Recycled

There is another new term for recycled that sort of means the same thing, re-purposed. Taking something and using it in a new way. Hmmmm. Well the prompt here for the Art Journal 52. 2014 used recycled. I found an old mono print from my "man of blue" series that just never seemed to be finished or framed. I began by adding some black ink lines and some white lines. I liked what was happening. I thought it would be fine to put on this journal page.

A detail of the page shows this little mono print which is about a 4 inch round. It was just what I needed to begin my page.

The man of blue was somehow entangled with a unicorn! I decided to end that experiment there. I had some other objects gathered for my recycled page. There is a piece with a quote from a box of tea, a round gold closure from an old note card, a bit of a printed article and some card crafting ephemera (a scallop punched item and a key stamp).

I set off using an acrylic blue to get the background on the page started and then added the darker blue spots. As I moved on I added the gold circle and the eye like image appeared so I developed that. I just kept adding paint. I felt it needed something. Yellow. That was it. I thought the print would pop more with some yellow along the one edge. Then I glued the print on to the page. The edges of the print were not glued so the key stamped paper and the one with the words could be tucked under a bit. More yellow went in the upper left corner to balance things out and the tea box fit just perfect. At that point the eye did not look finished so I added  a yellow ring around the gold the lavender ring around the eye and some ink lines.  It was just about finished when I put the little white dots on the lavender ring and blue dots. I think the key to some meaning may be in the eye........comments?

Art as a Cause

Another Art Journal 52 2014 prompt. Art is my personal life raft that I have been riding on for a long time. Actually as long as I can remember. There are so many things that I counted on and when they failed I climbed aboard. I cling to my art to help me get past the trials and tribulations. For a while the waters have been calm and the choppy treacherous waves have not washed over me. Suddenly I faced a difficult physical  challenge and just before I had to run the gauntlet I found the Art Journal 52 project. I thought it a good way to sail through the days ahead. I knew I would not be able to attempt too much in the way of art projects, but this art journal seemed doable.

Mixed media is new for me to do this year. I love that there are no to rules to follow for this mixed media journal project. A lifetime of rules sometimes stands in my way, but I am having a wonderful time with the projects Chelle Stein posts prompts for the group members every week for inspiration. She offers a project of her own and some words to set us thinking. Then each artist is free to go our own way. Art as a cause was shared by many in the group. This time I did it for me.  

How Does Your Garden Grow

Completed "How Does Your Garden Grow" page.

What comes to mind is with silver bells and cockle shells....but that is from another time. My garden now is just in my mind and gets out into my artwork. I also take lots of photographs for reference too.

Detail of little poem.

What comes to mind is with silver bells and cockle shells....but that is from another time. My garden now is just in my mind and gets out into my artwork. I also take lots of photographs for reference too. This is again a prompt from Journal 52 200014. I painted a rosy pink sky, then added white for clouds and the irises. Something seemed to be missing so I added the complimentary green leaves. I could not bring myself to add more to the original composition (in progress below) so I made a color copy of the original.  I added stamping, drawing and my little verse (detail above).

Original painted composition in progress.
My intent is to complete this later.