Funky Art Queen

I wanted to enter this piece in the illustration Friday. It is my first entry for that challenge. http://stores.ebay.com/Peace-In-My-Art/ I hope that you are inspired!

I completed my little purse today. I worked on it all yesterday and some today. I did a lot of stiching on it and that is what took the most time. This is the printed fabric I demonstrated the technique on yesterday on this blog. I stamped the printing with stazon ink and some of my stamps. I used the letters printed on fabric and sewed around them after fusing them on with that fusing material. I sewed on little faux antique hearts, a button and my favorite thing: a real rusty old key. You can hardly see it here in this pic-on the right. I also sewed little jewels around two sides. This was a soothing piece of art. I had forgotten how soothing the repetitive motion of making little seams can be. It brought back memories of when I used to embroidery around printed fabric to make little pillows and baby blankets.

I was asked to do a little tutorial of the printing on fabric method. Remember, I got the idea from the Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine Issue 5 -pg 72. The article was about making fabric journals but this is what I gathered from it. I'm currently working on another purse. Here are the printing instructions. First get your supplies. You will need ink jet printer, a piece of card stock, masking tape, scissors, and a pencil. You will also need a piece of white or vanilla colored cotton fabric, ironed and ready to go. The pencil is to trace around your card stock for a pattern for the paper. You will want to cut the fabric a little smaller than the card stock so it will be flush with the edges. You will need to have a picture on your computer ready for printing. Next, begin to use the masking tape to tape the material to the cardstock. Keep it flush with the edges. Do all sides like this making sure the tape is smoothed down and smooth in the back. Now place it in your printer either...

For the past few days, I have been experimenting with fabric transfers, or rather, printing on fabric. The first thing I did was printing on fabric as suggested by an article in one of my favorite art magazines; Cloth, Paper and Scissors. You have to use card stock-cut the material a little bit smaller and use masking tape to tape it to the card stock so you can run it through the ink jet printer. The picture you see here with the lady is what I came up with. I pasted it to my journal and journaled on it. Today, I went to Hobby Lobby and purchased some transfer material-silk type. I transferred a pic of Frida Kahlo to it and used a fusing material to fuse it to the purse you see here. Then I basted around it with embroidery thread and glued some colored glass stones and placed a pin cross on it. The other side of the little evening bag has an iron on "F" in little rhinestones. I am very pleased with this. It really gets my mind going about all the things you can do with mater...

I finally finished one of the train cases I collaged for a friend. I sent her the pics today. I hope she likes it. I was going for the funky/girly look. That is the hard thing about doing custom work. It is so hard to determine what other people like. But, I always give them the option to "opt out" and let me sell it on ebay or some other way and I will try again. Anyway, here it is. These are fun little redone Vintage Cases. You can use them for your cosmetics to travel or whatever you like. This particular one has a key (see it on a chain at the top). I'm decorating a really FUNKY one for me to carry all my journal stuff in. Gotta have it with me at all times. Have a GREAT DAY!

I decided to start a yahoo group for like minded individuals. There are only two of us right now but I am looking for some members to join us. We will learn all kinds of new things together and share our art work. Check in and see if it is something you would like to do! See My Link on the side and check it out! It's not much yet but it needs members!!! We will get it going!

The Funky Art Queen and her King 

I can't tell you how glad I am that it is Friday! Shew! What a week. I still have a full day ahead of me but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I want to show you this newest piece I did. It seems to go with the Creative Challenge regarding "frames" in my favorite yahoo group. I was borrowing the idea from Karen Michel to use metal tape as a means to frame your picture. I used metal tape-had to get the guy at the hardware store to show me where it was after searching for a good 15 minutes! (By the way, hardware stores have some interesting things one could use in their art.) Anyway, I put the tape on, stamped it all over with a stamp with fancy writing-tiny. Then I used a stylus to put the swirls on the sides. That did not seem like enough so I embellished the frame with some eyelets (sp?). So, I still don't like this work! I did not like the lettering, I wish I would have had some smaller alphabet stamps-that is now on my list. And, I'm not totally thril...

It was a busy weekend. I finished this piece of the "Funky Girl" and I worked on two art cases. I have almost finished one and the other one-I'm still trying to figure out how I want it. I am making this one for me to carry my art journals in. I plan to use these for an article I am going to submit to Sommerset Studio. I will have to get my sister to edit it-I'm artsy but my grammar... not so good. I have added pics to flickr and was thrilled this a.m. to have some comments from someone. http://www.flickr.com/photos/80106868@N00/ I'm one page short of being finished with the journal I was making with watercolor paper. I could not figure out how to bind it like I initially planned so I used little rings like for notebooks. It came out ok but I want to explore book binding. I'm going to post it on ebay before the week is over.

So I bought one of those little instant photo cameras by Polaroid called an IZone 200. It was about 14.00 dollars and the film was around $10 for a pack of three. I bought this at Christmas time I believe and did not really use it until now. I lost my instructions and could not figure out how to load the darn thing. It's really not that hard but I think I was supposed to be a blond . Heehee. So I figured out how to load the thing by going to the Polaroid site (I guess there are a lot of dingy people like me out there). But this morning I discovered their "Creativity" site. This is really cool. http://www.polaroid.com/creative/index.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524441759987&bmUID=1141993848831&bmLocale=en_US If you are interested in Polaroid transfer techniques-the instructions are here. Also, it has a great craft section (see the link at the bottom) for all kinds of fun things to do with Polaroids. Do you still have your old Polaroid? Anyway, instant gra...

I finally finished this piece. I would be interested in knowing what it means to you. That is the cool thing about art, there is no right interpretation. If you read earlier what this piece means to me then your ideas about it are already tainted with mine. If not, tell me what you think about it. Even if you did read my intentions earlier, I would love to hear your thoughts on this. It is a 16"X20" Mixed Media piece. I used collage elements to help create the feel I was going for.

The boys went to a concert tonight and so it's just me and Heather. Wonderful and quiet evening. I created this piece and I am almost done with the abstract piece I had posted earlier. I will post it as soon as it dries. But here is my "Free Spirit" piece. I will post it on ebay tonight!!!

This is the project I have been working on. It is a mixed media piece. The title is "Not Whole Without You". Everything in the picture/collage will be a half-not whole. This is incomplete but I wanted you to see the process. This weekend, my goal is to stay focused on this project and to work on that darn train case that I keep procrastinating. We'll see how that goes. I will post the completed project when I am done. Think positive thoughts for me! Happy Friday!

My goal this year is to get published in some way with my art. I am sending some pieces to Sommerset Studio. I am thinking of sending some slides and an application to CraftHouston 2006-I received something in the mail for this. I also think of writing some type of article for one of the many art magazines I read. That is my goal. I'm currently working on many things. I have a hard time staying focused on any one thing. This week, I'm working on a piece for the art show in Houston. I will put up the pic when it is done. I'm working on a Vintage Train Case for a friend and of course my little art journal. I have made a new friend in my journal art group on yahoo and she has agreed to make an entry in my circle journal. I will post some photos tonight to give you an idea of what is going on around here. Bye for now