FINALLY - Great Canadian Art Journal Project Is Done !!!

Hello everyone!

Well, it's almost a year after its launch, but we have finally finished our Great Canadian Travelling Art Journal Project and I have to say it has turned out most spectacularly!!

Starting in February, 2013, this little handmade art journal (6" X 6") made the rounds to 14 different Canadian mixed media artists from coast to coast, who each created a page (or more).

The journal was made by me from recycled greeting cards.  If you missed the post last year on that, here is the link so you can see how I created it, as well as the "before" shots of the pages of the journal prior to our artists getting their hands on 'em.

Making of the Art Journal

I am so pleased to now be able to share with you the finished pages of the whole journal.

Page 1 By Kimberly Ans

Page 2 By Karen Dearborn

Page 3 By Sandy Sommerfeld

Page 6 By Nancy Allingham

Tag Inserts By Nancy Allingham

Page 7 By Linda Kittmer

Page 8 By Becky Uren

Page 9 By Erin Fish

Page 10 By Kim Beinschroth

Page 11 By Norina Morris

Accordian Book Insert By Norina Morris

Page 12 By Jane Super

Page 13 By Lori Bradford

Page 14 By Nancy Morin

Back Cover By Jenny Sept

I want to personally thank the wonderful artists who took part in this project.  They are:

Jenny Sept
Erin Fish
Jane Super
Nancy Morin
Becky Uren
Nancy Allingham
Karen Dearborn
Linda Kittmer
Kim Beinschroth
Lori Bradford
Kimberly Ans
Norina Morris
Sandy Sommerfeld

Now that the journal is done, the group has agreed to auction it off for charity.  I will be listing the journal shortly on either Ebay or Etsy and proceeds raised from the sale of it will benefit the SPCA.  If this project and charity resonate with you, please bid on the journal to help our cause.

Thank you so much!
Joanna

Any Flat Surface Will Do - Collage On Anything!

Art Magnet Made With Recycled Laminate Sample

There's a running joke in our household that if something is flat and not nailed down it will probably end up in one of my collages.  

As the "Queen of Recycling" (a title given me by friends and customers), I always look at recyclable materials with a view to whether or not they'd make a good substrate for my art. 

Case in point, about 12 years ago I was in the home improvement store looking at those little laminate sample chips you can pick up when you are thinking of replacing your kitchen countertop.  They come in a myriad of colors and textures and are strong and durable.  They have rounded corners typically and a hole punched in them, and are about 1.5" X 2" or so.  Initially, I used them to make art jewelry pendants which I sold on Ebay and Etsy for several years.  

Eventually, I found some larger pieces that were about 3.5" X 5" and started making larger art magnets with them.  I hadn't made any in quite some time, when I recently came across a stash of them in my studio and decided to play around with them again.  I had been wanting to use up some of my Gelli plate prints that I have amassed, so I thought I'd make some fun and funky art magnets.  Here's what I did:

Here's a couple photos of the fronts and backs of the laminate pieces.  I have chosen to do the art on the back (unfinished) side because it has a more grippy surface than the slick "good" side of the laminate.  Plus, that way the finished piece will have a really nice look to the back side as well as the front.  

Laminate Samples - Front

Laminate Samples - Back

I cut my Gelli plate prints a bit bigger than the size of the laminate sample, which is about 3.5" X 5."  I chose some of the brighter, more colorful prints I have because I was planning on making these collages into some of my smart-ass magnets and I wanted them to be fun and playful.  

To ensure good adhesion, I used heavy body gel medium (Golden) to glue the prints to the backside of the laminate and let them dry.  Then I trimmed around the edges of the laminate to remove the excess paper.

Collaged elements, doodling, lettering, and other paint treatments came next.  I ran a stamp pad around the edges of the piece to finish the magnets off and then sprayed each with three coats of high gloss sealant.  Two flat, sheet magnets (the kind used for business card magnets) were put on the back of each piece.

Back Of Lamnate With Two Magnets Attached

Art Magnet Made With Recycled Laminate Sample

Art Magnet Made With Recycled Laminate Sample

This was a fun and quick project with great results.  It has reminded me that I should re-visit my previous types of work from time to time, bringing with me the latest techniques and tools I am using.  It brings new life and a new spin to the tried and true.

Thanks for visiting and have an artful day!

Much love always!
Joanna

Where Did You Get That Avatar Of Yours???

I am often asked about my Facebook and blog avatar.  You know, the little face with sunglasses that reads "odd things in my mind."

Well, here's the answer to that question.

The image comes from a mixed media collage/assemblage I created in 2007.  I used an old bingo card, a variety of stamped images, walnut ink and a vintage escutcheon image (courtesy of Retro Cafe Art) for the main body of the piece.  Recycled wire and salvaged beads create the hanger and I used old wallpaper to print the sentiment onto, which reads "She Had Not Yet Decided Whether To Use Her Power For Good Or Evil."

So there you have it.  One of the great mysteries of the world has been solved!  ;-)

Simple Collage Art Project "How To"

"The Quieter You Become, The More You Can Hear"  (Lao Tzu)

Here's a really simple collage/mixed media art piece that will demonstrate for you beginners out there how very easy it is to create a beautiful collage with minimal materials and minimal cost.  There is absolutely NOTHING new used in this piece of art!

I started with a piece of heavy chipboard that was part of the packaging of some appliance.  It is a nice, sturdy piece and measures about 5" X 7" so the minute I saw it I knew it would make a good base for a small collage.

I covered it in a piece of scrap wallpaper.  If you don't already know this, wallpaper is an excellent material for collage and mixed media art.  It is very strong and can be used for a number of artsy applications.  I often use it for backgrounds for my art.  And it's free!  You can go to your paint store and get the sample wallpaper books for free.  They usually throw them out.  Don't pay for the books, just go somewhere else if they want to charge you for them.  You'll have a great collection of all kinds of printed backgrounds to use in many, many ways.

To cover the chipboard with the wallpaper, I cut the paper larger than the chipboard allowing about an inch extra all the way around.  I will usually use white glue (Aleene's is my favourite), spread evenly on the chipboard and wrap the wallpaper around the chipboard, mitering the corners of the paper for a nicely finished edge.  Burnishing or running a brayer over the front side, helps to ensure a smooth surface to work on later.  Turning the piece over, I used more white glue to adhere the excess paper around the edges to the back of the piece.  (See photo below of the back of the piece.)

When it's all dry, I am ready to start my collage on the front.  I had found a wonderful Buddha image in a discarded National Geographic magazine and knew I wanted it to the be the focal image in a collage.  Because of how it was shaped (see photo), I aligned it to the lower right.  I will typically work with images this way.  Whichever way they come to me, I work with that.  If they must be left aligned to look correct in the context of the collage, then that is how they get placed on the background.  If the bottom of the image is missing for some reason, then it will probably get aligned to the bottom of the page.  I never "fight" how the image is, I just work with it.  In this case, the image was a 90-degree angle (bottom and right aligned) so that determined where it would be placed.

With Buddha aligned to the bottom right, the logical place for the next image was the upper left, for balance and symmetry in the piece. Given that this was now going to have to be a Zen themed piece, I tried to keep in mind one of the main principles of Zen and that is simplicity.  I knew I was not going to add a whole lot of elements to this piece so whatever elements DID make it into it, they had to have enough presence to hold their own.  I used the stamped image of the sun/moon face on Gelli plate printed paper and it was a nice complement to the Buddha.  I deliberately chose the bright pink paper for the face so that it would juxtapose with the muted purply tones of the Buddha image, yet still work together overall because the colors are complementary to one another (and to the background as well).

At this point, I knew that there wasn't too much else to be added to the piece for it to be done.  When you are at this stage in developing a piece, it's good to step back and look at it with a critical eye.  Where are the blank spaces that cry out to be filled?  What more needs to be done?  What areas need to be left alone?  Play around with placement of your elements until it feels right.

The bamboo bits are stamped images on scrap paper, again kept to a minimum and the text was cut from a photocopy of one of my previous collage pieces from years ago.  I will often recycle text or quotes over the years.  There is no reason on earth to have to reinvent the wheel every time you set out to make some art.  In this case, I knew the quote would be perfect so why not use it again.

And that is the whole piece.  A couple of coats of matte sealant and it is ready to go.  I will cover the back with another piece of recycled wallpaper so that it has a finished look.  That way, it won't matter if this piece is framed or if it is displayed on a small easel.  Either way it will look great!

I hope this lesson has shown you that you can get some great effects with a minimal amount of work and with low-to-no cost supplies.  Start looking around and see what you can make art with.  I'll bet you'll be surprised at how much you CAN do!

Have fun in your artsy adventures, my friends.

Joanna

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Top o' the mornin' to ye!  Here's some green art, current and past, which I hope you'll enjoy.

Mixed Media Art On Canvas

"Nature Goddess" Bookmark

"Art On The Brain" Bookmark

"Moonscape" Greeting Card

Art Journal Page

Art Journal Page

Mixed Media Art

Mixed Media Art

"How Old Would You Be If You Didn't Know How Old You Are?" Greeting Card

"Find Harmony" - Inspirational Mixed Media Art

This piece is one of my favourites and was actually quite hard to part with when I sold it.  I guess I just liked how bizarre it looked while also being quite tranquil.  And, of course, the quote was so powerfully suited to the art.

I started with a scrap piece of matboard for the substrate and covered it with a piece of salvaged wallpaper (it was the silver you see in the photos and had the branches in its pattern already).  This was one time where I didn't mess around with the background at all.  I loved its simplicity and although it doesn't show up in the photos, it has a shimmer to it.

The woman was created using the body of one vintage image with the head of another and the eyes from somewhere else.  All of the ladies come from my vintage images CD collection.  The little house in the background was made by altering tags into the shape I wanted and then embellishing it further with added doodads.  The bird represents opportunity (per the quote below).

The quote is:

Out of clutter, find simplicity
From discord, find harmony
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity
(Einstein)

Altered Spoon Art

It's true.  Nothing is safe in my household from being altered into something artsy.  Even something as humble as a wooden spoon.

I took a plain wooden spoon and used a variety of rubber stamps to embellish it.  The saying is one of my favourites, "Bloom Where You Are Planted."

I then took a silk flower that had been discarded and paired it up with a handmade clay face cabochon and glued it to the bowl of the spoon.  Some funky fibers were also added for additional textural interest.

Magnets were added to the back so that it can be displayed as "kitchen art."

UPCYCLING PLASTIC PLATES INTO ART

My husband frequently shakes his head when he sees me experimenting with things to recycle into art.  "You're going to do what with that?" is a common thing I hear.  I figure that anything is fair game for me in my never-ending quest to turn stuff into art that would otherwise end up in the trash.

Case in point.  These plastic plates.  I wish I still had one unadorned and un-embellished so you could see a "before" photo of it.  Sadly, I did not have the foresight to do that.  These were white plastic, disposable plates with quite a beveled edge to them.  Nice looking actually, for plastic plates.  They are actually about a half inch in depth and 6X6 square and as soon as I saw them the reminded me of frames, so it wasn't much of a stretch to think they would suit having art put on them.

I spent a lot of time on the backgrounds of these two pieces.  Many, many layers of stuff went into each piece.  The scans are pretty dark but they are representative of the finished pieces which are also kind of dark and grungy.  The top piece is titled, "Soar" and the bottom piece is titled, "Virtue."

I started with purple tissue paper and podged that all over the plates, then added many layers of different types of paints and inks including acrylics and Caran d'Ache Neocolor II water soluble crayons .  You'll notice how lumpy and textural the tissue paper turned out and I really liked that.  I knew right away that a grungy look is what I wanted, to juxtapose with the stark white plastic underneath.

I just kept scribbling with the Neocolors and putting on more layers of acrylics, sometimes using a sea sponge, or a brush or a bit of punchinella as a stencil.   I had already created the bird in "Soar" by drawing on a vintage letter and adding the human eye, so when I came across the vintage dictionary definition of "soar" I knew I'd found the theme for this piece.  The butterflies are cardstock stickers from a Tim Holtz set, I think.  All the curlycue doodads were the result of an experiment with my Silhouette machine.

"Virtue" has the vintage dictionary definition included in it too, along with a wonderful vintage image from my collection.  I loved the look on her face and am very pleased with how dark and moody the piece is overall.  You really have to look at it closely to even see her.  There are a couple more of those Tim Holtz cardstock stickers in this piece too, and lots and lots of layers of Neocolors and and paint.

When they were done, I fashioned a loop for them to hang from with recycled wire and adhered those to the backs and covered all the messiness one often finds on the back of part so that it would have a decent finished appearance.  Because the plates are beveled, the art sits away from the wall a bit.  Of course, they could also be displayed on small easels (hence the need to finish the back well).

"Soar" has sold but "Virtue" is still available if anyone wants to give her a good home before I list her in my Etsy store.  $24.95US and as my thanks for your support I will cover the shipping costs in North America (about a $10.00 value).

All the best,
Joanna