Soul Arts

Another Year

 Another birthday rolled by this week... like christmas they seem to come around quicker all the time wheras as I child birthdays took FOREVER to come around... had a lovely time out with the daughter, got some lovely pressies from the family and a handmade card from a close friend... even scored flowers from the nephew!  Thats a first LOL (guess it makes up for the friends who forgot vbg)

Friday was another 3FL+1  day, Glenda, Lucy and Eliza bound their books and I worked on binding the one I am making for my sister.  Yummy lunch and coffee supplied by Eliza, good company and a lovely day day all round!

Another FL +1 project put to bed

Been laid up all week with a killer cold (thanks sis NOT LOL)... and finally started to feel a bit better Friday, so just after lunch I got out in the studio, fired up the heater, hit the lights and got stuck into my FL project that had been languishing for weeks.

Its made from bookboard frames that I bought from Jen Crossley at A Mark In Time, I covered one side in scrapbook paper (7 Gypsies, 'Gypsy Market') and the other side I covered with pages out of an old Womans Home Journal circa 1930 and pages from The Argus circa 1909 (yes I really cut up a 100 yr old newspaper).

The pages with the cut out name plates I printed the subjects name and their dates (e.g. 1918-2000) have just blacked it out here for privacy sake.

Added lots of family pics (not the orginals this time lol) and bound it all with fabric, tapestry, doilies etc., Had a great time making it and am looking forward to next year when Judy Wilkenfeld teaches at CSR 2010.. will hopefully learn a lot more.....

and yes.. I have cleaned the studio!

Finished!

I've finished my book!!  Now to get some lunch then come back and clean up this mess!  

Etching

Last week while Barb was visiting the 3FL+1 got together (which gave us 4FL vbg).... 

Lucy and I had dabbled with etching before when we visited Jen Crossley and armed with Stephanie Lee's book Semi Precious Salvage we got together for a day of etching.  I scored a large sheet of brass from work so we used that.. it was 1mm thick, fine for our purposes, but too thick to bend.  

We stamped with stazon, immersed them in a bath of Ferric Chloride (and from the colour of my hands, they were immersed often too LOL).  We left them a couple of hours while we moved onto other and had a lovely lunch with home made scones by Barb... then rinsed them off and dunked them in Liver of Sulpher...revolting smelling thing that just added more colour to my hands... I wish I had taken a pic of my hands.. they took a couple of days to return to 'normal' colour.. looked like I had jaundiced hands with black patina under the fingernails... I could have used them in my spooky book! LOL  

As the L of S didnt turn the etching as dark as we wanted we then resorted to my black patina and all was good...we sanded them back with a bit of wet and dry sandpaper to bring the etching back up brighter, tried to re-sort who had what (note to self: next time mark the back of each piece so we know who did what!)

The pitched room one I plan to drill a hole in and make into a necklace... the larger rectanglar one will be the front cover of my spooky album...

We plan to have another go.. and work through Stepahnie's book cover to cover.. but thats after we finish our frame books we are working on.... 

.... But wait! There's More! :-)

On the home run with these now... 

This page is painted with Golden's Micaeous IronOxide and Lumiere Pewter.. and then blended a bit where they join so its not a 'stripe'

I printed out and placed a churchyard scene at twilight behind it, and then in front, pondering the heavens is stone angel... if I ever go to Italy my first port of call.. very top of my list to visit is the Staglieno cemetary in Genova.. I know, I'm weird..LOL.. everyone else wants to see Venice, or the Vatican, or Florence lol... 

The back of this page has a printout of some gothic wallpaper with a witch, skull, and carrion's in flight or perched on dead gnarled trees... I created an archway with black cardstock, stamped and embossed swirlies on it (Autumn Leaves stamps) and then more Misty Fuse to soften it down.

Along the bottom I put a row of the obligatory german scrap vbg 

This page is also covered with Golden Micaeous Iron Oxide, Misty Fuse embossed with Black/silver at the top, and across the skulls on the bottom.. some Jo Sonja black texture paste and rubbed over with silver blue metallic rubons oozes from the window. The image in the arch is from the Itkupilli collage sheets and the metal element is also embossed with some of the black and silver embossing power

The back of this page features the Staglieno angel again, Rusty Pickle scrapbook paper, black german scrap scrolls and black crown and border (from Scraptivate in Perth).  I cut her to fit half in and half out of the arch...and then finished it off with a little scroll from a Quik Kutz die.

This page is the back of the one in the previous post.. Micacous Iron Oxide painted on it, black rub ons, an image of Clara Bow... German scrap wing and Quick Kutz spiderweb die.  She was a black and white pic but I coloured her lips red in PS.

and last.. and maybe least lol...the back of another page.. 

the words 'Muse' are metal letters, cuttlebug numbers folder, rubbed over with metallic rubons, black german scrap baroque border, chandelier from the Itkuppli collage sheet, its mounted on cardboard and attached with mounting tape for depth and lovely helmeted heroine is more art from Staglieno... though she doesnt have black lips or eyes in the original lol

That's it.. book is done.. now its just got to be put together....

Creative Mondays

Have been doing some more work on my Gothic Cityscape and its almost finished... the 'group' meets again in a couple of weeks and we are supposed to have our project finished and ready for show and tell before we start  the next project.

This is def not my 'normal' thing.. usually do vintage so its way out of my box.. but I had a lot of fun doing the pages...

This page was done with scrap book paper (was black and white but I inked over it with walnut distress ink) and a peice of black cardstock ran through the Cuttlebug 'Numbers' embossing folder.  I rubbed some silver metallic rubons across the top of it to accentuate the numbers.

The Crow/Raven is sitting on a chipboard #5 that I painted with a versamark pen and then embossed with a 50/50 mix of black and silver embossing powder.  Charlie is adhered with mounting tape so he sits up from the page.. he's from a  collage sheet by Itkupilli (wings too).  The words I have used throughout the book are from a 12x12 Seven Gypsies sheet.

Second page is also from Itkupilli collage sheets.. 'Secret' is from a Seven Gypies roll of gaffer tape.. and the webby bit at the bottom is Misty Fuse with black and silver embossing powder over it...

I love working with Misty Fuse.. its similar to hemming web but much wispier and comes by the metre so you can do much larger areas than you could with narrow tape.  Just tear a bit of misty fuse off, dab your gluestick (super lightly just to catch it from blowing away) and zap it with the heat gun till it softens.. then sprinkle embossing powder over it and heat till the embossing powder catches and melts.. the more you heat it the more the misty fuse dissapears and just leaves the embossing powder.. but with this theme I wanted to keep some of the cobweb look.

Third page is scrapbook paper background, with a transparency sketch of Edward Scissorhands over it.. and the yummy Johnny Depp as Sweeny Todd in the foreground, again layered on with mounting tape to give it depth.

Red Roses on mounting tape again, and more misty fuse and black and silver finished it off... 

Creative Mondays

It has developed into a habit  that on a monday once a month, Lucy, Eliza and Glenda and I get together for an arty day where we all choose a group project and then our own thing with it... trouble is.. the other three weeks of the month I tend to create nothing lol... I work much better with company!

So.. at the end of a phone conversation this morning, to force ourselves out of the rut Lucy and I made a pact that we would both go turn our computers off and do art!  we were to go to some more work on  the books we started last week.....Turned out MUCH harder than I thought it would be... not the doing art... but the leaving the computer off! total silence reigned... no tinkle bells of emails coming in.. no buzzing from friends on facebook... was very odd.. I now know what the end of technology will sound like LOL.

Our project last week was working on the Seven Gypsies Cityscape board book... Lucy chose Medieval Gothic as her theme.. Eliza is doing industrial and Glenda  Zetti.. and I was doing straight out Gothic (I think I have been watching too much True Blood vbg).

The first one (top pic) is painted with Golden Micacous Iron Oxide.. collaged image and paper at the bottom (from Somerset Studio).. the silver embossing on the left is adhered with Misty Fuse as well as some wispy Misty Fuse across the 'broken hearted man', over the embossing powder I added a black rub on and a rose printed on transparency.

Second page is painted at the top with Lumiere Pewter, then some more of the Somerset Studio collage paper (from the mag), black Baroque German Scrap borders with Silver Grey Lustre rub-ons over the top.. the spider web is from a Quick Kutz die, cut in silver flashing and then darkened with a stazon ink pad.. collaged angel and roses and the skull is printed on clear transparency.

Third pages is scrapbook paper background, embossed tinfoil at the top of the spire, rubbed over with stazon.. gaffer tape by Seven Gypsies and a collage image from Itkupilli (Skulls and Roses sheet).. love this one of the woman! lol... more german scrap and some rub ons finished it off

Last page completed today has the silver flashing again at the top of the page... I embossed over this with the row of buildings from Green Pepper Press 'Printed Matter' plate and Ranger Fine Detail black embossing powder..more of the german scrap (can you tell I love that stuff lol) and again the same collage paper page from Somerset Studio.  

The image is the Staglieno Queen.. a.k.a. Staglieno Angel.. she has been gracing the tomb of a rich merchant from Genoa Italy since the late 1800's .. just love this image and find it amazing that it's made from stone.. its just soooo lifelike!.... I mounted her on the page with foam tape so she sat above it for depth, and added some black rubons to create her 'crown' as well as some red bling.. and yes.. more german scrap to the side.. this one is a scroll.. Yummy!

I now have the fronts of four pages done (very big pat on the back to myself) and obviously the computer is back on.. bliss... vbg....next Monday I will so some more....havent done 'gothic' before so am working blind here.. all comments and suggestions gratefully received! :-)

Play Days

Had a lovely time yesterday, came out of my self imposed 'hermit time' after  the surgery and headed up to Ballarat with Lucy and Eva to visit Jen Crossley and do her little etched book pendant....it has a tin photo (showing my ignorance here and had never heard of them before), etched brass top and wire cross stitch... yeah.. that was fun! lucky it was meant to look 'primitive'  roflamo... but I do love it.. plan to wear it next week when I finally go back to work...

Lunch was yummy...Jen made pumpkin soup and sausage rolls.. we chatted, created and had a lovely time.

We drove past Lake Wendoureee which was so dry there was grass growing on it and you could have WALKED across it one side to the other!  I remember we used to take the kids for picnics and stop at Lake Wendouree (about 20 yrs ago LOL) but for such a beautiful lake to see it drained and dry was sad....

Been a While....

Geez.. a month since my last post...  where did the time go?

Hmmmm.....been flat out work trying to work in midst of renovations and workmen... getting CSR2010 up to speed so I can leave it for a couple of weeks while I go to ground for some minor surgery.... organising extra classes... guess I'm excused LOL

Went to Monika's Stamp Camp last weekend that she runs via Beachhouse Boulevard.. had a lovely time...all meals cooked by the every smiling Mick/Kitchen Bitch/MOTH... classes by the lovely and clever Rachel Grieg from Darkroom Door... good company...

Drove up with Lucy on the Friday (my roomie) caught up with Sue Thiel, Joan McAlpine, Liz Aitken, Marie Jokovanic and Michelle Brown... was VERY cold outside most days, and a bit cool inside the first night.. (not Monika's fault.. resident manager SHOULD have had the fires going before we arrived) but we were toasty warm from Saturday morning onwards with both Coonara heaters going... and I didnt need my hottie in bed at nights.. which, for those who know me.. know thats saying something! LOL

 We made a few cards using Dimensional Pearls, bottle tops and Ranger Accents and Rachels Darkroom Door stamps... learnt a few things.. but the BEST thing I learnt was how to flatten bottletops (NEATLY) and how to pronounce Adirondack!!  two things that I have always struggled with lol.. I am happy when I do I class that if I learn ONE new thing.. its been worth it.. so weekend (apart from camaradie and mental health/relaxation time) was totally worth it.

When we were heading off last sunday morning to return home we came across the 'sunnystones' mob just down the road..there was easy a dozen of them there.... being a city girl, had never seen so many 'wild' roo's in the one place before...

Had to take the pics from a reasonable distance though as everytime I idled the car forward they took off LOL.

Last weekend was Miss Maggies first birthday today too... little girl is now one year old... another big blur of time lol

I

Play Days....

This is the book I made yesterday with Lucy and Elizabeth.. the 'blank' pages inside will get more added to them over the next few weeks..

For now its only the front and back cover that are completely done.. like these pages though.. think I'll scan them as backgrounds before I cover them LOL

We made our covers and pages from super thick chipboard.. is virtually a board book as the chipboard was thicker than mat board.  Front cover with twinchies down the side (we altered the size ourselves to make them twinchies... in Kelly's book they were close to inchies)

Front is collaged scrapbook paper, brayered with Golden paints in Quinacridone Crimson, Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and Burnt Umber, then the figure painted in... rubons, shiva sticks, and gold leaf wings finished it off

 

Page One.. more scrapbook paper...  dots at top is Burnt Umber on bubble wrap, gesso stamping, some burnt umber coffee rings (using top of cordial bottle lol)

Page Two: More scrapbook paper, dots at top are large puncinella with smaller punchilla in gold over the top.

Fluer de thingy stamp again, more cordial bottle coffee rings... lined stamp again... smaller diaganal dotty things is raw umber on rubber grip mats.. the sort you get from $2 shop...

Page Three.. more Burnt Umber on Bubble wrap, brayering, stamping with Gesso.

The three holes to the right in Pages two and three...were a 'creative hiccup' lol.. we punched the holes on wrong side of the page! LOL

Page 4 - Last page.

combination of all of above... the lines were stamped twice to create a grid...

Back Cover, collaged papers, brayered Golden Paints, old text paper

 

 

Arty Days

Had a faaaaaaaabulous, just the best day with Elizabeth Harms and Lucy Leatham today... we were working on Page 23 of Kelly Rae Roberts "Taking Flight" book.....

Can't believe how much we got done..  nothing better than a play day with good friends....we all completed front and back covers PLUS four internal pages (we were in the ZONE!! LOL).... loved what everyone did... they all turned out sooooooooo good..... if you dont have  this book you need it!... 

Lucy, Elizabeth and I meet once a month, and over a few months,  go through a book cover to cover doing the techniques together.. as of today we have officially finished Kelly Rae's book and next time we meet will will start on another one (our regular technique/play day was borne out out off all the books we have bought, and never done much with LOL)

will upload scans of my pages tomorrow....

Finally... Some Arting!

Its been a very hectic and busy time these last few weeks  leading into the business end of our CSR09 preparations... have some stock on the way (praying like mad they arrive in time), finishing off the website for the 2010 retreat so that its ready to go on time, adding more challenge pics and little houses to the current website... working my 'day' job.... there has been no time for arting or playing.... 

I was my turn to do write up the project at 2Cre8art this month... like I could think of something to do lol.. finally last week inspiration hit and I decided to do a jigsaw puzzle piece... they turned out ok and were fun to do... check it out... would love to see lots playing in the challenge.

Its only EIGHT DAYS now till DJ, Stephanie and Bernie arrive.... ack!  doesn't that strike fear into my bones that we are now down to the wire LOL

Playing with Paint

Barb and I played yesterday making some canvas's... they are canvas flat panel boards....  have come to the conclusion I prefer the watercolour paper as even after you prep the W/C paper with gesso acyrlic still behaves different and (IMHO) better on it to the canvas....I made two.. one to keep and one to give Barb.

Backgrounds are several coats of paint and a mix of CC technique, stencilling with sequin waste, stamping with paint and some collaged papers.

Figures are free drawn and painted with acrylics before being shaded with NeoColor watercolour crayons.. detail on the skirt and pockets were added with collage paper

First one is the one I gave to Barb.... second is the one I am keeping ...

Will be heading back home on Monday... have Maggie booked into the vets for Tueday to be desexed... what a way for her to end her holiday LOL

NINE WEEKS TILL THE RETREAT!!! WHOOOHOOOO

Almost Time To Go Home

Its Friday today.... just over a week now since I arrived here... good grief the time has flown... I am due to head home on Monday morning so we only have three sleeps and three days left to fit all our 'playing' in

We have had a great time... been to the shops (several times vbg) am going to have to pack the boot a lot more carefully as I am taking home loads more stuff.... have bought a wonderful little wooden three drawer set with internal compartments that will hold all my pens and pencils NEATLY in a single flat row.. no more rummaging to the bottom of the plastic box for the one I want. (I am a storage junkie LOL)

Have made a neat ribbon holder up from a Kaisercraft wooden kit... bought new white shabby chic tea/coffee/sugar canisters for the kitchen (can just see hubby rolling his eyes at them LOL).  Have also been to the art shop twice and spotlight once... did some severe damage to the plastic there LOL

We have also put together the PaperArts mosaic.. our end our year annual project involved 24 people (but two dropped the ball at the end so we only ended up with 22) its all put together.. a mammoth task that took three days... and went postal last night so they should all start receiving them back as of Monday.

Today we (Barb and I) and going to do two canvas's each... then give one to each other....(on the left) is a collage pic I did on watercolour paper using acrylics and collage papers before I came up here... was my christmas gift to Barb

Arting with Friends

I finished my second canvas tonight (the one we started on Monday afternoon).  Because we finished the first one so quickly we decided to do another one .. this was from the March 2008 Cloth Paper Scissors... the background and concept is Kelly Rae's but the face was done using my own techniques that I am comfortable with vbg...

With Glenda and Elizabeth we worked through the face step by step using Tom Bows, Neocolour and pens and techniques I learnt  over the years in my Cloth Doll days.. and have found the same process works very well on canvas (prob better because its flat where a dolls head was curved lol)... was very pleased with the way mine turned out after a few earlier disasters lol .. and have now given up using paint.. will revert back to the pens and watercolours... life is better IN my comfort zone lol.

One more day and start a month's holidays... hallelujah!  cant wait... am home for Christmas then head up to Wagga Wagga on the 1st.. back home on the 9th... and possibly a couple of days here and there with friends before its back to the salt mines...