#5 in Expression Series is Finished

This is the finished piece: #5 in my series of faces that I call "Expressions". This is a mixed media process of drawing, inking and coloring with Prisma Pencils and water color. If you read the post below it goes into the process a little more in detail. I thought this was going to be the last in this series...but!...I have already started #6..so I guess there will be one more...

This is a close up section of #5...

#5 in Expression Series

This is the completed drawing and the beginning of the inking process...not sure why it is turned vertically...but sometimes Blogger has a mind of its own????? This is the finished drawing and it has been completely inked. I have started the coloring process with Prisma Pencils.

Not quite finished with the face but I was really excited to start the water coloring so I will go back and finish the face when I get the watercolor part done...this is the first in the series to have watercolor on it. These seem to be getting more and more detailed and complicated...not sure why but I guess it doesn't matter. You know I was thinking that I have always loved to color in coloring books...now I just draw and ink my own drawings and color them...hummmm?

I really like the "bubbles" I got some new pan watercolors that have glitter in the paint, so I used it to color the bubbles...I don't think you can tell in the photograph...but it is really cool. I am wondering if the glitter will still show once the piece is matted and framed with glass...If you click on the pics you can see them really big and get a better idea of the detail. This piece is 28"x30" on Strathmore 180# watercolor paper.

This is a close up...so you can see the bubbles and the flowers.

Exquisite Corpse Collaborative Published

Just found out that the "Exquisite Corpse" a book collaborative that I worked on with 10 other artists has been published in this September/October issue of Somerset Studio Magazine. One of the things that was so awesome about this collaborative project is that I made some life long friends while working on the book. There are some pages below that explain what "The Exquisite Corpse" is all about. This is one of my pages...I used a "self portrait" of Vincent VanGogh which was only chest high and then using prisma pencils I complete the form, and added the brushes and the paint palette.

This is my second page...It is an original watercolor of a "Clown".

This is the explanation of the Exquisite Corpse that I got from Wikipedia. I did the words and Christy Sobolewsky did the digital back ground and Ingrid Dijkers did the page background. If you click on it and blow it up you will be able to read the definition. You can reach Ingrid's web site by clicking on her name in the right hand column.

This is the inside cover page...it has all of the artist's names and addresses on it.

This is the cover....done by Ingrid Dykers...Ingrid did all of the binding and organizing of the book...There were 2 extra books made, just in case something happened to a book when they were returned. Some of the artists live in Germany, Australia and all over the US so we wanted to make sure everyone got a copy of the book.

This is a pic of the book when it was finished. The whole process took us months and was very tedious because every page had to fit perfect for the book to come out right. It wasn't a matter of being able to trim or adjust the pages when it was time for Ingrid to put them together.

Some of the artist used clip art, some used original digital images, some did original drawings and some used original watercolors. So each page is very unique and expresses the style of each artist.

It really is an incredible work of art.

Since we were lucky enough for nothing to have gone wrong and all of the artist received their own books, the extra books are going to be auctioned off over on Ingrid Dykers web site. So if you would like to see the rest of the book and join in the auction please just click on Ingrid Dykers above and it will take you to her web site.

This is all so very exciting and I can't wait to talk to the other artists...WOWZZZZZZZEEEEEE!

Finished #4 in the "Expressions" Series

This is the finished piece in my series of "Expressions".

I did a little something different in this piece...I used Gel Pens to color her jewelry...like the head piece and the earring...I really like it because it gave it a metalic shine...not sure how it will look once it is matted and framed behind glass. We will see if the shine still shows????

I really enjoy making the "Fairy Wings" because no one can ever say I never saw "wings" like that...lol

Expressions Series #4 The drawing & Coloring

These are some of the steps in the creation of Expressions #4...of course you know how it is? I get into the process of drawing, inking and then the coloring and I forget to take pics. I tried to record the process...but sometimes I forget even though I have my camera right beside me. Oh well I think I did better on this one than I have the others, so maybe you can get the gist of my progress. First I do the drawing...and I even remembered to leave a boarder this time...it makes it so much easier to mat and frame if the finished piece has a boarder of 1" to 1 1/2"...I usually just use the width of the yard stick which is a little over an inch...I started with a piece of Strathmore drawing paper that is 18"x24"...that seems to be the size that I find the most comfortable to work on...or maybe it is comfortable because that was the size I had handy when I started...lol..
you know "roll with the flow" and what ever is handy...lol

A little more drawing...

Once the drawing is completed then I begin the inking process...I used an extra fine Sharpie permanent marker...this process takes almost as long as the drawing...because I seem to make it so complicated and have to really watch to not cross over any lines...unlike pencil there is no erasing errors at this point.

Now comes my favorite part...the coloring...this is when I think about being a little girl again and coloring in the multitude of coloring books that I colored when I was young. I use Prisma Pencils,

my all time favorite colored pencils.

The red poppies in the right hand corner are from a picture taken by my good friend Dawn Gold,

from the UK...she took the pic one day while walking her dog. The pic was awesome and she gave me permission to use the image as a reference for my drawing. I like to us photos as reference material for my flower drawings. Most of the other images that are in the drawing are from my head. Sometimes I use magazine pics of girls to achieve different expressions and skin tones...but most of the ribbons, butterflies and of course the wild hair are just my imagination. And yes I do thank the "Big Guy" for my imagination. My mother says I was born with this imagination and she even has some drawings I did when I was 3 yrs old...I used to wonder why mothers save stuff like that until I had children and grand children of my own. LOL

Some more coloring...I decided to make this a little risque...lol.

Don't forget to click on the pics to make them bigger if you want to see the details. :)

Here is the #1 Drawing in the series

This is #1 in the series of drawings of girls with lots of hair...lol...the series is called "EXPRESSIONS"...several people said they didn't see #1 so I decided to repost it before I post #4 (which I just finished last night).

This piece is 24"x30"...it is a mixed media (pencil/ink/Prisma Pencil).

#3 in the Mixed Media Drawings

This is #3 in a series of mixed media drawings that I have completed. It is 18"x24". First I draw in pencil and then I ink the drawing with an extra fine point permanent marker, then I erase the whole thing and color in the parts that I want to be in color using Prisma Pencils. I like leaving the "Hair" in black and white with all of the embellishments in color. The drawings usual take be about 3 to 4 days. I started this one while we were in Santa Fe, NM. Then the inking takes about 8 to 10 hours. After inking I erase the entire drawing to remove the pencil marks, I don't like for the pencil marks to interfer with the Prisma Colors...because it tends to make the colors blurry or darker. Taking this one to be framed and am starting #4...It seems I am on a drawing "kick" never know how long it (the "kick" lol) will last...but I have a lot of fun while it does last...:)

Altered Book Yahoo Group 10 Year Celebration

I belong to one of the oldest and longest lasting Yahoo Groups on the web, Altered Books Yahoo Group, and it is the 10 Year Birthday of this group....there are over 7000 members...and to celebrate this occasion members were ask if they would like to create a page (4"x6") to be made into a book. So far about 200 members have signed up. That is really exciting. Each person that participates will get a coping of their own to keep. Wow!
This is my contribution to the book...this is an original hand carved lino stamp that I made. Then I embellished it with gel pens, and used my "chop" as my signature.

Drawing almost finished.

All most finished. This is a Prisma Pencil/black marker drawing...I draw everything out in pencil, do the editing that I want and then go over the drawing with Fine Tip Sharpie, then color the parts that I want to be in color with Prisma Pencil.

New Drawing on the Table

There is a new drawing on my drawing table. I haven't been drawing enough lately, when I say drawing I mean that I haven't started a drawing that is intended to be a completed piece of art work...I draw all the time sketches, drawing in a journal or an embellishment in an altered book.
I really draw all of the time, but this is the first drawing that I have started as "just" a drawing.
I am sure this sounds a little redundant...but you get the idea. I have been working in mixed media for quite a while and haven't drawn a piece to stand alone..

So these are a couple of "Progress" pics, I don't usually take pics of the progress o my paintings or drawings...simply because I am usually into doing the piece that I don't take the time to take the pics...but decided to use a little self discipline on this and see how they would look.

Color & Texture in Chrisy's AB

This is an altered book belonging to my friend and cohort Christy...we are involved in a Round Robin on ICE Yahoo Group and we are in the last month of the RR... This pic of the entire book.
It is awesome.

This spread was made with Perfect Paper..then I added a large embellished butterfly on the left and a small metal butterfly on the right page (she really like butterflies) then I added some large sequin garland on the right hand edge. I used Golden Glaze for the color and added a sheet of cellophane that had silver stars(it came from a 1924 Central State University year book that I found in an antique store in Palestine, Texas...how cool is that?)

This is the second spread that I did and it has Golden Gazes for the back ground color, then some foam triangles that I cut out with some scalloped scissors and wrote on with gel pens. Then I sewed some beaded garland that I got at World Bazaar in San Jose California, they were having an after Christmas 90% of sale...love it...then I added some beaded fringe at the bottom.

This is the third and final spread for Christy's book...what I did here is I used some paper that I altered by using strips of an old magazine that I tore up and glued down to some water color paper, then I added strips of masking tape (3/4") and some glue dribbling for texture. After the glue was dry I did some washes of blue and yellow allowing them to blend in the middle, hence the green area, I stamped some swirlies on it and then just glued the page into the book. Then I added some alphabet beads to say "color" and "texture" and some little rhinestone embellished

cross beads. Then I glued down some sequin and furry trim and added some little tiny safety pins that had purple heads to the trim...I hope Christy likes how it turned out...

Three Finished Catalogs, Killed by Me

These are the three Catalogs that I have killed so far..you may have seen in previous posts how these catalogs looked after I soaked them in the bath tub and then how they look after they were scrunched and smashed and then dried...I really am amazed how they turned out...each one is so different. I just started adding some paint, some glazes and some stamping...then I added some fibers and some clay pieces that I had made and painted....these were quite a stretch for me, I usually lean more to the realistic side of art...but when I finished I was pleasently surprised. I am thinking about putting them on my Etsy shop. This one has a lot of beads and pages that I rolled up while they were wet and let dry. It could be hung on the wall or place on an easel for display. I gessoed the back of this one but I left a lot of the printed material in the catalog show through the glazes...The green pearlized leaves are some pins that are like corsage pins that I got from Lisa at Collage Stuff. I just pushed the pins into the back of some of the rolled up pages. There is a little frame that was made by cutting a small square in the paper before it was dry. There is a piece of lace that I put on diagonally to create a little more texture and then the beads are from a store called World Bazar in San Jose.
You know after Christmas sales are awesome, you can get some really cool stuff at 90% off.

I call this one "I See You" because I found some "googly eyes" that are funky colors and they just happened to match the colors I was using...funny how that happens some times....I probably had these things for 20 years and I just knew I would use them someday...well this was the day...lol. This is the catalog that had some blue & yellow Easter egg dye on it, so I built on those colors...well you know how much I love my Golden Glazes and the burgandy is my favorite so I add some of that...then I wiped it with a rag while it was still wet...then I used some permanent markers to do some doodle thingys. I have about 2 million buttons so I went through them and found 3 green ones and I sewed those on to the center. When I started to do the doodles I began to see triangles and so I followed the folds of the paper and accented those triangles with a purple marker. This idea of the Catalog Killing came from a UK artist by the name of Maggie Grey...if you google her you can find a lot more of her awesome work.

Any way, there are more "unsolicited" cataloges being soaked, or dryed or squished as we speak, some other artists and I are going to do a collaboration using this media, it will be fun to see how different our styles will be when we finish....we will post the results some time at the end of the summer...hope you enjoyed clicking on these so you can see them bigger.

I Wish I Was 18 Again

Click here to view this video

This is a video from my 50 year class reunion that was held last month in Fort Worth Texas. It is really cool...what great memories.

Garage Sale Finds-The pickin's were good!

Yes you are right! These are very old "Roller Skates"...most likely from the 40's. But this is the awesome part...(of course you know me everything has a little story to it)
I found these skates at the same garage sale that I found the little porcelain dolls below, and it was what I thought to be my last stop, and I only had enough money for the dolls, so I talked to the lady and told her I was a mixed media artist and I made all kinds of things out of old "stuff" (understatement). She asked if I saw the old skates?
(9 of them to be exact) so I went and looked at them, and ask how much she wanted for them, and she said "Oh $1 I guess". I told her that I had given her the last of my money for the dolls. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather when she said why don't you just take them and make them into something, and she went and got a brown grocery sack and loaded all (9) of them up and gave them to me...well let me tell you tears came into my eyes and I hugged her and gave her my blog addy so she could visit her "skates" when they got made into an art piece...(inspired by Michael De Meng of course) You know this ole' world is all about communication (and money of course but that is another story)...I can't wait to get started with these skates.
I really have a great affection for these kind of skates because when I was about 4 or 5 years old my daddy made me the best scooter ever, he used a skate (like these) and an apple crate. It was awesome. I spent hours gliding down the street in front of our house in Wichita Falls Texas, until one day the Milk Man was delivering milk to our house (that was in 1946 when you could still get your milk delivered to your door) and I was coming down the hill pretty fast (at least it was fast to a 5 yr old...lol) and I could not stop and ran into the HUGE bummer of the milk truck...and yes it knocked me out and I saw stars and birdies flying around my head. When I woke up I was in my bed with an ice pack on my recently acquired "pop knot"...and bandages on both my knees and elbows...but let me tell you that is not what I think of when I remember all of this...what I remember was the terrific scooter that my daddy made me.

These are all of the skates. They are fantastic...can't wait to use them.


These are tiny little bisque fired porcelain dolls (sorry for the blurry) I am going to make jewelry out of them, and the good part is I only paid $3 for them, I am here to tell you that I wouldn't have poured and cleaned them for $3. My friend Ingrid makes these kind of dolls all the time and I don't know how she does it. They are so tiny and precious...I photographed them in the palm of my hand so you could see how small they are.


Below are some other great finds (eat your heart out Michael De Ming,,,lol) I had set my self a $20 limit for my Garage Sale shopping spree...and I spent $22...opps...because I found a printer (brand new Lemarx) for $3 dollars.

What we have above is a big bag of buttons for .50 and below some really cool stuff including a gauge, a really old (old enough to be called antique, which is older than me...lol) light off of a Singer sewing machine, a metal flower, some wire, a grater and something that looks like an insulator but I am sure it is some kind of attachment for an electric juicer...OMG...how cool is that? That white thing with the gold brads is a bracelet...OK...the possibilities are endless here....what fun.

Web Marketing SOS?

My friend and partner in crime, Christy Sobolewski has a new online business. Christy is only the most artistic and creative web designer on the net and she has decided to offer her services to anyone needing a Web Design, a Banner for a blog, Etsy shop or personal web space. She has been a web designer for 10 years and has master level skills. She has taught classes on our Ning Network "Artistic Avantgarde". Her new endeavor is called Web Marketing SOS. She offers a full service web marketing agency that can build custom CMS templates, find the right net works and they offer A La Carte Services to meet your personal and business needs at a timely schedule and bugetable price. She has a very knowledgeable full time staff. She is reliable and works in a timely manner to accommodate your needs...how could anyone go wrong with that?

The First Catalog Killing is finished

This is my first attempt at Catalog Killing...I killed 3 catalogs...and the other two are in work...if you click on this pic you can see it big and you can really tell what is what with the embellishments...this is great fun and you get to recycle some of the junk mail that we all seem to get everyday. I used a piece of mat board to mount the catalog, that way it can be hung on the wall. I used Golden Glazes to paint the mat board.

This is a close up of one of the clay pieces (made from a push mold) then painted and "glazed" to show more detail. This is a close up of the top left corner.

This is the complete piece...I have added some fibers and wire coils...the clay faces are some I made using a push mold...I sewed the fibers to the bottom of the catalog across the bottom, then I coiled some wire and used my Japanese screw punch to make some holes for the wire to be attached without it showing from the front.

The Killing of the Catalogs has begun!

This is my latest undertaking "Killing Catalogs for Art". This is a project inspired by a terrific mixed media artist from across the Big Pond (that would be the Atlantic) by the name of Maggie Grey... she is awesome. I am not big on the whole "Green" thing (maybe because of Al Gore?) but I figured that every little bit helps and my friends are all wonderful "recyclers", so this is my effort to help out...these are unsolicited catalogs that I got in the mail and a magazine that I had since 2007. The plan is to kill these catalogs and make them into a piece of art. I think Maggie Grey and her friends actually buried theirs, but I just threw mine in the bath tub with some dirt, lots of water and ashes and leaves and "what ever" (we all have some of that "what ever", mine included some Easter Egg dye tablets...how funny is that?) In a couple of hours I took out the "sloppy" globs of dead catalogs (I checked before proceeding...they were dead), then I rinsed off the dirt and "what ever" and threw them in a couple of pans, I then distressed them by squishing them and beating them with a stiff hair brush. I am now waiting for them to dry. If you go to Maggie Grey's web site you can see how the pros do this and you will see some beautiful finished pieces that are just fantastic. This is a pic of the magazine (Real Simple) still in the bath tub...you can see the egg dye tablets.

This is a catalog after I "squished" it

This is another catalog after I threw it in a roasting pan...ONLY TIME WILL TELL!

Next Step in my Gourd Project

The wood burning is complete and the lid is cut...this is the removal of the lid... Ok..so this is really ugly...you have to wear a mask and scrape out the old dried pulp and seeds.

This is a view of the inside of the lid...uggggllly! But just you wait and see how awesome it is when I scrape and sand and paint it...:)

This is a close up of the design that I carved in to the gourd with a wood burning tool.

The bottom after the carving of the design

This is the design on the other side.