Show and Tell Finished

I learned a good lesson with this project. I decided not to go with a three-dimensional focal point and instead add images of dogs to the canvases. Because of this the great texture on the canvases meant wrinkles which showed under the images. So, next time I either need to use a three-dimensional focal point so the texture doesn't show through or make sure the texture won't be underneath my image. I like the final canvases other than that. It wasn't so scary after all :)



Here they are. Let me know what you think.

Show and Tell Step 2

Here are the three canvases after the next round. I decided to go with a dog theme to practice making a piece to donate to the local animal shelter for an art auction they are having as a fund raiser.

These now have more layers of paint, text and stamped elements. I used bubble wrap, a chop stick, rubber shelf liner and an old funnel to make the stamped elements.

Loyal

Faithful

Friend

Show and Tell

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted. I did go out of town for a few days. We went to St. Paul, MN to visit friends and watch them show their dogs at the Land O'Lakes Kennel Club Dog Show (pictures here).

I have also been working on painting some canvas boards. I read an article by Sheri Beaubien in the current issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors and decided to just dive in an try it. It scares me a little to do this stuff because I always think it should turn out perfect the first time. One of my goals for this year is to stop thinking that way. So...

Here is the result after the first 3 steps.

There are three canvas boards. At this point they all look alike so I'll only show one.

Step 1: Glue on tissue paper (wrinkled).

Step 2: Cover with gesso.

Step 3: Paint a base coat.

More to follow.

Daisy Belle

I couldn't resist posting this cute picture of Daisy. She doesn't normally wear a hat indoors.

New Year's Day Dog Walk

Dogs (from left to right): Daisy, Daphne, Honor, Dreya, Allie, Guiness and Rowdie

People (from left to right): Mom (Shirley), Dad (Bill), me, Nathalie, Todd and Lorette

(not shown Becca and Peter - the photographers)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Welcome to 2007!

I hope this New Year brings health, happiness, prosperity and CREATIVITY!

We had a great New Year’s Day dog walk. There were seven dogs and eight people. The weather was beautiful. Dogs and human’s had a great time.

I’ve been MIA for a while. The hustle and bustle of the holidays has rather zapped my creativity. I did get rejuvenated with some great Christmas gifts to inspire me. The biggest is a color laser printer so now I don’t have to run to the copy store to make color copies. This was rather inconvenient when my muse struck late at night or early in the morning.

I also received some great books:

Traci Bautista’s Collage Unleashed
Sommerset Studio’s Transparent Art
Sally Jean Alexander’s Pretty Little Things
Bernie Berlin’s Artist Trading Cards Workshop

These books are all inspiring and my goal for the year is to try a new technique as least once per month. I’m also planning on trying some technique swaps in a new Yahoo group I’ve joined. This means I’ll be doing less swaps in the other groups. I need to push myself to try new things so I don’t get stuck in a rut and become bored.

I started playing with one of the ideas in Bernie Berlin’s book and will post pictures soon.

So my artistic goals for this year (in no particular order):

Try a new technique at least once per month.
Swap with new groups.
Take some classes (if I can find them).
Push myself to try things that scare me (it’s ok to fail as long as I try).
Get some art on my walls at home and at work!!

Countdown to Christmas

Only nine more shopping days 'til Christmas.

I haven’t been getting much done lately. Now that the craft show season is over I have to finish getting ready for Christmas. I have done a little bit of my shopping and hope to finish getting the stuff I need to buy this weekend. I still have some items that I want to make for gifts. I’m getting together with a group of stamping buddies this weekend to make some more calendars. They are fun and make good gifts. I’ll post pictures next week. We’ll probably get more gabbing done than calendars but it will be fun any way.

Early next week will be busy at work. We have a faculty candidate coming in and I will be in charge of getting him where he needs to go for a couple of days. It will make for busy days. I’ll be glad when it is over.

Why is it that this time of year causes so much stress?

I did get a couple of swap cards done and mailed.

Puppy Pictures!!!!!

You can see pictures of our Thanksgiving Day dog walk here.

A great time was had by all.

Sponges and Bubble Wrap

After years of buying catnip mice and other miscellaneous cat toys I have discovered that the things that make my four-footed kids the happiest are sponges and bubble wrap.

Mouse, my little grey beast, keeps stealing my stamping sponges. If I forget to put them away after I’m done I will find them in various spots all over the house. I don't get her fascination with these items as they just don't seem that entertaining to me. She also has a fixation with rubber bands and has been known to open drawers to get to them. I do my best to keep the rubber bands locked up tight so she won’t eat them. I think she gets a little PO'd at me for this. When I need rubber bands I put them on my wrist for safe keeping so I don't forget and leave them out where Mouse can get to them. Once in a while I’ll forget I have one on and when I least expect it the little grey beast will attack. She’s pretty darn quick. I’ve had to wrestle the little munchkin once or twice to get her to let go (picture a cat attached to a rubber band and hanging from my wrist).

Pima, my striped beast, has a thing for plastic bags and bubble wrap. Bubble wrap being the preferred item to carry around the house while making her “here I come with my baby” howl, which is usually after bed time when its nice and dark and I’m about to fall asleep. I have, on several occasions, awoke to a piece of bubble wrap or a small plastic bag on the floor near my bed. She doesn’t chew or eat these she just carries them around during her nightly prowls. She has other toys she will move about the house too. These are tiny dog toys that are big enough to not end up under the furniture and small enough to be carried and tossed around. The little hedgehog is my favorite. One morning I woke up to a pile of these animals and a plastic bag next to my bed. She had a busy night.

They are such creative girls. Now if I could only teach them to dust or something.

Tuesday Humor

The Procrastinator's Creed:

1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.

2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses.

3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration.

4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from missing them.

5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations.

6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given.

7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesmally small, is not exactly zero.

8. If at first I don't succeed, there is always next year.

9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind.

10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it.

11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task.

12. I know that the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but is wait/plan/plan.

13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever.

14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator's Society) if they ever get it organized.

Happy Thanksgiving

This card is a replacement card for the November COTM. The one I originally sent was returned in pieces yesterday (no wonder I hadn’t had a message that it arrived). Apparently the machine at the post office got hungry. At least my return address was legible so it could be returned and I know to send out another one. I’m amazed this doesn’t happen more often.

This is the front side of my pages for the 2007 Collage Calendar. My brain has trouble with collage. It seems to want everything to be symmetrical and not too cluttered. I’m working on it. It’s kind of like the class I took where we had to do free motion quilting by machine. The instructor kept telling me to loosen up. It was really a struggle for me but when I got it I liked the results. I need to LOOSEN up with collage.

The back side of the page isn’t quite done yet. Life got in the way recently and I haven’t finished putting the pieces all together. It is my goal for this evening.

We’re getting together with friends for a nice dog walk tomorrow morning before starting the Thanksgiving ritual. The weather should be nice and the dogs will LOVE it. It is always to fun to see them all together.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Quote for the day

One only needs two tools in life:

WD-40 to make things go and duct tape to make them stop.-

-G.M. Weilacher

Star and Bell

I've been taking some online classes at Joggles. This one is taught by Carol Murphy. Here are my first attempts. They definitely need some work.

Quick Cards

I had three goals this weekend:

1. Get something done!
2. Use some of my pretty paper.
3. Use some stamp sets I haven't used much.

I've been having a creative block so I went back to cards I'd made before and to Splitcoast Stampers for some inspiration. I tend to get overloaded with ideas when I do this so I quickly picked a couple of cards I liked and stopped looking. Here is what I came up with.

These are CASED from Craftygirl04 on Splitcoast.

I got to blow some dust off of my Bernina for these.

These are cased from Laurakj at Splitcoast.

A quick upload today of some cards I made for the Winter Card Swap.

This one is made in honor of our wonderful swap hostess Lorian. She loves dogs too.

Closed

Open

This one is a new pull out card that I learned from Susie my Demo extraordinaire.

I hope to get some serious creating done next week as I’m taking a few days for R&R. I have some new ideas flying around in my brain that need to get out. I can’t put too many more in there until I get rid of some. There's just not enough room for everything I need to keep in the noggen. As I get older there seems to be less space.