Latest Creations

I've been juggling projects. Here's my page for the 2008 Art Unraveled Technique Chunky Book swap. My page was inspired by "Landscapes of the Mind" with artist Anne Grgich. I took two classes with her and absolutely loved her techniques. Painting with coffee? Hilarious! I printed coffee cup rings with coffee for recipe swap pages last month.
We focused on portraits during her workshops but one lady drew a bird for her collage and I still had it in my mind. I wanted to keep it loose and simple and chose a flower image.

I started out by gluing down pages torn from old art ed magazines. Next, I painted over it with a wash of yellow and gold acrylic. Next step was the black outline done with Golden Asphaltum paint. I almost freaked! The paint came out heavier than I expected and it took days to dry. I mean days....this is Arizona. I expected it to be dry overnight.

Once it dried enough, the flower petals were painted with washes of acrylic and watercolor crayons were used to add a little texture. Each page was outlined with Sharpie that went kaput after a few pages. I think the markers picked up some of the glue and they stopped working. The rest of the pages were painted. I had a few choice words floating around the studio...
The altered composition book for another swap is done. I was going to add color but in the end I really liked the simplicity of the collaged textures. I added two rows of ribbon along the left edge and spelled "thoughts" with acrylic letters.
I did add color on the photocopies of the cover collages and used those pages on both inside covers. Watercolor crayons were used to color over the security envelope textures which I outlined with Sharpie Poster Paint markers.

I folded a couple of pages over to create a pocket and used some leftover scraps from the cover collage to make it big enough. The word "Keep" was stamped and outlined. It's ready to mail.
Next project-Funky Chunky themed pages for another swap. Everyone chose the size of their page. Mine is 7" x 3.5" It's new size for me which is exactly why I picked it. I pulled out every paper towel stained with paint that I've been setting aside for some time. What was I holding onto them for?????

I tore them into pieces and randomly glued them down to a large 24" x 36" sheet of tagboard. I made two large sheets. One with cool colors and another with warm colors, until I ran out and added purples. The cool colored pieces are my favorites, so far. The large sheets were cut down into 7" x 7" squares and then folded them in half.

I have a couple of ideas for the next steps. Sewing....painting...printing... we'll see.
Marissa