It's That man Again!

Hi, It has been some time since my last post, not because of a lack of interest (LOL) but I have had some serious surgery - a complete knee replacement operation. It has kept me away from the PC screen for anything but the shortest of sessions as I could not comfortably sit at the computer. My PC desk has a cupboard at the front hence nowhere to put my legs.....

I am now at a stage where I am well on the way to recovery and am starting to pick up the pieces. So where to start?

One project ( a swap really plus!). On PDA we are making a book, the project will last 13 months and each page will be swapped between pairs of the artists involved. The themes for all the pages and the partners have all been published so we know where we are going. At the same time we are making a duplicate ( not necessarily the same as the first) which we will keep to use for ourselves. So we end up with two books at the end of the project. Of course how we arrange the pages in our own books is up to each of us individually.The following images show the end covers and their reverse sides.

The first is based on a background, collaged using brightly coloured torn paper. The marbled paper was given to me by a friend, Lynda Gilchuck, find her on PDA. This is the front cover:-

The front inside

The back cover

and the back inside

A little out of the ordinary (?) but definitely a style which is recognisably mine, I think. The second set of covers was more of the sort of thing I imagined that was more traditionally accepted in mixed media art.This is the front cover:-

the front inside

the back cover

the inside back

The last image is slightly spoilt by the reflection of the flash in the metallic charm, a female head - side on. I gave my partner, Kim Newberg, a choice of which set she wanted and she chose the first ( colourful) set, saying that it reminded her of myself.

Apart from crafting, and I have knocked out (?) a number of ATC's and altered pieces this past few weeks, I have been adding Lenses to my tally on Squidoo. Most are art related, especially ATC and aceo, but there are cookery and music related lenses. Too many to link directly here but the links will take you to examples from where you can find all my lenses if you are interested. I will provide a fuller list in the near future.If you don't know Squidoo it is a publishing site for which you get to share in the ad revenue generated and can get royalties on any items that are sold through your own lenses ( Amazon, Zazzle, Cafe Press, Ebay and All-Posters are the main affiliate sites). I am looking forward to generating a small passive income for my retirement. Some members report earnings in the area of four figures each month, but I wouold imagine this is quite rare.

Back with more soon, thanks for reading.

ATC challenges

I am going to be very brief with this post as I need to do some catching up. I am just going to show two ATC collages which were made for challenges on different sites.

This was made for a challenge on Flickr (Artful Ideas), the theme was journey. I decided to make it a metaphorical journey simply because I found and liked this image. Love the facial expression! I took some travel lables (Dover Samples) and used this to represent where ( and perhaps how) the little girl would be when she grows up.

This was made for a Halloween themed challenge ( did you guess?)  on PDA ;full title:- "it's alright for you but I don't like bats in my hair"

the main image is from frannie60  and the bats from jack and cat curio

Do You Squidoo?

Golly, time certainly passes when you are enjoying yourself. I have been creating and updating lenses ( single page web-sites on a niche subjects) on Squidoo.

I love to write about what I am doing as much as painting and collaging, so I am enjoying this at present to the detriment of new art. I am also reading a lot about art and making notes of some new ideas to try! I have updated my lenses on "making, collecting and selling ACEO's". Still have a way to go to complete these and they remain work-in-progress but why hide them away. Actually there is a series of four introduced by the named lens.

I have also added recently, tutorials on:-

making a simple collaged ATC
ready made and easy ATC backgrounds
making marbled paper with shaving cream 
the basics of how to use the colour wheel
and for those of you new to layering in digital work, adding ghost images in Photoplus

Hope you find time to take a peek. comments of course are very welcome - always. especially if they help to improve the content and the manner in which it is presented. Thanks in anticipation.

ATC's and digital collages

It has been a little while since I posted any new ATC's, I have been really busy with several things including my art group's annual exhibition. And also our main holiday, photos of which will be appearing on my photography blog.

But I am going to take the opportunity to let you see what little collage work I have been doing, both atc's were for scheduled swaps and so I couldn't really miss doing them. I hope that the pressure didn't show in the work I did.The first was for a swap on Flickr group, Artful Ideas with a theme of Autumn Romance. The main image seems to be missing a little contrast compared to the original, not quite sure why. Must be something to do with the scanning.
 

The second was from a swap on PDA, with a theme of Family Matters. I called this one Sisters, a little tongue in cheek but I call it artistic licence.

The other piece I have to show this time is a digital collage. A little bit of fun really but again it was for a challenge on PDA . the challenge was to use what Kim called an "ugly image". I was playing around with the image and background ( both from one of Kim's collage sheets) and then whilst browsing found the image of the men amongst the free images on PDA. The text came to me at once and I thought, "why not". A little sexist perhaps, but I don't think it does any harm.

PS the "ugly" adjective was the image, not the lady. Kim seems to have some of these less than pretty images for us to come.

Oh well , back to the preparations for the groups exhibition, see you soon

Considerations for framing ATC and ACEO art cards

Further to my last post I have taken an opportunity to create a Squidoo Lens with a few thoughts on framing Art cards. As a painter, I have always placed a mat in front of the painting when framing art. But I have decided that for many art cards, it is easier and better if the art card is placed in front of the  mat. This opens up a number of benefits (easier to cut the mat, etc) but it can also provide a means of protecting cards with 3-d embellishments. In the extreme this leads to the use of a "shadow box arrangement" for framing very bulky cards.

Framed ATC collages for 2010 Art group Exhibtion

I usually keep my painting and "crafting" activities quite separate. No real reason but I paint at my art group and "craft" at home. Most of my internet activities are about the crafting side. However, this year I am determined to bring both activities together for my art group exhibition.

I have framed a selection of ATC's (which have not been snapped up for swapping) and intend to offer these as part of my submission to my art group's exhibition this year. Just a couple of weeks away and I have very nearly got them all ready. Just need to write some sticky labels and decide how much to ask for the individual works.

In this neck of the woods there are several large outlets ( department stores, athena prints, IKEA) for prints from the famous and the infamous, whch seem to get picked as wall decorations by the modern "art lover". This means of course that real art from up-and-coming artists does not sell well at all. Do I pick a price which may lead to a sale, but will simply show the public that it is not worth anything. Or do I set a price which I feel I am worth and hang wether it sells or not. Decisions, decisions !!!! Whichever way, I gave up on Ebay a long time ago as a means of making sales; I might as well have given them away for all the good it did me.

see also my other blog for a view of the pastel paintings

Marbling paper and lots of other simple background techniques

Gosh, I have been so busy lately, very little time for blogging even tho I know it should take precedence. After all, isn't one of the golden rules that you should post regularly!

I have actually been quite busy with crafty things and this is a little bit of a catch-up (again!!!!)

First thing is that I am finally investing a little time in writing some Squidoo Lenses. If you haven't come across these before don't panic. they are simply single page web sites designed to put across a particular piece of information. they can be short or long depending on the subject and how much you have to say.

Some time ago I wrote about how I came across ACEO paintings and what they were. This led to a series on making , collecting and selling ACEO's. However, I never got around to completing the latter because I found ATC's and became quite addicted to  swapping.

One or two more lenses followed but I am now creating a series for beginners, people new to the mixed media scene. The first was a simple tutorial showing the making of a collaged ATC. this has been followed by a lens on simple techniques for making unique backgrounds and another for making marbled papers using shaving foam. I enjoy developing the tutorials and it makes me think about what I am doing and how to improve my art.

It has been a couple of years since I started making ATC's and although I am happy to try anything for a challenge, I am beginning to feel that I am in something of a rut. hence the look at what and how I am doing things. I see lots of references to products which have been developed to aid the crafter/artist but am most happy using discarded bits and pieces and images which often require work on them ( e.g. digital editing) before printing. And I do get most of my images off the web. recently I have tried digital collages, which I enjoyed but it begins to get a little same-y. Although that is not to denigrate the great art that I see created by this method. My "rusty bucket" is another way of looking for another way forward and I have been making larger collages and painting over a collage prepared as an initial step.

Still feeling that I need to develop however, doing the same thing too often is fine but does not equate with satisfying my artistic tendancies. But thinking abouot it I felt like this about painting at one stage, and now it is just another stirng to my bow. So maybe I should stop thinking and get creating

thanks for getting this far, hope to be back soon.