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.

New project

 Thank you for the comments on my Februllage collages-  I know some of you have not been able to leave a comment on the blog here but you have on the facebook post about the blog. I have looked and can't figure out why some people can and others can't comment.

I am doing a book collaboration with one of the small art groups I am in. There are 5 people doing this- we are to make 4 small collages for each person. Mine are near 4" x 6". So I made my 20. These are all done on actual gel plate prints not scans of them. All the collages are hand cut and glued.( analog) I had fun doing these. I am ahead of the game as these are not due until early May. Hope you enjoy. Here are the first 5 collages.  Instagram doesn't like rectangles all that much do I put the collages on colored backgrounds- I like the way they look with those so that is how I am posting these.

Phillip & George

Bart loved his birds.

The gift of a happy home.

Nate was known as the love Bandit.

Blake looked out for his neighborhood.

The last group of Februllage collages.

 Well here are the rest of the Februllage collages. Thank you for your kind comments. I really did enjoy that challenge. Starting to feel spring like here in New Mexico- good thing cause our furnace stopped working so we are dealing with that-  Here they are:

Prompt #22 is wings.

Last year I made a series of articulated paper dolls- I recreated them digitally for this prompt.

This is the second wing collage.

This is the third wing collage.

Prompt #23 is Journey. This is digital. Here is the quote that goes with this.

Everyone comes with baggage.

Find someone who loves you enough

to help you unpack.

I am so fortunate to have my dear husband. 

Prompt #24 is Me.

I digitally created this self portrait.

Prompt #25 is geometric.

The figures here are of me- at 4 years old.

 

 Prompt #26 is Listen.

This is a digital analog combination. I found the vintage ear illustrations and printed them on top of 

the colored background. I found the image of the man and altered him and cut it out and glued it to the 

background.

Prompt # 27 is sunflower.

This also is a combination digital and analog collage.

I loved the movie Everything is Illuminated and loved Elijah Wood in it. The movie came out

in 2005 and the visuals are terrific- there is a scene of a house in this field of sunflowers

that is burned into my memory.

Prompt #28 is Future.

This is all analog. The background is citrisolv paper.

The figure has a Magritte feel about it.  My friend Matt French loved

Magritte. So this is for him and a nice way to end the challenge.