Day 339 - 365/2014

Day Three Hundred Thirty-Nine

I dragged myself out of the house today.  I made a run up to the Northville Art House to buy some last minute raffle tickets for tonight's raffle gift basket drawings.  I also wanted to see the mosaic show in person...wow.  I couldn't afford to bid on anything this time around...but, wow.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Upper gallery at the Northville Art House -- it will be packed in there tonight for the First Friday events.

These mosaics are a part of the 2014 International Mosaic Auction for Doctors Without Borders, organized by Lin Schorr.

And when I got home, there were two surprises in my mailbox.  A watercolor postcard of Krampus from Leann...and my second flip book that I ordered!

Later on I was looking around in the studio and I came across a small bin of Animal People that I put together while making the collages for Art-o-mat, but that were too large for the blocks.  These two totally separate guys are cracking me up and I think I will build a collage around them.  I was thinking I would like to put them in a shadow box and make the collage sort of dimensional...or maybe use a cigar box lid...so I "went shopping in my basement" and I came up with a few wooden nesting frames that might work.  I also found some painter's masking tape in case I want to use the cigar box lid...I would want to keep the patterned edge and I'd need to mask it...I didn't realize I had the painter's tape...cool.

Lifting the guy in front up a little to see how they might look in a shadow box.

The stuff I found while I was shopping in my basement.

The smaller frame seems to be the right size for this.

OR it could even be a shadow box itself...hmmm.

I am going to take my time with this...no rush...no deadlines.  I was just fooling around with it and I will come back to it over the next few days.

365/2013 - Day 120

fooling around 

Tonight I was just fooling around with some cutouts of those waves and clouds and sea monster that I made eraser carvings of for a sea monster ATC series several months ago.  I was trying to make a sort of mock up of what it might look like if I made a shadow box picture with the cutout elements.  This is in no way a completed piece...it is was just to give me a sample of how it might look.  Obviously the whole thing needs a lot of work and a lot more carving.

I have a small stack of much deeper shadow boxes and they are what I would use if/when I really do this project with more attention.  For this example I pulled apart a fairly shallow framed piece I bought at a garage sale with the intention of playing with the mats.

This is just paper cutouts with stacked paper stock underneath to prop up the cutouts.  When/if I really do this project I will print the carvings on heavier paper stock or watercolor paper and take much more care with the dimensions.  But for tonight, this was a fun process!

365 Day 237

carving more "landscape" elements

Okay. Back to work on carving more elements for my landscape/place-in-a-deep-shadow-box project.

I gathered all my stuff together and went to plug the iPod into the stereo thingy.












And Twink arrived to "help" as soon as I turned my back.

Here he is choosing a piece of soft cut carving material.









Already starting to invade my space, here he is about to measure the size of the piece "we" are making.










Having been scolded and warned that he'd be put in the bedroom if he didn't leave my stuff alone, this is Twink pulling that "if-I-roll-around-next-to-these-things-and-they-end-up-on-the-floor-they-belong-to-ME" routine that cats do.



Final warning issued.



Twink reappears at the other end of the table.

Yeh.












The "okay, put me in the bedroom because I CANNOT leave your stuff alone" look.










Finally -- I get to actually carve something!

This is how I began this free hand cloud.









I figured I would be carving out all of the inside anyway, so why not play with the carving tool and practice some swirls and curves.












A little bit more taken out.













Even more taken out...but now I am kinda sorta liking the way it looks.










A totally just carved cloud...no lines to go by...I just carved it as the blade went along.



I'm calling it the moustache cloud.







Another free hand drawing cloud...but without inking it before I started taking the middle stuff out...what will it look like?









Uh...no.













That's better...but still needs more out.










Yep...definitely looks better with just about all of the material carved out.














This is actually the same outline of the swirly cloud. I stamped it on some blank carving material and carved it all out.








Hey -- they are sort of looking like clouds!










All of the elements (so far) for the "landscape" I will construct in the deep shadow box.

I want to make some more smaller clouds and maybe a couple of larger ones. I think I probably need a house or something, too.






I plan on doing three shadow box scenes because I can enter up to three for the show. I seriously doubt they will get juried in, but I am really starting to like this project. This is the first time I have tried to carve images that I drew myself (instead of magazine pics or clip art). I am looking forward to seeing this little grouping when it is done (and hanging in my house.)

365 Day 234

I may have found a way to do a landscape I will be happy with

Okay...I am still thinking of how I can make something to submit to the landscape themed show and I think I may have come up with something that will work.


I already had some of these very plain and simple deep shadow box frames.


























And I am still in the mood to carve and/or make relief prints...but so far I haven't been able to come up with a composition that I like. Whether I use the photographs I took as a reference or whether I make it up in my head, I just haven't come up with anything that is visually interesting to me.

I'm just not feeling it yet.



This is the very very very basic idea of what appeals to me right now.

Two hills with trees, clouds, maybe a moon or sun and probably a house in between the hills.




And then today it hit me...how about using the deep shadow box frames and make a dimensional scene and forget about calling it a landscape (to myself)...I think calling it a "landscape" is what has been throwing me off.

I can carve some of the elements, print them out, put them onto cardstock and vary the depths of them in the shadow box frame. I can construct a little "place" inside of the box frame and then if I like it enough I can submit it -- if not, then I will have some more art that I have made that I really like and will hang for myself in my house.


Okay...these are still messy and just the first trial carvings and attempts at using the stamps together. They aren't inked well or very cleanly masked, but you can get the idea.

I am pretty excited about this now!


And in the end, I will have a bunch of hand carved stamps that I can use over and over again!

Oh...and by the way...I have been meaning to do an Art-o-mat series of small hand carved stamps for some time now. This is putting me back in thinking mode for that, too! I have way too many ideas for series for Art-o-mat...I will never be able to do them all...LOL...but hopefully I can do this one!