Grateful for the cooler temps of Fall!

 September is zooming by. I will try to catch up here with this blog post.  In the later part of August I went on an art retreat. Met up with dear art friends and had a wonderful time making art together for four days. These times only happen every other year at best and so they are very special- this is the best food for my soul. I have had a lot of losses this year- the love experienced in these wonderful days together filled my near empty well with laughter and joy and love.

So here goes with some random sharing.

This is a digital collage. - A terrific Albuquerque artist, Edward Martin posted this quote that I love. I had seen this quote quite a while ago and had forgotten about it. I just had to do a piece for it. I can't find who originally made this quote.

There's A Fine Line Between Genius & Crazy. I like To Use That Line As A Jump Rope.

 

 

I saw this Rumi quote and had to make this digital collage for it.
"People travel the world looking for the friend, but that one is always at home."

 

The next eight pieces are part of a series.  A friend sent me these house frames she found at Dollar Tree. I made these collages for them. These are now at Mariposa Gallery here in Albuquerque.

 

I loved these frames so much I ordered more from Dollar tree. These next four are a new series I started. The collages are mostly analog with some digital.

Music was Aaron's language of choice.

 

Clarence loved to write letters.

 

Leopold did not let the clouds spoil his day.

 

Phillip had to leave his small town behind.

 

 

Mid August- the heat is still on!

 The heatwave- while a bit better is still with us. Hoping this is not the new normal. Still in a drought and there are some fires burning in the forests in the state. Looking forward to cooler temps and fall.

I have been very busy in the studio. I  have some videos of some 3D cottages I have made but need to figure out how to get them from my phone to my blog. I will work on that.

This past weekend I taught 2 gel plate printing classes at Remarque Print Workshop. What a terrific group of students- so much fun teaching and creating with them.

I am getting ready to go to an art retreat with friends- there will be 5 of us and we five have not all been together in maybe 8 years!

Here is a new batch of Artist Trading Cards I made last week. These are analog- actual cut and paste. If you aren't familiar with these google ATCs and you will see. The only requirement is that these be 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches (the size of a baseball card) If you google it you can see how these started. I facilitate a monthly collage group meet up. We have an ongoing trade session with these cards.

 

 

 

Greetings from the broiling SouthWest

 Well it has been like two and a half months since I last posted- I guess I just find instagram so easy to post on that I forget about the blog- and just when I think hardly anyone reads this I get a message from someone reminding me they don't do social media. So here goes...

I have made lots of art since the last post. I also have done around 6 collaborations with other artists. I had some work in a show that features the work of Libros members. Libros is the large book arts guild here in Albuquerque.

The first three pieces are collages I made in the last week or so. As most of you know I love the house shape so two artist of late have been inspirational  Lisa Stubbs is a printmaker in the UK- love her work. https://www.instagram.com/lisastubbs5/Julie Liger-Belair is an influence and also a lover of houses. She and I did a book collaboration a few weeks ago- I will share that in another post.https://www.julieligerbelair.net/     

 

 Ian Felt Left out

Analog collage on gel plate print

 

 

Jack Held The Key To Christopher's Heart

analog collage on gel plate print

Evan Decided To Give This Life A Shot

analog collage on gel plate print

Next is a series of eight new dream bubble digital collages.  I had such a terrific time making up these characters. It felt great to just have some digital fun.

Niles Always Seemed Frustrated

Music Often Brought Liz To Tears

Caffeine Was Keatan's Drug Of Choice

Gendry Loved His Morning Walks

Trent Loved Being A Photographer

Franklin Loved His Machines

Lucinda Became One With Her Phone

Hawkins Was A Man Of Letters

More Dream Bubbles

 Here are a few more of the digital pieces from the class I took with Julie Liger-Belair. I have also been working on some analog collage work- these are in some collaborations I am doing with some people in the CollageDream group. The weather has been ok but as always the spring winds here are challenging.

Claudia knew she was in too deep.

 

 

 Cassandra still missed Edward.

 

 

 Robert and Eric Were Not Sure About Their New Neighbor.

Cyrus felt the pain.

 

 

Joyce needed to decide.

Mid April Already!

 Time is just flying by. It is spring here in New Mexico- lots of blooming trees and flowers. The wind can be a challenge but I can deal with that. My friends up in Minnesota have had a long and hard winter. Just last week they got more snow.

I have been busy in the studio- I have completed several accordion book collaborations. I taught a book structure to a small art group that I am in and last Saturday (April 8th) I taught a gel plate printing class at Remarque Print Workshop. That was so much fun. I will try to share some of the book collaborations in the next post.

I have been taking an online class with Julie Liger-Belair. I love her work and it has been so fun to watch her process and to try my own take on making Scrappy Blablahs as she calls them. Her class is offered on https://www.carlasonheim.com/online-classes/dream-bubbles-scrappy-blablahs-more/

I really enjoy taking classes from other artists. It gets me to look differently at things- through their artist's eyes. The challenge is to make my own take on the lessons and not just copy. Here are seven scrappy blablahs I made. I am also posting 2 dream bubble collages- those are the last two pieces. They are digital. The other pieces are mostly analog- hand cut and pasted collages. I added plants and chairs digitally.

Next set of 5 collages

 Here are five more small collages from that series. As I mentioned earlier- I do like working small sometimes.  I am also including  a picture of nine ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) I made these last month- I wasn't able to go to the collage group meet up last month so I will take these for the march meet up for trading. ATCs are 2 1/2" x 3 1/2". They were fun to do- I used some rubber stamps in a couple of these- I had not used those in years.

I will sometimes use an image more than one- often changing up the size.

Here you  see the guy in the tan coat again.

Title: The Bowen brothers knew people stared.

Clark was troubled by Eric's letter.

Leo loved his pet bird.

Caleb was always hopeful.

Francis dreamed of being a dancer.

Here are nine Artist Trading cards

I made last month.

Five more 4" x 6" collages

 Here are five more collages in this series. I enjoyed working in this size. I also like to do artist trading cards and those are only 2 1/2" x 3 1/2 inches. Anyway I had fun and it was good to use the actual gel plate prints for the backgrounds. Thanks for taking a look.

Hayden had a visitor

Lars wanted to fly far far away.

Richard knew it was time to leave.

Marcus couldn't stop thinking of Ben.

Robert was confused by Jack's words.