Day 135 - 365/2014

Day One Hundred Thirty-Five

Gah -- allergy stuff...lots of Benadryl...this is all I can squeeze out tonight.  I think I will put these four postcards in the mail for the postcard sale/show at Paint Creek.  I was thinking I would do more, but four is good.

Here is the tweaking I did to "Serpenti" (Latin for sea serpent).

How it looked when I originally made it on April 19.

Tweaked and scanned...the colors in this version are pretty true.

I am hoping to make it to the show.  Here are the other three:

"Pick Up Every Stitch" (retro-inspired (as in I thought of it AFTER I started it) by Donovan's "Season of the Witch").

"This Bear Dreams"

"Floral Wallpaper"

Day 109 - 365/2014

Day One Hundred Nine

Earlier today I was working on drawing a hippocampus-type guy and I was thinking I would reduce the image, simplify it and then do a carving of it.  Heh...it just didn't turn out very well.  I think I am going to let go of the horse-creatures...for now at least.

9 pm-11:30 pm:  Owww...my fingertips!  Sewing with a skinny needle through three layers of card stock and one layer of paper and one layer of Bristol board is not as easy as it was yesterday through just paper and Bristol board.  Man.  And that was after punching all those holes first.  And of course I couldn't stop in between because it was getting late and I knew I wouldn't finish this part if I didn't keep going right then.  So, whew!

I started out by cutting some waves apart from the section and then positioning another section along the bottom edge of the card.

I ended up gluing three pieces of cardstock together with the image on top -- one reason was to make the sea serpent less see-through...

...and the other reason was so that the sea serpent would be a little teensy bit raised off of the waves.

Now to punch a bazillion holes through a lot more layers of cardstock and Bristol board than I did on the first postcard yesterday.  The tool poked through, but it took a lot more pressure and wiggling to pull it back out of the self-healing mat.

But it was working.

Teeth would have been too much for this application I think...so I just punched a line for a forked tongue.  AND I was very happy that the lines on his throat curved a teensy bit -- that is what I was hoping for.

The back of the card. 

I wanted to use two colors of green...light green for all of the vertical lines, including inside the back fins/scales.

I am pretty happy with the card so far -- I'm not sure yet how I will finish it, but I am done for tonight!  (AND I am pretty proud of myself for sticking with it through to the end tonight.)

Day 108 - 365/2014

Day One Hundred Eight

Today I worked on my first postcard for the "Wish You Were Here" postcard show/sale/fundraiser for Paint Creek Center for the Arts.  I have a bunch of ideas and I may make one or two of each idea.  Maybe.

Getting started today...

I knew I had something to poke holes with -- I'm not sure if this is what I had in mind, but it sure pokes holes.

I laid out a design I liked, glued down the stamped and cut-out images of carvings I made a wile ago and then thought about how I wanted to proceed.

I knew I wanted to sew on the card but I wasn't sure how much.  I started with the thought of a line of stitches just inside the heavy line of the carving.

Yep...they went all the way through!

Again, I wasn't sure if I wanted it stitchy...but I felt like the lines weren't rounded enough on the curves of the cloud so...

...I doubled back and made a solid line of stitches.

I liked the cloud so I did the first couple of trees, too.

...then the other group of trees.

I decided that the rabbits had lines that were a little too busy to do the same sort of stitching and I couldn't decide how to adjust it so I am leaving them w/o stitching.

But I felt like the card needed a little more of "something" so I used two colors of pencil to do the edge and put in some hills.

This is what the back of the postcard looks like right now...I will probably add the "poscard" and "place stamp here" designations on with rubber stamps.

Here is the front of the card.  I am pretty happy with it for my first try.

And speaking of Paint Creek -- Juana and I met up with Franciney and had a really nice dinner and then we went to see Donita Simpson's show of photographic portraits of area artists.  Juana is one of the portraits and Donita really captured the essence of Juana in her studio.  It is just great.  All of the portraits are fabulous.

Juana and Donita in front of the portrait of Juana.

Donita Simpson - Portraiture:  Detroit Area Artists    April 18 - May 16

Paint Creek Center for the Arts / First Floor Gallery
407 Pine Street
Rochester, MI  48307
(248) 651-4110
Gallery Hours:  Monday-Thursday 9am-7pm, Friday 9am-5pm, Saturday 9am-4pm

Day 107 - 365/2014

Day One Hundred Seven

Today I ran a lot of errands and I am feeling like someone pulled the cork out of me and all my energy is slowly dripping out...kind of a maybe-I'm-seriously-anemic-again feeling.  BUT I have been thinking a lot about what I want to make postcards of for the Paint Creek Center for the Arts fundraiser "Wish You Were Here".  It will be a show and sale of original artist made postcards that are 4"x6" and you can choose whether to go 50/50 with PCCA or donate all of the proceeds from the sale of your cards.

I've had this really cool theme swirling around in my head.  I just wish I had the chops to draw what I am seeing.  It would be a series of horse-themed mythical creatures...I'm not sure why exactly, it is just what is in my head.  Creatures like kirin, hippocampus, pegasus, (obligatory) unicorn (maybe)...or maybe even slightly more obscure ones.  I made some really really crude/preliminary/what-the-heck-IS-that sketches tonight just to get them on paper.  They are cracking me up, they are so badly drawn.  I truly have what I'd like them to look like in my head -- I am not going to totally give up on this, but they won't be the first cards I actually make...I'm fairly sure of that.

super bad drawings -- just to start to get them out of my head

What I most likely will do for sure:  a series of postcards assembled from carvings I have already on hand.  I made most of them for projects in the artist trading cards group I used to belong to...and some are really old.  It is good pulling them out and working with them.  I think I'd like to stamp the images on card stock (or something a little heavier than paper) and attach them to the postcard and then maybe sew them in place.  I've been thinking about this a lot, too.  But the sewing machine is not something I will be using just yet...these would be hand stitched.  Anyway...here is a look at what I'm working with before I get too inky.

The Marc Bolan carving is old, old, old...the larger bears are from a couple of years ago and the other things are fairly recent carvings.

Thinking of some designs/story lines...

365/2013 - Day 258

it's getting closer

I am curating an exhibit at the Northville Art House in October.  Ellen sent me the proof for the postcard this morning -- it has been pretty much all I could think about all day.  I've secured the art drop off dates, made lists, sent a letter to my artists, made more lists...and I have gone back for "one more look" at the postcard about 30 times...so far.

Here is a rough sneak peek of the front of the postcard -- I LOVE it! The postcard is making things more "real" to me today...I am still kind of in dream land about the thought of me curating a show. 

THANK YOU, Ellen!