Gothic Arch Duo

About a year ago I ordered a bunch of items from Retro Café Art. Some I used right away, some I tucked into my art stash. Yesterday I had some time on my hands and no deadlines to meet, so I played around with a couple of the large chipboard gothic arches.

The shape seemed so lovely that I didn't quite know where to start, my inner critic didn't want me to make a mistake. But, I just decided to start anywhere, thinking I could always paint or collage over them if they ended up really ugly. I started with a collage base of favorite items: text. I used some French script, vintage newsprint, and snippets from a Chinese newspaper.

A famous American scientist stamp was recently gifted to me, so that went on top of the text. My Artistcellar stencil collection is always handy, so I pulled out some favorites: the harlequin, a little flower, garden gate, and inspirational words. I found a tiny bottle of my favorite old go-to paint, Lumiere, in a beautiful turquoise, which I used along with some chalk inks and markers. The woman on the right is part of a vintage Sunmaid raisin ad--thank you Susan Morgan Hoth for your gift of vintage magazines.

The edges were finished by running them over an Adirondack sepia ink pad, and the hinge was created with silk jewelry cord and square decorative brads. Hinges are always tricky for me--they need to be strong, they need to be able to work without being too stiff or too floppy. This hinging method was not perfect, but was satisfactory. Sometimes I use fine ball-chain link, sometimes pretty ribbon, and sometimes actual hardware hinges.

The piece is simply art therapy--no hidden meaning, no deep message, just me messing around with art supplies on a Saturday afternoon.  I had been saving the gothic arches for the right day, the right moment, the right inspiration. They seemed to want to want to be part of something important and meaningful, and maybe with the next attempt I will use some kind of cherished photo or keepsake.

Morgan Silks Journal Page

My friend Susan Morgan Hoth makes fabulous, hand painted, one of a kind silk scarves. A few months ago I treated myself to two...and they are gorgeous.

They came wrapped in tissue, with a little card that had a miniature printout of the design. I saved the cards in my art box, of course.

I used one of them in a recent journal page. It was the perfect centerpiece on a pastel page made from collaged painted deli paper, painted newsprint, vintage flowers, vintage newsprint and printmaking scraps.

On the white border around Sue's paper print of the design I put some words in very pale pink: "listen to that little voice inside your head whispering the truth whispering the way" The words were inspired by the GooGoo Dolls song, Truth is a Whisper. I liked the pale pink for the words because it is so soft and subtle, like a whisper.

Here's me in my office chair, wearing the fabulous scarf as a luck charm on the day I had to do a PowerPoint presentation in front of a room full of department heads, doctors, head nurses and other bigwigs. Since I am pretty much an introvert who would prefer to sit in the corner, undisturbed, and paint, draw, design or write, I definitely needed the lucky scarf to boost my confidence. I did make it through the PowerPoint without tripping, drooling, saying ummm errr hmmm too much, so it was a success, I guess. But I would much rather be behind the computer designing and writing the PowerPoint than presenting it.

Mini Journals from Cereal Boxes

Yesterday, my daughter Amanda and I had a "mom and me" art afternoon. Amanda is a writer, and needs journals for her story ideas and "morning pages." She had told me a while back about making journals out of cardboard cereal boxes, so I had been saving them. I googled a few blog posts and got the general idea about how to make them.

We started with a basic cereal box, and cut the largest panel. That was folded in half, and made the cover. Amanda's journal (on the left) has vintage images from some "imperfect" old magazines that Susan Morgan Hoth gifted me with. She created a collage of vintage images on the inside and outside, and added washi tape at the edges and across the middle for a decorative effect.

Mine has vintage Graphics Fairy images that I combined in a Photoshop collage. I also added washi tape at the edges. Unlike Amanda's collage, mine was one sheet of 8.5x11 paper that I covered the box with.

We folded paper and cut it to size, poked holes with an awl, and hand stitched it to the spine of the book with waxed linen thread. I used cardstock since I plan to use mine as an art journal; Amanda used white computer printer paper for hers since she will be writing in it, and wanted more pages and less weight per page.

The journal, when finished, is about 8.5" high x 5.5" wide, but the size depends on the size of the box. The bigger the box, the bigger the journal. It is a little flimsy--the cardboard is not very thick or strong, so if you want a firmer book you can double the cardboard.

If you are adventurous, instead of folding the cardboard in half to make the book, you can score two lines in the cardboard  near the middle (cut a little with an exacto knife but don't go completely through) so that a spine is created. That will allow more pages to be inserted, giving you a fatter book.

Amanda did not add a closure, but I puttered with a couple ideas. I tried--unsuccessfully--a button closure and a wrapped silk cord--and finally settled on punching two holes, adding grommets, and looping elastic through it so the journal could be quickly and easily opened and closed. I wished I had some colorful elastic--the white is a little harsh, so I may try painting or dying the elastic to match.

These journals were quick and easy to make, so guess what I will be making more of  today?

Lemonhead

An old friend and wonderful artist, Susan Morgan Hoth, not only paints gorgeous, one-of-a-kind silk scarves, she also collects and sells vintage jewelry, ephemera and memorabilia in her LaVogue Esty shop. When she looked at my artwork created by collaging vintage images that I had been posting to my blog and facebook page, she offered to mail me some imperfect vintage magazine ads that were slightly damaged. Naturally I jumped at the chance.

Part of me wanted to scan them and use printouts to create new art. The other part of me said "she is going to throw them out anyway, so just dig in and use the originals." I started with an ad for lemons and timidly put some sections of Cecilia Swatton Kalidescope Stencils in the background using soft colored, brush tipped markers.

It looked kind of cool, but didn't make a statement, so I decided to try and emphasize the retro-housewife theme with a Jane Davenport face stencil. That looked interesting, but didn't make much sense, so I added lines for the neck, some color, and a Jill K. Berry compas rose star stencil on the cheek, and a steampunk stencil on the top of the head to suggest a hat, then on the neck to suggest a necklace or blouse. I used a big white brush marker on the face to add interest.

The piece seemed almost done, but I wanted the whites to pop more, so I used white gouache and re-painted the whole face. Gouache (prononuced g'wash) which is basically a high quality tempra, was the paint of choice when I was studying textile design, so it is often my "go-to" paint.

After the addition of the white gouache, I liked it. It didn't really say "retro housewife serving delicious homemade food made from lemons" as I had intended. The plate goes through the nose and ended up looking like a giant piercing, and the fork goes through her eye, which is kind of scary. The face ended up being more 2014 than 1940, but that's the way art is—you never know quite what will happen but the journey and process is always fun.