My small part of an art car

I wish I could remember the name of the woman who's art car this was.
She lived about two blocks away from me, but it was a friend of mine
who got in contact with her, and arranged for us to work on it.
My part is in the center of the picture, the sort of wedge shaped part.
It was so fun! I did always wonder if she kept my part on the car.
I saw a picture of the car online and could not see it, although that may have
been the angle. The car looked really amazing, she did a great job!
I keep thinking that I would love to do this to my car,
but worry about how visible it makes you.

My Art House Journal & page

So this is the page in my "My Art House" Journal, that inspired Home (on previous post). I really liked it, even though it is kind of silly with the swedish fish label (one of my vices).




This is the first journal I made for my self. I had done lots of book-binding previously, but had made nothing for myself.

I cut the book board covers and the Bristol pages in the house shape, and I cut corresponding shapes out of mauve silk book cloth. Before covering the boards, I cut a piece of unbleached muslin, to fit, and cut windows and doors, then sewed buttons from my Great-Great Aunts button box on it. Then sewed the muslin to the silk book cloth and then covered the boards.

I took all my pages to Kinkos and had them punched for coil binding and had them give me their largest coil. Since Kinkos would not punch the cover for me, I took it home and used a punch set to do it my self. This was before I had a Japanese Screw Punch, the most miraculous of tools. Then I just wound the coil up and away I went.

The funny thing is, I did all of this one armed. I had just had surgery on my shoulder, and was still in a sling and bandages. Don't know why I had to make it just then, but for some reason I had to have it now!

Home Collage

I did this piece a few years ago. It was inspired by a page in one of my journals. I will scan that tomorrow and post it.

This I called Home, and it was done on a 2" gallery wrap canvas. I love using deep gallery wraps, you can do so much with all four sides as well as the front. Unfortunately you can not see that in a scan! Take my word for it, it is cool!

It hangs over my bed, with a little white wooden dove I bought at an artists garage sale, perched on it.

I used this image on my business cards, although I really need to redesign them and put a piece of jewelry on them instead.

Photoshop Elements Fun

I have been playing with Photoshop Elements. I loved this photo. It was taken at a beach where there is no collecting allowed.

My little friend and I really liked these rocks, and wanted some way of taking them with us. Unfortunately the photo turned out blurry. For some reason, I think maybe the strong light at the beach, I was not able to see how blurry it was till I got it home. I was not willing to loose the photo, so I played with it in Elements.

I think the effect that made the piece, was making it shiny. I think it hides the fact that it is blurry. I would like to spend some more time playing in Elements. I am not able to manipulate it when I want to, I tend to just play around, and if something works, then great! But the times when I needed something done right now such as cropping, I am lost.

Dad Journal - 2

These are wonderful pages by my father, in our journal. On the first page, you can see my Dad's best friend, my Uncle Richard, "preaching" away, and some of my father's wonderful poetry. You would never know that my Dad has not done this before. He does such great pages.

On the second side there is a picture of me in my late teens, some more of my Dad's photography and a great example of some of his digital art, a nail head cat. All of this was digitally manipulated and some of it printed on acetate! Really cool.

Dad Journal -

As promised, with permission from Dad, here is some of our journal. These are pages that I did after a trip to visit with my best friend and her family. There are many things to flip, open, move,and read, so I got some views of that. She took me on a surprise trip to Tahoe to gamble. We did, I WON, it was so much fun! It is such a beautiful drive up there, and the lake is so gorgeous, photos are mandatory, especially when there is snow at the top of the pass! We spend way more time stopping and looking and collecting, than I think she would on her own, but she puts up with me, and my needs, and is such a good friend, she fills her pockets with just about as much found stuff as I do, all for me of course.

Water Table Piece

I was watching a documentary on the severe depletion of the water table, and just getting more and more upset, and it needed to come out somehow. And this is how it did!
It was done in my journal, which I now kind of regret. I think it would have been good on canvas. I ended up really liking it. It is seriously mixed media. There are water soluble pastels and crayons, and regular crayons, colored pencil, and some water colors as well. I worked with my fingers a lot on it. The messier the better, I think! I loved my finger paints as a child.