Studying the Blues

When I get in a creative rut, my first instinct is to sort through the "grab bags"--

You see, I separate my scraps and painted papers into Ziploc baggies according to color. I randomly choose a bag and begin to paw through. By the time I'm done, I'm an admirer of that particular color, and the color suggests a mood.

This week, I chose the blue bag. I found myself drawn to the aqua and turquoise scraps. One of those scraps had the tiniest bit of hot pink. That pop of color suggested a second and third color I could pair with the aqua and turquoise.

It Takes a Village

On Friday, I worked to complete two swaps: a "mini banner" swap and a "Home" swap. Here they are:

Robbing The Scrapbook Graveyard

I'm not sure when scrapbooking became popular, and I'm equally unsure when it stopped. All I know is that I jumped on that bandwagon and rode it along with all the other ladies. And boy, was it an expensive trip! 

Where did it get me? For my efforts, I have a bunch of jazzed-up photo albums stored in plastic bins beneath my bed. 

I have hundreds, maybe thousands of sheets of 12 x 12 paper.

I've been trying to figure out what to do with that paper. It's clear I'll never use it for its intended purpose. When I go thrift store shopping, I see it packaged for sale, so obviously there are other ex-scrapbookers out there who made the decision to part with their paper by giving it to charity.

But the hoarder in me can't bear to give perfectly good supplies to a thrift store. After all, I still work with paper, only now I make my own paper. I paint paper. Thus, it dawned on me that I could use all that paper when doing Gelli prints--my current artistic obsession.

These are the texture plates I've made. They are basically cardboard shapes I glue onto another sturdy cardboard rectangle. I press them down into the paint on the Gelli plate and take positive and negative prints.

And here are some of the prints I've made lately:

A Handful of Vintage Ladies, a Fox, a Raccoon, and a Flying Pig

It sounds like the punchline to a bizarre joke, doesn't it? What could those things  possibly have in common?

Nothing.

I am just too lazy to create separate posts just for the sake of continuity. 

In reality, I've been working on a serious of postcards feature vintage ladies, AND I also recently participated in art swaps wherein it was my job to create animals.

 This is for a "Woodland Creatures" swap. I made the fox and raccoon out of Gelli prints. I also threw in extras that reminded me of the woods.

 I made this little lady for a "Cardboard Animals" swap. I laid down a bunch of pink bits and pieces first then drew the pig over the top.

Once I cut out the pig, there was some extra cardboard, so I created this ATC (Artist Trading Card).

I usually spend at least one hour per day creating something. It soothes me. It make me feel less lonely when I'm away from my house, my husband, my cat during the week.

Collage Collaboration

 I belong to several collage collaboration groups. Each member begins with a background, and then 3 or 4 others add to that background.  These are 3 out of the 4 collaborations I've worked on this week: