reglitterized

muslin, plaster cloth, pieces of paper, acrylic paint, oil pastels, pencil, colored pencil, matte gel medium

it turns out that i've been doing more art than walking in the woods... a wet and windy cold front came through on monday, and since then we've had lots of rain and snow. and hail mixed with snow. and snow mixed with rain. and sleet, hail, and rain altogether; a veritable smorgasbord of precipitation!

the pics below are from my 4 1/2" x 5 1/2" muslin journal...


on this page i used only colored pencils and pencil,


but on most pages i used the whole 9 yards - acrylic paint, oil pastels, matte gel medium, colored pencils...






i saw some mustard boots in the sundance catalog. mustard boots?!! oh! my color loving self wanted those boots!




watercolors that i brushed matte gel medium on. i was surprised that only the paynes gray (wings) smeared. i was going to add another layer, but decided to leave it as it is...

last week i got a moleskine pocket sketchbook, which, as you may know, is pure drawing joy. it's so easy to quickly draw in one - the pencil glides over the page. i go from the moleskine to my muslin journal, back and forth... i am happy!


i like to try new stuff in it. like arms that stick out at crazy angles,


and figures that aren't colored in all the way.


rabbits...


little people whose clothes go all the way to their chins... i think they're saying something like this:

mssr. turquoise body: look at her! of course she took it! how can you doubt it?!

mme. pink dress: mr. turquoise body! you wound me! surely you know i've never stolen a thing in my life!

mme. waving arm: acch! you two! do you ever stop quarreling?!

ha! well, i haven't colored in mme. waving arm's eyes yet, so her words may change. the eyes say it all...


this is the spot beside my chair... my little moleskine pocket journal with a button on the elastic - it was stretched out and not doing its job, so i made it shorter and sewed it back together with a button on top. in the back right is the hundertwasser calendar (that i think i gave you the wrong link to last time) i ordered for $2.80 from amazon. it's fabulous! i left this pic especially huge so you could check it out... the quality of the images is wonderful. and every day a new hundertwasser!


a plastic cow that i covered with plaster cloth and a little paper clay... she's waiting for a naturalistic paint job. i got a whole bag of animals at the thrift store; i'm not sure i'll cover them all, though. they're so nice the way they are. judy wise provided the inspiration, here.

i wanted to tell you about the slotin folk art auction catalog... you can get one free by e-mailing slotin folk art and requesting one. the catalog for the next auction is 139 glorious pages of outsider art. here's an example...

* * *

"But one of the moments I like best, after having done what I imagine to be my utmost, is the realization that it won't do at all. I decide to convert the quiet, static picture in front of me into a live, careless, free and easy thing. I strike out boldly with whatever comes to hand - pencil, crayon, brush, charcoal, ink - anything which will demolish the studied effect obtained and give me fresh ground for experiment. I used to think that the striking results obtained in this fashion were due to accident, but I no longer am of this mind. Not only do I know today that it is the method employed by some very famous painters (Rouault immediately comes to mind), but I recognize that it is often the same method which I employ in writing. I don't go over my canvas in writing, like the meticulous Fraenkel does with his drafts, but I keep breaking new ground until I reach the level of exact expression, leaving all the trials and gropings there, but raising them in a sort of spiral circumnavigation, until they make a solid underbody or underpinning, whichever the case may be. And this, I notice, is precisely the ritual of life which is practiced by the man who evolves. He doesn't go back and forth, figuratively, to correct his errors and defects; he transposes and converts them into virtues. He makes wings of his larval cerements."

~Henry Miller, The Waters Reglitterized

XO