Yipee ! I Got Some Mail Art !

So my friend Kathy at Love Letters just became my new penpal !! She sent me this beautiful piece of mail art. Here's the cool collage seal on the back of the envelop :

And here is the lovely calligraphy piece she sent me on a card inside :

Isn't she talented ?! Thank you, thank you Kathy ! I was so happy and excited to get the mail today !!! One of the many great parts of receiving this beautiful piece was that it was totally in my colors! I don't think I ever told Kathy that my favorite colors were green and turquoise but the piece she sent fits me to a tee. I want to frame the card and add it to my dining room where I display my some of my favorite turquoise, blue and green found and made objet d'arts !

Tag, I'm it ! Tomorrow's studio play time will be spent making something special to mail to my sweet penpal ! Such fun ! You should try it !

Lost Wings, Found Feathers

So when I had finished the GPP Street Team Crusade # 20 - Casting Call, I had this beautiful white wing to use for a journal page. I immediately had the image of an angel who had lost one of her wings. This is the journal page I created with the cast.

Loss

Then I found an interesting connection to a page I had done a while back using a photo image from a magazine :

I Found A White Feather On My Path Home

I wasn't sure what the feather was all about at the time but that was what the muses sent that day! I did love the end results of this page though. In the original magazine photo, the child had long blond hair and was leaning on a carousel ride. What I liked about it was the posture and position of the figure. I covered the photo lightly with gesso and then painted over it in acrylics, creating this new figure so far from the original.

I knew these two pieces were connected by the white wing and the white feather. These two pieces became the beginnings of a story for me. Here's where I am so far :

An angel in Heaven loses one of her wings because she spends too much of her Heavenly time wishing she could be back on Earth. By the time the wing falls back to the ground, all that is left is one white feather. On Earth, there is a child who is full of sorrow about how dark the world has become. One day, the child finds a white feather on her path home. She thanks the angels above for the beautiful gift. She makes a vow to use her gift to bring as much heavenly light into her world as she can. The angel in Heaven receives a new wing and realizes that her wish has come true. Part of her is now back on Earth, and will live on through the angelic acts of this little girl. The Angel and her loss, the little girl and her dark sorrow, and the fall of the White Wing were all a part of the Plan.

Hope you enjoyed story time ! Happy Monday !

GPP Street Team Crusade #20 - Casting Call

So I have been having such fun with the GPP Street Crusades that I had to keep going - all the positive exchanges are addictive, not to mention the creative pleasures ! This Crusade took a little longer for me to get to. I was thinking about how to get hold of a second blender to make the paper pulp - ours gets used often for smoothies and I don't think paper pulp goes well with fruit ! Anyway, I was planning to hit the yard sales and flea markets this weekend to find one (may still do that !) but decided to give the tissue technique a try first !

I had a package of dollar store tissue paper I had bought somewhere along the way. When I opened it, what I found was not silky glossy tissue paper but something between mulberry paper and paper towel. So perfect ! The fibrous texture made beautiful feathery tears.

I had a bag of old jewelry treasures that my mom's manfriend, Lindell from CO, had collected for me at flea markets and then sent via snail mail to my mom in Montreal. Those babies have been around ! (Thanks so much, Lindell !). I searched the bag and found these wonderful metal charms, the perfect molds !!

I tore up the wonderful cheapy paper and got to work with my paint brush and water, filling in the charm molds . Then I left it for about 6 hours for drying time.

It worked like a charm (pun intended, tee, hee !) ! I loved the results, especially the angel wing ! Love that feathery texture !

Then I thought about using these casts in my journal. Would the heaviest of the pages crush them ? How could I make them a little tougher ? I got out the gel medium and very gently painted a couple of coats onto the top, embossed surface with a dry brush. When it dried, the casts had hardened just a little. Hopefully they will stand up to my journals wear and tear !

The final step was color. I used an eye shadow sponge brush and applied some colored chalks. That left things a little flat which wasn't quite what I wanted. Then I got out the Lumiere Metallic Fabric Paints and used the same sponge brush to dry brush the metallics on. I love the effects ! Again, I think the angel wing is my favorite - the pearl metallic paint makes it look heavenly (puns again, love um !), don't you think ?

Now all that's left to do is to make some journal pages to use my paper casts in. I have a vision of a page with an angel who has lost one of her wings... Stay tuned to see what I come up with !

Crazy Kitty's Birthday - A Doodle Story

So today is Mother's Day ! Happy Mother's Day to all of you moms out there ! I hope you get treated with all the love and respect you deserve !

David and I did not make the trip to Montreal for Mother's Day this year - it just happened that way ! My mom is coming for a visit to my house next weekend so we will celebrate then.

I am only a mom to my furry children and as yet, they haven't given me any gifts today except for reminding me to fill the water bowl, to feed them and to let them out for a wee ! Oh, well...

I did get the gift of spending a couple of hours in the studio this morning. I have been doing a lot of doodles lately. I am enjoying just picking up my little blank journal and my favorite Micron pens and spending a little mindless relaxation time.

This morning I took a look through my doodles and found some images I really liked. I loved this crazy cat with his hat and his little house. I also loved this weird Madame Butterfly that was further up on my doodle page. I cut them out and added them to a painted background in my art journal.

Then, I spent some time filling the page in with paint. I think it looks like the cat is getting ready for a party hence the title "Crazy Kitty's Birthday" !

No great fancy work of art but I really like the cat. Who knows, maybe Crazy Kitty will become a character in some other pieces ? He kind of reminds me of my cat Azzy (short for Aslan),the little tabby with a big personality. It was a fun way to spend a Sunday morning. The best part of the process was taking my mindless doodles and putting them into a new environment.

Crazy Kitty' Birthday (detail)

Off to enjoy this beautiful spring day outside now ! Cheers !

Who You are Makes A Difference and Synchronicity

So this morning I had just finished creating my first ever piece of mail art that I wanted to send to my neice Jessica. We had had a lovely girl's night together last week and I wanted to let her know how much it meant to me. What better way than with some fun and funky art work and a note inside telling her what a beautiful, funny, sweet and brilliant young woman she is. In the bottom right hand corner, I had included a little square with the quote "Who I Am Makes a Difference" that I had found somewhere along the way.

Front of Jessie's Mail Art Envelope

Back

Then I checked my e-mail and my sister Natalie (Jessie's mom) had sent me the wonderful and touching video (below) called " Who You Are Makes a Difference." I immediately tried to pick up the phone and call her to share the synchronicity of it all but she wasn't around ! Still , the video made me cry and feel wonderful about this world and most of all, made me want to reach out and honor someone for just being who they are. I guess I had kind of already done that with the note to Jessie but that video made me want to do that some more !!! I had a nice ladies lunch with my dear friend Lois and when I got back I checked out some of my favorite blogs. This is when the synchronicity got especially juicy and especially incredible for me.

Jennifer at The Stumbly Diva honored me on her blog for just being who I am ! She wrote that I had inspired her to "explore a more nurturing creative path". You cannot imagine just how honored that made me feel ! I mean, how often do you get told that you have inspired someone ? It really made me feel like who I am makes a difference ! What a great gift !

The whole thing has just kind of blown me away with how when things are good, they are very, very good, indeed ! I hope you are inspired to honor someone today ... it really does make a difference !

Happy Birthday Mom !

Just a quick post to wish my biggest and best fan a happy, happy birthday ! You deserve all the beauties this world has to offer ! May this year bring you many and may your arms always be open to receive them ! Love you !

This is a collage I made for her last year - shows her as the queen she is !

Happy Tuesday to the rest of you!

Cheers,

Kim

Feeling Incomplete

So I am feeling like I have a million ideas running through my head - inspiration for all kinds of things that I would like to do, both art projects and household sprucing up projects. I am also think about all the semi-finished projects that I have already started but lost momentum on. The problem is that there are so many things I would like to do, but I seem to lack the energy or focus to see things to completion right now !!! Argh!!! I feel like I am running in circles, or stuck on a treadmill that is getting me nowhere. Ever feel like that ????

I have realized that I am not a long distance runner when it comes to creating art. I rarely do projects that cannot be completed in a day or two. I guess I am an instant gratification girl, what can I say ?!!!

This week, I was inspired by a few blogs into starting a more long term project. Gina at Joyful Purpose shared this beautiful blessing from a book by John O'Donohue that she uses as a daily mantra. I wanted to adopt it for my own and create a piece of artwork to display the words on. Over at Step Outside Your Box Saturdays, the prompt to use a bigger size than usual in your work worked well with my feeling that I needed to go bigger for my mantra piece. So I decided on a 18 X 20 inch canvas - not huge but bigger than my usual.

Then I started with this sketch in my sketch book :

I drew the girl onto the canvas and then came fun with paint... I love swirling it around and making use of some of my favorite colors. I even got some sequin scrim out to add some texture and used some lovely Lumiere Metallics too. I left the canvas that night (meant to take a photo to share the process but forgot !!!).

Then, the next day, came annoyance with paint - I can never quite achieve the painterly techniques I can see in my head, especially when it comes to shade faces, making the eyes right !!! I love my primitive drawing style but when I paint in the drawing, I seem to ruin them !!

The third day (see, this is a long process for me !) I woke up thinking about the piece and decided to I go to what I like better than painting and collage some paper to the piece ! Layers, layers, layers was what I think it needs. I like where it is going so far but as I said before, I am feeling like I can't focus on much for too long so I stopped there for today. Part of me is enjoying this new rhythm - doing a little each day, not rushing things, not worrying too much about "perfection". Another part of me is frustrated with the lack of focus thing... Oh well...

So here is where she is at so far. One thing I did by mistake (if it will still be a mistake in the end, I am not sure !) was paint the girl with her two eyes open. In my sketch and in the design I had imagined, it was important to me that she have one eye open and one eye closed. In my annoyance with the paint, she somehow ended up with eyes wide open (scary eyes ??? - damn, maybe I will reach for the gesso tomorrow !!!). Feel free to share any ideas !!!

To close this post, I thought I would share a photo of my work table and my lovely plant-filled bay window behind it. Notice the cool Magritte inspired stained glass ? That was made by my Dad many years ago. He was a Magritte fan big-time and is now the white-haired, white-beared Angel on my artist shoulder.
More of the process to come....Have a good Monday, y'all!