Wish Upon A Star.

All those days playing with the gelli plate turned in to something good.. Cut in strips and glued down to water color paper. So they could become stars and houses and hearts. And then there's always mail art. I love how playing can turn into so much more playing.........Remember my little wooden houses I've been showing you in several of my posts? I have posted them in my Etsy shop. It would be nice to send them to someone to hang on their wall. You can see them to the right..xoxoxo....jo

Little Houses Are Not the Same

I finished my little wooden houses. I designed and cut the shapes and away I went. Here's a closeup picture. I'm going to place these in my Etsy shop when I have it running again, which I hope will be by the end of the week. In the meantime if you spy one that you would like before it reaches the Etsy shop, please let me know. These houses need some good homes with lovable artists. I'm going to attach some thin wire on the back so they can be hung if desired. I think they'd look great on a mantle as well. I had major fun with these but did find it hard to know when to stop. Isn't it weird how when you leave something alone for awhile or photograph it, you find something else it needs? It just starts talking to you. I'm going to have to make more. I can feel it. I am so enjoying this staycation. Lots of creative time, good food time and relaxation........thanks for coming by...........I hope you are well......................and thanks, as always for your wonderful supportive comments..............................xoxoxoxo jo

Can't Get Enough and Other Stuff.

How does that song go? "Don't stop til you get enough." I guess I've become an avid member of Aimee's Glue it Lounge. I think it's because of this that I am still going strong on using up the scraps. Remember the Faces I started in the van? They were just my very beginnings of trying to draw faces at 7am or so while sitting in my van waiting to go in to my work place. I found a new place for them a long with using up my scraps. Here are a few more. While these are not finished pages, I believe they are all beginnings for backgrounds for art journaling pages. And here is the way my little houses are at this point. My houses are growing a village. lol! So much fun pasting! They look better standing up but I can't seem to find a clear enough space in my studio to lean them up and I was too lazy to carry them to another place to do it. Can you tell I've been busy? One final thought. I am getting ready to once again participate in Daisy Yellow's Icad challenge. (That's index card a day, in case you didn't know.) I did it last year and was pleased that while I did not always follow the prompts, I did manage to complete 61 days of art everyday on an index card. I can tell you how doing this led me to other things on larger canvases-if only on to larger index cards. So I started out with this and moved into this size because all of a sudden I needed to spread out. The point I am trying to make here is it's a great way to show up and create every day. I never expected myself to produce what I did on an index card. So, I am going to do it again because I know this experience has helped me grow as an artist and there was no pressure on my self to do this or that. The prompts are there only for suggestions or ideas; they're not written in stone. And doing art on an index card can mean anything. For me, working on an index card works for me sitting in my car in the morning before work with my coffee. Being part of this experience also allowed me to connect with other artists and be part of a community and make some friends. You can check out all the info on Tammy's ICAD challenge Now, if I could just get myself to put what I put on an index card on very large canvases, I'd be in trouble. lol Thanks for spending a few minutes here and I hope you will want to come again..I hope you might check out the ICAD challenge just for fun................Jo. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I am linking to Balzer Designs Art Journal Every Day here and Artsyville here

Daring

I had the sudden urge to paint on a larger canvas this week. The weather was crappy and not exactly conducive to dragging everything outside and the garage......... well, that's entirely another story which I'll save for later...... Tell me this was not daring. Crazy! OK. So I did lay down some plastic tarp and I probably should get some more to replace the garbage bag that hangs on the lavender wall.......... but, hey it IS the art studio. It worked and I haven't got paint on walls yet. So, this is a beginning of something........... who knows where it will go. And my houses- you know my affection for houses..........here are two of them. which seem to be perfectly photographed on top of the 50 x 50 piece of plywood and against the garbage bag paint covered backdrop. This saw was not working for curves like this These are in progress. So I borrowed this. Now that's what i call building houses! lol. This experiment was also done in my studio which really should have been done in the garage as I had saw dust everywhere. Stubbornness and determination are sometimes stronger than smartness, but, hey I accomplished what I set out to do. What crazy thing have you dared to do with your art lately? Thanks for stopping in and as always, I so appreciate all your comments......................xoxoxo

More Gluing and Recycling

I never seem to make it on time to Artsyville's Glue it Tuesday. I suppose better late than never. I find myself enjoying this process of gluing into a journal. In this case I'm sitting in the front seat of my new car the last several mornings with glue sticks and layers of torn paper on top of an already painted page. I finished it off with my own stamps. Since I am on this kick about using up scraps of my paper, this is where I find myself. One of my index cards I made with Daisy Yellow's index card a day challenge (ICAD) from last summer was used in the above piece. She's starts another challenge this June 1st and you can find out more about that here. I thoroughly enjoyed it last summer. I found that many of the pieces I did on an index card became the inspiration to larger pieces and for those days when I was just too tired or unmotivated I always felt like I had done some art because I had done my daily index card. Some of them ended up in a little book I made, some of them got torn up and used in other art work and some of them are still hanging on my art line across the room of my studio. I will again create some art on an index card for 61 days. And lastly, here is the progress on my houses, which also fits in to Glue It Tuesday. I am loving them but I also need to seriously clean up my studio. Thanks for visiting. .......................jo

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I'm still working on my faces in the morning. Okay, I'm not really working too hard on them lately because I'm getting bored and I keep telling myself I need to work on faces in different directions and I haven't gotten to that point yet, so frontal faces are what I keep doing. I will show you the okay ones and the crappy ones, too. Yes, a lot of crappy ones. Or I could rationalize it in that they aren't so bad for 5 a.m. I have to laugh because I think they are a reflection of me and how I might feel in the morning.... and in that sense they are true to life. Getting up out of bed in the morning when I have to go to work is not terribly enjoyable, so if I have to get up I might as well get up(sit up in bed with coffee) and do some art no matter what comes out. At least I am showing up. On another note, I saw an article on page 56 in May/June Cloth Paper Scissors on making houses out of woods scraps. I love houses in my art. I suddenly had the urge to go to the very unorganized garage and find the hand saw. I took a small piece of plywood and drew the outline of two houses and with much muttering I managed to saw out the images, breaking or at least chipping each one at the tip. No matter, I glued them with matte medium and put a paperclip on it. I then sanded them to remove splinters and then gessoed them, let them dry. Then I covered them with paper. Here they are at this point.Then next step is to sand them again and then start collaging and or painting them with painted papers. The houses by the artist in the article are darn sweet. Imagine the neighborhood you could make! I'm off to play! Thanks for coming by................................xoxo................Jo