When the exterior walls were dry, I realized there was too much space between the ‘stones’. I tried coloring the space black, but it looked terrible. I made more streaky-looking bits and glued them over the gaps.
It looks haphazard, and I’m okay with that.
The walls seemed strong enough, so I made some folded paper L- brackets and joined up all the walls. It’s certainly more house-like!
Then it was time to add the roof. I painted some postcards to match the house, and cut them a bit bigger than the house itself. Rather than use tabs, I turned the house upside down and laid down bits of glue-soaked yarn where the walls meet the roof, to give better adhesion. If you look closely, you can see the yarn right there.
I’m going to let it dry overnight and see how it’s holding together in the morning.
As Sister Corita Kent said, “everything is an experiment.”
Looking at all the Halloween decorations for sale in the markets, I got inspired to build an illuminated haunted house. I started with old postcards, junk mail, Mod Podge, and a UHU glue stick.
Using pieces of other projects for templates, I cut a door and windows with an Xacto blade.
When they were cut, I put mullions in the windows and joined four of the five sides together, I wanted to keep it flat to work on, so I didn’t close up the ‘house’. To make the walls stronger, I gave the interior walls a coat of white paper applied with Mod Podge.
I wanted the look of old stones for my exterior walls, so I gave some junk mail a streaky coat of acrylic, then cut them into irregular pieces. While you and I were on our ZOOM call, I used the UHU to apply the stones. They needed a brayer rolled over them to make them stick, because the postcard walls still had some flex.
There is still a lot to do. I will continue tomorrow and show you what I’ve got.
Our project for Ruthie Inman’s ZOOM art group this week was a door. Not any old door, but a fine, majestic entryway to someplace special. Ruthie was putting hers on the first page of a new art journal.
Mine will be further into my Journal, but that’s okay. As we chatted, I started rifling through my collage box looking for appropriate DOOR bits.
My first harvest wasn’t promising, but as I dug some more, images started to fit together. The stairs from a New Yorker cover would lead to the door, a pair of painted screens could the pillars by the door, a playing card the actual door, and a ridiculously huge bluebird is a suitable decoration.
The thing I love about collage, besides it’s almost random nature, is that if you don’t like a bit, you can peel it off or cover it up. Bridgett pointed out that the bright red door felt out of place with the softer colors of the other bits. She was right.
I found some crinkly Gelli prints that were soft enough to use as the background… not quite sky, not quite landscape.
I found an image of an abalone shell and used it for a new door, and a bit of foil for the door knob. A few images from Jennifer Coile’s art calendar, trimmed and fitted, became the statue beside the door and a castle in the distance.
It doesn’t feel quite done yet, but that’s all the art energy I have for now.
Rescued by Northwest Animal Companions, reared by Enid Traisman, and introduced to us by Clody Cates at Gifty Kitty, Moxie ( the faded calico) and her sister Molly ( the grey tiger) have come to live with us!
As they got to know the house, Moxie lived up to her name by going everywhere all at once., stopping for just a moment to say hello to our resident stufftie, Harold.
On the other hand, Molly found the third floor first, passing Paris on the way.
And once we were all in the master bedroom (known for now as Kitten Central) Grandpa Nelson discovered the joys of Cat Fishing! It’s nice to see Mouse’s favorite toys being played with again.
And it wasn’t long before they wore themselves out, and us, too. Total cuteness overload as they fell asleep in an adorable kitten curlicue.
I will keep you posted on all the Kitten Adventures as they play out.
A while back I told you about art cards, small pieces of art that you can send to friends or give away to strangers. I’m building mine on old baseball cards.
This past weekend, I got an inspiration of another way to share them. I was at the No Kings March downtown, walking with thousands of other folks to protest the current administration’s unconstitutional and illegal takeover of our country.
When we got home from the March, I went into my art closet to make more art cards. Before, I liked leaving the back untouched so you could see that it had started life as a baseball card. Now, I wanted to use it for a rebellious purpose.
I tried a few ways of treating the photos… flat acrylic looked streaky, but an impression from a sheet of shelf liner made a nice surface so you can still see the player.
I pulled letters from my box of words to spell out a simple message.
I like the ransom-note effect.
Now my art has a purpose. I can hand these cards to folks at future protests, a small piece of art to give encouragement. I even punched a hole in the corner and strung some ribbon through, so they can be tied to a backpack or belt loop and not get lost.
I have a hook in my art closet for my growing collection.
Fall is on the way. During our last weeks of hot weather, I got into the habit of going for walks early in the day to avoid the shingle-irritating bright sun and heat.
I noticed that Laurelhurst Park is very different early in the day. The cool damp of night is still in the air. Tai chi groups perform their slow dance among the trees.
Firwood Lake is a perfect mirror… until the ducks wake up! Then, somehow, the ripples make the mirror even more beautiful.
And passing the Blair Community Garden, I see the raspberries getting ripe.
I am happily awaiting the day when I will need a second layer to be comfortable. J’aime sweater weather!
Sometimes I need to make a few tries at a project before I get it right. At our last ZOOM art group, Ruthie Inman had us start this vase of flowers, made with the windows from business envelopes. Mine turned out really tiny, about three inches high, and I wasn’t crazy about it.
The other members of the group used bigger windows from bigger envelopes, and therefore, bigger flowers. I liked theirs better, so I found just such an envelope and gave the project a second chance.
Ruthie also suggested creating surroundings for the vase, to ‘give it a place to be’. So I started building my scene. I started with the inside of that same envelope, which had a striped pattern. I gave it a thin coat of a really pale lavender so it would fade into the background.
It took a few days to draw, cut, and watercolor the flowers, long stemmed yellow and orange daisies. To go with that bright yellow, I found an abstract blue page out of an art magazine for the billowing curtains. It was starting to look like a picture.
I remembered that Shirley, from the ZOOM group, had used blue paper to make the water in her vase. I wanted mine to be transparent, so I mixed some aquamarine acrylic paint with some glue and painted it on the plastic. It stuck!
Then I used the same color for the sky through the window, a soft yellow paper made the window frame, and graph paper made a nice tablecloth.
I now had all the pieces for my picture, but I wasn’t ready to glue anything down yet, because I didn’t like where they were. It felt static, even with the curtains billowing in the wind. So I walked away and thought about it overnight.
The next day I moved the window a bit to the right and the vase a bit to the left, loved it, and glued it down. Finally, I glued the stems into the vase, but left the flowers loose, so they can flop a bit.
I continue to recover from shingles, and as with all recoveries, I have good days and bad days. On bad days I just sleep and watch architectural history videos.
But when I feel better, I do like to make a bit of something, and I use what is laying around. The other day, Auntie Bridgett brought home a great pile of old baseball cards from the 1990s. After I made sure they weren’t going to make me a millionaire, they became collage fodder.
First, I glued the cards together with four edge pieces so they’d be easier to work with. I use UHU because it dries fast and doesn’t make the paper curl. Then I collaged the four as though they were one piece, sticking bits down in whatever way seemed best.
I’d seen something like this done by Zoe Walker in our ZOOM group, and I thought I’d give it a try. I laid four of the cards face down, chose some leftover papers from other projects, and went to it.
There are so many things I love about collage. There’s really no wrong way to do it, just whatever looks right to you. I try a few bits together to see which colors play well together, and wait to put the most detailed bits on near the end.
Once I got to this point, I decided to cut the cards apart and see how they looked.
I liked them! But I was wearing out and they still needed… something.
So I hunted up bits from old magazines to freshen the color, put in dots, and I was done.
I’m not sure what to call them, or where they will go, but I managed to get some rest, stay happy, and use up some scrap paper. And sometimes, that’s enough.
The end of summer brings a festival called Burning Man to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. It is a week-long happening of art, music, creativity, and fellowship. It is also camping out in dust, wind, and heat.
I will not be going, although I love many things about it. A few years ago I went to a mini-exhibition Burning Man in downtown Portland. It was delightfully quirky.
Then last year, I attended SOAK, the northwest’s own regional festival, and that was enough outdoor living for me. Sleeping on the ground was more fun 40 years ago.
But Auntie Katie, being younger and more adventurous, has been to Burning Man many times and is packing up again! Every year has a different theme, and this year’s is “SPACE”. Aliens, space travel, astronomy, science and fiction and silliness, all are welcome.
Part of the Burning Man ethos is sharing with the community. Folks make food and art to share, and help their neighbors. Katie and her buddy Douglas play music for folks, wandering around the camp with their ukuleles. like traveling minstrels. I know they are good; they play for us on Thanksgiving!
They spend months compiling and rehearsing on-theme songs. This year’s play list has a few hundred songs and includes “Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime” by John Coulton and “Yakko’s Universe” from Animaniacs, so you know a good time will be had by all.
And Katie made space boots! An old set of boots finally died and they have become ART BOOTS. Silver paint, adorable pink and teal planets, and tiny bright lights will go with her silver-y jumpsuit and make a fine, shiny show walking around camp at night.
Every now and then, I go back into the Art Closet and try another few Gelli prints. I am trying to be more methodical so I can photograph the steps as I go and learn what works for me.
Friday, I started with a bright red plate and made this cool pattern with a cardboard vegetable tray from the market.
Then, because I always forget that yellow is transparent, I tried to lay some down. I added some orange, to try and make my point.
Once everything was good and dry, I put some black on and rolled it out. I like the print, but wish the yellow and orange were more visible.
While I was Gelli printing, I used a page in my Art Journal as the rolloff page.
And while you and I were chatting in Saturday, I cut some black paper into a simple sunset landscape. I think it’s done, but I’ll have a look tomorrow.
Dear Liza 