Moons in Gretchen's Book

I couldn't make up my mind how to approach one piece I wanted to do in Gretchen's book, so I decided not to decide and create the moon, three ways.

Title page - I wish I'd made the word "ways" a little more bold.

This astronaut was the first piece started, and the last one finished. I spray painted the background using vinyl I had left over from Mary's Round 2 book to create the purple pattern. Then I stalled on it until this weekend when I added the astronaut and finished painting it. I added the Finnish postage stamp at the bottom because I know Gretchen's family hails from Finland. By the way, Finland has THE COOLEST STAMPS. I enclosed the rest of the sheet in the book in case Andrea or anyone else wants to use one - or Gretchen can just have them. The art is so cute, and they're often die-cut in unusual shapes like these birds on branches. How cool would it be to get a letter with one of these on it?

I started this one with a copy of this vintage photo, then added all the engraved elements. The moon has a door, and if you look inside, you'll see the man in the moon. (It's Sherlock from the recent BBC TV series because that's what I've been watching recently - awesome, awesome show)

I created this pixellated moon from squares cut out of paint chips - it's kind of fun going to the hardware store and walking out with my craft supplies for free.

And continued the pixels onto the next page for Andrea to interact with.

Here's the collaboration I completed with Molly. She created the creature on the left, and I added the rest to tie it in with my theme.

In Gretchen's Book

Acrylic and colored pencil. I'm pleased with this one.



I am not pleased with this piece. I keep messing with it but I'm pretty certain I'm going to paint over it. It just looks a mess.

My collab piece with Ammon? Yeah... I made a mess of that as well. My style doesn't seem to know what to do with his style and I get to feeling all awkward trying to somehow complete what he started. I'm sure I will get over it by the time I get my own book back. 

Self Portrait on Indian in Gretchen's

I was inspired by Andrea's portrait of me in my motorcycle gear to do a self portrait on an Indian. In 1964-65 (I'm giving away my age here, if you didn't already know it), I owned a 1949 Indian. This is not it, but an older one I used for the art. I have, believe it or not, NO pictures of that amazing motorcycle. But I had fun--on the bike(s) and on the art. I did the piece in metallic markers, but you can't tell in the scan.

One and a half in Gretchen's

Persephone and Hades

Half a collaboration for Ammon.

Click images to view larger.

005 micron pens, colored pencils, Prang metallic brush pens.

Collaboration with Gretchen

Dragonfly Symbiosis

A Story for Gretchen

Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved to go out in the woods and meditate. One of her favorite places to sit in ZaZen was Lycopodium Knoll, a small rise in the sandy woods above Blue Heron Lagoon. The knoll was covered with lycopodia, and the girl would sit with her back to a red maple and her middle finger touching her thumb and her hands resting on her knees. And sit.

One day, however, her serenity was disturbed by deerfly. The deerflies buzzed nosily around and kept landing on the girl’s arms and shoulders. They were trying to bite her.

Suddenly, there was a much larger, louder buzzing and a huge insect landed on her knee. In its mandibles was a deer fly. The dragonfly noisily chomped down the deerfly and a moment later, zipped out and snagged another. When it had eaten that one, it snagged a third, and continued until it had eaten the entire platoon

Then the dragonfly sat calmly on the girl’s knee waiting. Each time another deerfly or mosquito homed in on the girl, the dragonfly captured it and ate it. The girl acted as a food magnet for the dragonfly and the dragonfly protected the girl from insect bites. And this is a true story. Mary Stebbins Taitt (Click image to view larger.)

Gretchen's Mole came ringing

YAY! The first not-my moley arrived in the mail today! Woohoo! Looks great, Gretchen. YIKES!

I forgot that some people have smaller moles and will have to trim my portrait of BB so it will fit in the pocket.

LATER:  for some reason, this image in no longer visible, but if you click on it, it's still there.