2012/365 - Day 105

About Face

Today Ruth and I went to the artists reception for the show "About Face" at the Plymouth Community Arts Council.  I knew our friend Peggy Kerwan had two pieces in the show and we wanted to go and see her at the reception.  We also discovered that our friend Carla Morabito has a piece in the show as well.

It was a very pleasant reception with live music.  This is just a small sample of the artwork in the show -- you really ought to go and check it out for yourself.

The show runs through April 26th.

The Plymouth Community Arts Council

774 N. Sheldon Road

Plymouth, MI  48170

(734) 416-4276

Hours:  Monday - Thursday from 9:00 - 5:00

2012/365 - Day 104

toning down some color dots

I had a pretty full day of art related activities and I am finishing it off with toning down some color dots on this little bear guy.

I spent the day with my sister and her mother-in-law and we went to lunch, shopped at State of Mind Gallery and the Northville Art House store, and viewed the current show at the Art House.  Sue also picked up the painting she has been making installment payments on at the Art House -- she was SO excited! And then we went to Tuscan Cafe for coffee and dessert.
 

 The last time I worked on him was back on Day 54 part two

and Day 35.

Tonight I was looking for mindless repetitive busy work that I could do while the music as going...filling the well kind of stuff.

I am using white tissue paper to tone down the tissue paper dots of color.

I can only do so much at one time, though...I need to see how clear the matte medium dries over what I've done.

I'd say I am pretty happy with the progress so far.  And the process.

2012/365 - Day 103

Second Thursday stuff

Tonight was another get together of the Second Thursday group.  We met at Peggy's house tonight and it was just Peggy, Leann and me.

Peggy came up with the activity for tonight.

We used Exacto knives to alter and cut up an issue of National Geographic...inspired by the artwork of that guy who does amazing things to encyclopedias and books.  

Here is a link for the artist Peggy was telling us about -- Brian Dettmer.

This is one that Peggy worked on prior to us coming over and it is waaaaay cooler in person than in the photos.

This is Peggy demonstrating how to get started.

Leann and her magazine.

Mine in progress.

I love taking photos of people taking photos.

This was a really great project -- Thanks, Peggy!

I brought home a second magazine that I will combine with the first one.  I will blog about when I work on it again.

After we were done with our project we went over to Ruth's apartment.  

Ruth invited us over to go through some buttons and jewelry bits she acquired.  There is a lot of really cool stuff in there!

Thanks, Ruth!






We invited Ruth to join the Second Thursday group and she accepted!


(again tonight I am seeing "invisible" boxes over one of the photos in my blog post...I can't get rid of them and I hope they aren't there in your view.)

12/365 - Day 102

Artist Trading Card Exchange Group

Tonight was our ATC Exchange Group meeting.  This month's theme was "Flight".  There were a lot of different takes on the idea of flight...all of the cards were so great!

Leann brought a ton of supplies and showed us part two of her carving techinques.  We all made reduction prints by carving little erasers and printing with different colors of ink pad.  Such fun!  The time just flew by!

I didn't get around to see everybody's prints, but Ruth was sitting to my left and here is one of her carvings.  The colors are so pretty.  They remind me of the tulip from last night.

Ruth is so good with the use of color.

This was my first one.  It was done in three stages on the flip side of a little cow head eraser.

I used a flower-shaped eraser for my second print and took Leann's suggestion to carve the eraser on the end of a pencil for the center of the flower.

I don't usually try to just make a pattern so I looked at a design book that Leann brought and put a couple of ideas together and came up with this.  I sort of like it, but it was more of a learning experience to see how things would look the more I carved spaces away.

These are the cards I made for trading.  I printed out photos I found by Googling the word flight and the word crow.  I couldn't find the sources again when I went back to look up who made the original elements.  I used details from several photos.  The wings are from a Tiffany's ad in a magazine -- they are white diamond earrings with other parts that hang down from them.  I scanned the magazine picture and changed the color in my photo program.

The three light green dots on the cards above the open card are chartreuse colored brads that let the wings and head fold up from behind.

These are the five wonderful cards I got in trade.  They are by Margie, Emily, Jane, Barb and Sandy.

I was also lucky enough to get one of Leann's "extras" of her flying chicken reduction print.  And Barb had a few Circle cards from last month (she had to miss last month).

Barb also brought her two cards for our tarot deck project.  I am still waiting for the last two cards before I show all of the ones in our set.

What a marvelous group of fun people -- the time just flies by so fast!

2012/365 - Day 101

sometimes talking is just as good as doing

I got together with Ruth today...it seems like it has been quite a while since we've been able to just get lunch and coffee and talk...and then come back to my house and work on artist trading cards or other things.  

We started out with good intentions, although Ruth hasn't been feeling the theme for this month's ATCs. We were hoping to get something going for her when we came back after our late lunch/early dinner at Tuscan Cafe.  

 When we pulled in the driveway I wanted to show Ruth these tulips that look like they have been painted by an artist, there are so many colors on each flower.

Ruth wanted to bring one inside to look at it closer.

See the stylus and little foam rectangles just beyond the flower?  Ruth really did try to make something for the trade but she really just hasn't been feeling connected to the theme.  She carved a picture, we printed it...but it wasn't happening.

We talked some more about some of the things we talked about over coffee and I went down to the basement to retrieve some photo albums to show her so she could put faces to people I was mentioning.

While I was grabbing the photo albums I remembered the Rubberstampmadness article about some carvings I did a long time ago and she hadn't seen it...so I brought that up, too.

Ruth is always so interested in seeing what I'm working on in person...she sees things in the blog and likes to come over and see for herself.  I dragged the canvases out to the dining room because it really is easier to see the emerging creatures in person vs viewing them in photos on a laptop.

We had a sort of mini work-in-progress show.

It was cool because we brought each canvas over to the table and looked at it closely.  We talked about how I might be able to define the creatures, how much to leave in, where to stop, do I paint them, leave them alone, ink them, add more paper...

stuff like that.  It was really good to get feedback.

We had such a good time.  We both really needed it, we really needed to get out of the house and get together.  Sometimes talking is just as good as doing.  

I'm a little talked out and thought out right now.  I have all the parts for my ATCs printed out and cut out -- all the pieces and supplies are ready -- I just need to assemble them.  I will do that later tonight and have them ready for trading tomorrow.  I wanted to blog now so I don't have to worry about how late it is getting and rush the deadline and all that later on. 

2012/365 - Day 100

wow -- what?

Wow -- it sure doesn't feel like we are one hundred days into the year already. 

 

Last night I was cutting up the cardboard trays that the cat food cans come in.  Today I realized that I could use the ends of the trays, too.  Duh!

I cut the strips into little pieces...

...and they work pretty darn well to fill in gaps between the tomato cage grid and the chicken wire inside of the base...however...

...there are still some areas underneath the tomato cage and chicken wire where the chicken wire doesn't touch the aluminum foil.  I will still have to figure that part out before I try to add masking tape and plaster cloth.

It is sort of strange re-starting a project like this.  The cat-creature's chicken wire base was done so differently compared to this one.  To come back and try and work out the mistakes in this goat-creature quite a challenge.

2012/365 - Day 99

from the recycle bin

Monday is trash collection day on my street and I was just looking around getting stuff bagged up for the morning.  I have a fairly good sized box of cardboard to go out for the recycling bin and it occurred to me I might put some of it to even better use myself.

 Pookie and Avalon eat canned food twice a day and I have loads of these cardboard trays that I normally toss into the recycle bin.

There is a LOT of surface to cover and even out on the goat-creature.  Hmmm...

I cut up one of the cardboard trays and filled in the gaps underneath with folded paper rags.  Then I taped them onto the goat-creature.

 

I used a combination of paper rags underneath and wadded wet plaster cloth on the edges to add more strength.

I tried a couple of different ideas to see what will work the best.

The goat-creature was turned a bit to put the wet area facing up.

I hope this works out...it will save lots of time, plaster cloth, aggravation, etc.  

I am still thinking about what to do with the inside.