Happy Halloween everyone!

"Mus Animatus" Hyungkoo Lee, 2006 - 2007

From my trip to the Venice Biennale last year. Appropriate, isn't it :)

What number are you?

Thanks Catherine for the idea :)

You Are 4: The Individualist

You are sensitive and intuitive, with others and yourself. You are creative and dreamy... plus dramatic and unpredictable. You're emotionally honest, real, and easily hurt. Totally expressive, others always know exactly how you feel. (Really?) At Your Best: You are inspired, artistic, and introspective. You know what you're thinking, and you can communicate it well. At Your Worst: You are melancholy, alienated, and withdrawn. Your Fixation: Envy Your Primary Fear: To have no identity Your Primary Desire: To find yourself Other Number 4's: Alanis Morisette, Johnny Depp, J.D. Salinger, Jim Morrison, and Anne Rice.

What Number Are You?

Dream me a Flower

I haven't posted anything about the journals we started in Kelly's class last June. One thing I love about the taped journal is that its side can accommodate all the magazine images I've been collecting for ages!
So here's a simple page I finished doodling on tonite, with gel markers (Crayola and and Foohy - lucky kids who can play with this all day long :)

I'll still have to find out though how to get my scanner to capture the whole image and not cropping to regular 8x11. Oh well...

2 others unfinished pages:


The title here will say "Hello Gorgeous"

Funny how this beautifully wrapped body fits exactly between the 2 borders of camouflage tape...

So many loves, so little time

Sorry for the bad image, the paper it is too large to fit my scanner

About a month ago took a class at the Center for the Book: Prudy Kohler introduced me to Polaroid transfers. A whole new world...
And I'm sucked into it so quickly I can't barely breathe :)

As a kid, I played with a Polaroid camera but I grew up, got my first SLR, and I don't even know where these first pix are.
5 years ago, I bought a One step express, why??? Oh yeah, I remember, looking for a new apartment and I wanted to have some visual reminders of the visited properties!
Anyway, I can't do transfers with the type of film this camera takes :(
However after reading a zine by Traci Bunkers, I know there are other interesting things to do with a 600 image... More on this later

Here are some of the transfers I've made so far. I was not quite able to get an image transfer (using the negative) with no lift-off, but I still like the effects.



The emulsions transfers seemed more controllable. Totally different effect. For some of these I used the partially imbibed positive left after the image transfer



You can see a couple more at polanoid.net under BaLadiNe.

Since I don't allow myself **yet** to finance a Daylab copy system, I'm trying to figure out how I can take Polaroid pictures with the right type of film; and I'm uncovering such a universe! Old cameras, and in particular Holgas!

I have a brand new all-bells-and-whistles DSLR, but all I'm dreaming of right now is to have an Holgaroid to play with! Ha!

Journal 912!

Sometimes it just happens... Almost at the last minute Thursday I signed up for a class at Sonora's Sanctuary Studio. And then I learned she will have one of 1000 journals for us to look at and contribute into! I've been hoping to find one of these journals for years YEAH!!!!!
Sonora was kind enough to let me bring it home to work on it.
Of course my muse did not want to collaborate much :) So I use one of my favorite theme, Asia, and since I've been doing collage all day with Kelly Kilmer (yeah! another thing I was hoping for) I try applied what I learned in this spread.
So here it is, Ode to Asia.



Stamps by Magenta, 1001stamps and ClubScrap, rice paper and joss paper from my stash, bamboo stencil by ClubScrap, Adirondack inks and my favorite Glitz Spritz "Desert Moon Cactus Gold" from Lindy's gang.


Check out more about 1000 journals here & here

Ushuaia

I really enjoyed this photo by John Flinn published in the Chronicle a year ago.
I saved it and now it's a new entry in one of my journals, adorned with Stampers's Anonymous stamps (w/ Staz-on inks) and acrylic paints from Ranger.

Her eyes (Morgan)

I got to play again!!! Since I wanted to refresh my memory about transfers, here's "her eyes".
I started with an ad from my favorite magazine, teared the eyes away and transfered them on the blank white journal page, just using Golden matte medium. And when it was set, I got my Crayola gel markers and gave them a little make-up.
The next day, looking at the rest of the page that was still desperately white, I had this vision of an oriental/Indian background. I refered to the Rouge de Garance "Voyage en Inde" papers for more inspiration, et voila!
Background paint is Ranger acrylic daubers, birds are stencils from Teesha Moore. I also used distressed and regular Adirondack ink, Sakura Glaze and Souffle, Slick Writer and Koh-I-Noor pens.

Wander where there is no path

Bodice (ClubScrap stamp from the "Textile and Notions" kit) discolored with bleach, collage wings and vintage tissue paper.

More Faux Mail

I bought "Urgent Second class" for a friend this afternoon, that inspired a little faux mail art this evening. I also found one I did some months ago




Stamps by Nick Bantock, Paper Source and Club Scrap; inks: Nick Bantock, Ranger ColorIt Gilding pad, Ranger Distress inks

Another set of 3 ATCs

Doesn't it seem I always do my ATC 3 by 3?
Here are my latest ones.


"L'Elegante" I created for the ClubScrap October 2006 Retreat. I was reading a cool technique about using painted Tyvek for backgrounds. I used Golden fluids acrylics (quinacridone crimson, pyrrole orange and iridescent gold) that I smeared with my fingers on wetted Tyvek. The beautiful lady is from art-e-zine wonderful bank of images. The background design is a ClubScrap stamp from the Paisley kit, and the medallion is paper clay colored with black PearlEx and gold paint.






"Bird of the East" is a very quick one. The main image is part of a ClubScrap stencil done with Adirondack inks. Then I masked the bird and the branch and stamped the background with the Asian characters. I added pieces of distressed Asian pages and a little charm.










For the "Orientalist", I painted the background with Twinkling H2O (I just got the new colors, I have to try them) and stamped some random words. The main image has been cut out from one of these free advertisement postcards. Some stars, Egyptian symbols (ClubScrap stencil) and a distressed stamp from my stash complete the picture.