Lost Art Creations: Art Journals

A2Z2 Mixed Media Group RR ~ Diane H Pages

I've managed to complete my pages for Diane H's book, which are due Tuesday. Talk about down to the wire! But I have a great excuse - really! My house is under contract. Woohoo! The past month has been a flurry of showings and open houses, until, finally, a buyer! So then it became all about appraisals, inspections, applying for my own mortgage because, oh yeah, I had to also go and find a place to live. Found a great condo that checked all my boxes and God willing I will close and move on the 13th of June. The amount of paperwork just to apply for the loan is staggering! I can't imagine how big the pile will be for the actual closing!

Anyway - back to art!

This month I got Diane H's book to work in. Her theme is Native American Plains tribes. Until I found a beautiful piece of golden leather in my stash and a new stencil from Gwen LeFleur I had no idea what I was going to do. I also love the paintings of Susan Seddon Boulet and featured a couple in my spreads. She specialized in painting mythological figures from all cultures, but especially Native American. I was going to do some bead-work on the leather until I discovered I would have to pre-punch the holes for my needle to pass through. Eek! So I just decided to stick with the whip stitched edge with artificial sinew and skip the beading.

For the definition pages for each god I transferred the script onto handmade paper using gel medium and stenciled a design with paint onto Lokta paper. The images are from an all-over new stencil by Gwen LaFleur. It is supposed to be an Art Deco design but I thought elements had a Native American vibe so I used it to create the borders.

And last but not least my sign in tag:

Posted at 12:00 PM in A2Z2 Altered Book, Altered Books, Art Journals, Round Robins, Swaps | Permalink | Comments (0)

A2Z2 Mixed Media Group RR ~ Diane S Pages

This round I had Diane S's book to work in. Her theme was relatively general: The 1800's. She loves the Primitive style so I tried to work with that. Not really in my comfort zone but that's a big reason why I love doing swaps and round robins, to stretch me creatively. It keeps things interesting & fresh. You know what I mean? My whole life I have had a deep abiding love of textiles - especially antique textiles. So I decided to combine her love of the primitive and my love of textiles.

I dug deep through my (embarrassingly large) stash of antique laces and trims and found several from the 1800's - all handmade - including the eyelet ruffle! The one element that is not antique is the ribbon trim which I stained using Tattered Rose, Scattered Straw & Victorian Velvet Distress Spray Stains from Tim Holtz. For the background I painted either canvas or watercolor paper with matte black craft paint. I wanted the laces and 'paintings' to be the stars of the spreads. Black pages really highlight the patterns of the laces.

For the 'paintings' I did image transfers onto watercolor paper (above) and a thin birch panel (below). To give them an old world appearance I coated them with Tim Holtz's Crazing Medium - a much finer crackling pattern that Crackle Medium. To bring out the patterns I rubbed distress crayons over the crazing then lightly wiped away the excess with a slightly damp cloth. The 'painting' above is framed with metal trims from the mid-late 1800's. These are super special to me (and highly prized) because they are rare and made from real metal filaments and silk. The patina and depth these trims have just can't be found in modern trims.

For the second spread I made a lace pocket to hold the birch panel 'painting'. I also decided to do a little rubber stamping with paint and some Toile stamps from Stamp Camp (now Technique Junkies). The black was just TOO plain for my liking. For the other page I made a little Log Cabin style quilt using reproduction fabrics of the period and appliqued a little wool felt heart in the center. This was a nod to the 'Soldier Quilts' during the Civil War which was how so many women (from both sides) did their part for the war effort. Very few of these quilts exist today because they were well used and then re-purposed when they could no longer serve as quilts.

Here are a few more detail pics of my pages:

That's it for now! Can't wait to see who's book I get next!

Happy Creating! T

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Posted at 02:30 PM in A2Z2 Altered Book, Altered Books, Art Journals, Books, Round Robins, Swaps | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Roaring 20's AB Pages

This is my first set of pages for the new (to me) art group I recently joined. We are working in each others altered book and we each have our own theme which we outline in a 'Brief', talking about our theme, providing research sources, inspiration and a few rules for our book (ie thickness of pages, imagery that can and can't be used - like nudity). I made these pages for Linda N and her theme is The Roaring 20's in America.

It's funny how things work out. Initially I was going to do a roaring 20's Valentines Day theme, but then I found clip-art of the 'Ideal 1920's Female; hair, make-up and body image'. As an ex-Beauty Advisor & Business Manager for Estee Lauder I couldn't resist just going with it!

Two of the pages are painted with a mixture of fluid acrylics, glazing medium and Ken Oliver Liquid Metals. I stenciled (using all Gwen LaFleur/Stencil Girl stencils) the designs with regular body metallic acrylic paint. The other two pages are Lokta paper that has an allover stitched design. I stenciled those pages as well using left over paint from the other two pages and more metallic acrylic. I also fashioned a mini Concertina book to attach to one of the pages using the same paint and stencils. Then I just went to town collaging on the pages with images, washi tape, brads, etc.

Another thing the group does is we teach each other how to do different techniques and structures that we can (if we choose) use in our work. At the January meeting we learned how to do a lattice page. It looks SO easy. It's SO NOT easy! I goofed up the one at the meeting but managed to do it correctly for one of Linda's pages. For the lattice I used heavily embossed paper with a metallic print and some pretty brads.

I had so much fun working in Linda's book! I can't wait to see who's book I get to work in next! And I can't wait to see what Deborah does for my book! The theme for my book is The Lost Generation in Post WWI Paris. Essentially a roaring 20's in Paris theme with a literary & artistic twist!