btw

I AM A TOTAL GIRLIE SWAT GOODIE 2-SHOES

I am now finished swaps up to the end of the year (financial year anyway)

and I love it!

Snacking distractions & a fixation???

In a desperate attempt to stop myself from snacking (ie rummaging through the house looking for anything that resembled a treat) I sat down to finish all the rest of the projects that I could last night. This meant Vic stampers competition ATC's....


Left to right we have April (jigsaw piece) , May (rectangle) and June (star). I tried to stay away from red, but the pull is just too great, and I could only do 1 ATC in something else before I got sucked back into the void!

For those of you who have seen my arty fiddlings over the years you will know that red pops up again and again. For example we have this canvas:

and this book cover:


(hand-dyed red velvet - YUM!, must get more)

and this from inside said same book:


and this inside someone else's book:

and this collaborative book contribution:

For variety I will occaisionally intersperse the red with purple (well they are next to each other on the colour wheel). For example this is from A book which is ENTIRELY RED AND PURPLE:



must...... find....... another......... colour....... combination.

A surprise & even more girlie swatness

I had only just press "publish" on my earlier blog post and the doorbell rang - it was the postie delivering me 2 books I had ordered from Amazon. The first is Michael deMeng's Secrets of Rusty Things - which I will be hunkering down with in bed this evening, and on the train tomorrow, and at my desk when I should be doing other things - perhaps I should call in sick instead - but what excuse??? Of course - I have come down with deMengie fever!!!!!

The other book I had ordered was this one:

I had seen a copy at Monika's and decided that I HAD to have it - it is a fantastic "bible" of paper altering techniques. I can thoroughly recommend it, and I intend to work my way through all the techniques in it over the next few months... that should keep my creativity levels up!

Inspired by the desire to begin working my way through paper transformed I thought I should knock off another set of ATC's that I have committed to (this one's due in April) - Beeswax, one of my favourite mediums.

I only have clear beeswax left at the moment, so thought I would go with a vibrantly coloured image to take advantage. I bought a stack of collage sheets from digitalcollagesheets.com the other week, and this gorgeous chubby-faced girl was on one of them. I printed her out on glossy 135gsm paper to really make her stand out through the beeswax. The background is dress pattern and a bit of old newspaper. Dymo labelling and copper tape to seal the edges, and viola! another set of ATC's. I am sending Barb in Wagga Wagga a very large parcel tomorrow!

ciao

MOO Cards & Girlie Swatness

Well, I am feeling very good about myself - in fact I am giving myself a "girlie swat" badge for being so productive over the past few days. I *know* that gloating is not a very attractive emotion to display but I have almost completed all the swaps I have committed to to the end of June. I am almost 6 months ahead of schedule! WOW!!! I only have 9 Beeswax ATCs, a Kit Swap (all the bits sent to us, yet to arrive) and a couple of single ATC's for the competition at my monthly stamp meet. Not much at all really... I could even have them all knocked off by next week!

Here is the MOO card I completed for an ArtyOz swap. I found this very challenging - primarily because of the size - 2.8cm x 7cm (1.12" x 2.5" in the old language). Really, really small! Thankgoodness for the collections images I had floating around that were small enough to put on it. The background was a reject from the zetti back page because it was too dark.


This is an ATC for the PaperArts Yahoo group (of which I am a member) that had to use a peeled paper background. I really wanted to do something that was in a landscape format rather than portrait for a change - always working in the same paradigm tends to make my art a bit stuffy with a degree of "sameness". The image of the girls sitting on steps also lended itself to landscape format. I also used up some of my grungeboard (coloured with peeled paint distress ink pad) which I am enjoying using which is good considering how much I purchased! Grungeboard may be a feature on my work for a while!

(Cindy - I made an extra one of these for you, and it is on its way)

Real art has the capacity to make us nervous

I finished the back of the Zetti page last night. I wanted to go with what I perceive as a Teesha Moore signature colour combination - yellow / red. I used one of my favourite Zetti stamps and a great quote from the Zetti line - "real art has the capacity to make us nervous":

I continues the doodle theme with white accents around the quote. All in all I am really pleased with this page (both sides actually!). I am looking forward to getting back an accordian book now, as I am very interested to see how others perceive/interperet this great (modern) artist's work.

As planned in yesterday's post I completed a 4-slide microscope mailer for another swap today. I have called it "weary winter". This is the front cover.

(the words along the top say "even in the long, weary winter;")

And the inside:

(the continuation of the quote is "Diana could find lovely flowers")

Like most of my arty fiddlings this was intended to be something else all together - I had located my Artchix "flirt" collage sheet (designed for microscope slides) and was going to go with a Parisian fashion theme.... so much for that!

I don't quite know how this one evolved, but I had a couple of images left from the front of the Zetti page (bet you wondered where you had seen her recently!), and her solemnity really appeals to me .... I also had bits of a blue artchix sheet that I "found" when I was tidying up my table the other day.... and the recent architecture tryptich made me rediscover some of my (large) collection of shrine & frame stamps. I also picked up the lumieres again after a bit of a break - must have been quite a long break as my blue halo gold was an ugly gluggy mess - and rediscovered what a great background they make on black gesso. I even did some embossing! The whole thing just sort of fell together. I hope that the recipient enjoys looking at it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Given the fairly average night on tv tonight I might tackle some ATC's , or even some MOO cards... will just have to see where the muse takes me!

WW2 in pastels & zettiology

Well, as promised yesterday here are my WW2 / auto parts bin inspired baby cards:


In reality the only link here is the stencilled letters, but anything for a good headline!

I was quite productive today down at Monika's shop (Beachhouse Boulevard) - I managed to get pages for a Zettiology accordian book I am participating in almost completed. I am really pleased with the way they are coming along.


The background on this was really easy, and fun to do - based on a Tim Holtz technique. I used paint dabbers by adirondack - base coat (chilli pepper), when dry I clear embossed a Zetti house image on the top (to become the hat/crown) then I used a purple dabber, followed by a yellow one as a top coat. I "stripped" the yellow one with a huggies to get a more translucent look, and the embossed section was rubbed back so that the red showed through completely. Doodles in white & gold gel pen and gold krylon, dymo lettering and a zetti city-scape stamped on transparency along the bottom.

Tomorrow I am going to tackle ... microscope slide holders!!!!

till then fellow bloggers & blogettes

Name & Shame and Inspiration

Weekly Name and Shame: -600g

not much BUT it is negative (must remember to focus on the positives here)

Stuff:

well, it has been a busy week getting out some client reports, entertaining at the tennis - I was sorry to see Serena go out, general work stuff and a DAY OFF TODAY!!!

so, what did I do on my day off you ask.... no art work yet, but there are still some hours left to redress that problem. What I did do was a bit of online shopping at artchix (they have some very nice new products ladies), food shopping and clean up my yard - back and front. Weeding, mowing whippersnippering etc. Doesn't the backyard look great:

(this great chair was a roadside find!!!)

I also managed to break my old garden rake today - but it is SO COOL, that I am thinking I will keep it and turn it into something???? no idea what, so any suggestions gratefully received (it could come with me in my grab-bag for the demeng class....)


Part of the reason I undertook some power gardening today was that I am feeling a little un-inspired after a pretty frantic 4 days at work. I *know* that I have 2 baby cards to make (probably 3 but one is so late now that it might be embarrassing to send - I'll just have to do extra well on his 1st birthday card), but I don't really know what to do... I am just a bit listless today.

So, in a last ditch attempt at procrastination ... I thought I would whip around the house looking through a lens at "stuff" to see if it would inspire me.


I love the red in this one - this is a closeup of the badge on my old kelvinator (chardy) fridge, it is so emotive - so very 50's....


This is a chook made from wire that lives in my herb patch - she is finally starting to get that beautiful blue/green patina on her body from being weathered. Just love that colour, but have no idea how to reproduce it with paint.....

Last but not least we have this:


I bought some old auto parts on e-bay last year, and the biggest surprise was these metal "bins" they arrived in. They seem very WW2-esque to me with the stenciled numbers starting to come off, and the metal beginning to look extremely battered. I can imagine that they have been thrown around in the back of an American serviceman's jeep whilst he was racing across open ground under fire to repair a tank! I think I feel some stencilling coming on.

These baby cards will probably be the most unusual ones new parents have ever received. I never thought about WW2 in pastel shades before!

I will post them up once complete so that you can see where this journey is going.

Inaugural Post & the "Year of Consistency"

Well, this is the inaugural post of my blog - yay! One of my 20 or so new years' resolutions done, and I must say that it feels rather nice to have knocked 1 (and only 1) off. So, the idea here is that this will encourage the bigger 2 of the resolutions to be achieved.

Putting a twist on a quote from that very average film Field of Dreams:
If you build it they will come~ and the things you want will come to you.

The first is that I will lose 19kg. On this blog I will name and shame myself into losing weight. Posting my loss (or not) every week I am hoping will spur me on to sticking with my Jenny Craig weightloss program. so to kick things off, this week is my current (lets's call it starting) weight for the purposes of this exercise:

NAME AND SHAME: 94KG
(gulp it looks really big when I type it - and is foul for someone who is a mere 164cm)

The second resolution of import is that I will commit to art output this year, and not let work get in the way all the time. I found last year that the time I was committing to my art was so patchy that I was constantly restarting projects, and was completely ineffective. So 2008 marks the year of consistency for Liz.

To this end I have been quite prolific so far in 2008. I have committed to quite a lot of art projects and swaps, and have at the time of writing, completed everything due for March bar 1 (lonely single) ATC (Artist Trading Card).

This is a tryptich I finished off yesterday that I was rather pleased with. The theme is architecture. This is the tryptich closed. I LUURVE using rust paint, it is an absolute fave of mine:


And this is it open:


The arches from left to right say "plans", "window" and "balcony".

Thanks for taking the time!

~Liz