Hey baby it's cool man

The kids are on vacation and so am I for a few weeks and  this means we have more time for art and I can sign up for some more trades with all my down time.  Here's a fun one I just finished called called "Lost in the 70's"  I decided to do Linda, Elton, Jim and David.

Elton didn't quite get it right but he was really fun to draw.  I can see myself doing a whole series of Eltons and Bowies based on their chhh.chhh...changes.

Graphite ATC trade

I did a super three card ATC trade last month and  I got some great cards back.  To be honest I've been mildly disappointed in some of the trades I've made in the past six months.  I hand draw or paint nearly all of my cards and they take me about three hours each, so when I get a card back with a scrapbooking sticker stuck on it or a glittery mess it puts me off wanting to trade ever again.  I don't expect everyone to trade a mini Van Gogh but I do like when someone puts in a lot of effort and it shows.  It means they respect their art and I get to have a piece of that.  That's the fun part.

On my ATC trading site which is lots of fun and slightly addictive, I signed up for a graphite trade.  Here's what I sent, (four cards by the way because you always send an extra card as a gift to the gracious hostess of the swap)  I am slightly obsessed with Mayans:

    and here are the three amazing little cards I received in return:

It was a really gratifying trade.  I think I might do more graphite cards in future trades.  They're really stunning.

A sort of scrapbooker rant

I just got a new keyboard and after nearly six years typing on a Mexican keyboard ay carrramba!  I am now back to a French keyboard.  The qwerty to azerty downshift  thing is a little tough but it's appeased by the fact that now I have the good  accents!  in the right place!  yay!  No more upside down exclamations !!!

I 've been making some art journaling videos and watching lots of them on the internet to get ideas.  Some videos are excellent with real artist touting real ideas and some unfortunately are not so excellent.  Some just give art journaling a bad rap.

Here's what bugs me.  It's usually the same type of personality and excuse me for pigeonholing but it's often a former scrapbooker turned "artiste". The problem is they  put all these horrific  embellishments on their journal, stickers and prepackaged crap and call it art.  Okay art is subjective I know but sadly this is not art.  This is craft.   Okay just move on to the next video right.  I mean forget them.  I'm sorry though.  What annoys me most about these people's videos is the hawking of the products.  Everytime they use a product they have to tell you what it is!  It's a giant whorefest for overpriced products.  And some of these people have BINS and BINS of these products.  The money spent on this embellished glitter art!  Calamity!  Paul Cézanne is turning over in his grave every time one of these videos gets uploaded.  And people are saying to themselves "art journaling is THIS, ugh and even if I wanted to do it I have to buy all that crap?  Uh; think I'll pass" and then the whole thing gets a stigma associated with it.

In the great spirit of counteracting anything that goes against the grain of doing something the natural granola way I'm going to start sharing some tips.  These will be some of my very own DIY tips for art journaling.  You don't need Homespun Exacto Glue or Stayrite Ink Dyes or even Lou-Lous Own Fixater or any of these overpriced piece of crap things to art journal.  These are swiss army knife journaling tips.  These are art jornaling war ration tips.  You don't need much to get started.  You just need some cheap paints, a pencil and a few trips to the garage.  Later you might want to invest in some better paints and maybe some inks or watercolor crayons but always, always, always make trips to the garage and don't worry about ruining your art for posterity.  Archival quality?  That's just ridiculous!  You're here to make a mess and if it falls apart and turns yellow in fifty years who cares.  I'm sure by then everyone will be making digital copies of everything in like 3D or something with smellovision.

Sorry for the rant and if you read this and you're a scrapbooker it's nothing personal.  I too like glue and pretty pages.  Just go easy on the glitter and don't call embellishments "embies" or I will hurt you.

Channel matisse

I did another video for the newest artist in my series Modern Masters.  This month I wanted to do Matisse.  Here's a video I did for the first in what I hope to be many journal pages.  My goal is to try and do a painting/collage a day based on Matisse.  So far so good!

Night time

Some ATC cards going off to a swap in the US.  The theme was called Into the Night,

Mail art

Look at me all into blogging again.  Go me!!

I've been doing lots of mail art lately alongside my art journals.  Let me tell you if you don't know about mail art it's like the heroin of the art world.  It's so addictive.  You make these little hand drawn or collaged trading cards then you mail them out and you get one back or two or five.  It depends on how the trade is set up.  There are themed trades where you do your art within a theme.  These are fun too.  You send your art to the host and she redistributes your cards and you get three new ones.  I just did a theme trade for Imbolc and I'll be waiting for my cards after January 25th.

There's lots of different format for mail art.  You can make postcards, any sized ones really, and mail them.  These are fun.  You just take some water color paper and slap on some collage work and then draw.  There's a million things you can do to them.  Postcards can be trouble when it's time to mail them.  You can just google how to make envelopes because you'll have to find a home for your artwork--or you  can just write the address on the back and send it off if you trust it to not get too crumpled by the post.

Then there are ATC's.  Atc's (Artist Trading Cards) were invented in Zurich in the 80's by a group who had this idea to do art swaps.  I think it was originally intended for artists who wanted to promote mini versions of their artwork.  Now it's THE main size for mail art junkies.  They measure 3.5 x 2.5 inches.  They're roughly the size of a baseball card.  These are the ones I trade the most.  I'm starting to have a nice little  collection of them.  You can make ATC's out of cardstock or watercolor paper.  If they're too flimsy you can reinforce the back with thin cardboard.   Like I said the themes are endless.  You can even make 3D versions that pop out.

My new favorite is something called an inchie.  Inchies are 1 inch square and they're  nearly postage stamp size.  I've made a few but have yet to get any.  What's cool about inchies is that you can make it into a little book with mini jump rings or maybe best of all throw them in a jar on the table of the living room!  This is my favorite idea.   You can hopefully get visitors to your house to make their own inchies for your jar by leaving blanks inchies nearby with pens.  I can't wait to start my collection!

Mail art is addictive for one main reason.  Nobody sends mail anymore!  It's doing a disappearing act.  It's so exciting to check the mail again.  Pretty stamps!  Little notes!  Handmade art!  Decorated envelopes!  This is heaven to me.  I am right in my element--art+mail+the international element.

My favorite site for trading art is atcsforall.com but there are several.  Go check it out but if you're timid about getting started you can test out a mail art card on me.  I'm up for trading with newbies and especially if you're a friend...double goodness.  I love trading with peope I know and I won't judge your first piece, promise!  Besides you will learn very fast when you get a few cards how to do lots of new things as you examine each new little card up close.

In a nutshell

"...lots going on so this is just the bits all scattered in one post as they pop in my head"

We've had a lot of snow and it's been really pretty. I'm really enjoying the views of our backyard. We do have a gorgeous piece of property which I love. I'm going to miss my trees.

I bought a new sewing machine to replace my Mexican one which although it adapted to our current okay with a transformer, it had bobbin issues and needed a tune up. Taking it to the repair shop with the transformer seemed daunting. I just decided to buy a new low budget one and will be giving this other one to my sister to take back home next time. Now I just want to attack sewing projects but we have the move coming...dread!

My neighbors (ie local girlfriends) strongarmed me into having a Christmas party this coming Saturday. I'm not so sure it's such a good idea. The adult part sounds fun to me but thirteen unsupervised kids tearing through my house scares me a bit. It's too late to back out but I did consider using gastro as an excuse once or twice.

Little S's bully is at it again and now has stolen his new hat. I'm really mad because this kid is a terror and bullies all the little ones at his school but especially S. He's stolen lots of things from S over the past few months including his entire Dreamworks card collection. This was a really nice ski hat I bought in the alps and gave to S to wear recently because it's been so cold so he stole MY favorite ski hat, little f*cker. Why are 12 year olds stealing hats from six year olds on the playground anyway? Who's watching what's going on? Tomorrow I think I'm going in to see the directeur and I'm going to ask him that very same question. SO, so, soooooo happy to be done with public school in one week and "Jordan" The Terror.

I'm really into all my Steiner books right now and currently reading John Holt, on my second book now, but usually divided between two or three books at a time. It's great reading and I can't get enough of it. I just wish I could get Seb to read some of this so I'd have someone to discuss it with. He doesn't have time but I think it's important, especially the Steiner because it's important to understand the why. I'm trying to concentrate on building my knowledge of Waldorf/Steiner schools and not so much focusing on homeschooling right now. It occurs to me I'm actually doing my teacher training that I'd wanted to do this year. I can see from the readings that I would be a wonderful Waldorf school teacher and I would love every second of it. I guess I get my wish as far as being a Steiner school teacher but I hope the homeschooling aspect of it works out. Loving the pedagogy and teaching a homeschool version of it may be two different things. I also feel like I don't know near enough about Steiner to insert this into my home without it feeling stiff. It's very vast and I want to know it all before I start, but it's practically impossible because Steiner runs deep let me tell you!

Seb has been gone for the last eight days but he comes back tomorrow. The things we get used to. I don't know why we're always apart. I'll be happy to see him back home for a bit.

We move our things out of the house in 12 days. That seems impossible to imagine. After that we're living out of suitcases. Kind of adventurous so I don't mind but it is kind of nuts. I was explaining to Charlotte why we couldn't put a Christmas tree up and then I just gave up. We went to the store and I bought a few decorations which we hung on the doorknobs. Voila! ummm ....Christmas, yes. I say that but it's hard for me to let go of the holidays this year. I know it's important to let go of all that sometimes and I'm trying. I just hope I won't have a meltdown at mil's.

I ordered all the kids gifts off of Etsy. I found some wonderful things! I encourage everyone to buy handmade next holiday. I'm so excited to see their gifts because they're really special. I tried to order for my family too but had some logistical problems with address changes and international credit card orders-- anyway I was happy to at least do most of my shopping this way.

The picture at the top of this post is of some snowflakes we made and then painted using Steiner wet-on-wet painting which I love btw. They're really pretty like stained glass in the daylight. I cut them out and the kids paint them although S is starting to get the hang of cutting them out. I'll try to post an atelier about them but I bet I won't have time. So very quickly I'll say: watercolor papers, paints, scissors (scrapbooking scissors are fun too!)--snowflakes-- just follow pdf instructions found easily on internet and then, drop flakes in a waterbath for a few minutes, and then watercolor using primaries only (RBY). Let dry on a radiator and be careful because they're fragile.

Hopefully I'll get a few more posts in before we tranfer ourselves to Th*n*n at the end of December. We're spending winter break in the alps before we leave! yippee!

Body parts

A few weeks ago we did a really nice kid art atelier I thought I’d share.

Here’s the supplies list:
Kraft paper , butchers paper, or any extra large sheets of paper you can find
brown or black acrylic paint + a few bright colors
Permanent marker

The spirit of the atelier was the painter Joan Miró, bright colors and overlapped images. The kids laid down on the floor and traced each other’s body outlines with a sharpie. You have to use big enough paper for them to fit inside and you have to encourage them to try to squish themselves in the frame of the paper while getting them to make a nice shape. It’s good to do a little practice session beforehand and talk about what nice shapes they can make—what looks good etc.



Each child then takes their own image and paints it in various bright colors which you can get them to mix. We usually encourage the kids to mix their own colors in the ateliers and it’s starting to pay off. Sometimes they’ll say things now like “hey look at my blue isn’t it pretty?” We originally started with just getting them to add at least a squirt of white or black to play with the tones but now they can pretty much mix their own colors from the primaries which I think is a really useful tool in life. Some kids resist mixing and some love it. I'd say don't push it and just let them have fun.



Finally when the paint is dry ask them to outline their image again with brown or black paint to make it bolder because the original marker drawing will be a little faded out.. It looks a bit like a police body outline when they’re finished, kind of creepy but fascinating.






If you like them you can mod podge them onto a hard surface, --wood or canvas works. You can overlap two or more of the the images to create a fabulous art piece of multiple kids images. My neighbor liked hers so much she’s framing it for her living room. They were pretty cool with both her kids overlapped, kind of like a moment frozen in time but maybe not as cheesy as plaster hand prints.



I still have to mount ours but first I have to get Little S to trace Charlotte because she was napping during the atelier.

Cancellations

Just when I bragged about being ready to jump on airplanes our trip has been postponed. Ohhh I'm really frustrated and disappointed. Unfortunately Seb has this horrid secretary who's really incompetent and nosy and she lost some papers she was supposed to send off for my visa. His papers are ready but mine are not and we didn't find this out until yesterday, two days before we leave. She's also been wondering aloud to anyone who will listen why I get to go to Shanghai and passing around my personal information for anyone who wants to have a looksee. Grrr.

So we're going in a couple of weeks but I'll have to take Little S out of school to go stay with the in-laws and they weren't thrilled about the last minute change of plans, (which I understand). We tried to plan this all around school vacations so that's the most frustrating part of not being able to go now and his teacher probably won't be happy about him missing school since he's so far behind. I'm dreading telling her especially since I have to take him out again in May for our US trip. Oh well, life is different for us what can I say.

So next week, hmmm. No big plans because I thought I'd be gone. My car should arrive at the dealership next Friday but that doesn't mean I'll be able to get it right away. I'll be stranded in the house doing lots of little diy projects and finishing up my cv. It went from being a fun and exciting travel week to a boring utilitarian week full of obligations. Poo.



We finally had to open the crates for our artwork since the basement flooding was getting me worried. The question is what's worse dust or humidity? I started getting worried that they might get moldy and to be honest I was really eager to see everything again because I'd pretty much forgotten what was in there. I bought three painting while I was in Mexico, you know kind of considered them my going away presents (along with my dishes and pottery) and I no sooner bought them then I had to have them packed. I basically chose this one the last week, asked Seb to pick it up, left for our flight to Florida and then the movers packed it the following week when I wasn't there. Two years later I finally get to see it again. It's as tall as me and I love it but there aren't a whole lot of places to hang it except the hallway. It had to be hung right away so the kids don't run into it with their toys or Seb doesn't accidentally drill though it (which I could definitely see happening!)

My other paintings are also modern but more Mexican. I really wish I'd bought a few more. I definitely would have if we'd stayed longer.

Back to the sketchbook

I've really been trying to get back to drawing but then I'd keep pushing it back in my head and forget about it. I finally realized that it was a supply problem and a light problem and also a subject matter problem. For supplies it was pens so I went out and bought some Pilot pens (V5 and V10 Tecpoints) and just let go of the attachment I have to FC pens because I can't find them anywhere near me. I fixed the light in my bedroom and rigged an extension cord to the bed table and finally I gave up on my obligation to draw different interesting stuff and just started drawing an obsessive amount of chairs. I really love drawing furniture.

I hate drawing shoes. I suck at shoes. I HAD to draw a shoe for a card I was making and it drove me nuts. I drew seven shoes and none looked right. I kept asking myself why I'd decided to make a shoe card and got two other people involved. Too late to bail out especially since it was my idea. I muddled through it though!



Little S it turns out LOVES drawing shoes. He drew hundreds of shoes for days. I've got STACKS of shoe drawings.



My point is that yes you can take a long break from drawing and get back to it and it's fine. I'm picking up my level again--it's taken a few weeks. I´m learning to let go of my drawing rules and just let myself go with it. And I think my other point is to draw what you like to draw because like Little S I'm on a drawing kick and my sketchbook is full of nothing but chairs. Go figure.

Observing

We spent the weekend working in the mezzanine, building some closets under the slant of the roof and setting up our office desk. It looks like a big mess so there aren't many pics I feel like sharing but hopefully soon. The closets will give us a place to stash our stuff and help us organize our papers, HUGE priority because we keep losing things.

Before I forget I wanted to share a drawing story. Last week S had his little girlfriend over to play and she loves drawing. I know at the mom's night out I go to I talked to her mom and she said she might like to do our atelier on Wednesday because she adores drawing and she's very talented for her age. So when Lola came over both kids sat down to draw and I was kind of listening in nearby while I cleaned the table. S went over and got his Playmobil ambulance and started drawing it with markers, looking up and down, doing all the details. He even drew the nubs of the tires. Lola was intrigued so she started observing him and then she started trying to draw the ambulance the same way by looking but she got frustrated really fast and stopped. She crumpled the paper and started again but still couldn't quite get it and crumpled another piece in a fit. Meanwhile S was busy adding stripes and other details and this was driving her nuts. Finally she threw a huge fit, "can you come and draw this for me Christine!" I came over and sat beside her but of course I ignored what she'd said. I wasn't going to draw it for her. I'd noticed that while she was trying to do what S was doing she'd not spent much time observing the truck, she just wanted it to sort of happen. Since "trucks" aren't in her drawing repetoire she couldn't do one and she didn't realize that by looking at this one she could draw it.

I worked with her and finally she did a pretty basic version of it but it was like pulling teeth to get her to slow down and take time to look. Her patience was really stretched. I realized then and there that there is a big unlearning process for observation drawing. She needed to learn to let go of her desire to reproduce stock images just like everyone. She's only five but she already has the little file in her head for drawing and she had the need for approval that goes with it.

It's never too late to start unlearning. Last time she came over she grabbed a bird off my bookshelf and drew it with no prompting, just picked it up and sat down. When her mom came over to pick her up she looked at the bird drawing Lola had done which was actually really good, and then she turned to me and said "see she's such a little artist. She doesn't get it from me though. I can't draw anything!"

Here's a good link which explains why this kind of drawing is so important for everyone.

Still going strong

A friend of mine asked me recently if I was still doing my kid art ateliers and the answer is a resounding yes! I just haven't been blogging about them as much as I should have. Mostly they've been held at other people's houses because ours is so torn up and to be honest I've missed hosting them (as much as I whined about all the details--whining is in my nature, sorry). Anyway since they've been held at other people's homes and it's winter it's been hard to do anything too involved like papier maché or the Jackson Pollack tennis ball paintings I want to do (I really want to do this!), so I've kept them super simple.

Here's a recap of what we've been doing for the past few.

About a month ago a mom suggested we do stained glass yogurt jars* using craft paint for glass and that was a nice "crafty" activity. The girls seemed to like it a lot but the boys were a bit bored. The moms loved it.** Everyone did one and some were really nice. I wasn't so happy with the results of mine or Little S's. It all looked too crafty when finished, not that there's anything wrong with that it's just that I felt disppointed. I did buy some of the paint last week though to try again at home using more restraint in the glitter pen department, ahem.

We also did a mod podge project with little ready made papier maché animals (designed for collaging or painting and sold in most craft stores worldwide me thinks). The kids LOVED this activity. The animals were a little cheezy,--- kitties and dolphins, cuteness overload, but what I liked about it was that the kids really got a feel for collage and the animals helped hold their interest for the hour they worked on it. It was a great way to introduce them to the idea of mixed media for later projects. Sneaky sneaky.



Today we had another atelier but a lot of people had other obligations and the host cancelled the day before *gasp* so I just decided I'd hold it at my house since it was small and manageble. A friend of mine came up from Paris with her boys and I had one other little girl who's a regular come over so we were a small group. I had nothing planned really so we cut out Christmas trees that the kids drew (folded in half and double cut--simple trick that they loved). Then they decorated their trees with hand drawn balls (I use old magazines for color and variety) and star stickers and in the case of the boys, truck stamps. It was really cute with their five years old drawings and they had a great time glittering and decorating them. In the end we had the idea of sticking them on the window as decorations or maybe stringing them up since they'd made two or three in one sitting. This was more of a craft activity but it just proves that the atelier can be off the top of your head if you can't find the time to organize it in a given week as long as you have a little stock of supplies. Voila! you can still keep it going.

I'm really happy with the whole experience so far and I have to say it's been more popular than I thought it would be. In fact we don't announce it around anymore because it's kind of awkward not to invite others after talking glowingly about it and how much fun it is. You really can't invite everyone though because it gets overwhelming. Probably the hardest part I've found is waiting for the next person to decide to take the reigns and host it. I like the control of having at my house and a few of the mom's tell me they've run out of ideas already (as if!) so in January I think I'll start hosting it more or less full time. It's just easier and it lets me switch around the invitees too because I now know two artist moms who would probably bring in some nice ideas.

The kids always run up to me on Tuesday at the school and say "Christine! Christine! on va faire quoi demain pour l'atelier?" (what are we doing for the atelier tomorrow?) They love it. Don't be afraid to start one because this enthusiasm will be there no matter what projects you do. It's really a nice ambiance and the kids are always much calmer in an atelier than if they're just visiting your house in a group with nothing planned. Many, many times amazingly enough we've been sitting there with eight kids around a table and you can hear nothing but the occasional peep of a little voice saying "pass me the scissors" or "can I use that red when you're done?" and like I said these kids are noisy kindergarteners!

*French yogurts often come in glass jars--small baby food jar size more or less

**sometimes the moms do the activities too--it's not planned and sort of just happens

Frrroze

We still have no heat and it's starting to get really difficult because it's in the low thirties farenheit. They won't be able to reconnect us until all the floors are done next week so we make do with our two space heaters and lots of layers! It's embarrassing here in small town so I just tell people "yeah it's fine we got our heat YEp!! (big fake grin) because if not people get too nice and start offering their grandma's house and it gets really hard to just say no. But yes I can say it on my blog that it's freaking cold in our house, help!!!

But that's not the freeze I was talking about.

A freeze-UP is more like it. Notice the lack of AEDM posts? I'm experiencing a nasty case of artist's block which is apparently a real problem for me. I never get writer's block. I always seem to muddle through my mediocre writing but over the years I've had a huge problem with art-block. I had it so often in uni that I changed my major. I get stuck. The new me though just journals with no qualms about who sees what but the new me never posted much art until lately. I like sharing my art in a hippy dippy "ma lookie what I done did" way but I think it's starting to mess with my head. So I will WITHDRAW myself from AEDM and go on with drawing, posting or not, and hopefully be cured of my little problem with sharing.

Not that I didn't do any art these past days, but I just got stuck and my head started going in funny directions. Ever had that happen? I just start going in circles like a dog chasing his tail. I get too many messages at once and then my filter gets blocked. I think that's what most artistic blocks are like.

My collage group met on Saturday and I did some découpage on my own which was lots of fun. I made a fox from one of our Eric Carle's books and it came out cute. I really appreciate his work now. It took me four hours to get the background and the body parts right. Damn. Découpage is super hard. Then the cool collage chick came by to see what I was up to and she said "oh you copied the fox from the book by that lady?" pointing to the picture in the book. And I said "yeah to learn how he (yep he,he,he,HE) does it." I think she's nice but she was thinking it was child's play and kind of poo-poo about it. I was working from a kid's book after all. Her work's been exhibited in Paris a few times and she's pretty talented at doing photomontage, which means she cuts from magazines and puts everything in a new perspective--not easy either but not really interesting to me because of the ethics involved in using other people's work. That's a fine line to cross. I really like découpage though and even more now that I know how challenging it is. From the outsider's view it looks very easy but it isn't that at all. Besides I can make it my own which is the best part (although admittedly to learn I'm not at all opposed to copying from other artists because that's the best way to learn, ...Manga anyone?).

I was curious after making my fox and I set about learning more about how Eric Carle does his pictures. I was really impressed. He actually hand paints his own papers and stamps them, storing them in drawers in color codes. I do this with my magazine découpage already but I never thought of painting and stamping my own papers for this use. Brilliant! You can link to his site for instructional pictures and videos. I think it's great that he shares his techniques in such detail. He seems like a very laid back artist. He lives in The Keys which to me means he's got his priorites straight--it's one of my dream house spots, ahhh (especially on a day like today).

Well here I am. I'm frozen and yet still inspired, somehow MIRACULOUSLY. I'm sure the frozen thing is the cold house and the pressure to post a pic a day. I never liked deadlines or critiques. Let's just go back to way things were and I may or may not share some art this month. Go on about your business. Pay no attention to the lady there drawing the ketchup bottle. Now git.

Whew.

AEDM day 4

I'm a closet manga fan and I'm starting to get hooked on manga drawing books. Seb teases me about this endlessly. He thinks it's for 12 year old boys and rolls his eyes when he sees me with them.

These are so fun to create even if I keep getting near misses with getting things right. This one today really bugged me for many reasons, mainly the eyes which were seriously crooked and oversized, scary! Anyway this month is just about sharing my stuff good and bad so even if I hate the drawing it's a banana peel like Danny Gregory says. You just toss it away and savor the fruity moment the drawing gave you that day.

AEDM days 1-3

Here are my catch ups for the past few days of AEDM. It's just some of my usual night time or breakfast time journal drawing.

Day 1: I'm crap at perspective but it's always good to practice. If you draw upside-down then it's easier to get the lines right and trick your right brain but it's probably good to get used to getting it right in real life so I keep practicing (and going nowhere!). This is a fireplace from a book on living rooms and the sword is from the chateau Montmorency near Paris, ummm apparently. I've never visited I just have the brochure because it looked like it would be fun to cut up and draw from.

Day 2: When I get bored I look at the Every Day Matters drawing list. I'm going to sprinkle some drawings from the list in to my journal from time to time although I have to admit that it kind of bugs a little part of me to be told what to draw, or I guess to resort to a list. So, these are my brown oxford ballerinas sketched over breakfast. Little S said "get your shoes off the table MOM!"





Day 3: Everyone in our house is sick with bronchitus so we have a lot of medicine in the little white cupboard in the hallway and on all the tables. There's also another EDM sketch on the page, the halogen track light in the basement kitchen.

Art every day

It's Art Every Day Month (AEDM) over at the blog Creative Every Day and I remember last year thinking I'd like to do it next time it came around. So yes here we are right in the middle of major renovations but I'm going to do it anyway. I've done the drawings for today and yesterday I'll back post them tomorrow, a little late, but what of it. I was locked out of my computer all day because of the window guy. He hogged all my outlets.

Nothing glam just some drawings but I think the most important thing is to show up.

Printmaking

Last week I took a one off art class which I wasn't quite sure if I should or could take since I had so much going on. At the last minute I just called everyone I knew and begged for help so I could do the class. I'm so glad I did. It was an artist's printmaking class and it was so interesting. I'm totally hooked. During the class I felt that incredible rush of pleasure you get when you discover something you really, really love for the first time.

The problem is that you leave the class wanting to print more but you can't. I left with two zinc plates and a borrowed etching tool. I really have to find an intaglio printing press though. I told Seb to keep his eye out for one because he works in industry and you never know what's lying around an old factory or junkyard. And I'll be hunting in all the local thrift shops for the next year. They cost a small fortune used or new. Meanwhile I'm trying to think of what I can use to make my own prints. I actually thought about running over paper with my car and I already tried the rolling pin from my kitchen. Yes it's that addictive.

We live in a small village but there are a lot of artists in this little community and lots of opportunities to learn. I credit this to my reopening the artist vault that's been closed for over ten years. I just wish I had more time to do it. It would be so much fun to take classes like this all the time.

Collage gold

My collage group is so fun. We spent three hours (some stayed on for four) cutting and pasting the afternoon away. Everyone came loaded down with magazines and the host already had a great stock of Vogues so there were lots of nice photos to work with. I wanted to steal a few of those Vogues I have to admit. I don't cut mine up. I study them!

We were mixed in age from 14 to 40 something *ahem* and so that mixup of women made it a really nice ambiance. The results were fun, silly, artistic, and nutty. Some people's work made you think and some were just starting out in collage spreading their wings so it was fun to see that too, future creative junkies! It was a really nice atmosphere and too bad it only happens once a month and not twice a month like I originally thought.

My collage art was very business like. I had specific projects in mind and only three hours to work until my babysitter-husband went on strike (they were running around outside in their socks when I got home) I quickly covered my date journal with a lovely smadgering of sea colors and earthtones and then I made cards for friends which I later painted at home. I was the Japanese art studio,--very efficient. In other words I just made backgrounds. I can't share those just yet because they need to get mailed off first to my buddies.

In other ART news (obsessed much?) I'm thinking of reducing my card format to 3.5 x 2.5 inches and I'd like to start doing some ATC trades. Does anyone know what ATC´s (Artist Trading Cards) are? It's such a great idea. Basically what you do is you make cards then you trade 'em for original art from other artists who swap too. It's like the way people trade and collect baseball cards only this is way cooler. They're the same size as sport cards and they fit in those plastic sleeve things. There are sites that do trades like SwapBot and ATC's for All but I'm not that far along yet. They have lots of rules and it intimidates me to start off with so many requirements because hey, isn't this supposed to be fun?

If anyone (and I do mean anyone) wants to try a swap out on me I'll be up for a one to one trade. You just have to promise me you'll spend more than twenty minutes on it and maybe throw some layers onto the surface. Let me know in a mail or a comment if you're up for it and I'll give you some more details.

Makeover baby, oh yeah

The front and back of my journal. The makeover is partially finished. I say partially because I keep adding to it and I haven't even whipped out the paints yet. I have a wonderful stack of old Science et Vie magazines from the 40's and 50's that were left in the house to work with. A little industrial but hey I have over two years worth so I have a lot to choose from. The ads are great. I'll have to scan some of them because they're really funny. You can actually own the cutting edge in recording technology with your very own REEL to REEL tape machine, portable of course.

Oh and next to my journal is the coolest rotten apple of the bunch. I love the color of it and it matches so well. I think I can Mod Podge it on there somehow.

A bevy of journals

My Moleskine arrived last week and I think I'm in love. How could I have doubted you Mr. Skiné? We've hit it off so well. It started off as a blind date of sorts but ended with laughs, drinks and lots of fun crazy stuff and I LOVE him. My only problem (and it sounds superficial) is he's a little stuffy with his black outift and the dumb elastic closure thing. But we're working on it. Poor Mr. Skiné though. I think he thought he'd be out and about in some Swiss business man's breifcase, dashing to summits and meetings, the highbrow life, and here he is stuck next to my dusty bedside table and getting his nerdy cover all decked out in glue. Sorry. I still love you.

I'm really eager to start a mixed media journal and I've been reading up on it to get some ideas for supplies and techniques. I realize it's a no rules diary but I still want it to have some style and have it be pretty. I don't think I can justify another Moleskine purchase just yet (if only, sigh) but I really think I want ANOTHER journal for crazy uncontrolled thoughts and the mixed media business. Hmmm, maybe I'll try to make one. I'm starting with a collage group on Saturdays through my local library which please, PLEASE don't let it be a scrapbooking class because I have a little imagination spot in my head where it's going to be all these funky artists types and I don't want to be disappointed. It's nothing against scrapbooking but I'm just not into traditional scrapbooking at all so a scrapbooking class to me would be a waste of time. I think this might be something fun though because I know a few of the people involved and they're funky artist types. SOooo, I need the new journal for my collage group.

All these journals and I haven't even showed my datebook which is my other, other journal where I can jot down my to-do's and my planetary notes. It's where I've been slowly getting hooked on mixed media for the past few months because I do about a month in advance each time and then draw and cut and paste and stamp the daylights out of it until it looks ready to write in. I got the date journal model from Geninne Z's blog and flickr set and I've really had fun with it. It's so much more personal than a store bought date book and so charming to pull it out and write a date down as everyone else fumbles with their iphone. Yes I'm old fashioned. I'll share some bits of it when I get a chance to lay everything out and do some photos.