Just Be

At a recent Ink Pad-sponsored Julie Fei-Fan Balzer art class, some of the attendees were talking about an online course they were taking. I don't have time for online classes since I work full time, but one of the aspects of the class that struck me was that you choose one word each year as your special word.

That got me thinking about what word, of all the endless possibilities in the English language, I would choose. After a day or two of mulling it over, I chose the word BE.

Simple, right? Two letters, one syllable, no real hidden meaning or nuances. But as an introvert, a Virgo perfectionist, a wife and mother and career woman who squeezes art in whenever there is a free 10 minute window, BE means more than it appears to.

Be still. Be comfortable with yourself. Stop competing, judging, going, moving, striving. Get comfortable in your own skin. Stop beating yourself up and measuring achievements and failures.

I happened to pick up a couple new art/craft/mixed media items at the Balzer workshop--a stamp of a crazy little girl and some of Julie's new woodcut stamps.

Here's how this page came together:
1-the background is a digital collage that I did from a photo of my Rumi Valentine page. I flipped and repeated the background image, using Quark and Photoshop, and printed it out on ordinary paper.
2-the center section is made of recycled tea bags that were overprinted with stamps using a white stamp pad
3-I stamped the little girl on deli paper, then cut it out carefully, and used a glue stick to adhere it to the page
4-I put a strip of commercial beige paper with vintage handwriting on it
5-I cut out a rectangle of a Balzer woodcut stamp and placed it below the girl. At first I was going to have her standing on it, but then I decided that she would be more magical if she floated above it
6-I added words with my Dina Wakley empowerment words, which came with some face stamps I purchased about a year ago. I also added words with mini alphabet stamps

Tea With Helen

I had my "debut" as a member of the Artistcellar design team yesterday.

For my first Artistcellar blog post, I started with a favorite technique—printing on recycled teabags—and used a vintage photo of my mother, Helen, circa 1934. I printed the photo from an inkjet printer onto printable silk fabric, trimmed it to size, and removed the paper backing.

For the base, I started with used teabags. After drying them, I emptied out the old tea, carefully opened them, flattened them out, and printed on them using white printmaking paint applied to an assortment of hand-carved and commercial stamps.

Once the printed teabags were dry, I randomly collaged them onto cardstock using gel (matte) medium, which adheres like glue, but dries flat, and you can stitch through it with ease.

When I laid the translucent silk photo on the teabag print base, too much of the background showed through, so I applied viva décor inka gold old gold to the central area, which made the silk photo easier to see. I added a little matte medium to hold the photo in place, and edged it with a favorite sheer lace, also adhered with matte medium.

For strength, I added a felt backing, then clamped the artwork to the felt and carefully stitched the edges with a machine blanket stitch. To give the piece even more of a vintage effect, I sponged on extra viva décor inka gold old gold to the edges and corners.

The piece especially touches my heart because, growing up, the kitchen was the central gathering place in our house, and mom always had a pot of tea to share with friends and family around our kitchen table. The dress she wore in the photo was made of a rich indigo velvet and I remember feeling ever so beautiful in it when I played dress-up.

Experimenting with Retro Arts Café Pre-cut Templates

Part of me swoons when I see the gorgeous mixed media work posted online made using templates and unfinished parts from Retro Arts Café. But a little voice in my head says: “Why waste your money? Build your own box or recycle one. Make your own doll template.” It also whispers: “Stop spending so much money on art supplies! Save your money for something more exciting than cardboard blanks, like learning how to use encaustics…” and “Come on, part of the fun of creating is starting with your OWN template…why spend money when you can download templates off the internet for free?”

Well, I finally broke down and ordered a bunch of Retro Arts Café items. I started with an ATC holder and a paper doll. (Some of the items I ordered are still waiting for me to find the time to experiment with them.) The ATC box was easy to put together and well cut. I stayed inside my own comfort zone and decorated it with printed recycled teabags and my favorite lace. I added dots of dimensional gold paint to cover the joints. After I was done I realized I should have painted the interior, but it really didn’t show once I put some ATCs in it. I also realized that I should have put it together first and applied the teabags after for a better fit on the sides.

The doll forms were kind of weird. I ordered a small and a large. The large was a little larger than the size I usually make, and strangely elongated. And the head was tiny and out of proportion. The small doll (which I have not used yet) is really miniature and much smaller than I am comfortable with. I covered the large doll with my favorite recycled, printed teabags and made a skirt of assorted laces. I just couldn’t use the tiny head that came with the doll, and chose a face to go on top of theirs from The Graphics Fairy’s free vintage images. The dolls came in a rectangle, and I had to pull the pieces out, which left a negative space doll. It was fortunate that I had the leftovers since I somehow lost a leg and had to recreate one on cardstock. 

I also ordered some stencils, which I have been experimenting with. They are made of a lightweight durable paper, so I was afraid they would turn to mush when wet, and dry all buckled-up, but they did stand up to repeated paint application and washing. Now I just need to find a big chunk of free time and a bigger space to work on than my living room table!

 

 

Prehistoric Cave Hunters ATC

 

 

Sticks and Stones—that was an interesting prompt for our April heARTist Trading ATC exchange. http://heartisttradingcards.blogspot.com/ I really had to put on my thinking cap. I googled internet images for all kinds of things made of stick or stone, mulling over crystals, all kinds of wooden items and even puttered with photos of the bands Styx and the Rolling Stones.

Then I remembered an old textile design I had painted with gouache on oatmeal paper. It had hunters and cattle, and was done in a style reminiscent of ancient cave drawings. I googled more images and reignited my love of cave paintings, so I decided to use the old design as my starting point.

I covered watercolor paper with recycled tea bags, and then printed ATC sized images from my inkjet printer onto the 8.5x11 paper. The texture was pretty good, but the tea bags absorbed a lot of color making the image less distinct and the color more muted. So, I punched it up by using one of my hand-carved stamps with Tim Holtz distress ink in olive and sepia. Better, but not great.

Next, I pounced gold acrylic onto them randomly with a round, flat top stenciling paintbrush, which helped give it some magic and mystery. It was still a little blah, so I tried adding color with markers, mostly because I was too lazy to pull out my paint! The markers absorbed into the teabag in some places, but not in others. I added some dark brown Portfolio water soluble oil pastels, and then finished the cards with white Portfolio water soluble oil pastel to make the colors pop as well as add depth and contrast. The sides were dipped in gold acrylic paint.

For comparison, here is the fabric I output from my inkjet printer directly onto cotton that shows the color and texture of the original design.

 

What Color is Cucumber? Embossed ATCs

The color prompt for the August Arts in the Cards http://artsinthecards.blogspot.com/ ATC group trade was cucumber, so I thought of the soft green, almost white inside of a cucumber, but also of the dark green exterior. As I rummaged around in my stash of paper and fabric looking for pieces in the green family, I found some artistically paint-splattered coffee filters from Sonja Hagemann. http://sonjahagemanndesigns.blogspot.com/ Sonja recycles her daily coffee filters by using them to blot up paint spills, or puts them behind fabric that she is hand-painting to absorb the excess. She often uses them as packing material when mailing her ATCs. I found two that had a green cast—one was in soft greens and beiges, and one with darker, earthy green tones. The question was: How do I split two round filters up for 10-12 ATCs? I decided to divide the circles into 12 pieces each, and then used a glue stick to adhere a light triangle and a dark triangle to an ATC blank. It wasn’t a perfect fit, so I added a strip of my “faux lace” (made from stamping white designs onto recycled teabags) to the right side. I decided the ATCs needed more interest, so I printed a vintage butterfly from The Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ on silk fabric, painstakingly cut them out, and then glued the butterfly onto the card. But…it looked too much like my “Fly Free” ATC from the “Dew” trade a few months ago. So, I decided to use white embossing powder to further enhance the card. I selected three stamps: half of a wrought iron gate inspired stamp, and two Tibetan wood blocks—a paisley and a small OM symbol. Each card was embossed slightly differently. I tried not to obscure the butterfly too much so it would still be partially visible. There was a bit of a color shift—the heat gun that I used to emboss the designs cooked the paper a little, and the green cucumber colors became slightly more olive, and the butterfly colors a tiny bit duller, but overall I was very happy with the end result. The final touch was a little dot of dimensional fabric paint on each corner.

Fly Free ATC

What color is dew? Like rain, it is really clear, but when it sits on the grass in the early morning, it often seems to be a pale yellow-green. With that color in mind for the June Arts in the Cards ATC exchange, I started gathering yellow-green paints, fabric and papers. I’m still enthralled with tea bags, so I gathered used, empty, dry bags from my husband’s daily green tea. I adhered them to my ATC base with PPA (perfect paper adhesive). I have been collecting pretty Ricola wrappers for a while, so I thought the flowery part of the wrapper would hint at a garden. On top of the Ricola wrapper, I cut strips of teabags that I had embossed a white scroll design, thinking it would suggest a garden fence. Below the flowers, I glued strips of green soy batik that I made from an old shirt of my husband’s. It looked naked at the top, so I added more green with Derwent blocks, and then stamped, with green acrylic, some OM symbols. They were too pale, so I covered them with a small vintage image of a butterfly that I found on the Graphics Fairy blog. http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ In Photoshop, I added the words fly free at the top and papillon at the bottom. For more texture I stitched the butterfly to the card, and finished the edges with Ranger Distress Ink in a color called Vintage Photo.

Geisha-Inspired Paper Dolls from Recycled Teabags

I am still enamored of the technique I have been puttering with for a few weeks--printing hand carved and commercial stamps on recycled tea bags and coffee filters to create a faux lace effect. Here is the latest thing I have made with them: geisha-inspired paper dolls.

I belong to an art trade group called Roses on my Table where we trade all kinds of mixed media artwork and share ideas and techniques. I was drawing a blank on this month's theme--geisha-inspired dolls--which had to contain some kind of piece relating to tea, probably to honor the tea ceremony. So, it was a double challenge for me. I like weird faces and 60s inspired clothing, so this was a bit out of my realm.

I used a face from a self-portrait an artist friend did and combined it with a geisha image in photoshop. I researched geisha clothing, and made my own template for the body and arms. The pieces are put together with tiny brads so that the head, arms, shoes and hands are moveable.

This time for my faux lace, I tried a pink screen printing paint on the teabags. I didn't think I liked it as much as the white on beige, but it worked out pretty well for the doll clothing. I added a touch of a white paisley for accent to soften the pink, and used a gluestick to adhere the printed teabags to cardstock. The trim/accent is my own fabric, available on spoonflower under edzellinni. The floral sash and shoes is the same design as my blog header at the top of the page. The hands are made from teabags glued to fabric and carefully cut out, and the purple shoes are from a kava tea wrapper.http://rosesonmytable.ning.com/