January Fun

These are the Artist Trading Cards I made for my groups.  I have so much fun with these each month.  I tend to work on them all at once.  The backgrounds were all cut from a Gelli print.  I do so love to cut and paste.

Postcard Collaboration

I recently was invited to participate in a postcard collaboration with Scott Hatt.  He started collages on 6 postcards and I finished them.  It was a very fun process.  I have to say I am hooked on it- The first 6 are the finished ones- then I will add the starters I did for him.  I just mailed those to him and he will complete those.  I found out about this from the Notpaper group on Facebook.  which by the way is an incredible collage site.

Now these are the starters I did for Scott to finish.

Above Zero!!!!

This collage was made for a journal for my friend Tom LaBadia.  We are doing a journal exchange.  The Title is Fight or Flight.  The background is again a Gelli print over a map.

I have been busy already this new year with ATC exchanges and a new postcard collaboration which has been great fun.  I will be posting the pieces form that soon.

I hope your new year has been off to a good start- I am elated that we are above zero and will be for a few days now.  What a winter!

Tundra Greetings

Happy 2014!

It has been a brutal winter here- this afternoon's wind chill was 50 below zero!  So a bit of cabin fever has hit the household but also it's been a good time in the studio.  I have been working a lot in my art journal and making collages and Artist trading cards.
The collage above is titled Clipped Wings.  The background is a Gelli print done on top of a map.

Digging Deep

I am taking an online class titled Book of the Night.  This class is taught by Juliana Coles.  http://meandpete.com/id75.html The class is about exploring our dark side-  we all have that and it is something  I'll bet many of you like me- don't find to be comfortable.  I bound a journal for this class using black paper for it.  This is such new territory for me but I have to say it feels so real and authentic.  While I still love to make collages and will continue to do so- this class is taking me to new ways of thinking and feeling using the visual journal as the vessel for this. I bound this journal with some pages that fold out- those long journal spreads that you see here are 22 inches long.  I am finding this to be a good way to end the year and begin the new one.  The experience of using image and words to explore parts of myself I find uncomfortable has been and I am sure will continue to be full of challenges and insights.  I have always loved visual journaling but this class has helped me take this to a whole other level.
I wish all of you a happy new year.  May it be filled with art making and discovery.

Studio Play Session

I have been working on some pretty intense art journaling of late and needed a break.  I had a play session in the studio yesterday and had a great time.  I did these Gelli prints.  It is pure experimentation and it is so freeing.  I am going to use a couple of these for the covers to an art journal I plan to make soon. My foot in the lower photo adds a personal touch don't you think? LOL.

December Reds

I am in two different artist trading card groups.  One of the groups has theme choices- so I picked the red theme and did all my cards to that theme.  I worked their initials into each one.  I must say that after doing the orange and blue themes and now this red one- I do like working with color as a starting point.  I have been doing these cards since the later 90s and really never tire of it- it always amazes me what you can do in a 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch space.
We are well into a bitter start to winter here in the northern Minnesota woods- have had some days where the actual high temps were well below zero.. this severe cold arrived after 16 inches of snow last week.  Good weather for hiding in the studio.
I wish you all a holiday season full of joy and of course art!  Thanks for visiting my blog this past year.  More art to come in the new year!