Score, Score & Some Art

I went to The Scrap Exchange a few days ago & totally scored!!  I got everything in the above picture for about $22.00.  There are 7 skeins of nice wool yarn, a new bottle of Folk Art Artist Pigment paint, 4 (3 not pictured) bins that were originally used for something, but will be perfect to hold magazines, 15 new chicken boxes that would be perfect for me to alter & use for an ornament exchange I'm going to participate in next Christmas.  On the bottom is a sweet little art journal for me to use when I finish my current one (composition book).  The Scrap Exchange is a non-profit reuse center that has great "stuff", especially is you like mixed media.

I also scored with my first ATC swap.  Our theme this month was Frida Kahlo.  I received my wonderful ATCs yesterday & now can't wait for next month's swap.  Here are the ones I sent to my partner:

 I like using playing cards for ATCs because they are the perfect size & the corners are already rounded.  I actually picked up this mismatched deck of cards on a trip to Scrap Exchange for about .50 cents.  The lighting is really bad in these pictures so the color is washed out.  I added some tiny little flowers to her hair & little seed bead along the bottom, on top of the paper I sewed down.

This one was inspired by Frida's painting Broken Column & her quote "Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?".  I used an old cross-stitch pattern & sketched out a dress form for her body.  I tore it down the center, then stapled it back together.

This is what I received:

Are they not just gorgeous???  There is so much texture & color in these little pieces of artwork that I could stare at them for hours.  I didn't have a lot of embellishments to use on art, but after seeing these, I'm definitely going to Scrap Exchange to pick up more bits & pieces.  Where else could I buy one puzzle piece or one computer keyboard letter?

I just met up with a good friend of mine to exchange Christmas gifts.  She have me this great box of bits & bobs (buttons, beads, wood figures, etc) & I love it.  She knows me so well.  I came home & dove into the box pulling out every piece & thinking of all of the lovely things I can garnish with these lovelies.  For her, I made a pair of fingerless gloves & made a journal for her.  She's writing a book so I thought I'd make a little something to carry in her purse that she could jot down her ideas, or reflections, or grocery list....whatever she wants.

The front & back cover are made from a canvas for ink jet printers that I painted, then gessoed, then sanded, then gessoed, then painted again.  There is a coating on this canvas that gets sticky when water is added, so when I added water to start working the background it got mucky & gooey.  It was an experiment & now I know.  Well, once the canvas was properly defiled, I collaged a bit, painted a likeness of my friend & sewed on the fabric for the spine cover (don't know what it's called) onto the front.  The fabric on the back is just glued, but could have been sewed, had I planned ahead.

I used a cracker box for the inside of the cover to make it a little more sturdy (sorry, no pictures) & covered that with scrapbooking paper.  For the inside pages, I used reclaimed papers from notebooks, old ledgers, resume paper & an envelope made a couple of pockets.

I made this for a dear friend of mine who has a thing for owls.  He's the kind of man with professorly tastes (maybe because he is a professor) so I wanted to stay away from the cutesy, whimsical owls.  I hope I did OK......he seemed to like it.

I used a piece of a cardboard box & collaged vintage pages for the background.  I painted the owl with watercolor crayons & acrylic, then cut out his tummy & added scrapbooking paper before I collaged him onto the branch.  I used tissue paper on top of the moon to give it a little texture & before it was all said & done, used just about everything I had in my art arsenal (artsenal? lol) before I completed this.  I used paper, matte medium, watercolors, acrylics, oil pastels, graphite & pen.  Whew!!

Here's one of my girls.  She's created with watercolor crayons, acrylics, graphite & pen & ink.  I've cut her out of the watercolor paper because I think I'm going to collage her onto wood & maybe add some leaves & flowers to her hair.  She reminds me of one of hippy chick friends, so maybe this will be a gift to her.

Just a couple more fun little goodies that I did while I was at Mom's over Christmas.  She gave me a little set of acrylics & call I had was a sketch book & watercolor pad.  I cut up the box that the pots of paints came in & tried my hand of "pulled" art.  Mystelle calls it pulled art because you start applying paint to the surface with a brush, credit card, or whatever.

  I used a piece of cardboard to smear the paint onto the cardboard.  I stood back to see what was popping out of the paint.  I saw this lady standing in her village.  At first the poodle only looked like a giant fire hydrant, but finally I saw him.  I also saw a giant flower in a barrel to go along with her big doggie.  It's a very rough painting, but I like it.  I'm finding that I really dig messy art with not realistic faces & smeared graphite & paint.

I tried pulled art again & got a little stumped.  I think I work better in portrait than landscape because there's a big empty spot in this one that needs....something.  I know it's not finished so I'll keep working on it.  

I really enjoy painting on cardboard.  For me, there's no pressure of  "ruining" more costly paper or canvas, it's almost always available (& free) & it's also reusing something in a different manner than was initially intended.  I've done that with a lot of things.  I've turned a garden plaque into a clock, windows into candle holders, shutters into CD racks.  I have a lot of old things that I'm going to convert into new things.  I've got spindles, finials, etc.  I hope to get started on those when it gets a little warmer then I can show you before & after & steps in between.  

I haven't forgotten about the copper etching tutorial I promised.  It's coming up soon, I just had to get back into the swing of things after the holidays.

I hope y'all have a warm & cuddly day.