creativity – Dear Liza

Starting From Scratch

Dear Liza,

I have stated using some of those pieces of art calendar that Jennifer sent up! After several days of looking and sorting and staring, I decided to start with these few.

Because they all had a sort of golden, brown antique-ish look, with touches of red, I used acrylic paints and an old card to make some papers to complement the art.

This was a bit too yellow, so I added some brown and scraped it down a bit.

This seemed a good start, but it needed another color. Red, maybe, but not RED.

These two mixed together to make (mostly) what I was looking for. Once I got a few done, I started laying the bits down to see how they looked.

As with any artistic process, this went on for quite a while. Lay it down, go do something else, come back, have a look, trim some pictures, move some bits.

This is as far as I have gotten as of now, but I’ll let you know as it progresses. I think it needs another layer of something, and some darker bits.

I love collage! No special skill is needed, or special training. There is only a need for bits to glue down, and an opinion about “what looks good”.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Ruthie’s Leaves

Dear Liza,

My buddy Ruthie Inman has been busy starting up a new art gallery in Peoria, Illinois, called Artful Journey, so we haven’t had our online class in a while.

So when we got together last week, we had a wonderful catch -up as well as an art project together. Ruthie had asked us to collect, trace, and cut out some lovely leaves to start.

Then we traced the shapes, overlapping them a bit. Ruthie directed us to decide which leaves would be the top layer, and watercolor them a light yellow.

To show the other layers of leaves, we gradually got darker as we went.

I wasn’t totally happy with my brush strokes, since I was using the wrong brush. In the months since we’ve done any watercolor, I have misplaced my soft brushes! Still, I pushed through.

Once it was done and dry, I realized I needed some stronger colors and more delicate lines… and maybe some nice hard outlines. Fortunately, that is always an option. But first, lunch!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Leading up to the second election of Donald Trump, I was feeling anxious. What would a second Trump term mean for the country? Our foreign policy? Our civil rights? How would we viewed by the rest of the world?

As always, I turned to “making stuff” to cope. I chose this tiny 1948 atlas, which Auntie Bridgett had found in a teeny free library when we first moved to Portland. Now, I saw it as a place to put my anxiety about the.world’s future.

I dug into my collage words box and in an old “French phrase a day” calendar, found just what I needed.

“It’s discouraging.” “You’d think it’s a cult.” “We could go someplace else.” Yes, maybe we could.

I tried to stay in the same color family as the atlas itself, stenciling and stamping, as I created images that expressed my anxiety.

But after a few days of cutting, pasting and realizing who our new President was, I realized that my ‘coping’ mechanism was making me feel worse, by focusing on the awful helplessness. I was in fight or flight mode, and because of family obligations here, we can’t “fly” at the moment. So I needed to think about what I could do to fight, here and now. Again, I found phrases to express myself.

“Calm yourself.” “Don’t cry”.

Of course, the words alone won’t fix anything. I need to, as Mr. Rogers advised, look for the helpers. I can engage with local charities and national groups like the ACLU to make a positive difference in the lives of people who will feel the brunt of Mr. Trump’s announced plans.

And realizing I can do that has been very good for my mental health.

Love,

Grandma Judy

New Story, New Pictures

Dear Liza,

A few years ago, I wrote a story about our cat, Mouse. In the story, Mouse steps out of her comfortable routine of napping and lap-sitting to help solve a mystery.

I found it the other day and liked it enough that I want to share it with folks. For me, that means printing it out, putting on a cover, and of course, illustrations.

I started sketching, and once again realized I was way over my head. But I kept at it. Turns out, if you do something long enough, you get better. I drew one piece of the drawing at a time, cut it out, and then traced it where I wanted it to go.

The dog in the picture is our neighbor, Trevor, who is a main character in the story. But of course, once I had the characters cut out, they wandered elsewhere, as well.

For a while they were part of a bizarre pet-juggling story…

Then they all seemed to be on a hamster wheel.

Eventually, it got drawn, colored, and some text got added.

I’m pretty happy with how this one turned out.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Trying Something New with Something Old

Dear Liza,

I always like trying something new.

I have been making Art Journals with Ruth Inman for a while, using cracker boxes and other leftovers for covers. But the other day when I found this really old, falling-apart literature book, I thought …. Why not use ITS cover as a cover?

First, I helped the book finish falling apart, trimming the cover and selected pages with an Exacto knife. I saved the very old 2nd place ribbon I found inside. The handwritten inventory numbers and check-out pocket touched my librarian’s heart, so I made sure they were safe. I found one of my favorite poems, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The Rhodora”, among the anthologized works, and saved it, as well as old illustrations.

I grabbed a yellow printed fabric from my box, thinking the texture looked like old alligator skin. Once I had it glued onto the cover, however, it became clear that I had mis-judged. It was too light. I resisted the urge to tear it off and decided to highlight the texture and darken the effect with some acrylic paint. It was better.

I stiffened the spine with some card stock, then laid in the inside fabric. I made four ‘signatures’ (sets of pages) and pierced the spine carefully to sew the signatures in.

Since the book was printed in 1932, I plan to use it as a journal for my research and ponderings on history. I have been researching English and French history, and am now looking into the many places where they intersect. I am also curious about how they interacted with the Holy Roman Empire and, further away, the many dynasties of the Chinese Empire.

This historic, hand-made journal will give me a place, and an inspiration, to collect these thoughts, as well and other brain bits that pop up.

“Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,

Then beauty is its own excuse for being.”

Love,

Grandma Judy

For Tim

Dear Liza,

Your great uncle, my oldest brother Tim, is having a birthday next week. After enjoying making an Art Journal for myself and a book for my friend Pat, I decided to make a book for him, too.

Tim is eight years older than me, so even though we grew up in the same house, we were at different parts of our lives at any given adventure. He taught me to climb trees, fish, and change the oil on a car. He joined the Marine Corps when I was 10 and retired when I was 40. He was, and still is, a rascal.

So I decided to remind him of some of our childhood adventures. I chose six to include and did a bit of writing and illustration for each. They are silly and short and should tickle his memory.

Trees played a big part in our childhoods. Climbing them, mostly, to test our wits and have space to ourselves.

Of course I included Momma’s recipe for Heavenly Buns, her go-to quick lunch that fed about a million neighborhood kids.

Camping and learning about outdoor living was an every-weekend activity. We learned about making fires, cooking in cast iron dutch ovens, and, one Thanksgiving, burying a turkey in the ground with coals and hot stones. “I bet it’ll work,” Dad grinned. He was right.

Since I had made the book small to fit in Tim’s pocket, but wanted to tell longer stories, I got creative about the page design. Accordion folds and other devices let me fit the stories in.

Maybe the best summer ever…

I am really enjoying this ability to tell stories and make them into books all by myself! A lot of my last few years have been spent researching and writing a story, and in the back of my head I was always wondering… “How is anyone going to see this?” Well, maybe I have solved my problem. We’ll see.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Layers and Layers (Part 1)

Dear Liza,

As I typed that title, I thought of how I am dressing nowadays, and making the bed: Layers and layers. We have had very cold nights and may even get snow tomorrow! But that’ s not what I’m writing about today.

I am still learning about how to make pictures look like I want. I will usually start with some idea or shape I am inspired by.

Or sometimes I just throw down some color or lines, and go from there.

One of last week’s Art Journal challenges was “Circles”, which I love. I took the diagonal lines of the abstract photo from The Coast last week and added pinkish circles. I liked it!

But when I looked again a few days later, it looked unfinished. It needed contrast. So I filled in the spaces with blue and black, and I like it better now. It might be done. Maybe. Are the planets dark enough, or should they be filled in?

I’ll let you know when I know. More about layers tomorrow!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Tag: creativity

Starting From Scratch

Ruthie’s Leaves

Election Coping Journal

New Story, New Pictures

Trying Something New with Something Old

For Tim

Layers and Layers (Part 1)