Fuscia Zetti Self Portrait

Back in 2000, I was an emotional mess. I had very bad panic disorder, and was trying many methods to rid myself of it—from traditional medical treatments to all kinds of alternative therapies. I decided to spend a lot of time doing art in order to heal. One of the first things I did was an oil self portrait. True, it doesn’t look exactly like me, but I painted the way I felt, which wasn’t pretty. Needless to say, no one but me liked the portrait.

However, it was a starting point. I decided to scan it, alter it a little in photoshop, then digitally embellish it. I called the first variation my Picasso Self Portrait. I later used a variation of it to do one of my first art quilts, and it was used to illustrate an article I wrote for Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine called Painting Out the Panic.

I decided to add my favorite yellow fabric design behind the Picasso Self Portrait, and use that image for my business card and also for some of my mini quilt Art-O-Mat blocks.

Recently, I had an ATC trade with my Arts in the Cards group. This month, the color prompt was fuscia. I drew a blank on the color fuscia, so I started looking through my stacks of fabrics and papers and unfinished artwork for inspiration. Nothing really struck me, so I decided to revisit an old theme: self portraits. For reasons I don’t fully understand, I keep coming back to my first self portrait. I have painted other self portraits over the past 12 years, but this one speaks to me the most.

I took out the yellow background and added several other fuschia designs—a scan of a page from a journal that I painted with beet juice, a fuscia mandala that I drew during my lunch hour, and a photo of a wet leaf on a sidewalk that I manipulated in photoshop into shades of fuscia. I also changed some color on the face.

Since I have been enamored of the Zetti trend, I added, in photoshop, the black and white harlequin band at the top. After printing the design, it seemed to need something extra, so I added inspirational words printed on Extravorganza, along with some ribbon and seed beads.

Semi-Steampunk Paper Doll With Beet Juice Clothing

This weekend, I tossed all my "should do" lists of projects aside and just did something to make ME feel good. Somehow making paper dolls frees my mind and relaxes me...especially when it is not for a trade, but just for me, just for fun.

I started by sizing some Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ images that looked interesting onto anbegan with a basic paper doll template that I found through my trade group, Roses on My Table http://rosesonmytable.ning.com/. Next, I reduced or enlarged the pieces that interested me so they would fit the doll template. I have been collecting Graphics Fairy images, especially shoes, hats and faces. I printed a bunch of the vintage clipart out, cut them, then started playing with them to see which ones my doll would wear.

I had no plan, which was part of the fun. I started with the bottom of the body, and chose some boots with vintage advertising on them, which I attached to my paper legs with tiny brads. I used a template torso, and cut a leftover ATC to fit it and make the top, which I glued over the template piece. Another ATC made the skirt--it was from a journal page that I made a while back when I was experimenting with painting with beet juice. I scanned the beet juice painting and printed it in a small scale for an ATC.

I glued half a Graphics Fairy butterfly to each arm to create wings. The face was a vintage child's photo. I topped her off with a man's hat trimmed with a band of the beet juice ATC design. The arms, head legs, boots and hat are all attached with mini-brads so they are moveable, and can be changed if I am ever in the mood. In total, there are four Graphics Fairy images: the butterfly wings, the hat, the face and the boots. I have not named her yet...any ideas?