Addison's Collage

Addison was here today while Amy & Mike went birthday shopping for her party tomorrow. I can't believe she's going to be 3.

So of course we had to do a little craft project. She was very much into using the glue stick. Most pieces have glue under AND on top of them. She kept commenting, "This is beautiful!" and "Perfect!" after each addition.

As you can see, I had fun too.

Grandma is happy to have yet another budding artist to play with! Happy Birthday to my little sweetheart.

I just hung up my Easter Garland that I've been working on all week. Some of you at Creative Spirits will recall I was cutting out the eggs last Weds. night. In fact, you'll probably recognize the pear napkin!!

Each egg has 1 piece of text (most of it French), one tissue/napkin type of image, an animal focal point, and perhaps a sticker or two. I made them in assembly-line fashion. Fun to do, and it adds a whimsical touch to the house.

I have some hanging from the front window, some over the kitchen area, some near a hallway. You can see by how many BIRDS there are, that I am still into birds.

Now on to my next project--a fold-out birthday card for my brother's 60th birthday.

Swept Away

Sometimes you just have to be impulsive. This framed piece, which sits atop our new headboard (which Phil & I designed and created) in our bedroom, is such an example. I had painted a canvas with the turquoise blue and purply color that are accent colors in our room. The canvas was slightly textured, and I just wanted to get the colors on there. After playing around with the colors and a spray bottle of water, I felt the colors were fine, but it lacked a focal point.

So I spotted a bottle of shiny black paint on my art table, impulsively flipped open the lid, and with 2 sweeping motions, poured the paint across the canvas. The smudge on the right was an accidental drip, but I like it. As the black paint dried, it blended in a bit because of the water on the canvas, and looked a bit softer. This piece just wouldn't work without that black! As I'm looking at it here, the words "Swept Away" came to mind. The piece itself has a movement of its own, plus the fact that I was swept away by impulsively pouring that black paint. Perfect name.

Oh, and the Number Two piece beside it, I just found today at Home Goods on clearance for $5. It was a distressed cream color, but I spraypainted it shiny silver. And the frame for my canvas, was one I found on clearance several months ago at Hobby Lobby: $4.20. Art on the cheap. I love it!

His and Hers

These are two collages I completed yesterday for our master bedrom re-do. These are hanging in our bathroom, one to the left of my sink, and one to the right of Phil's sink. They are done with stained tissue papers, some of which were overstamped. The squares stamp is an actual stamp. The white/gray stamp that looks like treadmarks is the corrugated side of some cardboard. The lighter color looks a little yellow-y here, but is actually lime green.

The one with the 3 silver beads, I actually worked on upsidedown. And I thought it looked pretty good that way. But when I went to hang it, I decided that it actually looked better this way, with the beads on the lower part. It always amazes me how I can think one thing, and something calls me to try a different perspective (like a photograph, or looking at it in a mirror), and then it totally changes it.

The wing on Phil's collage is a nod to his love of flying. The strung beads on mine is a nod to artwork (and also my love of jewelry). These were fun to do, and went together fairly easily, once I selected the tissue papers. The frames, with the silver frame and matte, I picked up at a thrift store for $3.50 each. I DO love a bargain!

This Is The Day

I completed this collage yesterday. It's small: 8" x 8". I am very happy with it; every time I look at it, it makes me smile. And for a lot of reasons:

• The substrate was only $1. I bought it on clearance at Hobby Lobby, & gessoed over the strange image that was on it. So I was able to recycle something that no one else would likely have wanted.
  
• The colors, intentionally, coordinate with my new bedroom color scheme, which is gray, lavender, & silver, with accents of lime green and turquoise.
• The design is a whole new departure for me. It recently occurred to me that if I looked at magazine ads, brochures, etc. carefully, I could "block out" the design pattern and see if it appealed to me. This design is an adaptation from the Honda brochure (which I have because of our recent new car purchase).
• The "twig tree" was one of those serendipitous things. I knew it needed something more, and it needed to be organic to balance the lines and shapes. So I went to my Nature stash and this was the first pick. I then spray painted it shiny silver.
  
• The wire was then needed to help anchor the twig. This was the only silver wire I had; I feel it adds a lot to the overall effect.
• The long rectangle is done in silver leaf and catches the light dramatically.

Isn't it amazing how much goes into a piece like this? I love that it's a balance between thought (the design and color) and intuition (all the rest). I titled it "This Is The Day" to remind me that every single day is a day that God has made for us to enjoy.