Lately I have been thinking a lot about revisiting Iceland...

Another ATC swap finished...

It was the last one on my list from last month and now it is done! It was another SWAP-BOT one of 4 ATCs using the same topic but made 4 different ways. I chose flowers as my theme.

Copic markers, sharpies, white pen, hand drawn flower:

Doodled flower with sharpies and copic markers for colors:

Collage of used postage stamps:

Magazine picture, quote, raised sticker:

Meanwhile today I am working on school stuff for my new ELL Science support class and converting yoga videos into .AVI so I can play them also on the TV, which is in the bedroom and has a rug in front of it which is more comfy than my cramped art studio. But there is also more cat hair (not to mention cats who seem to like to walk on my chest and laugh at me when I lay on the floor) so I may have to just make space in my art studio and use my computer.

Of course I could get my butt out the door and actually GO to more classes but I always think of it when no classes are happening.

Still thinking about INTENTIONS...

Early Friday morning thoughts...

Thinking about INTENTIONS.

That word has come up in THREE separate occasions this week, my NIA class on Tuesday, something I read online yesterday, and also my yoga class last night. I think it is a word I need to think about more.

What are my intentions for this blog?
What are my intentions for my art?
What are my intentions for my work (now teaching 6 classes since the new EL Science/History support class was given to me so I have no prep time in the day)
What are my intentions for my life now that I am near retirement? (well ok, 7 months away anyway)

And so on...
Just posting a reminder to myself here really. Think on these!

Catching Up.... again...

A couple more swaps I needed to catch up with. I have been so busy with work and a month long cold that I just have not been doing much art, again. It comes and goes but it is never gone for long.

So this was an ATC from a Swap-bot swap of making an ATC with sheet music and a butterfly on it:

And this was from the Dia de los Muertos post card swap on MMSA. I had started a few others when I was at my friend Leslie's a couple of week's ago but never had time to make them. I will just send in this one.

Both started with a gelli-print background, then I added stamps, collage, washi tape and postage stamp on the ATC. The DOTD card top skull image is from online and I wish I had saved the page so I could credit it. I will look for it when I have a moment, sorry. The La Calavera is one of the Loteria cards in B&W.

Linked to:
Mandarin Orange Monday
Colorful Gelli Party
Creative Every Day

Orange Post Cards!

Still coughing but determined to get some art and swaps done as well as resting this weekend. I showed you some swaps I had already done a week or so ago and am now just finally getting them all sent. They were all for Swap-bot. Here are the last of them for this round: 2 Orange Postcards.

Both are gelli-printed backgrounds with collaged bits of other gelli-prints, used postage stamps, and some rubber stamping.

And these are just in time for Mandarin Orange Monday which I can link to tomorrow!

I have gotten a lot more swaps in over this last couple of weeks and will get something photographed and posted soon!

Linked to:
Mandarin Orange Monday

Almost back... again!

So no sooner than I thought I was back and getting over this cold it hit me for Round #2 and I was down for the count this whole last week, including totally sleeping away all last weekend. Finally now, later this week I am feeling better and hope in a few days this damn cough will be gone.

Meanwhile I took a very long break from my computer and blog and art and anything that did not involve getting over this cold and I am itching to get back to it all!

Last weekend's art play day with my friend Leslie had to be postponed (to this weekend) and luckily the few swaps I had left I have done and just have to send. Sort of neglected the photo taking part this time around but I will be more diligent for the ones to come.

Just wanted to let you know I hadn't fallen off the face of the earth, only felt like it! LOL

ATCs and a drizzling afternoon...

I was all set for another sweltering day today and now this afternoon it is 10 degrees cooler than yesterday and drizzling! No wonder it was so humid earlier! If we had cicadas here I am sure they would have been rubbing those little legs together today!

So I got some postage stamp swaps finished (again Swap-bot) and sat down for an afternoon of ATC making.

The bottom two orange ones are for the Swap-bot Orange ATC with a Punched element. Added some postage stamps, then punched hearts, suns and swirls from some gelli-printed paper to contrast the orange-ness of the rest of the ATCs. A little doodling finishes them off and ready to go a few days early!

The other four are for a swap that needs an ATC with a postage stamp and maybe also for a washi-tape ATC swap. I haven't signed up for that one yet but the ATCs are made just in case.

I decided for me the best way to work the swapping is to check out the swaps, make the items then sign up, just to be sure I would get the items done in time. A lot of the ATC swaps are quick turn-around, meaning there is only a week between signing up and sending your swap, so many are for cards that can be made ahead of time. Those seem to be the kind I can keep up with while I am in school.

A lot of orange!

This long weekend is turning into a lot of orange!

I checked Swap-bot and found a couple of new swaps for orange postcards and ATCs and then realized it was Monday and I wanted to post a photo for Mandarin Orange Monday and there it was, all over my work desk (to which I may also add a link on Wednesday for WOYWW)! *** Edited on Wednesday: I added it!

The cards are collaged bits of gelli printed deli paper onto yet more gelli printed card stock. I collaged it then cut into 2 postcards and an ATC for the swap. Now I will add more bits to them and maybe some doodles to get them ready to send out. You can see my still orange brayer and bits of gelli printed deli paper (I may start calling that GPDP for short!) in the background...

Makes me want to run to the store and buy some orange juice!!

Linked to:
Mandarin Orange Monday
Colorful Gelli Party
Creative Every Day
WOYWW

Getting caught up...

So the last couple of weeks I started back to school, got a rip-roaring cold, managed to get a couple of last swaps done and finally went to check my post office box... and was dazzled with the amazing mail art that came my way! I thought I would show you some of it here.

The swaps were from MMSA (Mail me some art) and Swap-bot as well as a few other things that came my way.

Suzanne @ Stempelkrempel:

Pamela @ Cappuccino Art Journal:

Postal Swap @ MMSA:

Various ATC swaps (Swap-bot and personal):

And several envelopes of stamps traded and other notes and such that I didn't photograph.

And for next weekend, I am looking forward to another Sunday of art play next week with my friend Leslie, who has been very busy making wonderful arty things! Take a peek!

Now that I think I have the being-back-at-work thing figured out again (how quickly we forget over our long wonderful summer break that being back in school zaps the energy right outta ya!), and my obligatory first of the school year cold is done, I think I will be able to get back to being more regular about making art and blogging! Once I figure out how to organize all my new received art! (I should take a photo of my desk now and save it for WOYWW for Wednesday's post!)

Getting back to a routine...

You would never know it by the lack of anything happening here, but now that school has started up again and I am a week or so into it, I think I am getting into a routine that will give me time and energy to do some arts & crafts. Boy oh boy was I tired the first week of school -- getting back to expending all that energy! And I have way more kids this year (even 4 or 5 more in each class seems to take more energy) -- they are saying we will get one more science section so maybe I will go from 38 kids in each class to maybe 36? Yeesh... hard to even think about DOING science with so many kids crammed into a classroom! I don't want to go on more of a tirade but this country really needs to rethink its priorities when it comes to education! I am so glad I will be retiring at the end of this school year!

More art soon!

Autumn Leaf ATC

So today I decided to play a little with my copic markers and stamped an oak leaf onto a card, then colored it in with a variety of pens (first photo). Then I scanned it and used my PaintShopPro program -- yes I *know* I have Adobe Elements 11 but the scanner comes up with the old PSP and I forgot to change it so I used it today. First I just did a negative of the scan (second photo). Then I did a colorize to see what sorts of oranges I could come up with (third photo). You know I like my oranges!

What excited me was how varied the colors were in the negative (second photo). The blues all looked blue to me but there was enough difference in their hues to make their negatives show a wider spectrum of colors.

Linked to:
Mandarin Orange Monday
Blue Monday

Zentangles, Zendoodles, and Rhondoodles, oh my!

I know Zentangles are all the rage, as seen HERE. And apparently Zendoodles are similar as seen HERE.

WHATEVER you want to call it, I like this style of doodling and recently decided to try it a little. I thought what a nice thing to have quietly on my table during boring meetings or in a few moments here and there at school... so I decided to make some ATCs and try out some of the designs. Mine are totally rank amateur and not following any one style in particular other, just mixing it up Rhonda style!

Here is the ATC I made yesterday...

Looking at it this close up I can see where my black pen didn't hit the paper... not obvious at all when you look at it real size (2.5" x 3.5").

The most fun of all of this is scouring the Internet for all the fuss (and legal hassles) about calling an age-old doodle idea/form a "Zentangle" or a "Zendoodle" or whatever people are trying to tradedmark and patent now. And people even pay to get "certified" and then tell you what you must call this line or another line or dot and it is all pretty crazy (stupid-crazy) to me! I mean, give me a break!

I think I will just call mine Rhondoodles and do what I want! So there!

Linked to:
Show and Tell Saturday
Creative Every Day
Inspiration Avenue

Pink Post Cards...

Pink Post cards... Odd thing for a swap (@Swap-bot), I know, but luckily I happened to have a gazillion pink gelli-plate printed deli papers that I could tear up and collage for a post card or two!

These were made by collaging a lot of pink gelli prints (torn up) onto an 8.5"x11" page then cut into post cards and ATC backings. I got 2 PC and 4 ATCs from one page of collage. I like them as is, but may spend a little time looking for other things to collage onto them while I watch TV later.

Linked to:
Paint Party Friday
Pink Saturday

A background page and more ATCs...

To start out, this morning I made another painted collage sheet which I will cut up for ATCs. It is a piece of card stock that I had gelli printed last weekend and I added collaged elements. When I cut it, each ATC will have parts of the whole and then I can add more elements for each card. I can get 10 from one 8.5" x 11" page. (Google ATC template images and you will see)

And then I made some more ATCs for a swap from Swap-bot.

Not sure why these didn't scan so well... guess I need to check my scanner settings again. Oh well, they are already packaged up and ready to send so I will just have to be satisfied with this quality of picture of them this time.

Linked to:
Glue It Tuesday

Template for A2 size envelope

I spent a little time making more A2 size envelopes this morning and thought I would show the template (shape) I used. I used it to cut out the shapes from gelli-printed topo maps just cause I was too lazy to take scissors and do it that way!

This is what the template looks like.

So if you have a Silhouette (die cutting machine) you can take this JPG and open it on your Silhouette, trace it and then save it as a studio file. After mucking around for quite a few minutes on Blogger, I find there is no place on Blogger to upload a file for you and Flickr doesn't see STUDIO files as anything it can upload. But it is easy enough. I used it on 8.5 x 11 inch paper and it worked fine!

If nothing else, just print it and trace around it with scissors!

Now to weed through all that old scrapbook paper I don't want and make envelopes!

More ATCs and some handmade envelopes...

Yesterday and this morning I made some more ATCs to swap. Flowers for the Swap-Bot Floral ATC swap, and wouldn't you know it, I forgot to scan all 4. These are the two left over. The ones sent were similar but in pink and purples. The background is gelli printed onto watercolor paper and the flowers hand drawn with Posca pens and Sharpies.

I need to come up with a good system of cataloging and storing my ATCs now that I am back to doing them. When I used to trade these before (late 1990s into the early 2000s) I didn't have much of any system and it drove me nuts! This time I plan to start out with at least a spreadsheet and addresses in a file. I could probably Google it and someone may have already made one available out there.

Then I had a request for some of the postal ATCs I had already sent out to the MMSA swap so I made some more to swap. I am not sure why I keep making five, which is an awkward number to scan!

And then I made some handmade envelopes to send the swaps in. I used some of the old topo maps I have that I have used to clean off my brayer from gelli printing. Big swatches of colors with the topo map showing through here and there. One of the fronts:

And one of the backs, glued closed then decorative washi tape on top.

Linked to:
August Gelli Party
Show and Tell Saturday

Back to Mail Art...

Years ago (like 20) I was very deep into mail art and swaps, with things constantly gracing my table that I had gotten or needed to send out. Then I stopped... (and many years went by where no art happened)... and now the Mail Art bug is back! There is something so fun about making a post card or an ATC (Artist Trading Card) and sending it off to anywhere in the world... and then getting one back again!

And then yesterday I got my first Mail Art in the form of a post card from Leslie! Testing out my new PO Box and making it pretty!

I hadn't played with the gelli plate for a while and it was calling to me so I made some starter background pages this morning which I will turn into post cards (or maybe ATCs, although I prefer to do a whole page then cut it specifically for those). I will do some more with these before I cut them into card sizes to wait to send out. I love the gelli plate... so simple: paper and paint and the result is always fun! (If not, just do another print over and eventually you have an unexplainable thing of beauty!).

Here's a close-up of one I particularly liked:

And here are my very high=tech techniques for some of the patterns...

For the bubble lines:

And for the overlapping circles, I just used this contraption several times on the gelli plate before I printed...

Here is how you make it:

Told you it was high-tech!

So now to just join more swaps and find some new Mail Art buddies and I am good to go!

If you would like to trade mail art (post cards or ATCs) please contact me using the contact form in the tabs above if you want to set up a specific swap. For just random Mail Art postcards, feel free to send me a post card and I will send you one in return. Don't forget your return address! My addy for mail art is:

Rhonda H.
P.O. Box 292745
Sacramento, CA 95829

Looking forward to seeing your fun mail art!

Linked to:
August Gelli Party
Paint Party Friday
Creative Every Day

Art Room Cleanup and WOYWW #217

Ok there is NOT a before photo cause it was such a mess I could not even find my camera! So, many hours later, here is the cleaned up art side of the room. The other side is clean too although filled with storage boxes with things to put away! At least there is a wide expanse of floor for a change! My old cat Pandora still lives over on the other side of the room and the wall container shelves continue to the end of the wall. The rest of the other walls are book shelves and then my desk/computer, printers, etc.

Here is part of the room:

Then here is my table for WOYWW, nothing on it to show except for a clean surface!

And here are some postcards I made at Leslie's on Sunday. Got the ATCs done and mailed off. These are just backgrounds for one of the future post card swaps. I was in a "brights" mood on Sunday!

It's a slow start getting back to doing art after letting it go over the last month of summer. But now that I am home from my travels and with the prospect of work (school) approaching, I find I want to spend time doing some art. This is good. It gives balance to the work day for me.

Linked to:
WOYWW

Getting back to art and garden goodies...

Yesterday I finally got off my butt and cruised down to Tracy (in my new car which I am loving -- love the hybrid, how quiet it is!). Had another play day with my friend Leslie.

As she explains in her blog we chatted and goofed off a lot, then finally buckled down and made some ATCs. I have not made Artist Trading Cards for oh maybe 18 or 20 years so it was fun getting back to doing some! Leslie told me about the MMSA (Mail Me Some Art) swaps and that has totally captured my attention now! The theme is Postal Art. Here are the five I made:

Then today Andy and I did some fruit picking. Here is the last of the apricot harvest (so few pieces of fruit this year but they have spectacular flavor to make up for it!):

And the first of the figs. Remember that fake owl we put out HERE? Well... apparently the birds are too smart for it! They had already started chowing down on the ripe figs so we brought in a huge batch. Probably have one or two more hauls to bring in this next few days and next week. I have NO idea what to do with so many figs! This is the first year we have managed to get any from the birds!

Linked to:

Mandarin Orange Monday

Back from Oregon...

and not a single bit of blogging from the road, even though I thought I might. Just decided to take a break, posted a few pics on Instagram and in FB but mostly just hung out and enjoyed myself.

Including going to places like Collage in Portland and oogling their wall of washi tape...

I only let myself get a couple of them... ok, maybe 3 or 4. Really! Not going to mention that I had already found a few other new tapes I didn't have and got them when I was in Eugene visiting my sister, nope, not going to mention that at all!

Gotta unpack, continue on my art room revamp that I sort of started before I left but have a bunch more to do, then get back to doing some art! I have 3 more weeks before I will have to think about school (work) again!

Watching the figs until I return...

Ok This year I am giving the birds warning... I want to eat some of MY figs too!! Last couple of years the birds got them all!

Andy put the owl up a few days ago and I am leaving it in charge of guarding MY figs until I get back in 10 days... leaving at the crack of dawn tomorrow for Oregon. I may actually blog from on the road since I am taking my Netbook with me and I don't do much at nights. I am bringing my art journal too and hopefully will get more done in it than what I didn't get done in Alaska! Show and tell later!

Sunflower Sunday...

How these flowers explode out nearly overnight in such glory is beyond me, but we managed to have one decent sunflower this year amidst a bunch of mangly near dead stems (that heat did NOT help them!)... Still it is lovely to see even one!

Summer of Color Week #4

As I mentioned in the post below, this week's Summer of Color colors are pale pink and charcoal gray, neither of which are colors I use much. In fact, I was thinking of doing something with the Copic pens I have and came to find out I had neither pale pink nor charcoal (or any) grey colors! So I went for another plan...

And yes I know, in theory one spells it "GRAY' in America, and "GREY" in Europe, but I just like to spell it with the E so there! Anyway apparently so did Kristin for the challenge because that is how she spelled it!

So I started with the Moleskine journal which I had gelli printed some pink using bubble wrap (see photo from HERE on Wednesday -- it's the journal on the lower right of the photo). Then I decided to attempt drawing a face and the comment just came to me after staring at my wonky face for a while! I had added a bit of turquoise for the background (which looks a lot greener in the photo) and used a combination of various grey-ish pens and pencils that I had for the hair.

Linked to:
Summer of Color Week #4
Paint Party Friday
Art Journal Everyday

WOYWW #213

I didn't manage to keep going with this linky in June because I was gone for a couple of weeks, and then for the next 2 weeks I will be gone again (I love summer vacation!), but here is one WOYWW entry in between! A little late in the day but it is still Wednesday here!

I realized I needed to get started on the weekly Summer of Color entry (this week is pale pink and charcoal grey) so I started by getting out the trusty gelli plate and making a couple of pink pages. I used some bubble wrap to get the textures. I made a deli paper page and a couple of pages in my 2 current art journals.

Not sure yet what I will do for the grey part but I will think of something!

Linked to:
WOYWW Week #213
July's Colorful Gelli Party

Summer of Color Week #3

Well here it is Sunday and I had not worked on my choice for the Summer of Color challenge. This week it is LIME GREEN and PURPLE! I do love these colors but have not done much with them together. And as you may have read in the last post, this week has been a busy although non-arty week for me.

So what better place to look for purple and green than in my garden... granted it has been over 100 degrees lately and a lot of flowers are very dead and wilted, but I did find these 2 purple lovelies this morning.

My lovely foxgloves are in full bloom:

And what is left of my hollyhock, which had a very poor showing this year:

Perhaps I will play with those photos in Photoshop Elements 11 this next week when I teach myself about filters and image manipulations...

Linked to:
Summer of Color Week #3