Mixed Media Monday Challenge: Paper/Art Doll

Here is an updated photo of my paper doll. Now that i have my camera back i can shoot her standing up, not making her suffer the indignity of being scanned.

This week's challenge on the Mixed Media Monday challenge blog is to create a paper doll or an art doll. Here is what i made:


It comes across kind of squished on the scan. It is actually three dimensional and looks very cool standing up. But i misplaced my camera - so this will have to do for now!


The head and shoulders came from the anthropologie catalog. The bodice is wrapped in organza ribbon and adorned with paper flowers.The skirt was inspired by martha stewart's paper trees. a series of 5 squares were folded to make each layer. I used sheet music. martha used green card stock.
The hole thing is structured on a chopstick and stuck in a spool of thread. (martha used a skewer).

Special note to all the participants in the challenge: I want you to know i look at each one of the artists work - but it takes a really long time to leave a comment for each of you. So i want you all to know i really appreciate seeing your art, especially the ladies over in Europe. it is so cool that we get to connect like this! My mother is Finnish, unfortunately i don't speak or read it. But it is fun to share our art over the globe!

Beeswax Collage Play Date

I had a play date today with my good friend Amie. We did beeswax collage together. First we did collage on 5x7 canvas boards. We added fun beaded handles - going with a random pattern.

Next we used 8x10 stretched canvas, working on the back, so that our compositions are "pre-framed". We melted the beeswax in a mini crock pot and worked with a selection of papers from my stash. Amie sent me some gorgeous photographs of flowers which i printed out on matte photo paper. I used copies of vintage images.
Amie used one of the tin bugs i bought the other day - the colour was a perfect match for her purple flower. She chose some lovely quotes from a book i had, which set a beautiful tone for her artwork. Be sure to check out more of her fabulous photography at fifolilo.com
I went with an all white monochromatic theme to match this wedding studio photo. It of course becomes very golden with the natural beeswax. If you click on the pic you'll see my toungue in cheek humour with the dictionary scrap. The drips happened by accident, but we thought they looked cool, so we left them.
After Amie left, i got to work (play?) making some ornaments for a swap i am doing with the California Art Girls. I wanted to make little canvas collage with beeswax, in a holiday theme.I punched holes in the little canvas boards and applied a base coat of wax. You may notice the extra holes. At first i planned to make them in the vertical "portrait" format. I had some angel paper and decided to use that. I cut out the two little angels and the Christmas poem. But the angels were too wide, so i went with the horizontal "landscape" format instead.
For background i used some vintage sheet music combined with some Venetian scroll paper. For the gap in the middle i used a white lacy paper. Since most of it would be covered, i economized and just used two scraps under the wings.
I used melted beeswax to combine all the papers. I chose some holiday words and attached metal letters to spell out Noel, Joy and Peace. You never know how far you are going to get with a set of letters, luckily there were enough vowels to spell 4 words!
In the past i have used wood or chip board letters on my beeswax pieces. Let me say they are SO much easier. The metal gets so hot when you try to remove the excess wax, that they slide all over the place. Then you burn your fingers trying to put them back in place. Next time i would just glue them with The Ultimate. (as per Tim H.)
Some paper and the poem finished off the backs. More beaded handles and a touch of gold organza ribbon finish them off. Once i figure out how to sign my name in beeswax, i'll send them off to my artsy friends!

Mixed Media Monday: Home Sweet Home

Here is my entry - albeit a few days late, for Mixed Media Monday challenge. This week's theme is "home sweet home". I recently picked up this photograph at Oakland's East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse. It was a small snapshot of a vintage white clapboard house with an inviting front porch. When i saw this week's theme - i knew this was the perfect subject for the art.

But what to do with it?

First I scanned the photo into my computer, so i could print it out on matte photo paper, in a larger format, 5" x 7". Then i sanded it a bit to rough it up and make it more vintage looking. Sadly the sanding smeared some of the black ink - but it created a cool effect - like a fading newspaper article clipping.
Now what to add to the house? A person would be perfect. I looked through my stash of vintage photographs. Not digital images, actual black and white photographs that ended up in my hands, a non-relative. Probably like all my photos will end up, seeing as i have no children to take them!

I found this little girl. Her name is Edith Blanche and she is 26 months old, according to the script on the back.

Next the photos needed some kind of base or frame. How about sheet music? I wanted to reiterate the theme of home-sweet-home. Wouldn't it be cool if i had a song with that name? Well sure enough, in my trusty 1941 song book, there it was. But it was too short - so i enlarged it on the printer and dissected it so that you can see the last line - which as you all know,Dorothy made famous, "There's no place like home".

I layered that onto some of my favorite Venetian scroll paper, and put that on top of some deep teal textured paper. I am not sure if this will end up being framed, or maybe in a shadow box - so for now it is lightly glued onto 9x12 water colour paper.

But the "zazz" on this piece comes from the 3-D window frame that i have been dying to use on a project - and on this it is just perfect! Edith fits exactly behind the frame. A cluster of vintage millinary flowers and a seam binding bow create a flower box.

I am not sure if this is "done". Maybe needs some more embellishment? like buttons or something metallic? Let me know what you think!

thanks....

Cigar Box Assemblage Workshop

I'll be teaching this Sunday, December 7th at Scrapbook Territory in Berkeley, CA. We'll be doing my Cigar Box Assemblage workshop. This is a jam packed, "let your hair down and play" kind of class. We start by prepping a cigar box to be covered with papers. Then you need some focal point images to center your theme. Next you get to play in Diane's stash of found object goodies. Porcelain doll parts, bits of jewelery, rusty metal findings, birds and butterflies - all can be combined together to create a magical box of treasures to keep for yourself or to share as a thoughtful gift.

All materials are supplied of course, but you can bring your own ephemera or photographs to add to the box. Please contact Scrapbook Territory to sign up for the workshop.

Here are some pictures of my student's work.

altered book artist

Just stumbled across this clip on you tube. Artist Mark Bernahl does amazing things with vintage books and what must be a REALLY sharp xacto knife!

You can see some stills at his flickr site.

Don't you want to try this yourself?

economic recovery!!

Yes - it's true. Both the NASDAQ and the DOW were up today. You know why? Because Diane went shopping.
That's right -
S.H.O.P.P.I.N.G.
All will be right with the world. Your 401k's will rebound. The Grinch can bring back Christmas. And i had fun.
Does this mean i got a job? Sadly, no. But i have sent many applications, so there are jobs out there. I just have to find the right one. In the meantime, look at all the cool stuff i bought! Wall Street will be so pleased.
I had not been to the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse in a long time.(pictured above) If you are looking for cool stuff - this is the place to find it CHEAP. (This is the store in Oakland, there is a similar place in San Francisco.) They had buckets of plastic letters, many fonts and sizes. How cool! I just grabbed them by the handful. Oddly i got home with everything but an "L" and a "V" and the numbers 3 and 4.
I also got these cool little images. UC Berkeley donated them to the store. not sure what they were - but they have hundreds of images, mostly architectural, sculptural or art images. fifty cents each. I selected some images of gothic churches and a couple of pastoral scenes.
They have thousands of rubber stamps - a close out, i imagine, from Hero Arts. I had to hold back and just get one set of four. I will be participating in a cookie swap this christmas, so i can stamp "enjoy" on the tags! I also got dozens of card blanks - they sell them by the inch!
In addition to paper and fabric and office supplies, there are boxes of just stuff. You have to dig through it to find perhaps some treasures. I found these little angels and some capiz shell coasters. I have a project in mind for these little angels - i'll share with you next week.
While on the east bay, i went to Tail of the Yak, a cool shop on Ashby in Berkeley i recently read about on someone's blog. I had never heard about it. Very cool place - they have fascinating architectural fragments, a huge birdcage (with a real bird) and dolls dressed in paper gowns. I bought a few silly things - just to get a taste of their cleverness. These metal bird and bug pins are so cute and colourful. And the paper bobeches could be used for all sorts of things, besides protecting the table from dripping wax, that is. Angel wings maybe? Halos?
So all in all some fun finds. I spent less than $30 for all of it.

Gobble gobble....!

As i go to sleep on thanksgiving eve, praying that the turkey thaws out in time to stuff and roast and serve tomorrow, i want to send a special message of thanks to all my friends and family and fellow artists and crafters. Thank you for all the inspiration and the kind thoughts. I hope you have a wonderful day with great food and great people to share it with. Enjoy!