Memorial Day

A little late to be adding this since Memorial Day came and went. But I never do anything in the correct order, so why start now. On this one I used watercolors, rubber stamp and a transparency of a drawing I did of found things in nature.

Malia

Tada!!!! I finished my paper collage of my granddaughter Malia. Malia is a ball of energy. She came out of the womb screaming and wiggling, and she is still screaming and wiggling at 8 years of age. From the time she awakes (early) until 9 or 10pm, she is constantly on the move. And then suddenly, she just drops and is sound asleep. I would give anything to have that energy!!!! She is funny, creative and, of course because she is my grand, very smart. She is a terrific sales person and a bit lazy. If she can "con" someone else into doing her work, she will. She's very good with math, but when playing Yahtzee, she asked for a calculator. My husband told her she would need to figure out the scores in her head or no Yahtzee. Amazingly she did it and very quickly. Her birthday is the 28th, and I plan to give her this collage. I'm not sure that she will think it's so great, but I think she will appreciate it when she is older. I remember some gifts I received in my younger years. My parents had some intellectual friends who always gave me books. An example -- a book on the life of Albert Schweitzer. I was not at all excited about it. I was 10 at the time. I thought it was a totally boring gift!!

Shirley

This collage was done at home after Jacki's class. I have a red-headed friend named Shirley. Her hair is curly, so I used this tissue paper with roses. I also added (what else) glitter! This can be as laborious or as quick and easy as you prefer. It's much better to just put the paper on the canvas and not worry. If you don't like it you can just collage over it. In fact this is a canvas board that I had done an acrylic painting on. I hated the painting, so I collaged over it. Remember, there are no mistakes -- just some art is better than other art.

Jodi

I did this in Jacki Long's "Rip Roaring Collage" class. Just rip papers and glue them on a canvas. She was featured in Somerset Studio's March/April issue. This was such a fun class. It is so freeing not to be worrying about making something look pretty or perfect. She uses only paper on her work and a tiny bit of glaze. I, of course, had to add glitter to mine when I got home. Why? Because I love anything shiny, metallic, or glittery!!!

Queen Bee

Part of a journal I'm creating. I'm doing individual pages. I don't have a clue how I'm going to bind the pages, but I'll figure out later. I started this with a color wash, added a layer of another color, added the queen and other images. Then I began playing with texture and color. This is the way I work. I almost never have an actual theme in mind. It's all about color and texture for me, but along the way a theme will develop. Since the bubble wrap application reminded me of a honeycomb, I decided to name this "Queen Bee". I added a layer of tar gel which makes it really shiny.

Red Hot Lips

The following five images are journal pages I did in a collaborative journal. It's the first time I've worked in someone else's journal -- a very satisfying endeavor, though I had to be really careful not to mess up the clean page after my last page which was actually two of the pages glued together for strength and a lot of paint and layering. It's fun to see what the others do on their pages. I have not been terribly prolific with my art due to some minor health problems -- lots of physical therapy. This collaborative effort was just what I needed to get the juices flowing again. I really like recycling junk mail and cards (I might use a piece of the card in a collage).

Junk Mail

Granddaughters

Sun Moon and Stars

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