In the Van

I made a video today of my art In the Van. I used to be able to upload videos directly from my camera or computer to the blog but it seems I no longer can. Grrrrrhhhh. What to do? I set up a U Tube account. OMG!! I spent a lot of time on this this morning.I hope I am doing this right. I am holding my breath. Whoo Hoooo!! I did it!!! Ok. So, I am sharing a bit more about myself. As I was making this little video I thought about music. The music in the background is my original composition. I am not thrilled with the way my voice sounds in this, but since MY MAN forgot to upload my most recent (what I would consider better) compositions to my computer and he is presently in NYC, this one will have to do. So, there you have it. I hope you enjoy both the visual and the sound. Thanks for stopping by. Jo........ Joanna..................... me

Traveling Post Cards

I mailed the post card to Lizzy in Russia this morning. I forgot I was supposed to put the post card ID number on it. Figures. My first international post card and I didn't do it right. Oh well. The site said to email the member to be on the look out. I can't wait to hear that she received it. I also mailed a post card to my friend Jeanine in North Carolina .

And I mailed a post card to Chris Dunmire who has invited people to help celebrate her birthday with her. She writes that for all of her 39 yrs she never celebrated her birthday and now at 40 she has finally decided to do so. I have followed Creativity Portal for the last 5 yrs or more, enjoying an abundance of resources and information. So, here's a person I have never met before. I am happy for her that she has made this choice to celebrate herself. Happy Birthday, Chris!

POSTCROSSING

I joined a site called Postcrossing. You send a post card to someone else in the world who has also registered at the site. I made a post card for the person who's name I was given. Lisa lives in Russia. She's a student, loves music; has a treble clef tatoo, loves cats and I can't remember off hand what else. I was thinking about how the weather might be in Russia this time of year, so I thought about sending her some spring. I will mail this on Saturday and then register it at the Post Crossing web site. I am looking forward to getting a post card from somewhere else in the world from some one I don't even know. I think the entire idea makes for happy mailboxes.

POSTCROSSING Check it out.

The Big and the Small

I decided to take some of my favorite mini index card pieces and put them together to make one big one piece. I'm still playing with the layout. What do you think?

Gel Plate Printing

Ok. I know I said I'd do this another day but hey... I have to practice my "linking techniques" so I don't forget how to do it. I got a gel plate and did some playing with it this weekend. Here are a few of the results of my first attempt.

I think I needed more paint. But there's still some interesting results. I definately will be playing with this a lot. Thanks for checking me out.

Woven Dreams

Using my tree stencil again. This page happens to be in my SMASH BOOK. I did some playing around with gel plate printing this weekend. I'll share those images with you next time. Thanks for stopping by. Jo

Showing Up Continued

Wow!! After numerous attempts of trying to figure out why I couldn't upload images on Blogger I downloaded Google Chrome That downloading button took off like a whirling dervish.... like there was no tomorrow. Thank you, Robin, for putting that little bug in my ear. You must know by now I am not particularly patient when it comes to these kinds of challenges. I wanted to throw my computer out the window. So, as I was saying, about the altered book.. The above is a couple more pages I have begun to play with. Gessoed( with some scratch marks) first and then watercolor on top.

And here I outlined another flower with a glue gun, leaving some of the black and white images visible through the gesso. The red flower is painted with Luminaire Silk glaze paints, which I had on my list of things forever wanting to try. Again, it's all playing and experimenting.

oops. I downloaded this picture twice. Do you think I would risk trying to delete it and take a chance on wiping out too many little things that make this post complete? No way. Moving on.........

Be Brave. Be Nobody but Yourself.... in case you had trouble reading this. I'm not too crazy about this. I liked it better before I started adding the lettering, which I tried to do with stamps, too big. I didn't figure the placement right..... I had to draw the D and the Y . Too much red, maybe? I dunno. Maybe I'll leave it for awhile and come back to it and cover it up with gesso or try to fix the lettering. Just goes to show you how we sometimes don't like our end results. But hey, I did show up.

I do like these two pages from IN THE VAN book, which is nearly finished. The tree is from a stencil I drew, and I like the grainy look of the paint. Can you tell how I did this? Thanks for stopping by.

Showing Up

I have no problem showing up.. going to my studio, making wonderful messes. I have not been good about sharing what I've been showing up for. Sometimes life has a way of making it so. Here's what I've been showing up for.

I've begun to alter a book. It's an old book on photography techniques from the 1950's, thick pages and when I covered the pages with gesso I left some of the images visible because I could see them becoming new ideas. I outlined the flower images with a glue gun and then threw some paint on top. It's all an experiment at this point. It seems at the moment I am unable to upload any more images for this post. Blogger must be blogging some where else. I will try again later.

Flip Flops

Traci Bunkers shows a video on her site on how to make stamps from flip flops. How cool is that? I didn't have any old flip flops laying around so off I went to the Dollar Store, which didn't have any out yet, and then to Wally World where I found a $1.00 pair. I then had to invest in a heat tool and was happy to find one on sale at Michaels. So, here is what I made from a pair of flip flops.

Here are the stamps on paper.

Did you notice? I finally learned how to link? Yay for me!! Let's see if I can do it again. Visit Traci Bunkers site. I think she's a pretty neat artist and she has a lot to share.

Fairy Godmother Goes International

Look what came in the mail the other day!

Pretty cute stamps, huh!

Are you just a wee but curious as to what was inside of this cool little package?

Do you feel like I'm teasing you yet? The wrapping alone will get used in collage work.

Japanese Washi Tape from Karen Sato cutetape.com.(Sorry again. I have not been able to figure out how to just provide the link. If anyone wants to write me with How to link for Dummies instructions I would be ever so grateful. No matter what I try I can't seem to get it right.) I pretty much got lost wandering through this site, like a kid in a candy store. I wanted one of everything. This is what I got.

And this is how I've used this tape so far in the SMASH book.

and this

This is pretty cool tape if you ask me. I'm sure I'll have to make a return visit at some point.