I don’t anticipate many people will even noticed

Whooohooo!  A tremendous sense of accomplishment was felt when that box left my hand.  I then went around the corner to a local burger joint.  Had myself a nice indulgent lunch including french fries with extra salt (oh yeah, I’m so bad).  Then drove myself home.

As I pulled up to the head of my driveway I decided to check the mailbox.  Wouldn’t you know, but inside was my Sketchbook Project 2013 sketchbook.  I sat in my car and had a good laugh.  Guess an artist’s work is never done.  Of course, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Can’t wait to get started on the 2013 edition.  I have several friends and family members joining me this time around.  LOVE IT!!  If you also sign up for the Sketchbook Project 2013, please let me know.  I’d love to see what you do.

Nevertheless, I decided to stop making excuses and buckle down this past week.  That’s when the last few pages came to me.  (You can read about Fear/Hope in my previous Sketchbook post.)  I was most excited about the last page because I chose to use my favorite lyric from The Beatles. 

 “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

I adore this line because I truly feel that whatever else you may do or experience in life, nothing is more powerful than the taking and giving of love.  Not only that, but this lyrical line also gives heed to the importance of balance.  Take = Make.  How magical is that?

My muse dictated that this page had to be eye-popping bright, so in the palette of colors I had chosen for this project I picked out the Bright Magenta.  I didn’t dilute the color, or any of the colors for that matter, that I put on the page.  It’s straight from the bottle beautiful.  BUT, before applying all that color I wanted to add an unusual layer to the page.  I’ve been collecting the little plastic tabs you use to help tie your bread bag closed thinking there had to be a use for these beyond the recycling bin. 

 

Just to remind you all, my theme for this sketchbook has been, “How to Spell and Other Things to Learn.”  I’ve chosen to express this theme by choosing words and concepts that have been important to my life and building the art around them.

Fear has been a big motivator as well as a big problem for me, but always there is hope that keeps me going…and that is how this coordinating two-page spread came to be.  I have to say these pages put themselves together like I didn’t even have to think about them.  That says to me that this was the right way and the right time to create these pieces.

I used two new techniques that I haven’t tried before.  Recently, I read about “automatic writing.”  This is a technique where you put your writing instrument to the paper and begin to write without looking to hard at the page or thinking too hard about the words.  If you run out of space and you have more to write you turn the page 90 degrees and continue writing.

For both pages I ended up turning the page 360 degrees, essentially writing four pages worth of material on the same page.  I alternated colored pens every time I turned the page to give more depth and additional layering.  The beauty, for me, with this technique is that by the time you are done writing you cannot read anything.  It’s illegible.  Yet, the words are there, you got them off our heart and mind.  It’s liberating!

The next technique I used for these pieces is clear craft plastic.  I cut the plastic to the measurements of the page and used my laser printer to imprint the words “fear” and “hope.”  I really figured the ink from the printer would smear, but no.  It turned out crisp and beautiful.  Better than I could have hoped for.  I then turned the craft plastic to the back side and used permanent pens (sharpies and prismacolor) to doodle.

I am pleased with how these turned out and I cannot wait to use automatic writing again!  What do you think?  If you could use automatic writing for a word or subject what would you write about?  I’d love to hear your thoughts!

I was so sad that their appearance at DC’s 9:30 Club sold out in a nanosecond because I would have loved to see them in that intimate venue.  But since I missed the boat I’ll just continue to listen to my CD at full volume and pretend that Grouplove is singing just to me!

In honor of this fabulous musical muse, I took the first four lines of each of the songs on this album and created a poem from it.  I did not rearrange the lines or the order of the songs (I apologize if there are any lyric mistakes).  Here it goes:

I’m itching on a photograph,
I’m scratching on a thermostat,
I’m giving up on looking back,
I’m letting go of what I had.
Take me to your best friend’s house,
Go around this roundabout, oh yeah.
Take me to your best friend’s house,
I loved you then I love you now, oh yeah.
You’re such a lovely cup, why don’t you fill me up.
All these reasons too hard to explain.
So I drink you up my dear.
We got it all right here.
I am a man, man, man, man up, up in the air.
And I run around, round, round, round this downtown and act like I don’t care.
So when you see me flying by the planet’s moon.
You don’t need to explain that everything’s changed just know I’m just like you.
Time moves slow.
Time moves slow.
Time moves slow.
But it’s you who brought me here.
Cruising down the highway with my friends, top down, and we’re all on our way to the beach,
And everyone keeps laughing at those we are passing as we’re sucking on that bonnie, bonnie weed.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
I want it ragtag life in a bag,
I’ve been sleeping in a bus mistrust singing la,la,la,la.
I’ve got the feeling I’ve been nickel and dimed,
That was probably in line for this semiconscious state of mind.
Betty’s a bomb shell, she just got paid,
Crossing the street on passionate gates.
Billy’s a looker he’s from upstate,
He ran into Betty and he took her on a date.
Dim the lights, dim the lights, dim the lights low.
You can come and join me, sit around the piano.
You can light the fire, open up the window.
You can make a choice by seeing which way the wind blows.
Walking down the street, man, you’re so bold (so bold),
Seen your mom and dad and their so cold (so cold),
But love will save your soul,
From feeling so alone and growing old.
Go ahead and close the door.
I’ll stand outside in the rain.
A little bird just told me so.
It’s time to start over again.
Yeah, we laid down in the sand.
You took my clothes off with your hands.
I gotta to say you look real pretty.
All the way from New York City.

I have been hiding from the powerful reflection that occurs when you write somethng down.  With encouragement from a mentor of mine I decided to begin anew the practice of keeping a journal.  This journal has a focus though.  I am reading through the Psalms and reflecting on them.  One a day.  What is interesting though is that I reflect for perhaps a page on the Psalms, but  find myself adding many more pages of thoughts — some stemming from the verses and many more expounding on my life.

This experiences has proven quite cathartic in only a few days.  With this profound sense of release I felt it was only just that the journal should be adorned with a strong, artistic cover.  I chose to use mixed media and collage.  Here’s a collage tip:  Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines are some of the best sources of images I have found.  I love ripping the pictures of the ads apart and redefining them.  The face of the girl in this piece is actually from a perfume ad in the November 2009 Vogue.  There was a young man kissing the shoulder of the girl, but I just cropped him out.  Also, there’s so much lettering in these magazines that it’s fun to take a letter here and a letter there and create your own titles, or you could get lucky like I did and find an entire phrase that will work such as “I Will Survive” that I used.

Layers of crackle paint, acrylic paint, rubber stamps, embossing powder, a bit of bubble wrap immpressions and an enamel Hebrew letter (Reish) complete the assemblage.  I chose the letter reish because it has some fantatic mystical meaning in Judaism as well as the first letter in the word rosh which means “head” or “beginning.”

Now that the cover is complete, I am even more inspired to keep writing!  In the age of electronic whatchamadoodles it’s nice to put pen to paper the old fashioned way.

Yes, that’s what it was.  I was on autopilot and stopped at a long light.  While waiting for the green, in my mind’s eye, this piece appeared.  It was so vivid an image that I reached my hand out as if to touch it.  Thank goodness I was alone or someone might have thought I had gone bonkers.

My heart started to race and my mind followed suit.  Is was all I could do not to bounce up and down in my seat and scream at the cars in front of me, “MOVE YOUR BLOODY ASSES!  I HAVE ART TO DO!”  I remained mostly calm though and kept my tirade to myself.  I happened to make it home in one piece as well.  Racing into the house, I flew down the basement steps to get started.  It took about a week and a half, but I finished it this evening.  I call it “Sometimes, She Just Can’t Help But Feel Dead Inside.”

If you would like to know the process that went into making this piece read on.

Now, the thing that struck me most when I saw the image of the art piece in my mind was the texture and brightly colored background.  I knew a background with this many layers was going to be heavy, so I chose to use a paint board instead of a canvas.  It has a surface like a canvas, but it has several layers of eco-friendly materials that create a solid core.  The paint board I use is made by Fredrix and can be found at many online art supply retailers or brick and mortar art supply stores.

The completed background, still wet and waiting to dry

I covered the board with a thin layer of YES! paste using a palette knife.  Once the glue was in place I took a large piece of black tissue paper, crumpled it nice and good and then opened it up.  I laid this gently onto the prepared board and just pressed my fingers across the paper to get it to stick.  Resist the urge to smooth the tissue paper down.  You want the bumps and wrinkles.  Once the tissue paper is fully in contact with the board let the piece dry completely.

Next, trim the excess tissue paper from the edges of the board.  You are then ready for the next layer – acrylic paints.  I chose a palette of Alizarin Crimson, Primary Red, Deep Violet, Cadmium Orange and Raspberry.  I mixed the Alizarin Crimson with heavy gel medium in gloss until I achieved the color density I wanted and making the paint thicker in consistency.  I used a palette knife to scrape the paint over the tissue paper.  I didn’t worry about direction or getting an even coat.  I just ran the palette knife over the entire board and made sure there was some paint in every part.  I let this layer dry completely.

The next layer was a combination of adding small bits of Primary Red and Cadmium Orange in different areas of the piece.  I mixed each paint with the same heavy gel medium in gloss.  I let these dry as well before moving to the third layer.  I knew in the third layer I want to increase the texture of the piece.  It was already pretty amazing with the various paints captured in the peaks and valleys of the wrinkled tissue paper.  Still, I wanted more.  I took the Deep Purple paint and mixed it with Liquitex’s White Opaque Flakes medium.  This stuff is so cool.  It increases the density of the paint, but the white flakes inside the medium never mix with the color and stay white.  I used the palette knife to distribute the mixture onto areas of the board.  The white flakes immediately pop out at you.  It felt that the density of this medium was greater than that of the gloss gel medium I had used, so I got more height with the purple paint.  I was digging this unexpected result.  Again, I let the layers dry.

For the next layer (I think we’re on four?) I mixed a Raspberry pink paint with Liquitex’s Glass Beads medium.  I love the pebbly effect of this medium.  Sometimes it looks like the paint has bubbles trapped in it.  Once again I used the palette knife to distribute the mixture.  Things were looking good, but I was getting a little frustrated because the original layers of red and orange were disappearing more than I had intended.  I decided to touch them up a bit with a dab of paint straight from the tube before the pink had even dried.  The palette knife became too cumbersome for this delicate task, so I resorted to my favorite tool — my fingers.  I dabbed paint here and there.  Just when I thought I was getting somewhere I took a look and found that I was completely disgusted with the results.  In my frustration I took my open palm and just slide the whole thing across the board, top to bottom.  I was about to pitch the whole project when I took another look.  I thought to myself, “Yes!  That’s better.”  Who knew?  Sometimes there are happy accidents.  So, a couple of more, although careful, swipes of the hand and I felt I achieved what I wanted.  I let it dry and then when back to dabbing the reds and orange from their tubes with my fingers.  Success!

Skull close up

 I often tell people that I am not a drawer.  What I mean is that I generally don’t like my results when I try to draw something from thin air.  Instead, I use a combination of techniques.  To make the skull I employed several of these.  First, I went on the Internet and searched for images of human skulls.  I probably looked at hundreds before I decided to go with a medical diagram of a skull.  I printed the diagram out and cut the skull out with an x-acto knife.

I used vine charcoal to coat the back of the image and then place it where I wanted on the board.  Using a dull pencil I traced the major parts of the skull (the eye sockets, teeth and hollows of the jaw.  I then used the charcoal to outline the image.  I do this to give myself perspective as to where all the big parts are going to go.  The rest is all me.  I loaded up various sizes and types of paint brushes with Titanium White, Mars Black and combinations of the two to achieve the grays.  The wonderful thing about the vine charcoal is that you can paint right over it and it just seems to disappear.  I played with the shading of the skull for a couple of days until I felt it was right. 

Background and Skull completed

 The final steps were to add the embellishments.  I did not want to compete with the colors already in the background so I kept these simple using the black, white and gray motif of the skull.  First, I started with bottle caps.  Any old bottle caps will do.  I keep a jar on my kitchen counter to collect all the odds and ends that would otherwise get thrown away and that includes bottle caps.  These happened to be Corona.  Anywho, I set the bottle caps on a metal block and used a small hammer to flatten the edges outward.  Watch your fingers because it is easy to smash them in the process.  Once flattened I hit the edges of the metal caps with Adirondack alcohol ink in Red Pepper.

Next, I used a 1/2″ circle cutter to cut out the white cardstock.  Using VersaFine black pigment ink and marcasite embossing powder by Stampendous, I stamped the letters for the word “hollow.”  Using Yes! paste I adhered the circles to the inside of the bottle caps.  Let them dry well.  Once dry, I drizzled Inkssentials Glossy Accents over the paper and around the edges of the bottle caps making sure all of the paper was covered.  Let the caps dry, undisturbed, for 24 hours.  The effect becomes like that of clear resin when the glaze drys and it looks like you have those expensive, fancy craft store embellishments.  Using the YES! paste I adhered the bottle caps to the painting.

Next came the paper flowers.  I found a nice collection of white paper flowers by Kaiser Craft.  The beauty of these is that the flowers can be colored with various spritzes and sprays.  I sprayed some of the flowers black using Java Walnut Ink by Tsukineko.  A few others I made gray using my own blend of water with a few drops of Adirondack alcohol inks in Pitch Black and Pearl.  I mixed this all up in a mini-mister by Ranger Inks.  After the flowers dried, I twisted their wire stems into concentric circles around the base of the flower, applied YES! paste and adhered them to the piece. 

The final touches came with some cheesecloth, paste and glitter.  I unwrapped a few pieces of cheesecloth and arranged them on the board to my liking making sure to wrap some around the edges of the board.  When I was happy I took a palette knife and gel medium in matte and adhered the cloth to the edges of the paint board.  I dabbed a bit of medium to a few places where the cloth met the face of the painting.  I let this dry and then added a few puddles of clear gel glue and then dusting them with Tinsel glitter by Martha Stewart Crafts.

I don’t like framing my pieces much.  I like the canvases/boards to stand on their own if possible.  Therefore, I trimmed the edge of this board with red satin ribbon.  I glued it on with the YES! paste, which has become a favorite product of mine.

Whew!  That’s the long and short of it.  I hope some of these techniques or product descriptions inspire you to get creative.  I know this piece was hugely cathartic for me and I am simply in love with it.

I saw them in concert on their World Violation tour in Phoenix, AZ.  At the time I was dating the young man that would become my husband.  The concert was epic!  The opening act was another favorite band I liked at the time, Nitzer Ebb, which I thought was a total bonus.  My husband and I rekindled this memory in 2005 when we went to see them on their Playing the Angel  tour.  I think they were even better then than when I saw them at 17 years of age.

Lots of awesome high school memories for me are associated with Depeche Mode music.  My best friend since 7th grade still sings “Never Let Me Down” with me when we are together.  In fact, I believe it’s the ringtone on his phone for me when I call him.  LOL!

My love for DM has never waned.  I listen to them when I’m happy, I listen to them when I’m sad, I listen to them when I am angry and I listen to them simply to relax.  They never stop inspiring me.
 

Finished letter.

I have talked about Art House Co-op before in my blog about The Sketchbook Project, but I did not discuss, nor do I think I knew at the time, that Art House offers a multitude of different art projects to the public on a weekly basis.  On Wednesdays they announce a new project.  The projects are open to everyone.  Sometimes there is a fee involved, but many times the projects are free and all you pay is the whatever it costs you to make your project and the shipping fee to send it to them (often just the cost of a stamp).

I signed up for one of these free projects titled, “Letters From Home.”  The description simply said to write a letter to your childhood home.  The rules were that it had to be one sided, no bigger and no smaller than 5″ x 7″ and must be handwritten.  When Art House receives the letters they say that, “… we’ll transform our storefront exhibition space into a mailbox from the past. Every letter will be added to the Digital Library and archived in a boxed anthology that will join us on the 2012 Sketchbook Project Tour.”  HOW COOL IS THAT?!

I signed up immediately.  I knew this would be a little bit of a challenge for me because the description at Art House referred to writing to your home.  Growing up I didn’t just live in one house, I lived in many.  However, they were all in the same town which I will forever refer to as my hometown.  I decided to write the letter to my hometown of Marion, Indiana.

After much contemplation, this is how I came up with my letter:

First, I found an old atlas we had laying around our house and turned to the Indiana page.  I measured out a 5″ x 7″ block trying to center the town of Marion as best as I could.  I used a mat behind the page and an X-acto knife to cut it out.

The section of map untouched so far.

 With all the colors and lines on the map I knew it would be hard to read anything that was written over it, so the next step was to diminish the print somewhat.  I turned to a mixture of rose white acrylic paint and extender.  I put about a 1/2 teaspoon of paint into a cup and added three times the amount of extender.  Using a wash brush I slapped the paint mix onto the page.  I then used a heating tool to speed up the dry time and keep the curling of the paper to a minimum.  A second coat was needed to further fade the colors.  Although, after applying the second coat I took a section of paper towel and wiped the paint away from the word “Marion” on the paper.

Antique Linen distress ink.

 I then applied Vintage Photo distress ink to the corners and barely hit the edges of the paper.  It didn’t take much ink or blending since the color of Vintage Photo is dark and intense.

Vintage Photo distress ink in the corners and just barely around the edges.

 I sprayed a light coat of Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Vanilla Breeze to the entire page.  The mist did not really change the color of the paper, which I had hoped it wouldn’t, but added a very light shimmer of gold to the page.  Yay!  I used the heat tool again to dry the entire page occassionally focusing the heat on one area of paper to slightly burn it and discolor it.

The map paper with all its alterations before the letter was added.

 Finally, I just had to choose the words that I wanted to write to my hometown.  I can’t describe that process.  Writing just happens for me.  If I force it, it will not come.  If I just put pen (or pencil) to paper it happens.  Of course, I will say that I sat with a notebook and pencil first.  No way was I going to write directly on the project until the words had come to me and I had was sure they made sense. 

While I was writing in the notebook I found that I loved the way the pencil I was using glided over the page and I thought it would be perfect to use it on the actual letter.  It gives the whole thing a more informal feeling which was just what I wanted.  I wanted it to seem like a letter to a good friend:  casual, carefree and conversational like.  To keep the pencil from smudging I sprayed the letter with Winsor & Newton’s Artist Workable Fixative.  Here’s the final product again:

These Art House projects have been a great way for me to try new mediums and projects I don’t think I would have come up with myself.  They are also great for when I don’t have a bloody idea in my head, but I want to work on something creative.  Having a few rules and guidance seem to get the juices flowing.  Fun stuff, y’all!!