GPP Street Team - Crusade #22

I've posted entries in the past for Michelle Ward's Green Pepper Press Street Team Crusades. Well, she has challenged people again to stretch their wings open their hearts with a "Pay it Forward Challenge". She challenged people to make a gratitute gesture (think of something you can do for someone that 'pays forward' a kindness done to you). Seeing Michelle's challenge prompted me to finish something I had decided to do almost a year ago.

Last fall I bought the book "Living the Creative Life" by Rice Freeman-Zachery and was immediately enamored with the insight that all the artists provided (not to mention all the great eye-candy to inspire one's own creativity). I hadn't even finished the first chapter when I found myself constantly thinking of two childhood friends who encouraged my creative dreams. Although I still am in touch with them, for the past several years we have succumbed to only an annual christmas card for communication. Even though I had no idea if either of these women have continued on their own creative journey, I felt it necessary to buy each of them a copy of the book. My initial intention was to mail the book as soon as I got it (I think it was in October of 2007) but life got in the way. Then I was going to try to get it out to them for Christmas but again life got in the way. I don't know how many times I looked at those books (and the padded envelopes that at some point I put with them) but they just never found their way into the mail system. When I read Michelle's challenge earlier this month, I knew the time had come. Within a week, I had notes written to my dear friends Mary and Cathy and had entrusted them to the US postal service. I only hope that they find the book as inspiring as I have.

GPP Crusade 18

I know I haven't been doing the Crusades for that long, but I have to say that this has been my FAVORITE! Stamp carving is ADDICTING. I carved three new stamps for
Crusade No. 18. Two of them resemble an ironwork fence and the last one was kind of a spur of the moment carving of a pair of eyes. I have a lot of stamps that have eyes but for some reason, I felt the need for a pair that was bigger.

The designs for the ironwork style stamps were from a book on architectural clip art. I carved them so they could be lined up for a continues design of any length. The larger of the two is about 6 inches wide. The basic design for the eyes was traced from a piece of artwork I have by Christina Lazar-Schuler. The eyes of the woman in the piece I have have such a haunting quality that I thought they would be perfect for a stamp. I traced them on tissue paper and then transfered the pencil to the stamp surface. To get a lighter feel to the shadow and iris of the eyes, I used one of my Stampbord tools that is used to create cross-hatching on Stampbord. It worked well to make that section of the stamp less solid.
These two art journal pages show the stamps I created. The one page includes a bunch of stamped images (birds and flowers) using See Ds Stamps by Sugarloaf. My carved stamp is the fence in the foreground. The other art journal page features both the eyes stamp and the other ironwork stamp (which was stampe in silver Brilliance ink and then embossed using Broken China Distressed Embossing Powder by Ranger Ink. Just a reminder...if you click on the image of the journal page, it will open in a lightbox and you can see it better (and scroll to the other image). I thought I would mention that again since the little symbol that indicates multiple images is difficult to see on the pictures.

Next month's challenge is going to be making stencils. I am getting geared up for that. I actually made a stencil a couple of months ago and still have yet to use it so I know this will give me the kick in the butt I need to finish that project.

GPP Street Team Crusade #17

Again, I'm sneaking my blog entry in under the wire for Michelle's challenge. The sad thing is, I actually had my art journal box done for almost two weeks. Although I haven't posted my picture until now, I think I can finally say that I am an art journaler. I have tried starting art journals off and on over the past two years but never did more than a couple of pages. Well, I'm proud to say that this morning I did my sixth consective daily art page since I put together this box. But even more exciting for me has been that each page is a result of my thoughts while I have been riding my exercise bike (that means I've spent 30 minutes biking everyday for the past six days -- YEAH! pardon me while I pat myself on the back). I took the box out for its first "travel experience" yesterday. My friend Kay and I took a road trip to Green Bay to check out a business, The Assemblage Studio, I discovered web surfing last year. The photo of my art journal box was actually taken "on location" at The Assemblage Studio. Since I didn't have time to finish my page after biking, I took the box so I could finish it there. I need to do a little raving now about The Assemblage Studio. What I loved about this business was the concept of having an amazing variety of items to purchase for altered art projects plus the ability to work there (so we could pick out the perfect pieces as we worked). Teresa Ann Gifford, the owner and altered artist extraordinaire, was so incredibly nice. Since the road trip was only planned less than a day before we went, we didn't think to call ahead to see about the work space or anything. But Teresa welcomed us with open arms and shared not only her wonderful space but a wealth of information.

If you ever find yourself in the Green Bay area (technically the business is in DePere), definitely plan a stop at her business or sign up for some of the amazing classes she offers. You will not be disappointed.

I'll sign off with pictures of a couple of my favorite art journal pages.

GPP Street Team Crusade #16

Yippee! After many months of stalking Michelle Ward's Green Pepper Press Street Team blog and thinking "I'm gonna do that", I FINALLY DID A CRUSADE!!!

Crusade #16 was to "Journal your Blog" -- Pick a post and add it to a page in your visual journal. I did have an art journal that I had started late last year but it has been slow going. But earlier this week, I decided what I wanted to do for the GPP Street Team Crusades was to work larger (especially since I tend to work small). So I bought a heavyweight drawing pad that is 11" x 14" and I'm using that for my crusade entries. I will admit there is another reason for the use of the large journal but that will wait for another day. Because of my hard drive crash and the fact that I lost all but two (the ones I posted on the blog) of my photos from our vacation to Arizona, I decided to journal the September 8th blog post entitled "Time to get caught up". I only journaled the first part of that entry (just in case you check up on me) since it captured the extremes of the story. I also decided to handwrite the blog entry. It just seemed like the thing to do.

Playing with Glazes

I had joined ZNE Book Club last June when they were working through the Claudine Hellmuth book "Collage Discovery Workshop" but wasn't able to keep up with all the assignments, so when I saw one of the Art Techniques ATCs Yahoo Group was doing an ATC swap based on the book I thought it was the perfect opportunity to do some more work with the book. The first swap was to use a glazing technique with acrylic paints. I had bought some red rosin paper before Christmas and had used it to make a glazed background that I've used for a few other projects. Since I had the background made so long ago, I don't know why I procrastinated on making the ATCs. But in the end I finished them up and mailed them today. Now I will have my fingers crossed for them to get to California by Friday. Here are the four ATCs I made for the swap.



I'm also working on my first entry for a Green Pepper Press (GPP) Street Team Crusade. Hopefully I will finish it up tonight so be on the lookout for another post soon.