Emma

Still working on using the many step-out pieces from Gaze, my spotlight project in Pam Carriker's book Art at the Speed of Life.

I have already posted Passages, the first artwork I made using these pieces. And now there is Emma. Apparently I decided to channel my softer side with this piece - LOL!

Available for purchase in The Altered Page on Etsy.

In Context

Way back in January 2009, I started a collaborative project with Bridgette Guerzon Mills and Jen Worden. We each created our own handmade structures, in any style we wanted, and began exchanging pieces so that we would all would work in all the structures multiple times. Jen created a set of loose metal pages. Bridgette made a plaster book. And I created a handmade book from vintage dictionary pages. Here is the cover of Contexture...

We have now all worked in each others projects two or three times. This is the first spread I created in my own book (click to enlarge)...

And I have just completed my second spread...

My book is now on its way to Bridgette so she can work her magic next.

Collectors Edition: Chapter 7

Welcome to the fourth edition of The Pulse -- The State of the Art -- a survey in words and pictures of the online artist community. Nearly 150 artists have answered a list of questions which make up The Pulse. Their responses will be presented as a series of online and print projects. Links to the first four projects (Secret Sunday, The Book Guild, StudioScapes, Viewer's Choice) can be found on the sidebar of my blog.

Collectors Edition is the fifth installment in which your favorite artists share their favorite collection or obsession.
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azirca

My current and pretty much life long obsession would have to be photography.  I don't think that I will ever grow tired of capturing moments of life and the world around me through my lens.

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Sharmon Davidson

My first collection/obsession started when I was a child playing in the creek, and I’ve been a rock/fossil/shell collector ever since. They are all over my house; instead of knick-knacks like most people have, my tables and mantle are covered with rocks and fossils. Some are displayed on stands, some sit on shelves, and others fill bowls or baskets here and there.

My other obsession is gardening; planting seeds and watching them grow is magical to me. Working in my garden is how I relax- it’s like meditation.

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Debra Eck

 

Well it's sort of an obsession with me, book fairies keep abandoning books on my porch to become new works of art. It's amazing and wonderful for me. How cool!

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Lisa Wright

This image is an example of my latest obsession - I guess I just like getting sticky! These pieces start out as pictures from the pages of Vogue and Country Living!

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KC Willis

Vintage millinery flowers.

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Inge Bekaert

My current obsession is "layering layers of paint", something I learned at an online workshop with Julie Prichard. This technique was new to me and I love to combine it with other techniques and materials and use it in journals, books, canvasses, ATC's, etc. This is a detail of an ATC.

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Chris Gray

Collecting Indian wooden print blocks for use in my work.

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jaihn

art journal - playbook - collage

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Jane Royal

 

My favorite obsession/collection is 9x12 spiral sketchbooks which I've been working in every day for about two years. I am also obsessed with sketching portraits. I always decorate the cover before I start a new sketchbook, at first I used scrapbook paper and now I've moved on to designing my own covers, usually featuring a favorite portrait. I also save the 'carcass' when I weed-out of rearrange the pages. This way I can recycle and create a new sketchbook as needed.

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Kim Palmer

I love to collect old photographs to use in art. Portraits, landscapes, still life, you name it. The older the better, and I even love the deterioration that comes with them! I have an enormous collection stored on cd’s, but that would make for a boring photograph!

Recently I purchased an antique photo album from the Victorian period. It is embossed leather (which I cannot resist touching, you know how it is with textures, LOL!) with gilt pages, some with painted scenes and it is filled with old photographs many from the 1800’s. I love it and it has become a valuable resource for portraits for art and also just for the sheer pleasure of it! I love faces!

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Next Collectors Edition Post - 2/20/11

Passages

Time stands still for not a soul

Moons will rise come what may

Hold on tight to all that matters

Don't let fear get in the way.

Remember those who came before you

And walked the path that you now face

Let their footsteps guide you forward

Feel their strength and all their grace.

Step by step you'll find the courage

Even when life doesn't rhyme

Take a leap and face the future

Passages to a better time.



Passages

Available for purchase in The Altered Page on Etsy.

Reasons

Continuing with the theme of integrating photography into art and art into photography, Reasons is another artwork of mine included in Pam Carriker's new book, Art at the Speed of Life. This mixed-media piece includes an original photograph printed out as a transparency.

Reasons

Reasons is one in a series of three related pieces, all using photographic transparencies. The other two pieces might be familiar to you from previous blog posts from last year.

Be

Sold. Thank you!

Moments

Available for purchase in The Altered Page on Etsy.

Collectors Edition: Chapter 6

Welcome to the fourth edition of The Pulse -- The State of the Art -- a survey in words and pictures of the online artist community. Nearly 150 artists have answered a list of questions which make up The Pulse. Their responses will be presented as a series of online and print projects. Links to the first four projects (Secret Sunday, The Book Guild, StudioScapes, Viewer's Choice) can be found on the sidebar of my blog.

Collectors Edition is the fifth installment in which your favorite artists share their favorite collection or obsession.
_______________

Shirley Ende-Saxe

The pic of the shelf with little skeletons is some of my Dia de los Muertos knick-knacks. I'd have many more but don't get to Mexico enough.

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Bleubeard and Elizabeth

My current obsessive collection is the same one I've had for many years. I love rocking horses and other animals on rockers. At last count, I had nearly 500, from a 3 feet tall brass horse, to a tiny 1/2" hand blown glass horse. Some rock, some roll. I love all my animals, which include, but are not limited to, a rocking reindeer, rocking rabbit, and rocking sheep. They all get along and play well together, too.

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Jean Zoss

Aaaahhhh, collections, well...I collect art supplies...I am obsessed with products that are water soluble. I have a hard time with spray paints and such because of the smells. I teach a children's art club so the safer products, full of pigment, are wonderful. I recently have become a fan of water soluble block printing ink. They smell, but I just wear a mask when using them. My most recent process is to apply the print ink, drop in some liquid inks and paints, then mono-print off of that. Photo is of my children's paint brush collection. I can not show you my studio because it is under FEMA management at the moment....

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Lani Gerity Glanville

Photoshop! Elements of this image came from Gale Blair's blog and her shop Paper Whimsy, one of my favorite sources of collage material.

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Don Madden

Random stuff, including dental molds, doll parts, skeletons, etc.

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Gillian McMurray

The only obsession that really stands the test of time with me is my books. My collection is wide and varied - from classic fiction to science. With the exception of my collection of ancient history books, my art book collection is the largest genre.
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Nancy Neva Gagliano

I collect the Earth, clay/pots and rocks. The pictured clay works are all LARGE, very large, some vessels/others sculptural......and small pieces everywhere. And rocks!! Many many rocks and stones in and out of our house. And years ago i began wrapping rocks...my RAPT rocks, enRAPTured===carried away with great emotion.

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Mary Hunt

Online classes, painting canvas and paper, journal making.
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Curio (aka Sonia Simard)

My secret obsession collage reveals the fact that I like to find all types of bric-a-brac (for lack of a better word), even if they are damaged, and give them a second chance.
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PS Pirro

I'm drawn to spirals. They're all over my art and my house. This is an art doll created by my friend Jenny Smith. Spirals aside, it's just beautiful, and with that fabric, how could I resist?

Links in the Chain

I have been spending a lot of time on the new site CreateMixedMedia this past week, exploring all it has to offer. Much of my time has focused on the video and text tutorials. It is like taking a series of workshops without leaving home. Here are a few of my favorites...



Josie Cirincione has a great PDF tutorial on how to create a new 'old' book. One of my favorite aspects of her lesson is the use of such nontraditional materials as gaffer tape and gasket material. Any excuse to head to the hardware store is a good one!

Annie Lockhart shares some great tips for attaching objects in your mixed-media pieces with wire in this PDF tutorial.

Michael deMeng shares some quick 'solutions' for making anything rusty and blackened in this PDF tutorial.


While you are looking around the site, you can read some Q & A on my newly posted artist profile.

Step by Step

In her book Art at the Speed of Life, Pam Carriker includes informational essays that cover a wide range of current topics, all of which are informational and inspirational.

My contribution is an essay entitled 'Picture This: Adding Photographic Elements'. It explores integrating photography into art and art into photography.

One of the pieces of artwork I made to accompany the article was 'Steps', a mixed-media piece that includes an original photograph that I took in Mexico and which has been hand-altered. It is 'framed' with book board that I painted to resemble distressed wood.

Available for purchase in The Altered Page on Etsy.

Sold. Thank you!

Gaze

Pam Carriker has included seven Artist Spotlight Projects in her new book, Art at the Speed of Life. For each of these projects, one artist created an artwork and presents step-by-step, written and pictorial instructions so that the reader can learn the specific techniques of each artist. Pam takes this one step further and includes for each of these projects a companion project that will allow the reader to use the same techniques but in less time.

My contribution to the Spotlight Projects, which you can recreate in your own style and voice using the instructions in the book, was a textural assemblage called Gaze...

Gaze was a step-out project, where I had to provide step-by-step visuals to the publisher to photograph. This means that each piece of the assemblage had to be remade up to seven times so they could photograph the steps in order. When my artwork was returned, I also received all the step-out pieces that went into making Gaze.

I have decided to use these pieces to make additional artworks which, because they used all the same materials, will become members of Gaze's family. They are currently all in progress but will be posted soon.