I'm BAAAACK

My daughter and I hit the road for a week exploring Colonial Williamsburg and it's environs. The trip down I-95 after Washington DC was BORING. It may be the fastest way to go but not the most scenic. Next time we take the DelMarVa penninsula. There's less truck traffic and lots of nice little places to stop at along the way.

I managed to purchase some wonderful stuff along the way, including a stop at The Queens Ink (http://www.queensink.com/) in Savage Mills, Maryland. The shop is located in an old mill that has many stores for those who like to create. The whole downstairs in an Antique Store! I was in heaven but my daughter doesn't have the patience for dealings with Mommy's ramblings so we just went to the store, purchased a few much needed items and left. I intend to go back by myself someday in the near future.

More digital work

Somerset Studio's new special issue "Digital Studio" has really lit a fire under me. I have some new digital work to display.

Trying out digital work

Sometimes to break out of an artistic rut you need to go in a totally different direction. I have been spending the last couple of weeks collecting new items (magic lanterns slides, old cabinet photos, etc.) and now I am starting to play with them. Here's the result of my first digital experiment.

Artists' collections

I purchased latest book by Lynne Perella about artists' personal collections and what they use them for when it comes to their artwork. After reading that book, I don't feel like such a "junk collector" anymore. I have to admit my biggest inspiration comes from photographs. Whether they are old or new, color or black and white, slides made from glass or prints on paper, every picture seems to tell a story. While an illustrator can manipulate a picture to evoke a certain feeling, for a long time photographs where either in the portrait catagory or the "snapshot". Either way, they capture the person even when posed. Sometimes in old daguerrotypes you can see a drape over a person who is holding the child in the photograph. Othertimes, the photo just shows a moment when the camera caught everyone holding still for a moment. The person sitting for the portrait is wearing their best dress or suit. The person in the snapshot was taken candidly when they were not looking or temporarily posed for a momento for a certain day. Even looking at photographs of myself as child tell me a story.

When inspiration strikes

Sometimes, inspiration can be a bit of costly endeavor. I love to peruse antique stores and flea markets. Most of the time, I have a rule of not paying more than $5 for any one item, because if it's worth more than that, then I shouldn't be making it into a piece of art. Sometimes, I'll flex the rule a little bit, especially when it comes to things I can scan. One such item was a dageurrotype I just had to have. I negotiated the price down a bit and then put a deposit on it because I just didn't have the money and won't until the next payday. It is a wonderfully preserved photo of girl against a rather unusual background of a cityscape. At one point the photo had been tinted a bit - as often was the case back then. The cheeks bear traces of the pink hue. But the contrast is still preserved, and it still sits in its original leather case. How could I pass it up? Sometimes, you just know you'll regret it if you let something go. I am now waiting for payday so I go and pick up my beautiful photo.

SPACE! The final frontier - no longer

My father has agreed to give me some space in one of the out buildings of the cabin for my artwork. The place was previously owned by a couple of artist and one of them used to do iron forging. He's allowing the space for my work. Hooray!!! I will finally have space enough to start playing with soldering techniques and making jewelry. We'll have to look at getting a table, but there's already electrical sockets. I can get an old indoor/outdoor carpet remant to put on the floor. Maybe there's already some shelves in there - if not I can put some up. Better is that I can move some of my stuff from home up there and free up space to have a living room again. I can never thank my father enough for this!

Using scraps

You don't need a lot of money to get art supplies. My favorite source material to work on is old cereal boxes. I save them, flatten them down and when I need some card stock to trade I cut up the box. The scraps go into the recycling bin to get reused to make more cardboard boxes.

I like to save odd things to work into my artwork - fortunes from fortune cookies, the tissue paper that a gift came wrapped in, decorated paper bags, old cards, fashion magazines and junk mail. I can cut up, punch out, gesso over and recycle whatever I need. I use an old 1930s textbook for my art journal. I've glue a couple of pages together, cover with a light coat of gesso, then color with some water soluble crayons (Caran D'ache Neocolor II are my favorites). I then will paste an image somewhere on the page (usually in the corner). The page is ready for me to write on. I work a few pages ahead - so there are always some available should an idea hit me in the middle of the night. I also cut out pages and glue other artwork in. I find old text books the best for altering because they were designed to take abuse. The pages are usually sewn and glued in pretty secure. Children are not kind to their text books.

Old textbooks also make a good source of vintage paper to use for artwork and sometimes the illustrations are worth keeping. Recycling should never be limited to just the blue bins for the trash. Make something into art instead!