The Chair Project continued

Thought you'd like to see a bit more on the progression of the chair. I am finding it kind of cool that I can see bits and pieces of all my own work on this piece of furniture.

And since we are beginning to see the winds pick up with Hurricane Sandy's impending presence, we covered The Garage Side Collaborative with plastic tarp. We hope that tacking it down will be enough to protect it. I find the paint splotches on the tarp already add to what's already there. Might have to add those splotches after the storm.

I hope this storm is not going to be a repeat of the last one which was had me ducking for cover in a downstairs closet with my dog. I hope everyone is well biw and will be safe this week until the storm passes. Thanks for visiting..............Jo

The Chair Project

I've often shared with you my thrift store findings, most recently my old school house wooden chairs I got for $6.00 a piece.

The bear didn't come with the chair. She just thought the chair was for her. Anyway, when I saw those chairs, of course, I could see throwing color and all sorts of things on them. I often cheaply print my art at Kinkos exactly for this reason, so I had an abundance of scraps stashed away. Everything on this chair up to this point is all my art, whether it be torn paper from the prints or pages torn from a sketchbook, or the left over wax paper from my art table. Here is what I've done so far.

The tree here is my photography.

For those of you who may have been following my blog for awhile, you may recognize certain pieces of paper. Like the tree in the left corner is from 'Winter," and, Robin may recognize some of the brown circles and some other things from an envelope I sent her. The pieces along the upper part of the chair are from several art journal pages.

The above one is a bit blurry. I'm sorry. But you can see the recycled baby wipe, and a piece from 'Circle.' Lucy wanted to give me her opinion on this matter so she conveniently parked herself in a not so convenient location.

And one more.

Hope you enjoyed seeing my pictures. I will keep you posted as it progresses. In the next day or two, I will show you more pictures of The Garage Collaborative because that has changed since I last showed it to you. Thanks for all your comments. I always give feedback so I love getting yours. Thanks for visiting.................Jo

The Garage Side Collaborative

Yesterday was such a beautiful day and MY MAN and I didn't want to be inside. But we wanted to create. Here's what we did.

Kind of a cool collaboration, don't you think? Stay tuned for further adventures. Garage side. Thanks for visiting.........................jo

More Faces

It's becoming more fun, these faces. They are, perhaps, a reflection of my mood on any given moment or day.

Hope you're having a good weekend. Thanks for stopping by............Jo

A few days ago I showed you this.

and this

I continued playing with more paper and more color so it now looks like this.

and this

These colors are something I would not have expected myself to use. I rather like them. I feel as if the piece is speaking to me........... like I'm not doing it..I'm not planning.... it's intuitive. I'll let you know how it ends up. And remember that piece of foam board on my work table to catch all the stuff? I like the way it's looking as well.

Thanks for visiting and thanks always for all your comments. I love getting feedback....................jo

About six months or so ago, I was able to treat myself to some new art supplies because of a gift from my fairy godmother. I purchased some items I might not necessarily have chosen merely because of the cost, but a set of india inks were one of them. I hadn't done too much with them until today while playing in the studio. I wanted to see if I could use the ink as paint instead of paint. I also wanted to play with adding fabric and paint on fabric. This is what I came up with so far today.

And some other things I've been slowly gathering over the last several years are stencils. I love stencils. There are a ton of them out there. I bought some stencil sheets and have been making some of my own. I was at Ben Franklin recently and happened on a sale item, a scrapbook for five dollars. And guess what? The plastic sheets on the inside are perfect for holding 6 x 6 stencils. I had fun stenciling the cover of the soon to be stencil holding book.

I don't know about you but I am enjoying the cool weather. Boots and sweaters and golden yellow trees make me feel good. Thanks for stopping here.......Jo.

Ten Eleven Twelve

Here are a few more faces from the morning IN THE VAN faces journal.

I worked the third one from a photograph.

and lastly

Sketching faces is not easy. I refuse to draw the same faces I see so much of on the net. Not that there's anything wrong with them, except they just don't work for me. You know the ones I mean. The perfect, blemish and wrinkle free faces with big, bulging I'm- high- on- the- wonderment- of- life- eyes, the full, voluptuous- don't- hate- me -because- I'm- beautiful- lips- and always, always long, flowing, highlighted locks. The women in my world don't look like that, nor do I. I'm going for the real stuff. The wrinkles, the sag, the sometimes serious ,the wisdom, and the silver. And, I am drawing them on top of everything. Thanks for stopping in.......xoxoxox...... jo

The scrap book covers that for years looked like this

For now, have become this.

I sometimes show you stuff that's in the work and mostly not finished. Often I am interested in seeing the process when I see someone's work. I want to know how they started and got to the that point. It just means I have to remember to come back and show you the finished piece and not get side tracked with something else, which often happens to me. Maybe I have latent ADD. Thanks for your supportive comments on my "faces." More to come. Glad you stopped by........................................Jo

The Smash Book Revisited -Faces

I'm sure these pages are not finished yet but I am liking the entrance of faces. That has been my challenge or goal- to learn to draw faces-in my own style and out of my head.

I want to work on incorporating faces onto larger canvases. That very well may be my challenge on this cold, rainy day. I'm glad you stopped in................................Jo