Saturday, September 26, 2009

joy


that's what i've been feeling lately, and lots of it... i suppose that august 23 - september 23 is a whirling, high time for all virgos - it sure is for me each year, and this year was no different. if anything the ride may have been a little higher and a little faster!

in the last week i've been to lava beds national monument and back to mt. shasta for the equinox. both places are simply beautiful. lava beds nat'l monument is where the petroglyph cliff is. since this is already a long post, i'll put a link here to last years post with photos of some the petroglyphs. i can't resist sticking in a couple of shots from this trip, though...


above the cliff many, many birds were circling...


just one of the hundreds petroglyphs...


the lava tubes/caves are about 20 miles from the petroglyph cliff... this juniper was growing at the top of a shallow cave. some go on and on, and some are shallow. what amazes me about junipers is that they can grow in places like this with virtually no soil!


these pictographs were in the cave under the juniper above,


as were these. i left these pics huge so you can click on them for further gazing...


in my walking here at home i finally saw a pack rat house when the light was right for picture taking! as you know, i'm crazy about pack rat architecture - it impresses me to no end. i also left this pic huge so you can click and see the pièce de résistance at the top. look at those sticks all neat and tidy lined up! also, the big stick that i've drawn an arrow to - was that already there and one of the reasons that he (she?) chose this particular building site (it's one of the main supports), or did she ask her friends over for a 'stick raising'?! either way it's impressive!


speaking of sticks...








and a little flag love left behind on mt. shasta. love those chenille bees...


the page at the top of this post is the last one in my third Barely There Book... i did a couple of paintings on the last pages, and a lot of experimenting with photo transfers. i think this is me pondering another transfer technique... no wait, i think it's me looking at another transfer failure!


this was the paper that was left behind from an experiment. the transfer didn't work, but the paper looked great!


a photo transfer that did work on the cover page - this was using regular paper and matte gel medium, which so far is about my favorite technique.


this is the first page i did after i finished the BTB. still muslin, but i'm leaving the pages separate. after working in a book for so long, i'm loving not working in a book. it's freeing...


the back of the page above. it seems to me that joy lives inside us like the life force lives inside a bulb. i think we all have 'joy bulbs' inside of us...


i did this transfer of a painting of frida's using TAP. i've had some good results with it and some not-so-good results, but this one i really liked. everything was already on the page before i did the transfer (the wing, the flower, etc.). i think you'd have to gel medium over the transfer before you could add to it because it has a waxy/plastic-y surface.


the back side of frida - the bottom of the page was another TAP transfer that turned to mud. for some reason the colors just didn't show up, so i gessoed over it... these pages were done on the day i went to the lava beds... frida is crying in her painting, which is what i feel about the way the native americans were treated who used to live on this land.


i got my trusty caran d'ache crayons out to paint these bulbs. mostly i dip the crayon into the water and scribble around with it until it dries out, then dip again. i used a brush here and there, but not much. i love the way the crayons look on the muslin.


another TAP transfer - the bottom was way darker than it should have been so i made it darker yet and sort of covered everything up.


the silk ribbon on the right is from vivian bonder. she sells the most exquisitely colorful silk ribbon on the planet.

the day that karin b. told me about the red book, it was all i could think about... you can read about it here.


this painting is done on a piece of raw silk - it's not a journal page, but i wanted to show it to you because painting on silk is really wonderful, and i highly recommend it. kathy gave me a lot of incredible birthday presents, and one of them was a yard of silk... (and some more st. armand paper, and paints, and, and) thank you so much, kathy!

this week's quote is courtesy of banksy...

The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.


have a beautiful week everyone!

XO

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

happy equinox


have a joy filled day everyone!

i'm off to play...

XO

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

the dreamer


good heavens! your response was beyond my wildest imagining! thank you!! one set of Barely There Books seemed, well, barely enough, so i made two more... the three names that i picked from the hat are:

caity
mansuetude
rebecca in NZ (signed in as anonymous)

send me your snail mail addys and i will get your packages off to you! and thank you *everyone* again!

i changed the design of these books so that instead of the pages being sewn together, they're held together with brads. i think that the holes won't fray because of the paint on the muslin, but we'll see. it's a learning experience, hee! i like this idea better because you can take the book apart and work on the pages individually if you want.


last wednesday, 9/9/09, we went to mt. shasta... word had it that a large crystal under the mountain was to be activated on that day. i know that to many people this is just right over the top, but heh, jimmie and i aren't many people... it was a fabulous, high energy day... this is looking up at the very top of the mountain from where we got out of the car to go walking.


there were lots of others walking around on the mountain, and lots of cairns and designs made from rocks... i left flags and drew on sticks, and just generally felt deliriously happy.


i drew/colored this with colored pencils at the coffee shop before we drove up the mountain. it's in a teeny tiny BTB. love those colored pencils!


i tried to do an image transfer on the back of the page, but it didn't turn out so great. it seems like i'm either scrubbing off too much or not enough of the paper!


a couple more pages in the small book...




this was another attempt at image transfer in my bigger BTB. i like the way it turned out... i didn't do much art in my journal last week...


only these two pages, which are pictures ripped out of catalogs and then colored over,


mostly with colored pencil. the images are covered with matte gel medium so the colored pencil really sticks. i was thinking that it's like paper dolls for grown-ups...


i went to visit the green shrine tree... propped everything up and added some new greens. sometimes i think about setting up a hidden camera to find out how long it takes the creatures to come out and topple everything over again.


the queen of the green shrine tree...


she lives nearby,


as does he...

instead of an art related quote this week, i'm going to quote from one of my favorite books, 'oneness'. it only seems fitting after last week...

The Dreamer does not care what is or is not possible. For theDream is based in limitlessness. The Dream is totally without structure. The Dream is found in the depths of the child who still dwells within -- regardless of how disenchanted or disillusioned you may consider yourself to be. Regardless of how jaded you are or how broken by life's blows, the Dreamer remains untouched. And reconnecting with that rarefied spark of your own Divine essence is the key element in restructuring the life you are preparing to transform. Before The Artist can begin to emerge from the radiant core of your being and give expression to the unique creation that is to be your life, you must first find and liberate The Dreamer from the prison of your linear consciousness.

Oneness, received and transcribed by Rascha



XO

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

thank you


i wanted to say thank you for your support of all of the muslin art i've been doing lately, so i made a Barely There Book to give away as a small way of saying thank you! for your kind words and encouragement.


the average page size is about 4" x 6", with some pages a little bigger and some a little smaller...

most of the pages have tabs on them like these, so you have the whole surface to work on. if you enlarge this pic you can see bits of paper here and there on the page; some of the pages have this from the drying process - i like it because it adds another element, but if you don't like this kind of thing, you probably won't like the book... then again, if you don't like this kind of thing you probably abandoned my blog long ago, hee!! the beads... i made some beads to go with it... something about the muslin's made me want to fire up my torch up again...


and a teeny tiny BTB to go with the bigger one. it's 2 1/2" x 3 1/2", for your pocket or purse (the pine needles are just propping the bead up)... kelly has a teeny tiny moleskin that she draws in, and that's where the idea came from.

if you'd like to have your name put in the hat for these books, just put the letters 'btb' at the end of your comment. and thank you, again! oh, and for some Barely There inspiration, have a look at what roxanne's done in hers...


last week i rearranged my art room to make room for the twinkling H2Os -- seriously, a hundred plus colors take up a lot of room! even though it looks messy it really is organized - all of my favorite stuff is within arm's reach. i think that even if i had a bigger room i'd still have everything crammed into a space this size so i could reach it without getting up!

"who me?"

i used watercolors more on this weeks pages...


and i've stopped drawing anything on the back side of the page because it messes with the oil pastels too much. so i just stick a piece of ripped up art from the 'rough muslin' book on the back side. i'm thinking about working on individual pieces of muslin after this book is done and putting them together once i get a stack...


this little guy's head was already on the page, i just added the body...


i drew this after listening to van morrison's 'tupelo honey' (she's an angel of the first degree)... love that song, and i liked everything about her except her face, which went from bad to overworked worst throughout the course of the day. i finally decided to get the manicuring scissors and cut her face out! then i put a piece of muslin from the 'rough muslin' book (i swear it's really coming in handy for as much as i didn't like it ; ) behind the opening and stitched around it. i like this idea of cutting out openings...


mail art that'll soon be on its way...


i saw this *way* up in a tree when i was out walking, so i sat down under it...


these are the only two pics of drawings on sticks from last week... i've been drawing faces for trees. i sit down next to a tree and draw the face that comes to me, and believe me, it's fun! i highly recommend it! i use prismacolor colored pencils because that's what i have, but i'm guessing that any kind will work. thank you for your nice words about my stick art!


i made a stash of tree flags to take to mt. shasta tomorrow... i used (mostly) oil pastels and a china marker. simple and waterproof... and of course there'll be sticks there...

this week's quote is truly an art quote! i think it's something that we all know, but i like to be reminded of it...

Contrast is everything. Color doesn't read until you put another color next to it. For example, when you place what you think is true red on a neutral background, the red looks warmer when you put crimson next to it. When you put red-orange next to the red, the red appears cooler. But if you place green beside red, both colors seem more intense. Every time you add a color to a composition, you change all the relationships.

Nita Leland in 'Confident Color'

XO