Sunday, August 29, 2010

Altered Calendar August = France

Terrie's French themed calender made it back down to southern California for the month of August. I created three and a half spreads in the Van Gogh art calendar.  My first page came from a Marie Claire magazine and is actually an ad for a large craft festival in Paris.  It is in November if you are interested in attending!  I just cropped off the legs from the large image and juxtaposed them along the left edge.  and added some flowers and leaves and some floral printed paper to act as borders. The final touch is some bits of tape with poetry written on it on the white pant legs.
The next spread had a painting of lemons in a bowl on the right - so i created a French feast with cheese and wine. Another image from Marie Claire creates the mood on the left - then i added some grape cluster stickers.  Finally text from a french dictionary accented with wine charms - vin, raisin and fromage!
For this last "half spread" of the month i just found an interesting illustration from my Larouse dictionary - of an assortment of chapeaux! Scraps of paper create the borders.
And finally - i was running out of ideas for the paris theme that had not already been used!
(already used by other artists included Degas, Picasso, Monet, Piaf, Eiffel tower, Moulin Rouge, art nouveau, and Marie Antoniette!)
So i thought i would do some research into the three Louis!  The kings, XIV, XV and XVI and the furniture styles they made famous.  I used a rose coloured toile patterend paper for the background and google images of their portraits and chairs.  I had all sorts of other info about their wives and mistresses, but well - there is only so much you can fit on an altered book spread!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

altered calendar mid year break

Well, July marked the return of my very own calender, which has been touring California since the end of January. Here are some of the images from when it started its journey here and here. Along the way my very talented friends created some fabulous collage on the pages i'd love to share with you!
This is one of Aileen's crazy colourful pages - full of texture and detail. The illustration on the left was in the book - and she created the frame and opposing page to tie it all together.
This is one of Shelley's spreads.  I think the image on the right was original - but maybe not.  You can see how she is a master of colour and pattern mixing.
This is one of Dorothy's pages.  Her spreads almost always include words - poems, thoughts, quotes.
This is one of Marie's whimsical spreads.  Check out all those groovy backgrounds.
This is by Terrie who found the perfect images to echo the soft colours of the existing illustration.
So i had the book the whole month of July - but chose not to bring it on vacation lest it get lost or ruined.  So yeah, i worked on it the first week of August.
The illustration on the left was in the book, unframed.  I added the soft patterned paper since the colours worked.  The lady on the right was from a Nordstrom ad.  The bottom of her dress was cut off - so i used it to create a bra top for the corset on the left! Tucked into a pocket is a card with all the things we did on vacation.
The smoking jacketed piano playing gentleman on the left gave me a playboy vibe, so i added a frilly bed from the Anthropologie catalog and a couple of ladies wearing chiffon and lace.
The tree on the left had goats on the branches. Yeah. Goats.  So on the right i added a tree with a peacock on the branches. The next town over, Arcadia actually has live free-range peacocks meandering the towns lush lawns and flitting about the roof's and tree tops!
This page had the taxi illustration.  I added the checkerboard and street sign stickers.
Finally - i took a page from a Zen calendar and added it to the last page of the July section of the calendar. No embellishment necessary.  Off it goes for another round - 5 artists, 4 spreads each, 5 months, and at the end of the year - it will come back to me filled with artistic friendship.

Back from vacation and what have i been doing?

Happy August everyone! I was in Montreal for our annual vacation of relaxing by day by the lake or the pool.  And enjoying food, wine, friends and family by night. And music!  There always seems to be a spontaneous jam wherever Jim and I go. Such talented friends we have...!
I brought along some beading supplies and made a few things.  I also taught my niece Erica what i know about wire wrapping beads.  Even my sister got in the act.
Erica made the one above.
I made this.
My sister kept this one.
And this one.
And this one.  
Okay - she did pay me for them.  She also made a bracelet - don't think i have a pic.
I also made this one that my sister's mother in law, Muriel bought from me. ("don't get my face")
I was kind of sad to sell it - hardly had time to enjoy it, you know?  I used some cool vintage beads.  But it was actually her birthday and she said she wanted to buy herself a present - so how could i refuse her!
Now back to the sunshine and the lake....
Hubby Jim and brother-in-law Anthony chillin' on the doc.
Top photo are his brother Mike's girls.