Jan 29 Gong Hay Fat Choy

Two pages today for Chinese New Years. 2006 is the year of the dog
The robe was stamped on paper made last summer with the nailpolish technique and it dosnt show up in scans very well. It has beautiful iridescent colors of sapphire, fushia, turquoise,gold and variations thereof. it reminds me of the colors seen in puddles at shopping centers - somebodys leaking oil. I had my chop carved in marble when i went to China and unfortunately i've forgotten which way is up.
The right hand side bckgrd is joss papers, stamped picture and the good luck symbol was punched and layered over a bit of my chocolate bar wrapper. I think i might have made the knot wrong or maybe didnt tighten it correctly, because it dosnt look quite right. Anyhow, Gong Hay Fat Choy!

Jan 28 Bargello

This is the bargello technique from Nancy Currys book Texture Effects and the paper is the other half from yesterday, the resist technique. The bckgrd in the scan dosnt show up as the right color, although its a different tone, it looks ok in real life. The cracks between the strips also show up too much, due to the shiny paper i think because again, irl, its not noticable. This technique is a lot harder than it looks and i had to "fake" it in a few places. If i ever make another one i'm sure it'll be better now that i understand the technique a little better.

Jan 27 Ophelia

Bckgrd is the resist technique on glossy paper. I made 1/2 sheet to have enough for tomorrow. I stamped Ophelia first with Stazon black then again a little offset with Brilliance gold. It dosnt show up in the scan but the effect is very nice.

Jan 26 Volcano

for todays art i used textured wallpaper and an old calendar. First i spray painted the wp with gold paint and when it was dry distressed it by picking and scraping off some of the puffy texture. The calendar has all pics of Hawaiian volcanos. i chose the little one from the back of it of a distant view and glued it onto a bit of fun foam so its a little raised. The full size main calendar pic is a close up of running lava. I tore little bits and glued them in between the puffy areas of the texture then overdid the gold outlining of everything. Stamped the Japanese word or words? and i dont know if its upside down (sorry if you know it is; it was an accident)

Jan 25 Time flies

Ain't it funny how time slips away! Yes, time really does fly and kids sure do grow fast these days.
For the bckgd of this piece i used a napkin that i had blotted another piece of art on. I had reinked the pad a little too heavily, stamped, and it was way too wet. i grabbed a napkin; one of those big fairly heavy ones from certain restaurants. I sort of floated it down over the wet mess and pressed with my hand all over. When i peeled it off i was surprised to see alot of the stamp pattern remained and although it wasnt very clear it had a beauty all its own. I set it aside to dry not really expecting it to be useful as a bckgrd because after all, it was just a napkin. When it dried i thought it was beautiful! I applied gluestick all over a piece of paper and carefully pressed the napkin onto it for added strength then added a little more color dtp with pigment inks. Then i covered up some of the nicest parts with this growing boy and the time flying by!

Jan 24 Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Jan 23 with added lady

I was thinking this page was missing something but i didnt know what. So, i took a tip from Dale Anne and just let it rest until it told me what it wanted, and it did! I was looking for something to inspire me for todays art and came across this picture. I knew right away she was was the missing element from yesterday! Then i was thinking she might not want to stick because the page is highly embossed but she did with just a glue stick. Also the image of the little girl at the window looking out at the fairies was well attached too because i put heavy weight on it overnight. So, 2 problems solved!

And now back to my regularly scheduled Blogger problem. Does anybody know what to do about pictures that come up over and over? Its taking me sometimes up to 4 or 5 tries before the one i want will load. Meanwhile i try things and as a consequence i'll get the wrong text with the wrong picture. Thats what happened here and i dont know how to move it, and it takes me so long to retype; i'm a 2 finger typist. I despise how messy this looks and Blog help people are no help. I've cleared my cache so many times and dont know what else to do.

The segment of poetry i used for Jan 24 is from Invictus by William Ernest Henly. Its been a favorite since grade 8 and sometimes it gets in my head and i'll go around reciting it all day. Here it is in its entirety

Out of the night that covers me,
black as the pit from pole to pole,
i thank whatever gods may be
for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
i have not winced nor cried aloud
under the blungeonings of chance
my head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
looms but the horror of the shade,
and yet the menace of the years
finds, and will find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
how charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

Jan 22 the fairies come out tonight

Well, maybe i'll learn from this little episode that i should plan ahead! I had attached 4 pastel colored foils to the cs then remembered i'm trying to get out of my pastel stage so i colored them again with a variety of products and finally ended up happy with the alcohol inks. They looked real nice, vivid deep jewel colors. I then foolishly tackled it with the bone folder and wrecked the center, and then wrecked it some more trying to fix that. Since my original plan was to display 4 buttons in the 4 sections and that wasnt an option anymore i had to think of something else. Well, i had been bumping into this little stamped thing lately every time when i was rooting around looking for something else. I had stamped and embossed it about 6 yrs ago but then i didnt like it so it didnt make it onto a card. And yet i couldnt throw it because it was so well done with the sparkly black sky and all gel pen colored. The rubber was given away and the image long forgotten and its bumped around in the drawer ever since, waiting for this chance to come out and shine. And shine it did cuz i now thought it looked great on these foils and it is kind of cute...

but unfortunately it might not be able to stay because i dont think theres been a glue invented yet that'll hold it onto the foil. Cant use brads or eyelets because before i found out, i had made and attached tomorrows dd art today (Jan 23)because i might not be able to tomorrow and it wont look good with their backsides on it. I also attached gold foil around the edge, catching it onto the next page and unfortunately thats not holding very well either because its too narrow to go around the double thickness. So, the art of Jan 22 and 23 might change without further warning due to poor workwomanship. I went from one of my best pieces-the sunrise over Haleakala to the two worst the very next day! Does anyone know of an adhesive that'll hold foil to paper? I tried http://www.thistothat.com but its not listed there.

Jan 21 Aquarius Sunrise over Haleakala

yayyy its working again. I made this picture with white caulk that i spread with an old credit card thinly and as evenly as possible over a recycled piece of acetate. When it was dry i used a pin and the tip of an exacto knife to mark and pick out the outlines i wanted. It was chippy going and would have been easy if i could have found the tools i know i have somewhere for lino or rubber block cutting. Alcohol inks for the color and scraps of foil attached on the back. It would have been more brilliant if i hadn't sanded the back of the acetate but thought i should to make sure it would adhere to the page in the book.

the spine of Aquarius

ok i'm going to try and get the rest on then hit the sack. So heres the spine; i like it a lot. I painted the skewers with purple Lumieres acrylics

Jan 20

Sorry for the mix up and the cover being with the text for this page. Blogger has been doing this so much and its tiring and annoying to upload, write and then publish only to find out it keeps putting the cover back up....i dont know how much longer i want to go on with this crap because when you delete it also deletes the words and i have to retype, and i'm a slowwww typist. I've written to them so many times and they either dont respond or they take a week then tell me to read the help, which i do but it dosnt tell me what to do. Its like the last picture gets stuck and wont let a new one come up. Except this one will but i wont be able to get the text from the cover to this so hope its not too confusing. I'm just way too tired.

Jan 20 Daily Devotions

My first art entry in the book of Aquarius is the grid stamping technique with an Artchix lady centered. For some reason i had a lot of options for trimming the oval, which surprised me. I thought most of my stuff was pastel but there i was practically all afternoon deciding what to use - the orange ribbon with the clear hanging baubles; the varigated ribbon that perfectly matched every hue in the bckgd; the beige with black and beige beads, the fraying fabric; the orange with gold balls; the black one; the black and red; the brown one....the ecru lacy trims...or the gold stuff. I never would have guessed i had that much stuff that matched those colors. So guess what i picked? The one that was a pita and took hours to attach. well, i should have known that masking tape was on the ends for a reason. Its actually one of those trims with a little fabric attached that has a sort of slot...it probably has a name but i dont know it. I've used this type of trim before on the edges of ab pages but not the braided kind. You glue half onto one page and the other side goes over the edge and glues on the back of the same page, then glue the next page down to hide the excess leaving just the nice part along the edge. Piping, i think thats it. Anyhow, this had to be applied all on the back and around a very small curve. I finally figured out to slash it every half inch or so to take the curve. But the biggest problem was the ends fraying before i could even get the Stop Fray on to them, and cutting it enough to just meet without overlapping, and the fraying and the stop fray on my fingers. Then i needed something, to cover the join. A button? No, too big. a bead? i didnt have anything that looked right. Finally this tiny thing didnt look bad; i cut it off of a dollar store kids bracelet. It could have been bigger but it actually looks a little like her cameo.

Jan 19 medallion

This is the last page in my book of Capricorn. It ended up almost 2" thick. I used the dates from Dec. 22 to Jan 19th. The dates of the zodiac calendar are different depending on where you look and some have it Dec 21 - Jan 20. I'm going with the dates in my newspaper. Even though i didnt mention Capricorn very much in the book, some of the art was inspired by it and/or people i know born under this sign. Other ideas were from something mentioned in the daily horoscope but mostly its just random art.

The medallion is an Anna Griffin image by All Night Media. I pressed wet single ply toilet paper into the rubber one at a time with a pouncing brush. I used 2 colors, drops of reinker and water. i think theres 3, maybe 4 layers in this one. When it was dry it just popped right out with very little help. The effect is cool because its a reverse image from what you stamp when looking at it in person but in the scan it looks the same as when you stamp it! I dont understand that or why it happens. In the picture it looks like theres holes in it but in reality they're actually raised bumps. i added a little more color to the raised parts with Color box petal points but it dosnt show up in the scan. The edges turned out differently as well because i took the tp right to the edge. Thats why its flat and slightly frayed there. It looks and feels like hand made paper. I also made some with patterned paper napkins. They were harder to manage than the tp because they tore easier. I couldnt retain the pattern because of all the patching but they're nice enough anyhow. Maybe they'll end up in another Daily Devotions book.

Jan. 18 Spring is in the air

I've always liked drawing but don't get much practice. I like drawing people, especially women. They're imaginary of course, and usually not in proportion. i erase and erase and they still look funny. Well, this one certainly looks funny but thats only because she has a boat instead of lips and the sail makes her nose look funny. Not only that but she had such long eyelashes she went and had them permed. i guess another reason is that she has stars instead of pupils, otherwise i'm satisfied with her and her friends. One of these days there'll be a beginners drawing class offered around here and i'll sign up. I usually leave the faces flat because i've spent so much time trying to shade them unsucessfully. i study the shading in other peoples art and it sort of looks like common sense but it sure dosnt work when i do it! It probably all comes back to proportion and angles and placing the eyes nose and mouth in the correct places. Well i usually think i'm putting them in the correct places. arrrghhh, i'll learn sometime. lol. Also maybe i need to invest in proper drawing pencils and papers, but then again, that probably wont improve my my drawing skills. Another thing is i never try to draw real people and maybe i should. I've got a feeling i'll be trying it before this year is over because its been so very inspiring to see what others do.

Rachel, your self portrait is absolutely awesome! You have so many talents and i didnt know drawing was another one. You should and could be making big money with this talent. If you like drawing children i bet you could get tons of commissions from your kids school friends. Everybody wants a nice drawing of their kids. Have you drawn your children? If so i'd love to see them.

Jan. 17 window of opportunity

Window of opportunity. I've seen these words or heard them in conversation so many times lately. This is another Photoshop technique where you take one butterfly and make as many as you want with a few clicks of the right buttons. i hope i can remember which buttons!

Jan. 16 freeform cut mermaid

Jan 15, rain expected

Now people are hoping it will continue at least another day in order to break the record set in 1953 for 27 consecutive rain days. i dont care about records, i just wish the water would stop arriving like an open faucet. Actually, you know, its not all that bad. You have to have the rain in order to have all the lush greens and the flowers that will be blooming soon in the lower mainland of beautiful British Columbia. Snowdrops, daffodils and tulips are already pushing their way skywards and the buds on the trees are swelling. You can't have the rainbow without the rain. i just wish it wasnt so .... well, wet.

Jan 14 rain rain go away

It was a dark and gloomy day with the rain continuing all day. The lady actually has tears running down her cheeks. She has SADS. Notice how pale she is from the lack of sunshine? Heres a wish for sunshine and a dry day.

Friday the 13th abstract