Anyway, the words are things that are important to me, and the images are too. Hatter, artist, bowler, that's me. Card player, too. None of those words start with S, though.
Showing posts with label milliande. Show all posts
Showing posts with label milliande. Show all posts
S card
The Milliande challenge issued was to create a piece featuring words that were meaningful to us beginning with the letter S. Her example was text-heavy and shapeless, so I tried to think of another way to put words on a card other than in a list. I don't know why the idea of a playing card came to me, but I ran with it.
This is, of course, an ATC, which is the same size as a playing card. It feels unfinished, but I am stuck - I am at that point where adding more doesn't feel like an improvement, but I know it isn't the best it could be, either. This is the reaction of a woman who has ruined a few cards by putting too much on them.
Anyway, the words are things that are important to me, and the images are too. Hatter, artist, bowler, that's me. Card player, too. None of those words start with S, though.
Anyway, the words are things that are important to me, and the images are too. Hatter, artist, bowler, that's me. Card player, too. None of those words start with S, though.
Vessel
Milliande's prompt for today is to think of ourselves as a vessel for seeds of creativity, or something like that (I'm not deep enough to really get it, I think). I experimented a little with using Copic markers over acrylic paint, which worked out well, and then I detailed it a bit with my Uniball micro. I like how well the Uniball micro works over other media, and I especially like that it is waterproof, but it is not Copic proof. using the Copic markers over the Uniball ink caused the ink to smear and the markers to pick up black. Yuck! (Please learn from my mistakes!) So I finished with ballpoint pens, which are pretty good, but dry slowly on things other than regular paper.
The woman on this ATC is up to her eyebrows in dirt, but in the dirt are nuggets of silver and gold. She is able to see the good in her life and find inspiration to create.
These exercises are so therapeutic!
These exercises are so therapeutic!
Rose Hip
Last year I made a stab at art journaling with Milliande. I wasn't planning on doing that series again, but the prompt for the first day showed up in my inbox yesterday, and I got sucked in. The theme this year is "Seeds of Creativity", and the prompt for yesterday is "be the seed". Don't ask me why, but rose hips immediately popped into my head. It is a negative thought (negative thoughts were the reason I dropped out last year). I didn't want to lock my negative thought into a journal, so I did a little ATC instead.
Roses don't really propagate through their seeds; they are a plant for cutting. The first time I saw rose hips on a rose, I thought they were tumors, and that the plant was diseased. It might as well be. The petals are gone, and the plant is a mess. Rose hips are good for their vitamin C, so they are more for eating rather than planting. I guess the critters in my yard will enjoy them.
I feel like a rose hip. I am a swollen, ugly thing, the remnant of lost beauty, just waiting to be devoured.
I feel like a rose hip. I am a swollen, ugly thing, the remnant of lost beauty, just waiting to be devoured.
Pears
Time to lighten up - all Milliande wanted for this page was for us to experiment with our art supplies by doing a still life with pears. I wanted to play more with the idea of liquifying the water soluble oil pastels with gesso, so I sketched and colored in the image with the pastels, then mixed a little gesso with water and started dabbing.
Curiously, it was working the exact opposite of what I had expected - instead of blending the colors, it was setting and sealing them. It wasn't even creamy! I looked at the bottle and realized what I had done - I grabbed matte medium instead of gesso!
After I finished, I decided I could fix it a little. I did get out some gesso for real, and colored over some the the worst parts, and blended it in. It's not what I originally set out to do, but it was an interesting experiment.
After I finished, I decided I could fix it a little. I did get out some gesso for real, and colored over some the the worst parts, and blended it in. It's not what I originally set out to do, but it was an interesting experiment.
the silence of women
The Milliande Art Community for Women tries very hard to be a place where women can find their voice through art, so it wasn't surprising that the idea of women's stories would be an art prompt. However, When I thought about it, all I could picture were women's heads in jars.
After I got their heads in jars, I didn't really have anything else. the words on the page are really very inadequate - they point to the easy scapegoat, but ignore the harder one - we silence each other. We don't want to hear the voices.
I don't feel that a lot of women are finding their voice through art. I think they are just trying to make pretty things. It's so easy to be proud of something pretty, isn't it?
I don't feel that a lot of women are finding their voice through art. I think they are just trying to make pretty things. It's so easy to be proud of something pretty, isn't it?
Broken mirror
Milliande asked us to think about a mirror as inspiration for this page.
It's about menopause. That's all I have to say.
Other pages in this journal.
It's about menopause. That's all I have to say.
Other pages in this journal.
9 (sudoku)
For this page, Milliande asked us to use our favorite number for inspiration. I don't really have a favorite number, but I felt that this was my chance to do the SuDoKu page that I wished I had done instead of a crossword page.
I like the symmetry of nines. They make great grids, and you can't really play without them. If you look, there are 9 zebras in this picture, too.
Other pages in this series.
I like the symmetry of nines. They make great grids, and you can't really play without them. If you look, there are 9 zebras in this picture, too.
Other pages in this series.
Subconscious expression
Milliande Is tired of zebras, but I am not. I am still injecting them into these assignments. Today, she asked us to "take our lines for a walk", which is to say, start making marks and let them tell you what they want to be.
I started by making random blocks of color with my Portfolio water soluble oil pastels (I need a shorter name for these), then activating the color with a wet brush. I walked away while the paint dried, and when I came back, the shapes suggested to me an old style arcade video game.
If you knew anything about my weekend, you would know why I felt the need to do this. It isn't great art, but it is excellent therapy. I apologize in advance to anyone visiting my blog for pretty pictures.
My other pages for this zebra journal.
I started by making random blocks of color with my Portfolio water soluble oil pastels (I need a shorter name for these), then activating the color with a wet brush. I walked away while the paint dried, and when I came back, the shapes suggested to me an old style arcade video game.
If you knew anything about my weekend, you would know why I felt the need to do this. It isn't great art, but it is excellent therapy. I apologize in advance to anyone visiting my blog for pretty pictures.
My other pages for this zebra journal.
Zebra Redux
Milliande has us reusing our leftovers today. I had a lot of crossword leftovers, and my handmade stamp, and black stamped paper, and my gel pens were still sitting out.
My other pages in this series.
I suppose this lends continuity to the journal. There are a lot of random newspaper words that I cut out and added - they just seemed to speak to me.
My other pages in this series.
Milliande wanted us to create a crossword puzzle-themed page today.
Not great. Interesting idea, but since I don't do crosswords, I didn't really get into it.
My other pages in this series.
My other pages in this series.
Dragonfly
The assignment from Milliande today was to do a dragonfly. It isn't a very artistic page, but I do like dragonflies a lot. It's just that none of it came out the way I saw it in my head.
My other pages in this series.
My other pages in this series.
lines (out of control)
The assignment was to use vertical lines. I started with vertical lines, but somehow I lost control of them.
I used Portfolio pastels, white and black gesso, souffles and gel pens. You would not believe the hours I spent on this. Word to the wise - gesso creates awesome colors when mixed with the Portfolio pastels, but gel pen ink will not dry when used over gesso. Not a good mix.
My other pages in this series.
My other pages in this series.
text blocks
Milliande asked us to be artistic with our text.
The letters are not random; there is a message. If you can make it out, email me (click my sig tag for a link to my email) and tell me what it says, and I will send you a prize, either a card, an ATC or piece of jewelry, as you prefer.
My other pages in this series.
The letters are not random; there is a message. If you can make it out, email me (click my sig tag for a link to my email) and tell me what it says, and I will send you a prize, either a card, an ATC or piece of jewelry, as you prefer.
My other pages in this series.
zebra window
Two pages today. Actually, one has a window in it (as directed), so you can see the other one.
My other pages in this series.
zebra spider
Is there no limit to what can be rendered as a zebra? Milliande asked us to create a millipede collaged with these photos of striped socked feet. I didn't feel the millipede, I went with a spider instead.
The face was cut from a newspaper ad for a nursing home. Even after I zettied her, I felt that she was a sad figure.
I have a lot of sad in my zebra journal. Lost, confused, rejected, sad. I don't know why.
I have a lot of sad in my zebra journal. Lost, confused, rejected, sad. I don't know why.
Zebra hand
Milliande introduced us to Guido Daniele, and in particular, his interpretation of a zebra. Basically, this meant using a hand as a canvas for the zebra. For me, I needed some context for the hand, so I when I found a photo of a girl with a hand covering her eyes, I decided to zebra-tize it.
This was colored with Portfolio water soluble pastels (not my favorite medium). It was coming out okay until I put a mane on the zebra, which ruined it for me. You can't erase pastels, though, I was stuck. Not my favorite page.
zebra profile portrait
Day four challenge - paint a face with zebra accents. For Milliande and many others, this means putting stripes on the face. I saw it a little differently. I pictured a woman, not unlike myself, trying to channel her inner zebra, and putting her hair in a fauxhawk, to look like a zebra's mane.
Needless to say, this type of painting with acrylics is very new to me. Anyway, about the earring - when I painted this, and it was nearly dry, I was looking at it and it occurred to me that a woman like this, even with no makeup and no hair coloring, if she took the time to push her hair into a fauxhawk, she would also be wearing earrings, probably big gold ones. I didn't want to paint any more, and I sincerely doubted my ability to render decent gold earrings, so I started rummaging through my stash to see if I had an actual gold earring I could glue in place. Then I remembered - back in the seventies, I had these big button earrings that were zebra patterned, and I decided that if this woman was channeling her inner zebra, she would have earrings exactly like those. I punched the circles from yesterday's stamped black paper, and deepened the white strips with gel pen. They look incongruous with the rest of the painting, but I am not Vermeer; this is not a canvas, this is an art journal.
Needless to say, this type of painting with acrylics is very new to me. Anyway, about the earring - when I painted this, and it was nearly dry, I was looking at it and it occurred to me that a woman like this, even with no makeup and no hair coloring, if she took the time to push her hair into a fauxhawk, she would also be wearing earrings, probably big gold ones. I didn't want to paint any more, and I sincerely doubted my ability to render decent gold earrings, so I started rummaging through my stash to see if I had an actual gold earring I could glue in place. Then I remembered - back in the seventies, I had these big button earrings that were zebra patterned, and I decided that if this woman was channeling her inner zebra, she would have earrings exactly like those. I punched the circles from yesterday's stamped black paper, and deepened the white strips with gel pen. They look incongruous with the rest of the painting, but I am not Vermeer; this is not a canvas, this is an art journal.
Stamped zebra
Creative inspiration for day 3 at Milliande's Art Community for Women involved carving my own stamp. Zebra stripes are pretty easy to make, but really, I don't want a zebra stripe stamp in my permanent collection. Even a potato was more than I wanted to invest in this exercise. What I did was cut the stripes out of craft foam, put tacky glue on the back, and stick them onto an acrylic block. I Used Versamagic cloud white to stamp on black paper, and archival black ink to stamp the same stripes on the white journal page.
I cut the zebra out of the black striped paper, and defined his features with a white pencil. He looked lost all by himself, but that was what I wanted - it seemed to echo the theme of the zebra struggling not to blend in too much but not stick out too much either. I am starting to really relate to this zebra.
I cut the zebra out of the black striped paper, and defined his features with a white pencil. He looked lost all by himself, but that was what I wanted - it seemed to echo the theme of the zebra struggling not to blend in too much but not stick out too much either. I am starting to really relate to this zebra.
zebra mandala
Apparently the zebra is going to be the theme for the whole month, not just yesterday. Day 2 of the journalling process directed by Milliande: make a zebra mandala, then copy it, cut it up, and use the cut bits on the journal page. I'm sure it is no surprise that my mandala did not come out very round. After I finished it, I thought it would be easier to cut up a solid sheet of doodles, so I squared it and tiled it, and printed a full sheet of patterned paper.
(Click to see full size.) You can see nearly a half sheet as the background on the right, and I cut up the other half to make the figure. The text reads:
There is a lot of white space on this page, but I didn't feel adding more stuff would necessarily make it better, just busier.
(Click to see full size.) You can see nearly a half sheet as the background on the right, and I cut up the other half to make the figure. The text reads:
In my comfort zone, I'm nearly invisible, but when I come out, I'm like a zebra at a rodeo. I don't want to stay hidden, but where do I belong?The tiny zebra heads were cut from the mandala which can be seen in the upper right. The rope motif is in the mandala, too (rope being suggestive of the rodeo, I hope).
There is a lot of white space on this page, but I didn't feel adding more stuff would necessarily make it better, just busier.
Zebra
I read about this art journalling project over at Milliande's Art Community for Women, and I thought I would give it a go, even though I'm a little late to the party. The provious prompts are going to be up for a while, so I can do this as I like.
Since this is a creativity process project, and not a "make something beautiful" project, I felt free to play, and not overthink the end result.
The theme for the first day is "Zebra". I thought about zebras, and black and white. Then I remembered that old riddle "What's black and white and red (read) all over?" and I just started drawing on the newspaper. I then cut out the newspaper zebra and glued it into my book and added leaves and grass and just kept adding stuff until I felt I was making it worse, not better, then I stopped. I suppose in an ideal world, I stop before I make it worse.
It's fun to see other artists' interpretations of the theme too.
Since this is a creativity process project, and not a "make something beautiful" project, I felt free to play, and not overthink the end result.
The theme for the first day is "Zebra". I thought about zebras, and black and white. Then I remembered that old riddle "What's black and white and red (read) all over?" and I just started drawing on the newspaper. I then cut out the newspaper zebra and glued it into my book and added leaves and grass and just kept adding stuff until I felt I was making it worse, not better, then I stopped. I suppose in an ideal world, I stop before I make it worse.
It's fun to see other artists' interpretations of the theme too.
