Nette - The Duck Whisperer

"Nette - The Duck Whisperer" - 4 x 8  inch digital on cotton

Credits:  Paper Whimsy, Two Peas, Dover

Traveler's H'Art - ALL THINGS POE Project - Bound Book and Page Selections

Above, the wonderful outcome of a  Halloween project involving 32 artists and hosted by  a master of collaborative artistic projects - Red Dog Scott.  The artistic interpretations of various literary works of Edgar Allen Poe are bursting with imagination, ingenuity and creativity!  A treasured book to add to my growing library of one-of-a-kind  and original works.

My sincere thanks to:

Deirdre Abbotts

Boscographix

Jeanne Cavanaugh

Ari Cury

Anna Ely

Ex Fast Posto

Sharon Fraser

Ellen Gray

Matthew Howden

Llynn Huntley

Joan of Art

Colleen Kent

Rue Kroch

Abby Lazar

Marina Lenzino

Lunaea

Kathy Martin

Wendy McGowen

Nancy Meyer

Lynne Miller

Megan Murphy

Terry Owenby

Sue Pierson
Pat Pleacher

Plumb Crazy

Pamela Joy

Red Dog Scott

April Soncrant

Julie Stiller

Marjorie Tomei

Cynthia Weed

Maude - my new grandpuppy!

My daughter Jillian caught the "Yorkie-bug" last weekend while she was visiting here and today at 12:30 pm she picks up "Maude". Can you stand how cute she is? She was born August 23rd, is 3 pounds right now and will be between 5-6 pounds full grown. She is a cross breed Maltese-Yorkie.

Another Dreamscape

"Soul Passages" - digital - 29 x 21 inches

Eleanor Series - First Giveaway

10 x 15 inch  Original Mixed Media Collage

paper, ribbon, crystal, silk, button, ephemera

I finished putting the final touches on this collage of Eleanor this morning., including her crown chakra - a Swarovski crystal, and her silk sash.  She's ready to be mailed to one of the three winners from my October Blog Giveaway.

The winners are listed at the top of my sidebar -

The B Family

Yvonne

Donna Watson

Jungian Muses and Sun-kissed Glimpses of Fabric Collages in Process

Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.  - Carl Jung

Jungian Musings and My Passion Flower - Views of New Blossoms from the Warmth of my Home

"New Passion" 20 x 28 inch photo

From the living fountain of instinct flows everything that is creative; hence the unconscious is not merely conditioned by history, but is the very source of the creative impulse. It is like Nature herself.. prodigiously conservative, and yet transcending her own historical conditions in her acts of creation.    - Carl Jung

For Brenda

"be" 4.17x7.25 inch digital

Jillian's Final Project - The "Got Milk?" Pillow

Above, several views of Jillian's final project of the weekend and her favorite. Eleanor is happy too, having been able to be 'front and center' in this creation.

I'll be looking forward to seeing her living room with her new creations. There were several times where I sat back watching her and reflecting on how quickly her childhood seemed to flash by. All in all, a great weekend and I'm grateful she'll have these little tokens as a memory.  Times like this to me are precious. 

Thanks for letting me share our combined mom and daughter efforts with you.

Girl's Weekend - "The Family Album" - Design by Jillian Richman and Two Dresses

View 1

View 2

Who's Who

Original Collage Image - "The Family Album" 8 x 16 inches digital

Credits:  Tallulah Images, Kate Pertiet, Iktupulli, Paper Whimsy

We had so much fun building this pillow.  I love the little rose flowers, Jill in her kindergarten photo (she is 27 now) and just the liveliness of the colors and images.   I'm sure it will be a great conversation piece in her living room!

Stay tune for Pillow #3!!

 

Paper Whimsy Blog Entry

It started out like this -

Which lead my muse to this -

Until we finally settled on this -

"The Postal Stamp" - 9 x 9.5 inches digital 


Credits:  Paper Whimsy:  Door, Face.  Kate Petiet: Hinges and Cancel, Pringle Hill Studio - Torso

Gale's challenge at Paper Whimsy was to create something from the photograph of the door as pictured below.   This is my entry. And click here for more details on the challenge.  There will also be a random draw for a $25.00 gift certificate for anyone that submits.

Do you recognize some of the elements from a previous collage?  Seems, the PW girl and Eleanor are sisters...they share clothes with their other sister from Pringle Hill Studio  :0)  Although the PW girl made her own signature butterfly wings!

F U N

"I'm Psychic" - Fabric Collage Pillow Face - approx 12 x 14 inches

"Got Milk?" - Digital Collage - 5 x 10

My elder daughter Jillian is visiting this weekend and I am in seventh heaven having a playmate to create with. Below is what she worked on this morning. It is the beginning of a pillow face. She just purchased two red leather sofa chairs and wanted to make some funky pillows to toss on them. Her other accent color for her living room is a light aqua. The teal doilie parts are from Luscious Layers on Etsy and the collage of the nude, etc. is from one of my skinny pages. Funky huh?

The pillow is titled "I'm Psychic" - and is a phrase that is symbolic to both of us from an incident when she was a 6th grader. We can say those two words to each other and instantly break out in laughter!

The third image is a digital collage I created for her that she is also going to make into a pillow and I am going to make into a paper/glue collage. It's titled "Got Milk?"

I love being a Mom!

Credits:  The torso for the "Got Milk?" collage is a freebie from Terri at Pringle Hill, the  bread and pitcher hat,  butterfly, tea cup from Hemera.

Freebie

Another freebie (size is noted) this is a PNG file. Left Click on Image and Right Click SAVE As. An example of how I used it can be found here.

Now pasted and modified....

Do you ever get started on a collage, and feel compelled to finish it regardless of what else may be on your agenda? I had planned to put this piece aside until at least tomorrow afternoon, but found myself rushing through dinner to return to it. I scrapped the exquisite corpse images at play eventually after my fixation on the H1N1 virus passed :0) Besides, it just seemed too macabre for Eleanor according to the muse. I'll save them for a future Goth Eleanor.

So what type of paste do you use to adhere your images? A topic that I explored extensively a few years ago and continue to ponder. I used Perfect Paper Adhesive Matte for this particular collage but also am fond of Golden Matte Medium.

Untitled  Eleanor #45 Paper & Paste  Collage - 5 x 10 inches

All The King's Horses and .....From Screen to Paper - TheRough Cuts

For my own records, and hopefully of interest to you, I decided to snap a few photographs capturing the first step in the process I take in creating one of my final collages.

After creating the collage digitally, I then take it all apart again and print each of the individual images separately. Then, one by one I cut out each piece and eventually reassemble each one onto the original background which is the ground for the final collage. See last photo below.

For this particular collage, which is approximately 8 x 16 inches at 300 dpi,  I first reduced it to an 8 x 10 inch size  and ink jet printed it on to Epson matte photo paper so that I would have an archival piece when it was finished.  After printing, (and lunch!) the cutting began. The cutting process took me about 2 -3 hours today and I tried out my new pair of Ginger embroidery scissors that have a curved tip to them.  Although they are quite stiff, the blades are razor sharp and resulted  in relatively accurate crisp edges.  However, regardless of the accuracy of the cuts,  the white edges of the paper are  always glaringly apparent. To resolve this, I use either a felt tipped pen (sepia for this piece) or over larger surfaces that are relatively straight, I can take a Stazon ink pad and carefully rub it over the white. My goal in doing this is to have the final piece  appear as though it's one image, and yet retain the feel of each subtle edge if I were to pass my fingertips over the surface of the paper.

 I'd love to hear any tips or advice those of you who also collage undertake when  cutting OR pasting your collages.

     - Laid out but not yet glued, just a few more edges to trim up and I'll be ready to hand color the edges and then  move on to the much written about pasting step!

Fabric ATC - Eleanor Musings

Eleanor Musing - 2.5 x 3.5 inches fabric collage

This is a digital collage I  made several weeks ago.  I reduced  it on the computer and  then ink jet printed it onto a cotton photo fabric sheet. I then hand and machine sewed as well as embroidered different layers and pieces onto it. The images were taken with the macro setting on my camera to best capture the texture of the fabric.

Untitled

Untitled - 8x16 inch digital collage

Over the past few days, Michele and I have been trading email images that began as an Exquisite Corpse collaborative project in our group, The Recollection Parlor. The image began as an anatomical drawing of a heart.   Michele then added the second anatomical drawing of the surgically altered torso (first image above)  and sent it back to me.  Last night and this morning, I completed the collage (second image above) It is packed full  of symbols and personal meaning to me.  I had considered writing about each element, but believe it's best left for the viewer to make their own interpretations.   Creatively, I did consider several elements of design, most prominantly on my mind was continuity and repetition, having recently reviewed some of my  notes from a course I took at Emily Carr last winter.

Credits for the images go to:  Altered Bits, Hedweb, public domain,  and Michele.

More Experimenting with InkJet Printing onto Cloth

Several months ago I purchased a meter of "inkjet ready" 100% cotton fabric from our local quilting store. Today, I finally decided to give it a try to see how it measured up to the packaged inkjet fabric sheets.

I had read that attaching the fabric onto freezer paper with double-sided tape was a method that seemed to 'do the trick' for some. Unfortunately, I wasn't one of the 'some.' It could have been that I hadn't secured the cotton well enough, but I think it was more likely the weight of the freezer paper wasn't sufficient enough to thread through the printer. Luckily I dug it out of the feeder without mishap.

To test whether or not the flimsy freezer paper was the cause of the failed attempt, I persisted. This time with a regular weight piece of laser paper. I doubled up on the tape and created a grid with it and then attached the same piece of cotton from the first try.

Below is the result.

1. The digital image of what I chose to print.

2. The crumpled up freezer paper.

3. The final product - notice one corner didn't adhere and printed on the opposite side of the cotton.

4. It is fabric...scanned in a clump.

My recommendation is, don't waste your time. The cost/benefit ratio, if you value your time and can afford the cost,  weighs highly in favor of purchasing the ready made fabric sheets. What's also a consideration is the potential to damage your printer.   As you can see the saturation of the final product (and I had the ink volume turned to HEAVY) was hugely compromised. I happen to like the colors of the final piece, but I'd prefer to plan this rather than have a happy accident.

Next in line to try is the TAP inkjet product - which I've ordered and am waiting for.  Stay tuned.  I'm optimistic.

Hope this was of some value to you, if only to prevent you from making the mistakes I did.

New Digital Skinny Page - #18

That's "Mermaid" for Don't Get Hooked - 4x8 Digital Page

Free Colorful Grunge Background

I spent some time today mucking about with my watercolors, pastels and stamps. If you are having a slump not knowing where to start, try this!  It may be just what you need to start an ATC or, a page in your journal.

Enjoy!