Exchange 3

So, my plan was to finish Ellen's book and my new book for exchange 3 in the weekend and mail Ellen's book today to Anders. But Alas, it wasn't meant to be... there just wasn't enough time.

And also, I really dreaded to start my book - why? at first I couldn't quite say, then I realized that I already started it a few months back, not intending it for an exchange and there was a beginning of a double spread which I just didn't want to work on - it was too old.

Then I decided to actually start a fresh page - the page I usually don't do any work on in the beginning of the book, once that was done, it was a lot easier to get back to the first spread and finish that. So, I still need to complete 2 and a half pages in it before it goes to Molly, but there was a lot of progress made ot day, so I'm pretty happy!
 

Shrine to the Goddess of distraction

I got all distracted from my work procrastinating by building this alter to the Goddess of Procrastination and now I shall have to procrastinate further by building a shrine to the Goddess of Distraction!!!

Thanks, AYA! I did it hastily, but it was fun and I am going to set it up to remind myself, for whatever good that will do!!! AK!

Biffybeans: Last page in my book, collaboration for Ellen

Well... here goes nothing. Finished my last page in my own book. A collaboration piece left for Ellen. I am trying to decide whether or not to add any decoration to the cover but I will be shipping to Ellen soon. I am still a bit blown away at the prospect of letting this book go and the way in which it will be returned to me in a year's time. With all of the work I've been doing pertaining to personal growth, it just seems like the most perfect exercise at the most perfect time. It also falls into the category of, "If you love something, set it free..."

In Ellen's book pocket

A little DIY shadow box, as an altar to the goddess of procrastination (we all need that...) I made one for us to see if it works.




If anyone else wants one, you can print it, paint it and glue it.
if you do, please post pictures! I want to see. 

Pages 4,5 and 6 in Ellen's book

Pages 4 and 5 and a half page for Anders, with some more "small gods".

I have a cool idea for the pocket, but not sure if I'll have time for it tomorrow, I do want to get this out on Monday.

798

One down for Mary's.

In my Moleskine

Typically, my style is very abstract. For me though, this exchange is about trying new things. While I'm sure a lot of my stuff will fall into the abstract category, I'd like to continue pushing myself into drawing more realistic things. Maybe even a person or a self portrait at some point! I've always considered myself terrible at drawing people! I need to get over that!

My first piece is a two page spread that started out as something, and turned into something else. I'm pretty happy with the final result though. This was done in colored pencils, a blue Staedtler fineliner pen, and then I went over the whole piece with fluid acrylic paint in a transparent metallic blue color. I like the effect that I got with the acrylic paint. It's difficult to see how it really looks from the photos though.

Here's my second piece. I really like Koi, and I think they're beautiful fish! I believe they're also supposed to be good luck? :) This is probably my first attempt ever at drawing fish. They may be cartoon-like, but I still like them. I did this with colored pencils also.

I still have 1 page left plus my collab page before I'm ready to ship to Mary, but I plan to get started on those this weekend!

Last two in Round 3 Mole

1)We got snow down our necks: watercolor with masking fluid and salt

2)first half of a collaboration with Ammon: pen and ink, touch of watercolor.

This completes my four 1/2 pieces in my own mole. I will be sending it off to Ammon as soon as I create some pocket stuff.

Goddesses of small pains (in Ellen's book)

Took advantage of Ned and I having a day off today to finish pages 2 and 3 on Ellen's book. The first steps in this drawing were actually taken on the train on Monday on the way to IKEA.

An Andrea & Ash Collab (from Aya's Book)

This is too good not to share... and I needed a "test project" to learn some things on my new laptop, so... here's a spread from Aya's Round 2 book, which I have now. Andrea gave Ash a segment of a photo (the shirt). Ash drew the amphibious guy wearing it. Fun, huh?

I'm using this pic to test my "new laptop learning curve." With this blogpost, I have demonstrated my ability to:

1.) successfully download pics to laptop from my old Sony Mavica (didn't try the new Sony Cybershot yet);

2.) manipulate them mildly in HP MediaSmart (yeah, it's no Adobe Photoshop, but for blogging away from my office/iMac, it works just fine); and

3.) actually locate the photo file(s) on demand, HA!

Ain't life grand? I am beginning to realize it may be alright that I didn't enlist for Round 3, as I thought I was almost done with Round 2. Just Aya's book here with me now & Anders' book, which hasn't arrived yet. But I discovered yesterday that I may also have Steve's book to do! I don't think it has come thru me yet. I think it got out of shipping order somehow too, like Anders' book? Aya's book should have been the last book to come to me, yet it's here now. I'm not sure who I have left to do, to be honest. I will have to go back to my photo files & count. I guess I am still in the exchange after all!

Biffybeans: Third and Fourth in My Own Book

99.99% of the time I create art without thinking. This means that something started can end up as something else - which is what happened on both of these pieces. When I tried to add some Zinc White acrylic over a Neocolor II mandala, they all smeared.... (Which is how the background tint evolved.) But I didn't care. I grabbed a brush & some black gesso & painted over it and then added white gel pen doodles. 1st layer black gesso, then I pasted in some pretty wrapping paper, tried to do Neocolor mandala in similar colors, white paint, black gesso, then white gel pen. The End.



This girl started out in colored pencil. (You can still see some of it.) I felt like I was "pushing" when I created her. (To me, "pushing" means creating art when I'm not fully present and I usually make a mess.) I filled the background with craft paint, then eventually obscured what I'd started with. The message seemed appropriate. Kind of like the old, "You gotta break some eggs if you want to make an omlette."

1 more piece before I'm ready to ship and it's a collaborative piece for Ellen. When I bought this Folio, I didn't realize there was an actual "Sketchbook" version with 160g paper. I bought a blank journal... which means plenty of pages for people to always work on the right hand side of the page if they choose.

Speaking of portraits...

Seeing Roma's great post about self-portraits (and the wonderful photo of her with her self-portrait got me thinking... The way that I met Aya was through painting her portrait. She was a contact through etsy and flickr, but I found her photos so inspiring that I did a painting of her and one of Ned, then asked her if I could send them to her. Eventually, we met "in real life". Now, she is the channel through which I have met all of you.

I am thinking that it would be fun to do a portrait of each person in their moleskine when it reaches me (only if you want!). So... if you do want your portrait in your mole, just tell me at some point before it reaches me, and email me an image to work from.

Self-portrait Time

Lately I've wanted to paint myself. By way of background, I hate seeing photos of myself. I'm always putting my hand in front of my face when someone tries to take a photo of me. And when I see the image, I think to myself, Is that how I look? Really??

So I have this idea that if I paint myself over and over, I'll overcome the disconnect I feel whenever I see a picture of myself. That's my theory anyway.

This weekend I worked on another self-portrait for my third Moleskine piece in my own book. Oddly, it started out kind of looking like me but the more I worked on it the more it ended up looking like an elderly woman that owned a card shop where I worked when I was about 13.

Taking Aya's cue (of photographing herself with her journal) I snapped a shot of me next to my self-portrait. The good news is I don't look like Mrs. Kinney--yet. The bad news is, I'm still not so good at doing my self-portrait. :)

Waking up early

I decided to finish with Ellen's book before I start working on the new book for exchange 3. I started this at around midnight last night working on and off while very large photoshop files from a shoot that morning were saving and I couldn't work on the computer.

We got up at 8:00 that morning, to start shooting at 10:00, and stayed up till 5:00 AM, it felt like a whole week went by in one day.

The Heat is On

Ellen's book made it today, while Ned and I were shooting 5 girls for Ford at the same time!
I've been so busy lately, (I don't know if busy is the right word, I can't quite remember what I was busy doing) and very sluggish in general.
 
I have an art show early April I was hoping to have a lot more work ready for, Fashion Week is in a couple of weeks and Ned and I are shooting the shows for a fashion website, and my Etsy store really need some attention and new items, h and I have some orders I haven't started working on...

So, I'm getting really stressed about everything, I hope I can get my ass together and go back to making art more hours every day to catch up. damn, I need more hours in the day...


I really wanted to take a photo of Ginger and the book, so you can see how much she's grown in the past couple of month. However, she had to spend a lot of hours in her crate and tethered to my desk today while the shoot was on, so that was basically all of her "I'm being good" energy spend, and she just wouldn't do it.


So then I decided to forget about it and pose with the book myself (as you can see, I slept about 4 hours last night...)

Which of course meant...

Biffybeans: 1st and 2nd pieces in her own book

My 1st entry in my own book. Black Bob Ross Acrylic Gesso (which isn't very black) and Colleen colored pencils. Big mandala.



2nd entry in my own book. Artist grade watercolors, Liquitex Black Gesso & white Uniball gel pen. The woman on the left seems to be pointing to the left coast.....  another hint to go and visit Portland OR?

When I was making these pieces, it suddenly dawned on my that when I send this book off, I won't see it again for a whole year. Sure, I'll see some of the art online, but to think that it is going to travel the states through the hands of 12 different people... that is just too cool for school. Oh, and not to mention that I get to leave my mark in 11 other books! What fun!

First page in my own book

Well, yikes. It turns out I don't really know anything about using watercolors (that's my A4 watercolor mole), but I like the distorted close-ups well enough. I guess that is part of the beauty of participating in this exchange: the push to try new media. At least I will (theoretically) get most of the really messy initial stumbling out of the way in my own book!

Eyeballs on a Plate

I finished my first spread last night. Those are eyeballs on a plate--strange, yes, I know!

I was inspired by my favorite saint, Santa Lucia, who carries her eyeballs on a plate. She is the patron of clarity, vision, lucidity, light, anything to do with eyes or seeing or blindness.




So here's to having clarity about what's important in life, and about my creative passions!

Holy Moly!

I got my moleskine yesterday, and last night I started work on it. I bought the A4 Sketch book, not the Watercolor--the store I found them at didn't carry Watercolor, and it was getting too late to order. I kind of like the way the pages in this book buckle a bit when I paint with gouache on them, but I'm going to have to be careful to not use too much water. If you have any hints or tips on this, let me know.

What I'm working on is a self-portriat for the first spread. The photo above shows how far I got last night. I'll try to finish the spread tonight or tomorrow night. That's me on the left, or at least, my interpretation of me. (My husband doesn't think it looks much like me at all.) In my hand, which will show up on the right side, I'll be carrying something on a plate. The theme of this piece will be Vision and Clarity. I'm trying to gain both in my work and my life in 2011.

A little about myself. I work under the pseudonym "ybonesy." It's pronounced ya-bones-ie. It's a word my youngest daughter made up when she was eight or nine. I have two girls, now both young teens. I live with them and my husband in the Rio Grande Valley. I paint and do collage (in my spare time, as I have a full-time job) and I write. I also make jewelry with my paintings and doodles. I had a blog with a friend for four years; it's called red Ravine. I published a lot of my work there. I just left it this year. It's a great blog. I miss the camaraderie, and I didn't want to leave but felt if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to focus on my art as much as I want to. I hope this project will keep me producing throughout the year.

I guess that's it for now. I'll post the finished spread in a day or so. Cheers to you all.

We got Snow in our Boots (Round 3)

"We got snow in our boots."

Water color and water color blocker (masking fluid). No gouache. (click image to view larger.)

This is the piece whose sketch I ruined and had to do over. I did it without references--I do better with references, but my computer was unavailable.

(At least I am feeling a little better today.)

Frosty Window & Teacup Collab

Upper image: My Mom gets as much credit for this one as I do. I drew the image & painted it, but she gave me the idea for the frosted window treatment. She is a crafter & was making wintry greeting cards at the same table while I was painting. She was using pressed dryer sheets & glitter to make a "frosted look" on her cards. I had to try it, of course. Photos never capture the fun of any tactile, textural frills I add to my art. Especially annoying, since this "frosted" treatment is really effective, but you can't see it here.

Lower image: My collab for Aya... a tiny porcelain teacup, teetering on the page.

More for Ellen

Alrighty, I posted Ellen's pocket goodie on Sunday while traveling. Now that I'm home, I can more thoroughly & conveniently post the rest of my latest efforts (click on photos if you'd like to see them larger). I did an extra page as pennance for being a total slacker these past 2 months. I don't know what happened, but I just couldn't get focused on art for art's sake. The good news is that while artistically unproductive, I did manage to shore up some other areas of my life. Happy New Year to me :-)

Top image: In keeping to my personal pledge of doing a 2-page spread in the last few large Moles I've had, I painted this image of depression. I did "fall down a well" emotionally, about 3 months ago, so I tried to paint it. (Don't worry, I've long climbed out by now.) I had planned to do a 2nd painting on this theme -- a view looking up the inside of the well to see moon & stars above -- but didn't feel like it, once I finished this. Mood swings can do that to a girl.

Middle image: More acrylic paint & Prismacolor pencil. My Auracana rooster, done from a photo of him. Isn't he a hottie? I hope he stays as nice as he's been, cuz it'd be a shame to end up eating him for bad behavior.

Bottom image: When inspiration fails me, I turn to bananas!

Waiting for my Folio

Until my new A4 folio arrives...

I completed a painting this past Saturday for an upcoming group show at a local community theater. The show is entitled "In Unison" and once I was accepted to be a part of the exhibit, I immediately knew that I wanted to create something with the show's theme in mind. From concept to finished painting. (Painting yet untitled.)

Willie's Book

Willie's book is finally on it's way to Michelle tomorrow! I had meant to photograph it last weekend, but we partied too much and the daylight got away from me and before I knew it another week had gone by, so I went ahead and photographed under my office lights just to get it done.

Why is the first page so different from the others? Because I completely wrecked the watercolor painting around the moon. Oooh boy. I made a wrong turn, and then I thought hey, I'll keep driving and eventually I'll figure out where I am. But no, I ended up in a heap of watercolor mud. So black spray paint to the rescue. More or less. And a brand new practice watercolor book so I can screw up where no one has to see it... ;)









I've been playing around with the sketch of this owl after I painted this and I think I'll make some stickers from the final piece. Folks in the round three exchange may see a shiny new version of this again in their pockets:



And the completed collaboration with Mike. Because I like bugs.