iron some of it. I really like collage, I really like layering.
By evening this work was really awful, I was rather irritated. This morning I went down to clean up the whole mess, but sat down and started adding things again.
Guess What? I am now going to frame this. The piece measures 12X7. And anothr problem is I have no frame to fit this, so I have to cover a piece of cardboard with newspaper, paint the paper with thin wash and do a bit of stamping with black to make it work. I have tidy up first so I have a place to do this. Then all this stuff laying around here and there has to find it's place.

November, I like it OK

You have to search for color now, and if you paint you can enhance it as you choose.
We have fog in November and December and when it lifts it can be beautiful outside.
Water turns dark like the sky, the contrast of snow patches give paintings some sparkle.

Sometimes I feel bad that I don't do as much of tis as I use to, so today I did some I will use them on Christmas cards also. The joke is I don't send that many cards, the supply of choices is growing. I will make some as gifts, I have lots of envelopes to include and they can send them as winter greetings of some sort. They look nice in a little stack tied with a ribbon. One can make a packet with paper, co a collage to attatch to the outside of the packet. I have several packages of those little colored brads that you poke through paper and bend the back to fasten the packet together. BTW, this is sounding like a lot of time and work, the mental image has appeal tho.

A Magazine Page

I am a watercolorist before mixed media,and have always been facinated by paint that runs and creates abstract looking accidental and sometimes on purpose watermarks that are nothing more that splotches where water sits and makes paint move to the edge of the water spash. In these spashes the center fades and the edge grabs all the paint. You see marks like this on walls and ceilings sometimes, it is the same
reaction to the water.

I had a magazine picture on my table and sprayed water hit it and I got a lot of
action from the ink. The photo was a print out from my printer, it was not the original page. Then I made another copy of the photo and sprayed it with some purpose. It only works from my printer copies. People do tis with magazines and use a product called Citrasolv, they use National Geographic magazine. You can go to the Citrasolv web site and see the product and the gallery of work.

This work is also altered with background fabric and a photo from the garden. There is a photo here of how it looked before I did so many alterings.

I Wish It Wasn't So

I wish this painting was done on a large canvas. The frame and cardboard I have ready, but not really ready just there with no background or even cut to size yet. This isn't really all that Christmas but it has the look I would like on a large piece. Sort of pale and snowy.

This is a journal page, that started out with a face and then a dress from a magazine dress cut into shape. Then just doodleing along, I painted cosmos on the side, it is just one of those things that seemed to work by itself because I was not being very serious, then suddenly I got serious as it was starting to work.

Do you have any idea how I have to clear my work space for a long narrow piece of work?

This Journal Thing

it has sort of bitten me, and I sometimes do a misc. page or a face, I do the misc. page when the little scrap pile gets quite big next to me then I think use some of that up. Actually what happens is I cut more and it is bigger when I am done with the journal than it was before. It is just part of collage.

The other day I was looking at ancient art, mostly for the jewels, and pretty soon I was doing this face. and it does have some writing on it and some sort of really faded that you can't see.

Tonight I decided I didn't really like it that much, but in a journal you don't have to love every page. Tonight I layered some photos into the painting, degital work, a design from a book and a garden photo of orange lilies. this worked pretty well.
It feels like a rescue, and I will add this to the journal also.

Always Inspired

This time I am inspired by Zorana I really needed some colorful paited birds by me for
artwork, Sorana inspired me to do this. Also to make some small cards to slip into greetings this Cbristmas. And Make some bookmarks for my reading friends, and those I coffee with on Wednesdays. And also for the domino pendants I have started, all can be mixed and worked with on computer. Friends often frame the little things I send.

I hae posted the birds, some of the cards, and the sheet that has been altered a great deal. I am sort of thrilled with the birds as I can resize them and change their color for collage.

You will enjoy Zorana's blog open and useful, don't forget beautiful, and videos you can watch. With the 6 inch snow fall this weekend she gave me plenty to do.

Return of the Juncos

We have winter birds not many for jut winter but we do have these little gray and white Juncos and they do have a pink bill. They are so cute they hop backwards to move the snow or dead grass around under the feeders. I have not put out the feeders yet because I don't know if the bears have gone to bed they like bird seed also. I hope they have.

This painting is on cardboard and inspired by the birds and the pending winter or fall snowstorm. The houses you see were pulled out of a newspaper.

What is on Your Mind?

The Veterans are on my mind today as I go about the business of the day, listening to old war songs, songs of pain and loss, strength to overcome. Battle hymns and some silly songs like the Battle of New Orleans, Patriotic songs that swell in your breast as the music becomes dramatic.

Of course I have art on my mind also, I want some paintings around the house framed and on the wall for the holidays and winter. The best is not always what I do when I have a goal like this, it is uplifting to have a painting I did and the thought "I don't Know How I Did That" comes to mind when I look at it, that painting is usually on some little scrap of paper that doesn't have a plan.

These photos are not sharp, the painting is too big to scan and my photo taking is as inconsistant as the paintings can be. It is strange to me that the setting on the camera one would use for taking a photo of a pet turned out the best and of course no flash and a setting for close up. Can you believe I even know how to find all these settings? Even more important after the setting is set for Ok I can get out of the setting and back to a start over mode on the camera. Even more amazing I might remember it in a few days.

Also I have added some sketches, I have made a folder to keep them in and have stapled some together because they get lost in mail, or all the stuff one has in the art room for collage and mixed media work. You can see which one I used for this painting. So on with the day and more thoughts.

Working With an Old Geography Book

last summer I bought this old geography book for a dime, it was really in bad shape and a lot of pages tore, or partially torn out especially the maps. The thing I liked about it was the artwork in the book, ink drawings of commerce, industry,, farming, done in a collage sort of way and I knew I wanted to use them in collage also. I wanted a rather prim looking woman in this painting, one reason is the ink drawing is of people harvesting peaches by hand. People probably still do.

This painting is in my journal of faces, maybe you can see in the scan a corner that got turned up, a little glue will take care of that.

Days a beautiful and I am nearly done with outside garden cleanup, I did windows today, I don't do windows well, they never sparkle, but the dirt has been arranged in an artistic manner and it looks different then it did. I do blame the glass, as years ago I didn't have trouble cleaning windows. It is good to have a place to put blame, especially if it doesn't hurt anyone.