Traveling Time

My wings have been clipped and I have not been out and about much since having the lower back surgery in January. Journal 52 2014 has kept me in art projects. I had fun doing the travel page for week 22.

The world map in the suitcase is a maybe dream, as is taking a cruise. The map shows my current travel area.

Sailing ships or large crusing ships would be nice, but my boundries are much smaller currently. I have only been roaming from DeKalb (home town) to Lake County IL, Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee in WI, then toward Chicago. That is what inspired this journal page. My travels had been mostly by car early in the year after surgery during the recovery period. Back to work full time May 1st took the wind out of my sails! See the Windjammer on the page? Work, home and a few days of therapy after work before getting home. Now I am doing aqua therapy in the pool at the apartment complex with a friend to "babysit" and enjoy the pool with me.

My travels had been mostly by car

1st GOTB trip north to Racine and Milwaukee

I took my first Get On the Bus Trip with the Friends of the NIU Art Museum to see the Frank Lloyd Wright newly opened tower at the Johnson Wax campus in Racine. Closed to visitors for decades we could only view the structure from the outside on a previous visit when I went on the Brut-Art GOTB trip mentioned in a previous post. This time the tower was open to visitors and we had the full tour.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/frank-lloyd-wright-designed-sc-johnson-research-tower-finally-goes-public-b99252995z1-256287561.html
TOUR info
http://www.scjohnson.com/en/company/visiting.aspx

In November my horizons will expand to visit Brown County IN on another GOTB trip. I do love to travel see the stamped hearts. This trip my body will do much better. I still tire easily and stamina is at a low ebb, but we have pain on the run!

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.