multi medium 4x6 post card/ journal page

Multi-Medium Collage/Altered Art:
Theme is Nudes
Size is 4x6" (post card)

'Fairy Flight'

These three pieces are the first in a series that I am working on for a swap with other artists. They are a multi-medium, altered art/collage style.....which is what I love to work in most. The only swap requirements were the size and the theme is Nudes. I chose to make my 'nude' beauties into fairies, which I also love.

'Call Me Violet'

The background is hand painted in acrylic paints. I used pigment ink pen, markers and distress ink to make the accent drawings. I collage the vintage photos and other images into the designs.......first laying them out and playing around until I liked the arrangement.

I covered the entire pieces with a glitter glaze that adds a shimmer and shine to them.

I added a dimensional medium to give them a depth and fun texture, as well as a thicker glitter to two of them. I always enjoy making things that are fun to touch and feel, as well as look at. I used small beads to accent as also, making the projects 'chunky'. The wings, crown, and other areas stand out and are not flat looking. They are so much more colorful and 'deep' in person. I wish that they scanned or showed better in a photo. Because the glitter glaze makes photos glare, and the thicker glitter and beads make a scan distorted and not as 'clear'. It is only of concern if you

are displaying your work on the Internet or making images for some reason. I am sure there is also a way to get clearer and nicer photos of the art, I just am not aware of any.

'To The Moon'

Some people like to do collage and altered art styles like this, but they do not use the pigment ink pen and markers to do outlining and pen work. I myself, like to do the hand drawing, shading, outline, lettering and scroll work. It is a way to add so much more personality and character to the piece. It is also a way to make your art work 'personal'. We all write, draw and doodle in unique ways and abilities. Our artwork becomes recognizable to others. With out the pen work, collage can begin to all look the same. The objects, accents, painting, drawing and other work all come together in a very one of a kind and stylized piece. Each of us gravitate to items and supplies, that capture our personal tastes even when using the same themes or mediums. I love playing around with different mediums, textures and styles all together.........blending and coming up with something that is 'me'. This type of project is small enough that you can do several objects at the same time. Because of the size of the items you can accomplish a finished piece of art in a fairly short amount of time. If there is a piece that you are not happy with, it makes it easier to set it aside and focus on the other items you made. You can even start over it you need too, without feeling like you have been drained of all your artistic energy and have used up your time. That is the joy of these mediums and the smaller size.

' RECOVERED FROM THE HOLIDAY BURN OUT !'

I am finally out of the artist slump, block or burnout mood............I took a long break from my artwork to recover from the projects I did to sell, the gifts I made and just the crazyness of preparing for the holidays. and if that was not bad enough, both my husband, my son and I got the wonderful flu and was down for 3 weeks. thank god we were alive and well on christmas. It was a blast to have our son tyler and his love megan, kryston our daughter and our oldest son travis with his girlfriend sopheak with us on christmas day. the kids and megan actually stayed the night so that we would all be up at the crack of dawn together. we also stayed up watching movies and playing games late into the night, I could still hear the kids talking and laughing long after bill and I finally went to bed. it was one of the best christmas' ever, much like when the kids were young and bouncing off the walls until santa came. I have to admit my kids, bill and I are still young at heart and look forward every year to santa coming (still) and the fun of being together christmas morning.

I finally was able to get busy with my artwork. I finished a painting for my son tyler. he really liked an abstract painting I did several monthes back and asked me to do him one. the other had red sky and ocean, with green moons floating above. since he is always going to miss the mountians that he grew up in, I did the red sky, black mountians with moons and black pine trees. it is still abstract, but it also has a touch of our home in trinity county. I used acrylic paints, a dimentional medium on a canvas. the dimentional medium was added to the trees and the moons so that they have depth and stand out from the sunset type background and mountians. I was glad he really liked it and has it hanging in his front room now. I only wish my ability to take pictures was better.........the painting is much more colorful and has much more depth to it in real life.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN ARTIST............

Hi to all of my friends, family and fellow artists! As always..........I have gotten so busy lately, that I have neglected my blog. I am horrible at blogging..........but at least you don't have to find time to read all of mine! I recently joined a group on flickr called 'A Day In The Life Of An Artist...' . The goal of this group is to upload frequent photos of yourself that show who you are and what you do, rather than just showing your artwork. I think this is a great idea and a fun way to get to know the artists that you have come to know over the internet art world. So I thought it would be fun to blog those photos that I upload to this group. you will get to see VERY RARE pics of me......cause I hate being the subject of photos, I am much more comfortable collecting photos of family and friends for my art! I hope you enjoy the ones that I show you.....

This photo was taken a couple of nights ago at a basketball tourny in Anderson CA. My husband and I went so he could take pics and so I could jump up and down and yell alot.

I have always loved sports and played basketball, volleyball ,softball and track. I started playing sports in grade school and continued through high school and college. Bill was a football and track star in high school, so he loves going too. All three of our boys played basketball, track, baseball and football and our daughter played volleyball and was a cheerleader. This allowed me to feed my love of sports after I no longer played. We went to every home game and most of the away games to support the kids. Bill and I continue to go to as many games as we can even though all of our kids have now graduated. Bill is a hobby photographer and started taking photos at the games and sending them to the newspaper in our small home town. Our town was not the 'main' town of the newspapers coverage and we were frustrated that our town's athletes were not getting the same coverage as those in our neighboring community. He continues to do that now, even though we no longer live in our home town and county.

I was happy that Bill was nice enough to take this photo, instead of my 'NORMAL' pose, of mouth open yelling and jumping up and down. LOL I am going to try and have bill take more photos that will show who I am, my loves and what makes me tick, as well as my love of art! hope you are well and happy.................sandy

just finished some chunky pages!

well..........after another long bout of no computer, due to a wonderful virus........I finally uploaded some pics of some chunky pages that I finished. the pages were from a swap called 'you've been challenged'. it was a fun swap, and a tad different than most. first you took 4 bags and put 5 misc. items into each one. those baggies are then mailed off to the host, who then sends them out to those in the swap. you get four baggies back with other artists 5 challenge items in each one. you are 'challenged' to incorporate those items into the chunky pages you make. you may embellish your pages with other items as you see fit. they were really fun to make. it is good for someone like me who is obsessive compulsive and always takes everything to the extreme degree, and the descriptions to a 'T'. I loved having the challenge items to make me work outside of the box. I made one page for egrobeck....the challenge items were a shell, a starfish charm, a seahorse charm, aqua blue beads and a black and white print of a lighthouse and quote.

I used chalks and photo pens to color the print, and added distress ink, threads and buttons to accent the multi medium page. it is one of my favorite pages.

The other page I posted was made for landofnodstudio. the challenge items were the bird image from a vintage napkin, a gold heart jewelry piece, vintage music sheet , the stamps and vintage book page. I used the music sheet and book page as background, accented the edges with a stamped image of tree limbs and distress ink. I used stamps and a scrabble piece to add the quote. embellished with a gold crown, glitter paint and matching threads.

both pages are 4"x4" in size and such a fun multi medium project. I love collage and chunky style altered art and these pages are just the right size for a project.\

once the pages are all done, you send them back to the host who then separates them and send the four finished pages that others made with your own 'challenge' items. I have pretty good number of pages that I have made into books, and I love turning the pages and seeing the art and styles of other artists.

My Hang Out and My New Table

Since dropping of the planet this last week, I have been a busy bee. I normally write about my artwork or my family but I thought I would share my latest project with everyone. Sorry I went overboard witht the pictures.......I am a photo fanatic, what else can I say. In my art room I have a draftmans type desk and a table that Bill made for me. I came up with the idea to 'spruce' up the table. Those of you who know me , know that I love to collage. There are many giant collages in my art room and in the homes of family members. I am obsessed with photos and love to put them together in one piece of art. So I decided to use a few small family pictures and then I dug out a slew of doodle drawings I did, prints of some of my art and notes and cards that Bill and the kids have given me over the years all together on the table top. After all of the collage work was done, I used a pigment ink pen and did the scroll and accent artwork. I used a finish over the entire top and then when that was dry I put a clear adhesive over the table top to make it more durable. I love the way it turned out. After it was finished I decided to get ambishous and clean and organize my art room as well, so I thought I would show them off too.

Family photo from a couple of thanksgivings ago. Bill is about 80 pounds lighter than that pic and I am now about 50 pounds lighter as well...but we have not had a chance to do a family pic since then.

This picture is of Tony the middle son with one of my cards I saved because I loved the fairy, and I never...never ....ever throw anything away. I also used one of my many hand written quotes that I have been sticking all over my work area for years. Whenever I see something that is funny,interesting or inspirational, I write it down and cover my work area with them.

This pic shows a small photo of our youngest son Tyler and a note he wrote me way back when he was in lower grade school.

This shows one of my favorite elf drawings and of course a picture and saying that Bill used on a homemade Valentine.

In the center you see a small picture of our beautiful and only daughter Kryston. Her picture is at the top of a homemade Valentine she made me when she was very young. Around these is several pieces of my art work.

My favorite theme has always been joker/jesters, gemini, fairies/elves and gnomes. they are in alot of my work.

This one shows an old birthday card with the number 6. My favorite number, I was born on 6/6/64, only if I had been born in 66 would it be more cool. Next to the charcoal drawing in the bottom photo, is our oldest son Travis. He is much older now, but I love this picture of him, it is my favorite from when he was in high school.

Artsy Gemini's Crazy World: just finishing up on one order and starting another....

Artsy Gemini's Crazy World: just finishing up on one order and starting another....