Inspire Me Thursday - It's Hip To Be Square

Square is the prompt this week at Inspire Me Thursday. I love to use squares in my artwork, both as my format and as individual elements, but they are usually perfectly square. This time, I chose to use a rectangular "canvas" and add not-so-perfect squares to the mix. It's hard for me to not measure everything precisely, but I'm working at getting out of my comfort zone. Pictured above is a small quilt (approx. 12 x 9-1/2 inches) made from some more of my hand-dyed fabric. As usual, the pieces are fused to the background with Wonder-Under instead of stitched, then quilted by machine. I will probably do some more quilting on the background, then add a binding and prepare it for hanging. I had some scraps left over, so I made an ATC, below. Thanks to Judy Scott for inspiring me to get out my sewing machine again!

Inspire Me Thursday - Artist Trading Cards

This week's challenge at Inspire Me Thursday is ATCs, or artist trading cards, which are tiny works of art measuring 2-1/2 x 3-1/2 inches. I've only been making ATCs for a couple of weeks, but I've rapidly become addicted to them. They're quick and easy (usually!), can be made with bits and pieces of whatever you have on hand, and they're fun to flip through when you need a little inspiration.

I believe I've mentioned that I hand-dye my own fabric for some of my sewing projects. When you've put in the effort to dye the fabric yourself, it's hard to throw away the scraps. The card at left was made with tiny scraps I had saved from a small art quilt. The pieces were already fused with Wonder-Under, so construction was as simple as ironing everything together and quickly finishing off the layers with the sewing machine.

For the second ATC, I cut the leaf shapes from a piece of Hoffman Bali batik, then fused them with Wonder-Under to another piece of hand-dyed fabric, and again quickly stitched everything together by machine.

The third ATC is made with scraps of scrapbooking paper, newsprint, and stamped cardstock. The embellishment is a piece of matboard, covered with ultra-thick embossing enamel and impressed with a rubber stamp while still hot.

Summer's End

Sadly, summer is coming to an end here in South Alabama. Granted, we probably still have several weeks of high heat and humidity to deal with, but the air feels fresher the past couple of days. The nights are a little bit cooler too, and the water in the pool is almost too brisk for a comfortable swim. This subtle change of seasons should be a good thing, but my allergies are now in full swing and I'd like to take a backscratcher to my itching eyes. It's not just the hayfever, though. When it's time to cut back my coneflowers, I know that the year will soon be drawing to a close, and I wonder why I didn't accomplish more throughout the summer, when my energy levels should be high. At least this summer, I managed to get back on track with my art, and that's a very good thing. I may not complete something every day, but I do manage to work on something creative, even if it's just prepping a background or tearing interesting textures or phrases out of magazines.

Pictured above -- the last of the coneflowers, photographed and manipulated in Photoshop. Today's heavy rain has saved them from a brutal pruning, and tomorrow they'll probably look fresh again. I just may have to give them another couple of weeks after all.

Wednesday Stamper - Mulberry Paper

My artwork has been a bit subdued lately, so today I chose to use some screaming color for Wednesday Stamper, where the challenge topic is handmade/mulberry papers. For this card I used my current favorite technique - brayering onto white glossy cardstock. When applied this way, I think the color is so much juicier, and it yields a suedelike appearance, which unfortunately is not visible in this photo. I love the ragged look of mulberry paper, and I always make sure it's soaking wet before I tear it, in order to get that distressed look.

Inspire Me Thursday - Limited Palette

I'm having some Famous Artist ATC fun today, using a limited palette of blue and gold for this week's Inspire Me Thursday challenge. I've always loved Vermeer's The Girl with the Pearl Earring, so here she is on a background I made a couple of weeks ago by dropping ink onto a wet piece of glossy cardstock, then pressing it against another sheet of cardstock while still wet. I probably need to give this butterfly some antennae, if I can manage to keep them from tickling the girl's chin.

I tend to make a lot of backgrounds, but then I don't want to cut up my favorites, so they never get used. Today, I bravely chopped them up to save them from a life of boxed-up boredom.

For the second ATC, I used a map of Amsterdam, which just happened to show the location of the Van Gogh Museum. How convenient! Of course, I couldn't resist the sunflower or the tiny piece of Starry Night. Here, I've used some of the same blue and gold background as above.

I'm finding that, more and more, I'm using recycled bits of stuff in my art, such as magazine images, silk flowers, and maps. Junk mail comes in handy as well. When your art supply budget shrinks, you can't beat free materials!

Inspire Me Thursday - Fun and Games

The prompt this week at Inspire Me Thursday is Fun and Games, and I've been agonizing over what to do for this challenge. Should I go with a board game theme? Maybe a favorite childhood game? No, all my favorite games were simply games of my imagination. Was there something that had always been fun for me, and was still fun? Well, there's art, and photography, and music... of course, music! Music has always been a part of my life, but became especially important at the age of eleven, when I received my first flute and instantly became obsessed. Everything about it was fun to me -- symphonic band, marching band, pit orchestra, and even competitions (and believe me, I was fiercely competitive!). I still play my flute, though not as often as I used to, and I still live in a house full of music, because my husband plays trumpet, tenor saxophone, flute, and guitar.

Pictured above is a photograph of my flute, resting on one of my favorite pieces of music, Chaminade's Concertino. I used a graphic pen filter in Photoshop to achieve the pen and ink effect.

Artist Trading Cards

I'm one of those people who just doesn't know when to quit, and as a result my week has slipped by with all my time consumed by things completely unrelated to art. However, Erin and I had agreed to swap artist trading cards, and since this is a high priority for me, I did manage to find time to make the ATCs pictured here, so we can trade tomorrow. I have been making art most of my life, but I have never made an ATC until this week, so it took me a while to get my groove on. I started by making a bunch of different backgrounds, but ended up using plain white cardstock and saving the backgrounds for later. For all three of these, I first stamped in black on glossy cardstock, then brayered each piece with dye ink. Before the ink was applied to the "Believe" ATC, I lightly sponged it with gesso and allowed it to dry. I used gesso on the turquoise card as well, but also sponged on some blue ink after applying the first color with the brayer. I still have the backgrounds to experiment with later, and will give some to Erin to see what she comes up with. Now I can't wait to see what she has made for me!