Discovering Heat Embossing Using Stamps

My "Around the World" ATCs, made by collaging vintage images from The Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/of maps and methods of travel in Photoshop, looked a little boring. I needed to do something to make them a little different. I remembered that I had purchased some white embossing powder about five years ago, and tried it once--unsuccessfully. I decided to give it another go, and tested it with a few different stamps on various scraps of paper.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the small white grains rise, melt, and turn into a shiny white image. I tested all kinds of stamps, and finally settled on some Chinese characters; I used the symbols for Joy and for Fortunate. Anyone who can travel around the world is certainly fortunate, and would probably be filled with joy, so it seemed appropriate. The directions [which I never bothered to read when I bought the embossing powder] said to use slow drying ink. I don't know what that is, so I used a commercial stamp in yellow and quickly covered it with powder before it could dry. I then zapped it with my heat gun. I got a nice shiny white raised surface, which completely covered the yellow stamp.

I added some watercolor pencils and splattered gold paint to age the ATCs, then finished them with a little modge podge for shine. The embossing powder is a great discovery--when I try overprinting with white on bright colors, it looks wishy-washy. Even using white screen printing ink over a dark color looks a little blah. My next step is to try the embossing powder on fabric, on painted tyvek, and to find the slow drying ink...plus shop around for some more colors of the magical embossing powder.

Turquoise Jewelry-Inspired ATCs

The color theme for May’s Arts in the Cards ATC exchange is turquoise—one of my favorite colors. As I got dressed the other day, I put on a favorite Native American turquoise and silver necklace & earrings set, and the inspiration hit me. I realized that the reason I love that particular set of jewelry is that it is the greenish shade of turquoise, not the more popular bluish turquoise, and I love the nuances of other color within the stones.

I had some green and turq batik fabric, and printed a white flower with an original mini thermofax screen that was made from a print of one of my hand-carved block prints. I was off to a good start, but just mounting the printed fabric on a 2.5” x 3.5” piece of cardboard seemed really boring, so I began to slice and dice and add other fabrics, colors and textures. I settled on using ½ to ¾ of the flower print, alongside some olive green 100% wool felt, adding some thin, soft white batting, and stitched with turq thread. Some of the ATCs have the felt down the middle, which somehow reminded me of a butterfly; some have the flower on the felt on opposite sides...each one is just a little different. It still needed a little more ‘oomph’, so I added some tiny, irregular pieces of turquoise beads for accent.

Sadly, when I stitched the fabric ATC to the cardstock backing, the fabric shifted, leaving ugly white batting and cardboard exposed. I thought about cutting it, but the ATCs would have been lopsided and small. I thought about painting the exposed white to match the card, but that would have made a wet, soggy mess. So, here’s how I fixed it: I started by covering the white with a turquoise Crayola Twistables slick stix, but that was too bright. I went over it with a spring green Prismacolor marker…that did the trick. The two colors blended together just right, and matched the batik fabric as well as the olive felt.

Prayer Flag: Just for Today...

The idea of doing a prayer flag sounds easy. For me, it was not. There were a lot of questions I asked myself: should it be bold and colorful…or soft, airy and ethereal? Should it be strong and weather-resistant or delicate so it will disintegrate quickly? Paper or fabric? We’re selling our house—do I dare hang a raggedy flag in the yard? What will prospective buyers think? Can I take it down when I move or will that ruin the karma? Should I use an image or fabric that is really special and ‘sacrifice’ it to the universe? After many trials and failures, I decided the best thing to do was to be really ‘me’—bold, rainbow colors, sturdy fabrics. I took one of my ‘balancing my chakras in a hurricane’ atcs, step and repeated the design, and turned it into a tie-dye looking fabric. I overlaid a few words in white script—peace, honesty, communication, compassion & kindness. They are kind of one word mini prayers. I also included, in a smaller size and different font, the reiki prayer that I start and end each day with. It says: Just for today, I will let go of anger. Just for today, I will let go of worry. Just for today, I will count my many blessings. Just for today, I will do my work honestly. Just for today, I will be kind to every living creature. Simple words...but very, very hard to adhere to. I flipped the image and printed it on a t-shirt transfer sheet, ironed it to cotton, and mounted the artwork on two strong batiks that matched the design, and added some thin batting. I hand-quilted the piece and purposely left the edges unfinished and frayed. After I was done, I discovered that I left out a word in the reiki prayer, but didn’t fix it—somehow it seemed right to be imperfect.

Reiki-Inspired Art-O-Mat Blocks: Energy-Growth-Bloom

Here is my newest batch of Art-o-Mat blocks, packed and ready to ship out.
I used small silkscreens, well, really thermofax screens, which fiber artist Lynn Krawczyk makes.

The silkscreens come out soooo much better than trying to block print onto fabric, and it is really fast, easy and inexpensive. Lynn's esty site is http://www.etsy.com/shop/FibraArtysta. You can send her your own designs or purchase some of her pre-made screens. I also purchase screen printing paint from her, which stays moist and doesn't clog the screens like acrylics sometimes can. The gold paint, however, is an acrylic that I get at my local five and ten.

These blocks are made from my own designs. The one that looks like a musical note is the reiki energy symbol; I printed in gold on purple batik since purple is the healing color in reiki.

The floral is from a hand carved stamp I made, which I then had made into a small screen. I printed it on a rose colored cotton batik. The spiral-leaf is a doodle I make constantly, so I had that made into a silkscreen also, and printed it on both colors of batik.

This is my process in making the blocks:
1-iron the fabric so there are no wrinkles
2-print the small silkscreens on the fabric
3-cut peltex rectangles the size to fit an artomat block (you can also size them for quilted postcards or ATCs)
4-put the silkscreened piece on top of the peltex, stitch the edges of the piece with a zig-zag, and add quilting with a plain stitch
5-glue the artwork to the artomat block (I use sobo)
6-decorate the edges with dots of dimensional fabric paint
7-put a back label on with the name of the artwork and other info
8-wrap them with little pieces of cellophane so they will vend properly from the artomat machines
9-pack and ship, and pray that they sell.

If you want to find out more about art-o-mat, also known as Artists in Cellophane, go to: http://artomat.com/

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/

Roosevelt Island Cherry Trees

What a beautiful surprise I had at 5 PM today when I left my office on Roosevelt Island. The cherry trees along the East River were blooming, the sky was bright turquoise and the sun glimmering on the water.

The cherry trees, planted at the river's edge in front of Goldwater Hospital, were donated many years ago by some swanky residents of Sutton Place who didn't want a big, blocky public hospital maring their scenic view of the East River. The trees really aren't tall enough to accomplish their intended task, but they sure are gorgeous, and both patients and staff enjoy them.

What Color is Rain?

For our Arts In The Cards April ATC theme, the color prompt was rain. Rain? Rain is clear isn't it? So how could I interpret rain as a color? I thought of rainwater collecting in a jar on the back porch when I was a child; my mother ran out with a big pot every time it rained so she would have water for her steam iron. Our well-water was so full of minerals that it clogged the iron. Usually the rainwater she collected was clear, but sometimes rain looks light blue or gray or or even yellowish brown.

I went back and forth trying to decide between pale aqua and ecru for rain, and finally gave up and did half and half. I used recycled tea bags, and randomly printed two blocks--one a paisley Tibetan woodblock and one my own hand-carved tulip--with white screenprinting ink. I mounted some of the printed teabags on white board, and for some I put an underlay of a pale aqua silky fabric, then the printed teabag. The finishing touches were a strip of very sheer lace and pale aqua chalk accent.

The paisley shape, quite accidentally, reminded me of a large raindrop, and the tulip print reminded me of the plants that grow from the rain. I tried to convey the clearness of summer rain by the subtlety of the colors and sheerness of the teabags and lace, and the brownish stains on the teabags reminded me of the minerals that are in rainwater.

If you want to see more interpretations of "rain" go to: http://artsinthecards.blogspot.com/

Faux Lace from Recycled Tea Bags

I have been saving tea bags and coffee filters for quite a while. I often adhere them to a big piece of fabric or paper, then stamp over them with my handcarved blocks. As I was silkscreening some small art-o-mat pieces last week, it occurred to me to try printing on the teabags.

I was inspired by Canadian mixed-media artist Deborah Burnahm's work. Her printmaking and painting has an ethereal quality that I admire. Some of her work has a very subtle, imperfect-on-purpose white lace in the background which adds depth and mystery. [Deborah's Esty shop is called Land of Nod Studios]

I grabbed some white printmaking paint and applied it to my own stamps. The first few attempts were awkward; the printed image was uneven and incomplete. I decided to try draping the teabag over the painted stamp and pressing gently to be sure the image transferred. The result was just what I wanted.

I stayed up until midnight playing with my ecru paper and white paint. I used two stamps: one was my own handcarved swirly tulip, and the other, a Tibetan carved wood paisley that I purchased at a little shop in New York's East Village.

At midnight, I snapped a quick photo, then emailed it to myself. The light was bad, but for a change the bad light gave it an interesting sepia color and made it look aged.

On my lunch hour, I played with the photo, and used it as a background, then photoshopped in two beautiful images from The Graphics Fairy, http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com, for some romantic tags. I used words from a vintage French sign and a beautiful antique rose.

This weekend I used the stamped coffee and tea paper to make atcs. I glued the printed teabags to a cardboard atc base with PPA [perfect paper adhesive] and added a touch of lace that I found at M&J Trim to finish it off.

Here is a quick step-by-step on my printed tea bag lace:
1-save tea bags and let them completely dry out. It is best if you pull them out of the hot water before adding any sugar, milk or lemon...otherwise you will have a sticky mess and get holes when you try to use them.
2-carefully remove the staple and tag, and empty out the bag; then carefully open the teabag into one small sheet of paper. I love the uneven color that results.
3-take your favorite stamp [a lacy or floral one works well] and apply white acryllic paint.
4-drape your teabag over the stamp and gently press down. Remove carefully, and you should have a complete image.
5-repeat randomly. Try using an assortment of stamps. Also, the print does not have to be perfect; it adds depth when they are uneven or incomplete.

New Art O Mat Reiki-Inspired Designs

Art-O-Mat, also known as Artists in Cellophane finally gave me the thumbs up on some new designs. I hand silkscreened my designs on commercial batik fabric. [I print with thermofax screens that Lynn Krawczyk, aka Fibra Artysta, makes from designs I send her.]

The one that looks like a musical note is the reiki energy symbol, which is in gold on a purple batik. Purple is the healing color in reiki, so it seemed an appropriate color combination. The others samples are made from my own squiggly designs: a leaf with a spiral inside it in two colors--black on red and gold on purple, and a floral shape in black on red. Red is the color of the root chakra, so that seemed like a good choice in addition to the purple.
Why the black and gold paint? The gold on purple seemed magical...and black was the only color that really showed up well on top of the red batik.
Art-O-Mat vending machines are all over the country. They take vintage cigarette machines and re-tool them to vend small pieces of affordable art. It is a great way for artists to get their work out into the world. I like the idea of making art that anyone can afford, not just big collectors with megabucks. Not that I would mind if some big collector with megabucks was interested in collecting my bigger pieces...

In the Newspaper

I was recently fortunate to be the subject of a profile in a local NY newspaper, The East Hampton Star. Writer/photojournalist Carrie Ann Salvi did a great job interviewing me, and was really accurate and also a sensitive writer.

I felt like a little kid on her birthday...in a happy bubble all day, a mini-star for a day. Here is the link to the article for anyone who has not seen it: http://www.easthamptonstar.com/?q=Arts/2012221/Mixed-Media-Artwork-Therapy

(That is my Maltese, Coco in the photo with me.)

Favorite Abstract Modern Painters

I am working on an ATC project about favorite artists. I love so many artists it was hard to choose, but I settled on two abstract painters: French artist and fabric designer Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979)and American painter Richard Deibenkorn (1922-1993).

I puttered with an assortment of paints and color-giving art supplies--watercolors, chalk pastels, oil pastels and watercolor pencils. Working on 2.5" x 3.5" ATCs kind of cramped my style, so I used a big sheet of good quality Japanese rag watercolor paper, penciled in the space for 16 ATCs, and left 1/2 inch between them.

I did about half ala Deibenkorn, and half ala Delaunay. The overall effect was kind of interesting, so I snapped a picture of it before cutting them down to size. I almost didn't cut them, and thought about saving the whole piece as a single painting, but decided to go ahead and cut them up, resolving that my next artquilt should be a Deibenkornish piece painted on tyvek or thin paper, then quilted.

I have been busy with new art supplies, new techniques, and new ideas, so it was really nice to revisit plain old paper and paint. It reinforced one of my art 'rules': NEVER skimp on art supplies. Buy the best paints, paper and brushes that you can afford. The colors will be richer, the paint will stay where you want it to and go on properly, and the texture will be right. Skip the new clothes, the restaurant meal, but splurge on art supplies. You won't be sorry.

SubLIME ATCs

Lime is the theme for Arts in the Cards for March. Limes are delicious and refreshing, and lime is one of my favorite colors. I use it so much that I think of it as a neutral...when I don't know what to do with a piece of art, I use lime thread to stitch it, or dab on lime paint.

For these ATCs, I started with some hand carved block prints that I had printed with lime paint on white paper. They are part of my edzellinni fabric line that I did for my SAQA visioning project. I combined the blockprints in photoshop, and then added the word lime and the mirror image of the word. I arranged the words at the top and bottom, but cut off part of each to make the words less obvious.

I liked what I had, but then I decided to take another angle. I used some Graphics Fairy royalty free antique clipart, http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/--a dress form, some antique shoes, a lilly of the valley plant in a pot, an Marie Antoinette style woman, and a hand holding a rose. I changed the color to be limey on all the clipart except the hand holding the rose. It looked okay, but seemed not quite finished, so I put the blockprints and words behind the photoshop woman that I had constructed. After I printed the ATCs on cardstock,the design still needed something, so I decided to embellish it with lime stitching--a straight stitch and a zig zag.

These small pieces combines many things that I love--mixed media,photoshop, antique clipart, fashion design, flowers (especially roses), fabric design, typography and carving/printing my own designs.

From Doodle to Art Quilt

I’m a doodler. I can sketch, I can paint, but what I really love to do is doodle. I can’t sit still in a meeting—I doodle as I take notes. So, I am trying to embrace what I do naturally and expand on that to create artwork, rather than trying to do what is popular, or what other people do, or what other people want me to do, so that my work will be unique and really express what is inside me. I doodle flowers, faces, letters and numbers, and abstract designs. I am also trying to stop being a perfectionist, and not feel like a failure when something is a little sloppy or lopsided.

This 8.5” x 11” artquilt started with a little doodle using an orange marker on ATC sized watercolor paper. I scanned that and played with it in Photoshop, creating my ‘red’ themed ATCs for our Arts in the Cards February exchange.

The theme for our very first Arts in the Cards REvisioned art quilts is ‘rebirth’…so I chose to try a different interpretation of the orange doodle. In photoshop, I changed it from orange to black, enlarged it, then did a positive/negative and flipped and repeated it. It was the same process I used for the red ATCs, but larger and in black and white. I ironed freezer paper [shiny side down] to white cotton, then cut the fabric/paper to 8.5x11 and printed it out of my computer.

The question was…what do I do around the edge? I designed a black and white checkerboard border in QuarkXpress, which looked cool. But then it seemed too puttery to cut little pieces out of fabric and piece them together, and too time-consuming to paint them on fabric. So, I tried a white border with big red buttons, a black border with big red buttons, an abstract b/w border of painted recycled tyvek, and a black felt border with smaller white buttons—which was the one I decided to use.

It was fun doing this just for me for a change—no jury committee or magazine editor to worry about, no concerns about mailing it, no duplication so that everyone could have one. I enjoyed the therapy of hand-sewing the buttons. There were a few mistakes; I didn’t have my rotary cutter and had to hand-cut the felt edging, so one of the sides is not quite the right width, and I miscounted on the buttons…the top row has a different number than the bottom. Also, I am not a super skillful quilter technically, so my machine quilting lines are wobbly. Rather than re-doing the edge, the machine stitching and the buttons, I finished it anyway, allowing myself to be imperfect…not an easy thing for a Virgo perfectionist!

Art x 4: Red ATCs

One day a few months ago I was home sick in bed, so I decided to entertain myself by drawing. I drew some ATC sized boxes and started doodling. In my day job, I am a writer and graphic artist, so naturally I love letters, fonts and design. So, I played with the word ART. One of the designs I came up with was the start of this card for my ATC group Arts in the Cards.

I scanned the design, tweaked it in photoshop, made it a nice cherry red, and did a positive/negative, then flipped them around so there would be a mirror effect. I added some solid orange and pink accent. I am also a textile designer, so I couldn't resist adding a scaled down version of a pink monoprint that is one of my fabric designs [available on spoonflower, listed under edzellinni]. The orange design under the red letters is from my lunchtime mandala group, a series of circular stream-of-consciousness doodles that I did a couple years ago. The original design of my swirly, doodly word ART is visible in the top left corner of the card.

We have also started, thanks to Marie Z. Johansen, a spinoff of the group. We will be doing 8.5" x 11" art quilts related to the ATCs every other month. I am doing a variation on this design for my first art quilt for the new group.

Be on the lookout for our new projects at: http://artsinthecardsrevisioned.blogspot.com/

MADD About Annie

My sister-in-law commissioned me to do this 8" x 11" art quilt of her daughter, Annie. She gave me a tiny photo, about 2" x 3" to work from. I scanned the photo, played with the color in photoshop, adjusting the lights and darks and adding a sepia tone, then output it on Avery printable cotton.

I knew it needed some soft lace at the edges, but didn't have anything on hand that was quite right. I love lace, but the wrong one can be either tacky or garish, and cheapen a piece. The right one can be magic. So, I paid a visit to M&J Trim after work to see what they might have. I hadn't been in the store in a few years--I remembered that it was wonderful, but had forgotten just how wonderful. I nearly cried when I saw the incredible trims and laces in there, one more beautiful than the next. I bought 4 or 5 and took them home to try out. I also got little rosettes for the corners. Possibly schmaltzy, but still--so sweet.

I was a little afraid of the actual quilting. I am not a super skillful quilter, and don't have a high-tech machine. So, I pretty much left the face alone and accentuated the dress and curtains with stitch. I added chalk pastels and watercolor pencils to enhance some of the details and set it with fixative.

So why am I MADD about Annie? Well, she was killed by a drunk driver in 1993, just after her 12th birthday. She was on her way to a small birthday celebration with a couple of good friends when the drunk driver blew through a red light. My brother and sister-in-law worked to get the laws changed in Maryland to get stiffer punishment for drunk drivers. Not much has changed. The driver only served a few months in jail, and Annie's remaining family is sentenced to a lifetime of sadness and loss.

Steampunk Paper Dolls

I can't believe how happy I am puttering with paper dolls. I did love them as a kid, so its not a huge surprise. But I really didn't realize that making art paperdolls would combine the art therapy of collage with my inner fashion designer wannabe and my love of drawing crazy faces.

Here is what I did for the Roses On My Table group's January exchange with a theme of Steampunk. The one on the top right is the face from my piece "Broken Chakra Girl." She has gone all sci-fi punk, cut her hair and is living on the edge. The one on the bottom with a large head and square eye is a face I doodled one day when a very old friend of my husband's called from Australia. The woman, who I have never met and is a psychic, talked on and on and on. When she hung up, this is the face that emerged.

Photoshop Addiction

I had three art exchanges in January, and I used Photoshop for all of them. I must be addicted...at least it has no calories, and really doesn't cost anything once you buy the program.

For Roses On My Table's January ATCs, the theme was "Cowboy's Sweetheart" so I chose my personal favorite, Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke (Amanda Blake). I used a vintage TV guide cover and took out the background leaving only Kitty. Next, I manipulated the Kitty image, adding a photoshop image filter to make it more graphic, and making the color more in the purple family. I then mixed it up with some Graphics Fairy vintage clipart textures in the backgroud and a cowboy silhouette. I used chalk pastels to enhance and accent the card after it was printed.

There is a new group on Roses, a postcard exchange group. With the theme of Valentine's Day, I went romantic with some Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ vintage clipart of teacups, roses and French vintage advertising graphics.

The Roses Tag trade had a crazy theme..."I see London, I see France" so I again used Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ images of English tea and roses and French chocolate and advertising written in French.

Last, but certainly not least, were the ATCS for Arts in the Cards, my own ATC trade group, that is celebrating its 2 year anniversary. Our theme was, naturally, TWO, so I chose my two hands. I traced my hand on paper, then filled in the hand shape with a turquoise doodle and used a deep purple for the background. I scanned the design, reduced it in Photoshop, duplicated and flipped, the arranged the hands to be on top of each other.

Two Years of Arts in the Cards and My First Art Journal

It occurred to me recently that my ATC group, Arts in the Cards, has been together for two years. I started it with Suzan Morgan; we had been in some quilted postcard exchanges together, then we discovered that we were both fabric designers, and both making small fiber art pieces for Art O Mat. We decided to trade ATCs similar to our Art O Mat works. That was fun, so we asked a few friends to join us in trading ATCs and the group was born. The other mainstay of the group is Janice Paine-Dawes, who runs our Yahoo group and the AIC blog. [Thank you Janice!] Suzan is no longer part of the group since she wanted to focus on larger works.

We are now branching out into doing 8.5" x 11" art quilts based on the ATC themes, and Marie Johansen is spearheading that project. With New Year's nearly upon us, I was puttering around in my electronic and actual archives looking for inspiration. I came upon a design that I think will nicely fit our next AIC theme--Two--in honor of our two years of ATCs.

While I was puttering, I found an old favorite design, the cover of an old journal that I had painted with oil pastels and acrylics. It was the first art journal I made, and I still love it. It has gold paint on it, which looks brown in the scan, so the photo isn't as magical as the actual journal cover. The color was also a little off, so I monkeyed with the colors in photoshop.

It reminds me of where I was about 10 years ago when I made the journal--super anxiety ridden, unable to work, a nervous wreck. I could barely eat, couldn't sleep, tried a bunch of meds that didn't really help, and was practically skin and bones. The art journaling and mixed media work helped me work through my panic. My artwork is mainly therapeutic. Even when other people don't like my work, it is significant to me. It is also really interesting to look back at older pieces and remember what was going on in my life at the time I made it.

Flat Santa Wants to Know: Have You Been Naughty or Nice?

Our ATC group, Arts in the Cards, is doing a flat santa trade. Janice Paine-Dawes introduced me to Flat Stanley, who we based the flat santas on. Apparently kids write stories to go with Flat Stanley and he travels around the globe...just like santa, but without a sleigh.

My santa is kind of half elf; his pointy gold slippers and harlequin pants are a testament to his elfenness, and he is so interested in who has been naughty and who has been nice that it is written on his shirt. Somehow I think elf-santa prefers the naughty people...because he sure looks like he wants to dance and party all night.

Vitamin Water Zero Paper Doll

After hours of cooking on Thanksgiving, I needed a break, so I pulled out my scrap bins, paints and glue, and did some doll therapy. This doll is 1960s inspired, with an a-line mini dress made of a Vitamin Water Zero label. I love the graphics and the colors, but I especially love the drink. It is the only diet drink that I can have that doesn't have me doubled over with stomach pains, plus, it tastes pretty good.

Her tights are made of aluminum foil, recycled from our holiday pie-making. The red go-go boots are cut from a scrap of watercolor paper, and adorned with silver sequins. Earrings, made of seed beads and pony beads, were sewn on. The doll's cap is made of the inner wrapper of a peanut butter cup. I expect I will soon make a doll friend for Ms. Zero out of the orange outer peanut butter cup wrapper, left over from Halloween. It was my ONLY Halloween treat. Really, I only ate one!

Art O Mat Blocks and My Canine Assistant

Whenever I hit a dry patch in my creative life, I remind myself to make more Art O Mat blocks. Making them is fun...but a pretty lengthy process. I print my original artwork on either Avery printable cotton sheets, or on t-shirt transfer sheets (with the image flipped), then iron them to cotton. I cut then, add some pellon or felt backing, quilt them and edge them. Some models get beads and sequins added, some get touches of paint for embellishment. Then I glue them to the art o mat blocks, glue a label on the back that tells all about me, and wrap the finished blocks with strips of cellophane so they can slide out the art o mat vending machines easily.

I feel good about the blocks because they are all mine. All my orginal artwork, no clip art, nobody else's ideas. They remind me that I do indeed have some creative, sucessful work--small, but successful still. It reminds me that I don't have to make a masterpiece every time, that I don't have to create huge murals, that I don't have to be avant garde.

And every once in a while I get a nice little check from art o mat, and a green card that tells me if they are running low on my block supply. Interestingly, they seem to love me in Vegas! Quite a few sold at the Cosmopolitan. And I even had my "Time Warp" pieces in the Smithsonian and some at the Whitney. (In the art o mat machines in the gift store, not actually hanging on the museum walls!)

If I calculated how much time I spent on each one, I probably don't actually make any money. But, the checks pay do for more art supplies! And of course it makes my canine assistant, Coconut Jenkins Wyatt, feel very useful. He guards them with his life and makes sure leaves don't blow on them and keeps insects off them as they are drying in the sun.

Reiki Prayer Quilt with the North Pole Grid

I made this little 12" x 12" quilt a while back, and posted photos of it as I was designing it, but never posted the final photo. Lately I have started working on some more reiki inspired pieces, but this little one remains a favorite.

To start, I printed a photo (with permission of William Lee Rand) of the North Pole Grid on avery printable cotton. It looked dull when it came out of the printer, so I overpainted it with gold acrylic. [go to http://www.reiki.org/GlobalHealing/northp.html if you want to read more about the NP Grid.] It is a beautiful and fascinating story.

The little sequins on the tips indicate the major world religions. The actual NP Grid is made of gold and crystals, and has different symbols for each religion.

I cut out the gold NP Grid, and stitched it to a painted background of icy blues and white, which I created using watersoluble oil pastels [which aren't really oil, they are more like a gel stick] to simulate the snow and ice of the north pole for the background.

Each corner has the reiki healing symbol. The sides have the reiki morning prayer, combined with my own purple soy batik. It is edged with purple corduroy that was left over from a jumper I made my daughter, Amanda, many years ago. Purple is the healing color, and also her favorite color.

Alice, Camelot and a Glamorous Harvest

I have been doing a lot of trades with my Roses on my Table groups. For the tag theme Ancient Cities, I blanked out, but finally decided on the fictitious city of Camelot since somehow my family has gotten addicted to the show Merlin.

For the Statues tag theme, I really was at a loss. So, I did a search of NYC statues and hit on the Alice in Wonderland statues in Central Park. My daughter loved climbing on them when she was little, so that seemed like fun. I combined it with an image of the Imagine mosaic tribute to John Lennon.

The ATC theme harvest seemed a little dull, since I first thought of the same old Thanksgiving feast images. Thanks to some http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ vintage clipart, I made a photoshop collage of antique seed packets. They were particularly interesting to me because they are marked Oneida County, which I where I grew up. The art needed some pepping up, so I added in glamorous 1940s model Georgia Carroll, who is the grandmother of my daughter's best friend, which kind of went with the antique seed packets and made me think of beautiful women squashing grapes at harvest time.

Machine Quilting Unlimited and Eye of Panic

What a great surprise I had this weekend! I opened my mailbox and found an envelope addressed to me from some place in Florida. I opened it, and found a copy of the November/December issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited. I thought it was a free, trial copy, but then I noticed that there was an article on the Sacred Threads Exhibit that was held in DC this past summer. Since I had been a participant, with two pieces in the show, I turned right to that article. Imagine my surprise and delight when I saw my own eye staring back at me from page 28!

The author and magazine's managing editor, Kit Robinson, had chosen an assortment of images and stories from the exhibit for her seven page article. I am thrilled and honored to have my work included.

This is a detail shot of the piece. It will also be included in a book by Karen Musgrave called Quilts in the Attic: Uncovering the Hidden Stories of the Quilts We Love, which will be out in February 2012. (Karen's book is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com)

Duct Tape Hardware ATCs: Unchain My Heart? or Heart of Gold?

Hardware. It sounded like a really fun ATC theme. So, I dug around the house looking for mechanical bits and pieces and found nothing. Not one bolt, nut, or screw that would work. No little washers, no gear pieces. Well, we aren't the handiest, do-it-yourself family, so I shouldn't have been surprised. I was stuck and frustrated and had to rethink my whole idea because I didn't have time, or $, to run out to the hardware store to look for inspiration. I settled on good old silver duct tape, and went back to my tried and true favorite base, painted, recycled coffee sleeves. I painted the sleeves gold to contrast the silver duct tape and angeled the tape on the base. I had some chain link left from my Eye Of Panic art quilt [that I really did buy at the hardware store--and yes, they thought I was a crazy artist buying so much chain], so I punched holes in the cards, set grommets in them, and threaded the chain thru, closing it with a little silvery end cap. I added a little gold cardboard lopsided heart on the chain for softness. It looked naked, so I added gold brads in each corner to mimic nailheads.

I couldn't decide on the title: Heart of Gold [strains of Neil Young running through my head bring me back quite a few years] or Unchain My Heart? Isn't that a country song? or am I mixing Unbreak My Heart with Unchained Melody? Any votes on the title?

Halloween Witch Dolls

I belong to three groups at Roses On My Table, and they are all great fun. A tag group, an atc group and a paper doll group. The doll making is amazingly fun, creative and therapeutic. Here's what I did for our Halloween doll exchange--one scary and one pretty. I used the template available on the groups site, then added some vintage faces I found online. The clothing is made of paper towels, distressed Lumiere-painted tyvek, felt, ribbon, a painted recycled facial cleansing cloth and gold netting. Capes are removable, so whoever gets them in the exchange can really play with them. Little girls dont' always grow up, do they? At least I'm in touch with my inner child...

Balancing My Chakras In a Hurricane

In the aftermath of Irene, the recent hurricane turned tropical depression, I sat in my boarded up house, listening to the wind, with just a sliver of daylight peeking in. I decided to cope by making some art. With a flashlight, I bumbled down to my studio, grabbed some good rag watercolor paper, watercolors, watersoluble oil pastels and took it upstairs. I painted two big pieces of undulating curves in rainbow colors that blended into each other; I later cut one of the pieces down to ATC size.

As I was falling asleep that night, I realized the balance connection: I use meditation and visualization of chakra colors to calm myself, especially during a panic attack. So, I added watercolor dots [which I cut with a hole punch] in the reiki chakra colors to the little undulating curvy backgrounds. The ATC reminds me that I need to meditate on a daily basis to keep my crazy life in balance.

23 and 3

My daughter celebrated her 23rd birthday over the weekend. I happened to snap a photo of her wearing some new earrings, and she was standing in front of a fiber piece based on a photo of her at 3, when she was in the Nutcracker at the local Y. (The pieces of the 'fractured photo' were done by me and 7 other members of an art exchange group, and I stitched them all together.)

Also included is her birthday card, with pictures of the family photoshopped into a Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ royalty free clipart of 4 French old-fashioned ladies.

Little Stuff, and the Smithsonian!

My small labor of love is making art-o-mat blocks which are sold in vending machines around the country. Today, along with a check, I received the listing of where the blocks had been sold. How cool that there was a bunch in the machine in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC! Fortunately, I am devoting much of my art time this week (that is, my stay-cation)to doing art and making more mini quilted pieces for art-o-mat. Last time I got a check and a sales listing, there were a gazillion sold in the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Vegas. So, here is a picture of the different blocks I make. The most popular one seems to be my yellow self portrait. (This is it unquilted. I add some beads and sequins to jazz it up.)

And it is a good day for small things...SAQA just announced a new show, "A Sense of Scale" that will contrast big pieces with small ones. So, I can do a series of pieces as small as 12" x 12". I have felt alternately annoyed, sad, and mad that I can't enter most art quilt shows since I like to work small. Maybe someday when I retire and can devote all day to art I can go big, and get a giant longarm sewing machine, but with my crazy, busy work schedule, small is all I can comfortably do right now.

Retro...Me

I just joined a group within a group, Le Papier Dolls, part of Roses On My Table, where I already exchange ATCs and tag art. Who knew Le Papier Dolls would be so much fun? This month's theme was "Back to School" so I went back to my childhood and did some 'Little Linnie 1967' girls. I used a template available to the group, but added an A-line dress that I sketched from a vintage 1967 Simplicity pattern. I cut pieces of my own fabric designs (printed on paper) for the dresses. Of course, I was compelled to have textured stockings, because the key to my whole late 60s wardrobe was colored fishnets in every shade of the rainbow. The face is me at 10 (well, it was taken from a group shot of my family at a reunion in 1965, but close enough.) I printed the b/w pix, spritzed with fixative, and added a tiny bit of watercolor.

I had more fun (artistically) than I have had in years making my paper dolls (I did about 10), I think because it combined the freedom of collage with the pure joy of being a child again playing with paper dolls. It also brought me back to a simple time, before jobs, mortgages, child, husband, and before school work actually got hard.

Left Brain, Right Brain

I go back and forth between my left brain and my right. Sometimes I take comfort in mathematical, repetitive designs; sometimes I just want to paint and make a mess and hopefully end up with something beautiful. My left brain wants to be neat and logical, my right brain wants to let out emotion and be a messy 7 year old.

Recently I had two ATC challenges. One was divas, and I made a pretty right brained homage to Chrissie Hynde. I used a royalty free graphic of a fairy on a butterfly, then photoshopped on Chrissie's face, some red boots and added wings from a Graphics Fairy butterfly. http://www.graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/
The other was opposites, and I felt the need to do a precise expanded square with clean lines and sharply defined blacks and whites. Both designs are very "me" but from different parts of me.

Pretenders

Divas is the theme for the next Roses on my Table ATC trade. I wasn't sure what to do, because I really don't have a lot of respect for famous people who think they are uber special and act like divas. Many of the music divas really don't sing/play the kind of music I like, so I went a little outside the diva box, and thought about favorite female singers. My inner rocker chick came up with a few ideas, but if I could be anyone, singing wise (and no, I can't carry a tune) it would be Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders.

So, I played with Chrissie in photoshop, plunked her face and guitar down on a Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ royalty free clipart of a fairy riding a butterfly, then added one of my own monoprints for a background, bigger wings from a Graphics Fairy butterfly, and some sexy high red boots. I softly colored Chrissie's face in photoshop. This is the result, to which I will soon print, add gloss and glitzy accent.