The Goddess Of Bling Altered Art Doll

I and many of my fellow online artists have spent the past year taking numerous classes with the incredible Joanne Sharpe.  See her blog  here.

She is such a generous soul and she has certainly inspired me and my classmates to push beyond our comfort limits in our art.

One of her recent classes was "Bling It On," and it was all about working with sparkly, glittery materials.  It was SO much fun!

Joanne knows that I am a recycling collage artist first and foremost, so I know she will be pleased when she sees this altered art doll made in her honour.  "The Goddess Of Bling" is about 6" X 7" in total and she is made using some salvaged butterfly wings that were headed to the trash.  Her body is made from a Molson Canadian chipboard beer coaster (painted copper with black swirls and then treated with Golden's Glass Bead Gel medium).  The effect, which doesn't show up well in the scan, is almost like glittery ice.  In fact, at first I thought I'd name her the Ice Goddess.  Recycled filigree jewelry findings, glitter glass and faux gemstones were also used.  I made her face and headdress from FIMO clay. 

Really, the scan does not do the piece justice.  It is SO sparkly and shimmery, and because she is a hanging piece of art she catches the light whenever she moves.

Thanks, Joanne, for being such an inspiration and for become a good friend to us.  I treasure every moment I have spent in your classes and getting to know you a bit better as one of my online pals.

Joanna

We Want Some Old Stuff - Part 3

I told you this would take a while!  Sheesh, I have a lot of stuff in my archives!!  Here are a few more images, as requested, of some of my older work from several years ago.

"Portals" (SOLD)  6X6 collage made of many recycled elements, stamped images and walnut ink.

"Soul Celebration" (SOLD) 6X8 on salvaged masonite and including other reclaimed materials like old jewelry findings and a handmade clay face cabochon.

"Spread Your Wings And Fly" (SOLD)  5X7 mixed media collage on reclaimed masonite, along with acrylic and dimensional paint, findings and vintage images.

"I Have Spread My Dreams Beneath Your Feet.  Tread Softly."  (SOLD)  8X10 collage on recycled cardboard, with salvaged wallpaper, assorted reclaimed stuff and stamped images.  The sun is a clay cabochon (handmade).

"Bohemian Soul #1" (SOLD)  3X5 collage on reclaimed cardboard with various vintage images and other recycled materials.

"Without Music, Life Would Be A Mistake" (SOLD), my most favourite quote from Goethe.  Assemblage collage made on an old CD, with stamped images and various found or salvaged items.

Thanks so much for looking at these images.  See you next time!!

We Want Some Old Stuff - Part 2

As requested, here are a few more examples of my older pieces (see my previous post for more details on this work):

"The Power Of Imagination Makes Us Infinite" (SOLD)  8X10 collage

"Inner Vision" (SOLD) 6X8 collage on canvas using many recycled and vintage materials.

"Inspired By Nature" (SOLD) mixed media collage on a giant puzzle piece, again using numerous recycled and salvaged materials.  Measures about 6X8 including hanger.

"Keeper Of The Soul"  (SOLD)  3X5 collage incorporating recycled fabric, FIMO face cabochon and puzzle pieces.

"I Have Loved The Stars Too Fondly To Be Fearful Of The Night" (SOLD) 4X5 collage on canvas using moon face and star face cabochons that I molded from Friendly Plastic, along with recycled beads and wire for the hanger.

"The Odd Couple" (SOLD) 3X5 mixed media collage using recycled materials.

"The Other Woman" (SOLD)  4X6 oversized playing card was used for the base, along with walnut ink, repurposed acetate and vintage images.

"There Are Other Worlds To Sing In" (SOLD) 11X14 collage on canvas with multiple recycled materials used including dressmaker's patterns and vintage sheet music.

We Want Some Old Stuff !!

Came the cry from some of my newer online art friends when they found out how long I'd been doing collage and mixed media work.  "We want to see what else you've done."  Ooo wee, I wonder if they have any idea how MUCH there is.  My goodness!  We could be here for weeks.

Let's ease into this slowly, shall we?  No need to overwhelm 'em, right?

"Can You See Me?" she asked.  "Oh, My Sweet," he smiled, "I See You Even In My Dreams." Mixed media collage on 8X10 recycled matboard with oval cut out and then a separate inner collage.  Vintage images, stamped images, acetate and other recycled materials.  SOLD

"Where Have All The Flowers Gone?  Young Girls Picked Them Every One."  (lyrics from the song by The Kingston Trio).  Collage on recycled matboard and also using reclaimed wallpaper, stamped images and other materials.  Measures about 6X9.

"Roses" is about 10X10 and is a great example of how many different recycled components can go into one piece of art.  The base was just a piece of reclaimed cardboard, covered in scrapbook paper and wrapping paper.  The offset square in the middle is a chipboard bar coaster.  The rectangle behind the central butterfly is a hard plastic bus pass (credit card sized) that has been covered in foil and another foil treatment.  Many of the butterfly and flower images were headed for the trash but found their way to me to re-use.  On the right hangs a handmade dangly embellishment by my fellow collager, Kim from our ZNE days. 

"You Are Always In The Right Place At The Right Time" (SOLD) was about 6X6 and made with recycled cardboard for the base, covered in reclaimed wallpaper and other scrap papers.  The bird was created on a page from an old abandoned book.  Old wire from my husband's workshop is what the piece hangs from.




"The Mysterious" (SOLD) was about 11X14 and incorporates found images, metal findings, old shipping tag, stamped images and other doodads.  I love the quote from Einstein!

"Two Hands" (SOLD) was made to honor our relationship with our pets.  It was about 6X6 and made with recycled cardboard, assorted scrap papers, beads recycled from old jewelry, salvaged wire and an old dictionary page. 

That's probably enough for now.  I will post some more "history" for you another time.  Thanks so much for looking (and thanks to those who asked to see this stuff).  It's been fun going down memory lane.  Namaste, my friends!

More Stuff From That Finally-Finished Journal

Here's a couple more pages from that journal I talked about a couple of days ago (the one I did the groovy cover for).

This page features another of my favourite quotes, "Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge" from Einstein.  Blingy flower practice pieces from Joanne Sharpe's "Bling It On" class juxtapose with the zetti-style character on the right.  The background is very textural.  I used old dressmaking patterns over the page and then grunge painted it.

The next page was fun too because I finally used up this funny little character that I had made eons ago.  She's made up of two zetti-style rubber stamps and vintage butterfly wings.  She finally had the right backdrop which was created using recycled doodads, dressmaker's pattern tissue (dye sprayed) and some recycled office supplies.  Love the quote too.  It is SO true!

This next image is another hybrid, using a background with spray dyed tissue over neon poster paints (I really will work with almost anything, you know!).  The little doll-like character is a color copy of the central image from one of my collages from many years ago now scaled down to about one quarter its original size.  The hearts are practice pieces created in Joanne Sharpe's "Bling It On" class.  Although they don't show up well in the scan, they are metallic.

And one more for now, this is the most recent page finished.  I completely forgot I had this outrageously funky zetti-style stamp in my collection until recently.  She is featured on a grungy painted background (acrylics and poster paints) and the flowers are higlighted in Twinking H20s for some fun shimmer to offset the grungy background.  I will probably work some more on the lettering.  I think the white letters need to be outlined in black.  But again, I am trying to show restraint at times in my work and not over-do things to the point where I no longer like it. 



So What's In That Just-Finished Art Journal??

A question, I have been asked a few times so I thought I would post some of the little doodlings and practice pieces from the journal referred to in my post from the other day.

I won't bore you with all of the pages, and some of them are already in this blog in older posts, but I know there's a few that haven't been shared, so here goes.

This one features one of my favourite quotes, "Nothing Is Worth More Than This Day," from Goethe.  It is a hybrid piece using the background I created when taking Joanne Sharpe's "Color Love 101" class and a little practice birdie I made for Juliette Craine's "Whimsical Animals" class. 

I love how this simple little piece came out.  It just goes to show that every background will one day find its match in a central image.

Journal Cover from "Bling It On"

Oh, I am so bad for not having posted more in the last couple of months!  Work is VERY busy always and leaves little time for art.  Sigh!  What I would do to retire now and do nothing but have fun in my studio.  Where is that lottery winning when you need it?

Anyway, in our "Bling It On" class with Joanne Sharpe recently, we were sparklifying everything we could lay our hands on with all kinds of different supplies.  One of the things I created was with an old CD (you know me and my recycling).  I covered it in metallic gold fabric paint, along with Twinking H20s and Silks (love both those products).  I then layered on top of it another experiment in blinginess from this same class.  I took a recycled report cover (transparent) and did a floral outline in black dimensional paint and when that was dry, painted on the reverse with purple and red Silks.  I cut it out, glued it to the decorated CD and then finished it off with a hand made face cabochon that I've had lying around for years and years.

I have to say that the total effect is really cool.  It's highly textural and unfortunately the scan does not do it justice.  It is very shiny.  The only thing now ... what the heck am I going to do with it??

Well a couple of months later, after it sitting on my studio desk taking up valuable space, I was finishing up one of my art journals and I was thinking that I needed to do something with the cover and, voila!  A home for this mixed media piece.  This is one of those awesome Strathmore journals with the brown, faux leather look cover and it was just too plain.  I mean really, what self respecting mixed media artist can leave ANYTHING plain??  So now it is embellished with gold metallic acrylics and silver and red Silks and is the perfect backdrop to the CD piece. 

I can't decide if it's done or not.  Sometimes I really need to learn to leave well enough alone.  Only time will tell how many doodads and embellishments will make it onto this journal.