Channeling Joseph Cornell

 For our play date yesterday we had great plans.  We were to meet at SCRAP in San Francisco to purchase items to create a Joseph Cornell inspired assemblage piece.  Unfortunatley, SCRAP isn't open on Sundays.  so we had to improvise.  D. , K. and I all "shopped" in my craft room stead for chunky found items to be used inside a cigar box, or some other vessel.  For my piece above, i decided to make use of my fair sized collection of vintage office supplies.  I used a fairly shallow hinged cigar box lined with typewriter ads from an old magazine, circa 1930's.  I added some children's blocks to say TYPE whereas writer was done with some store bought letters in a cool font.  Pretty much everything else was old - the lids from round packets of brads and tacks, the red boxes are pencil leads, some old folding rulers border some vintage stamps, rows of trading stamps create some separation.  Hard to tell in this photo - but the three office machines are on raised block adding some depth to the right side.

 Here is D's box - which she actually started last month at a workshop she took at SCRAP.  This was the incentive for us to all go to the store.  If you have never been, please check out their blog.  It is a wonderful place to find stuff to use in art projects.  Originally founded for school teachers to get cheap art supplies - it is now a mecca for all types of collage and assemblage artists.  Just about everything in her box, an old slide sorter, was found in the store.  That's Amelia Earhart behind a row of test tubes.  assorted plugs and outlets give it that cool mysterious crazy scientist look.

 Here is Z's box -  a work in progress.  Originally a slatted wood tray,  after some struggles with adhesives she covered the back with a vinyl map - cut from a purse!  Hey - no household item is safe in the world of assemblage, people!!  She is staying true to the Cornell aesthetic, with a series of boxes and circular shapes.  Note the repetition of the objects. I can't wait to see how this turns out!

Here is K's box - a hinged box from the craft store i think she white washed.  going with a "kids" theme - she used a large auto bingo card on the right and let colours play off of that.  that red car was shiny and new, but after some serious sanding - made it look apropriately vintage.  She's not quite done - plans to add red hots candies to those test tubes for a flash of more red and also more playfullness. Also note the repetition of cirular shapes, so prevalent in Cornell's work. The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round...

One of our play date buddies could not make it due to horrible sunday traffic, and another is driving across the country to spend the summer back east.  Did they ever miss a fun and challenging and rewarding play date!  Next month - canvases with plaster....

If you are not familiar with Joseph Cornell's masterful works - please go right away to google images and check them out!.  Better yet - if there is ever an exhibit in your area - you must go.

Altered Calendar - Maps and Moustaches

 The latest in the 2012 Altered Calendar Round Robin swap - D's clever creation: The Map and Moustache Book!  There are two instructions.  Create two spread using both maps and moustaches. An interesting mix, no?

 Here is one of my spreads.  I found the guy ballet dancer in my stash of vintage photos.  Thankfully once upon a time i filed them by "men, women, children, etc" - so they were easy to locate.  I wrote some text on the left that explains that the guy had to shave off his moustache so he could fulfill his dream to become a prima ballerina!  The background map is Germany and Austria, so i pretended he was named Heinrich.   Notice the striped ribbon on the left border, was also used for his tie! 

 Next is my Map Guy.  (my husband said i should have called him Map Dude, but anyway...)  When i was little, we had a map of North America on the wall of our playroom.  I always saw this little man in the states running down the middle of the country.  only he was missing a hat.  I fulfilled my lifelong dream to put that hat on his head...

Do you see him?

 Here he is!!!  His head is Iowa.  He shirt (painted a soft green plaid) is Missouri.  His jeans are Arkansas. And his large boot is Louisiana.  How cool is that!?!?  Oh yeah - his hat is Oklahoma turned right side up.  You'll never look at a map of the US the same way again..!!
I added some eyelets and laces to his boot, a leather belt and gold buckle to his jeans, some buttons to his shirt and since the theme of the book called for a moustache, he got one of those!  Without it, he looks a little bit like Elmer Fudd.  Looking back, perhaps i should have added a logo to his hat? 

Finally here is the sign in page.  We were to take a precut tag to decorate and add our name and afix to the back of the book.  The tag i selected already had an image of a cat wearing an glasses/nose/moustache disguise - so i didn't have much decorating to do!  Cut out some star shapes and added the multi colour yarn.  A fun theme for an altered book.
Next month?  Sea Glass!

Altered Sketchbook

 For a birthday present for a friend i decided to created something pretty and practical.  An altered blank sketchbook.  This book is about 12" tall and 9" wide and contains nice weight blank pages - full of promise!  She can use it to sketch, duh, or as a scrapbook for clippings, recipes, even a photo album.
I started with a background of painted deli paper in an orange and teal blend.  I originally was not even planning a focal point image of a face, but came across this serene Modigiliani and it was just perfect.
I added a halo of butterflies and even added a feathered and jeweled butterfly with a button in the center.
A few more bits of collage, dictionary paper, pinkie stamps, my favorite florentine pattern paper filled out the bottom nicely.

 In the inside cover i carried over the deli paper and a few more collage scraps.  A bevy of butterflies complete the page.

 Inside the back cover another pice of deli paper and a Modigliani nude - although i covered her up for modesty.

 And the back - just plain deli paper.  i figured that would be the most durable over time.

Here's another shot of the cover - bad shot with a flash glare spot - but the colours are more intense.
To see more faces with pretty things on their heads - check out my donation to the Marin MOCA altered book show.  Details HERE.

Play Date - Button Bracelets

Another beautiful Sunday afternoon in San Francisco.  Another fun filled play date at D's house!
Our play date buddy S. showed us all how to make these amazing finger weaving button bracelets that she learned from a workshop at Art Unraveled last year.  Here you can see three samples that S. has made since she took the class, she has certainly mastered the technique!   She told us what to bring, explained the steps and got us started creating our own. 

 Here is the assortment of buttons i chose to work with.  I used a lot of blue-green shell buttons mixed in with cream and gold.  I left the bottom assortment of neutrals for another project.

After creating a loop out of the c-lon micro cord, i started weaving under and over and then added beads and buttings.  Pins stuck into foam core help organize things.

 Here is a clearer picture after i had done about two inches.

 And here it is almost done!  I just need to add a couple of little buttons to the end and add the "closure" button - which will fit through the loop we created at the beginning.

 Here is Z's bracelet with a pretty assortment of neutrals on sepia coloured micro cord. She included seed pod buttons from South America.

 Here is K's colourful bracelet - pretty much done!  She used bright green and hot pink  buttons and beads to make a fun bracelet.

 Here is S's grey green project - she spent so much time coaching the rest of us - she didn't get much done.  She brought buckets of buttons to share!

And finally here is D's ambitious project - soon to be a necklace! much more spaced out and delicate.  It is fun to see the variety of what you can create with this cool technique.
Thanks S. for teaching us how to do it!

Altered Calendar - Gifts from the Sea

If you have been following along, you know that i started a new round robin altered book project with 5 friends at the beginning of 2012.  We are altering small (5"x6") calenders.  You can see my other books HERE and HERE and HERE.
I worked in S's beautifully textured calendar for the month of April, titled Gifts of the Sea.  She used texture gels and paint to get a sandy cover and added shell fringe around the border.  We were tasked to create two spreads to represent sea life, anyway we chose.  Mermaids were already done, rats! 

 So i chose Sea Turtles!  I started with a blue and black background (google imags) of gelly fish.  Three brightly coloures turtles from a tropical brochure were my focal points.  The "coral reef" is a bejeweled chandelier from Elle Decor.  Sea weed fronds were cut from blue vellum and applied with mini glue dots. (never use wet glue on vellum - it will pucker up!)  A spiny fish sticker (cut in half) creates more interesting sea life.

 Next - Fish Eyes!  I started with a background of shiny metallic origami paper in two shades of blue green.  Then i added another Elle Decor chandelier - with hanging crystals that reminded me of a fleet of tadpoles.  They are swimming along the top and bottom on the left side.  Next as you can see are a dozen or more eyes cut from fashion magazines - with some eyelashes retained for '"fins".  Browns, blues and greens - all swimming in different directions.  I added a bit of glitter glue to make them sparkle, which sadly caused the big eye on the right to develop a crease when the paper got wet.  It smoothed out after it dried fully.
Please note the clever use (if i say so myself) of eyelash yarn to decorate the edge of the pages.

And here finally is the Sign In page - with tags for each artist to decorate.  I added some dolphin stickers and some fun fibres, along with my name and the date.  Next Month - the theme is Maps and Moustaches.  Seriously - it is a theme of D's book.  So whimsical and fun - can't  wait.  Do check back to see!

Altered Book Show: Cornucopia

I am particpating in an altered book show at the Museum of Contemporary Art starting April 21st, at Hamilton Field in Novato, CA. Today i dropped it off at the museum.  My book is called Cornucopia - a celebration of nature's bounty! I took apart some silk flowers , stacked the petals with a brass brad, and glued the petals onto the cover with glue dots.  I used an assortment of Tim Holtz grungeboard letters to spell out the title.  I painted them green, added some copper paint to the edges and added a bit of gold leaf.  A bunch of tacky glue on the back and pressed them into the flowers, weighting them down with a pile of books. 

 Here is what the book liked before i started.  It is a financial ledger from 1972-1973 i found at an estte sale.  I cannot tell what the business was, but they had income from several major companies, and a membership to a dancy club in La Jolla!

 I removed a lot of the pages carefully - there was only one signature (sewn pages) - so i pulled tem from the middle.  I  left about 20 pages - enought to glue two pages together and have 10 spreads.  The pages i tore out will come in handy for other paper craft projects.

 Here is the plain old back of the journal.   I gave it a quick sanding and a light coat of gesso to prepare it for decoration.

 For my backgrounds inside the book i used painted deli paper.  I have written may times about the joys of painting deli paper with acrylic paint and a credt card.  It is so much easier than painting directly in the book.  My deli paper was 12" square and the book was a perfect 12" tall.   Sadly i was more than 12" WIDE, so i painted two of each colour combination (three per page) so i could piece them together.  it is fun how the three colours (here orange, aqua and yellow) combine to create 5 different hues, when scraped together on the page.

 I kept my title page simple, just adding the title, with my name below.  this was printed on normal computer paper.  it is funny how it looks like vellum!  I used Portfolio oil pastels to blend the colour onto the white sheet.  It is softer than he background - but less jaring than plain white.

 The "recipe" for each of the 10 spreads was the same:
     1. deli paper background
     2. pretty face
     3. flowers
     4. a bird or butterfly, or maybe not
     5. a line from a quote from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
For the page above i used a striking red head and a cornucopia of fruits, vegetables and flowers evoking the autumn harvest.

 No critters on this spread - just a woman throwing her head back with a cascade of lavendar and pink flowers.  You might notice that each page has two of the same colours as the previous page.  Sometimes it is subtle due to the blending of the paint. The pink and orange bands fromthe previous spread drop down and lavendar is added at the top.

 This is one of my favorites.  The beautiful purple and violet flowers call to a similary hued hummingbird to come and take a drink.  Note how the pink and lavendar from the previous background are now joined my a ribbon of yellow.

 Blues and yellows make up the flowering headress for this super model, with a bright blue parrot coming along for the ride.

 I went sort of pop art with this spread - one eye and one big blue poppy.

 Another familiar face with an underwater effect of blues and greens, and water droplets on the petals.

Orchids and glittered butterflies add a touch of the exotic to this smokey eyed damsel.

 More poppies - this time pinks and corals create a perfect nesting spot for a couple of pastel feathered birds. 

 Poppies and roses and a couple of winged creatures for this sun drenched gal.

 And my final pretty face, with an exuberent headress of red and yellow leaves and the perfect spot for a wee yellow birdie.

 Here is the back of the book, i covered it with a leftover piece of deli paper that most matched with orange and pink flowers on the front.  A sticker with my name and contact info complete the book.

And once again - i present Cornucopia!  This and 150 other altered book or book inspired artwork will be available to purchase through a silent auction running from April 21st through May at MOCA.  Please come to Novato and see the show. 

And now i seriously have to do my taxes....seriously.

Play Date - Fusible Paper Collage

I spent another lovely Sunday afternoon with my girlfriends creating art.  We copied a project from Cloth Paper Scissors where you use fusible web to create paper collage. 

 First you cut a piece of fusible web, from the fabric store, to size.  Mine were roughly 9 x 11.  Next we used decorative napkins to find elements for collage - carefully removing the two backing layers and cutting or tearing the napkins apart.

 Using freezer paper to protect the surface, and parchment as a release paper - we ironed the collage - so that the fusible web melts into the tissue.  It was a big question whether or not it would "bleed" through the layers.  In some case it would adhere pieces that were overlapping, in some cases not.

 If you needed a little extra "glue" - you could insert some Wonder Under fusing between the layers and iron again.

 A few more layers to add depth to the collage.  Completed image up top shows some painting and staining with tea stain varnish to add some colour.

 Here is S's piece after she added a light wash of colour to the pieced together napkins.

 And she continued with stencilling to add more texture and color.

 Here is D's in process - what a lively assortment of napkins.

 And her perhaps finished collage - with stencilling in metallic paint added.

 Here is K's pretty piece which includes several whimsical napkins plus some die cut butterflies and cheescloth. She added paper borders and cut outs from doilies.

 Here is Z's collage featuring an assortment of napkins that were blended together with paint to harmonize the piece.  She added glitter to the cutlery to make them sparkle.

Here's another one i did - an abstact with assorted papers and napkins.

 I added mesh, stencilling and some paint - which blended into the papers to unify it somewhat.

And here is another with a weird face with fruit for hair.  I added a black and white border, some coloured squares and more random fruits and flowers - all cut from napkins.

 Here is the completed piece - with more layering of napkins and some fibers.  The cool thing about these collages is that after you peel off the paper backing they are super thin and flexible.  They would be fantastic with some machine sewing or even beading added.  They could be framed or used in other art projects.  this could make an intersting book cover!
Thanks as always to our hostess D.