Tangled up in Hues

I wanted to see what the Zentangles® would look like using color, so I started "tangling" in an art journal where I had already created backgrounds. The journal is a recycled publisher's catalog -- one of those thin ones with very shiny, slick pages. I gessoed first, then added color with water soluble pastel crayons, blended using baby wipes. I used the shapes on the page as the "strings" or guidelines. It was great fun to do and I'm liking the look of the color in the background.

There still wasn't enough tooth to the surface, so I scanned the tangles and altered them digitally to bring out the shading and sharpen the lines.

Here's a completely different page, one where I kept some of the printing that was in the catalog:

This one was digitally altered, too. I'm still pretty rough at this, but am I ever having fun!

Happy Valentine's Day

I've never gotten over my love of valentines, especially ones hand-made with paper hearts and lace. Or how about the decorated shoe boxes made in grade school and left on the corner of our desks, waiting to receive all the cards meant just for us?

In the spirit of those long-ago valentines, here's one of my recent assemblages. It is titled, "Young at Art" and created on 12X12" stretched canvas, using acrylics, paper mesh, vintage crocheted lace, digitally altered vintage photo, wire, beads, branches.

Let this be my valentine to you -- may you always be young at heart and young at art.

Happy Valentine's Day!

When Time Disappears

What makes time disappear for you? What makes it stretch out and out and out until one afternoon feels as if it's a week long and then -- snap! -- a whole day has gone by and it felt like five minutes? Nothing does that quite so deeply for me as creative work, the work of my heart and hands.

Lately I've been juggling half a dozen or more projects at once. That's not all that unusual for me, as I'm almost always working on multiple pieces, but right now I'm also taking an online class (more about that in a minute), working through all the visual journal exercises in an incredible book (THE CREATIVE ENTREPRENEUR by Lisa Sonora Beam, Quarry Books, 2008), and trying to get better at using Photoshop. Add in several textile art pieces and I think it's safe to say "half a dozen" was a low estimate.

For "Carnival Girl" I digitally altered a failed 9X12 mixed media collage, creating several different versions and learning a few things in the process. Is today Fat Tuesday? She looks like she's ready and wishes herself on Bourbon Street, doesn't she?  Whichever century she ends up hailing from.

"She Says No" is another digitally altered mixed media collage.  The vintage photo of the sulky girl standing by a small table is an image that finds its way into my work over and over again. The girl happens to be my mother, and I'd give a lot to be able to ask her what was making her so cranky that day. Since that window of opportunity closed 30 years ago, instead I use the image to make up all the "What if . . ." stories that flow from putting that image into different contexts. Was she saying no? Probably not.  But if she WAS . . . I wonder what she was saying no to . . . I wonder who . . .

What's kept me busiest the past couple weeks has been an online class I'm taking, Transformative Doll-Making, taught by Pamela Hastings (www.pamelahastings.com). The class, now in it's fourth session of five, is offered at one of my favorite online stores: www.joggles.com, where I spend way too much money on art supplies and books (and now CLASSES). Check out Pamela's website to see her incredible work and read about her process. I'm posting two examples of the dolls I've done in her workshop so far, one a paper doll, the other fabric and twigs.

I would be embarrassed about them both being self-portraits but as it turns out, I can use that to tell you about another book I'm enjoying right now (MIXED MEDIA SELF-PORTRAITS by Cate Coulacos Prato, Interweave, 2008).  It's a gorgeous book filled from cover to cover with inspiring ideas and techniques.

As our third Minnesota winter begins ever-so-gently to shift gears in preparation for its end, I'm realizing that this hibernation thing is turning out to be a great time for learning and experimentation, for writing and playing with all the art stuff I gathered at yard sales and thrift stores, for researching and exploring the scary world of marketing and art as a business.  That said, I also know I'm going to be ready to fling doors and windows open at the first real sign of spring!

More Images

Doing It Better

It's too early in this sub-zero winter to be talking about the ice breaking up. But I think some of my own internal ice is starting to shift and move and melt.  As far as I can figure, that's as good a thing as the warm winds of spring will feel when they finally arrive. I've always been the kind of person who pauses right before sharing something I've done, allowing enough time for that shifty thought:  IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH! to creep in. Sometimes the thought arrives even earlier, like just as I get to my art table ready to create something. Or when I'm sitting at my computer prepared to write. And that's when the next thing I know I'm doing email, watching TV, or playing mindless computer games for hours on end.  

I've been working at keeping a visual journal for several years now, but something has been preventing me from truly throwing myself into it the way I am able to let myself go with my written journaling. There are always these thoughts bouncing around in my head: I'm not doing it right.  I need to do it better. It's not good enough! No matter how many times I tell that inner critic to go sit in the corner and keep her mouth shut, I let the voice in and I falter. My work falters. For the past couple weeks I've been PLAYING with some of my "failed" collages and other pieces (like ATCs and postcards), using them to create art journal backgrounds digitally. Okay, this is too much fun for words!  And whether they are "good enough" or not, I'm sharing a few of them with you (above and in the next post).  

On the night of the inauguration I kept hearing people say that our new president made them want to be smarter, to find ways to contribute, to "do it better." President Obama and his beautiful, community-minded, giving family make me feel that way, too. Seen in that light, "doing it better" is a good thing. A place for me to begin is right here in my studio. In a spirit of playfulness. Practicing doing what I love. Finding ways to share it. Because, after all, that's how we get better at anything, isn't it? Today, still basking in the warm glow of Inauguration Day, that feels like spring to me!