Andrea and Mary in Aya's: Breathing underwater

Breathing Under Water
collab Andrea and Mary
click to view larger

I have not mailed Ballookey's mole to Mike yet, because I have spent several days trying to get decent and usable scans or photographs, which I need for the book I am working on.  But last night, I did my first piece in Aya's mole, a collab with Andrea.

Slow progress, Balookey's Mole

I am sorry to report that my scanner is still not working, so I have tried to photograph the pieces I am working on.  The first one is a collaboration with Andrea.

Collaboration with Andrea,
PITT Faber Castel pigment pens and colored pencil

Day 1

The second piece is the one I am currently working on, showing two stages of work. It is for my book, Frankie and Noah have a party.

day 2
I don't think the colors show up quite right.

After a week of work I still haven't got the first layer of paint down!
This is with a different camera!
Getting the colors right without a good scanner is a pain!

Day 8 on this piece
Still not finished!

Collaboration, 1st half, for Mike

The last piece is a collaboration for Mike to finish.  My intention was to do a simple graphic black and white but I got carried away and colored it.  "The owl and the Pussycat went to sea/ in a beautiful pea green boat." Mike, feel free to change the these, paint or color over or change any part of what I did, etc. You can erase the lines of the boat and the ear of the owl if you want to do something entirely different--it could be a scene in the daytime.It could be a graphic abstract.

Click images to view larger.

Passages: Collaboration with Andrea

Passages
Collaboration with Andrea
faber-Castelle India Ink pen, water color

A bit closer
click on these to view larger

Wolf envelope revisited
(Played with it a little)

My collaboration and first page in Andrea's, 4th round, 2nd pass.  Plus the back of the envelope to mail to Mike, when I finish my set.  (I think the spots on the first two are sensor spots from my husband's camera, as my scanner isn't working.)

Cardinals Collab with Hennie Mavis in Mary's Mole

Hennie's lovely start
(First half)
(click this and all images to see larger)

Hennie's gorgeous painting is wonderfully balanced and has really nice composition and color.

my half of the collaboration
cardinals fly, by Mary Taitt

Unfortunately, when I started this painting, we company for dinner and I only had one of my small watercolor kits, it was the wrong one, and the colors didn't match.  Wrong reds and blues.  Of course, that wasn't the only flaw, I'm sorry to say.

full double-page spread
Cardinal Dream
collab Hennie Mavis and Mary Stebbins Taitt

I have one solo piece and one first half collab for Mike left to do before I mail.

Sugar Skull

Sugar Skull
collaboration with Andrea
and Mary Stebbins Taitt

I got my book back in the mail yesterday and it looks great.  I took some pictures, but haven't had time to download them.  Will do so ASAP.  Whenever that is.  We're going away for a week to ten days,s o it may not be until we get back.  Also, I'm behind seeing and commenting on posts because of gmails new tabs--I never see the emails.  :-(  I'll catch up as soon as I can.  I;m going to try to fix it so the emails about the exchange come into the primary box so I don;t have to searcg for them in three tabs.

Riding the Storm; Andrea and Mary in Mike's

Riding the Storm
painted collage
Collab Andrea and Mary
click image to view larger.

When we were in Colorado, driving south on the east side of the mountains, a storm sat over the mountains and funnel clouds, sometimes a number of them, kept snaking down out of the clouds.  It was creepy, scary and fascinating.

Andrea added the house.

I made a college and then painted over parts of it.  The witch is my friend Gail Slaughter and Dorothy, the scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion are all friends of hers.

Collaboration with Andrea: The Moray Eel App Nightmare

The Moray Eel Nightmare
Andrea Martinez & Mary Stebbins Taitt
in Aya's Mole
Faber Castelle Pigments pens
Click on the image to see it MUCH larger

We have out of town company and after dinner, they decided to play poker.  While they were drinking and playing poker, I did art, if you can call it that!

I've been painting so many Moray Eels that I am starting to have nightmares about them.  Even innocuous dreams morph into something terrifying!

Collab with Andrea "If you Play your Cards Right"

Collaboration with Andrea

Detail

I think I have completed my collaboration with Andrea (although I may see something later I need to do.)

Worst Nightmares, Collaboration Andrea and Mary

"When Confronted with our Worst Nightmares
I like to fight back with Flowers"
Collaboration Andrea and Mary
mixed media
water color, acrylic, pigment pens, colored pencil
click image to view larger

I wanted to do the girl (standing in for my child-self) in water color, but ended up coloring the background with black Faber-Castell pigment marker (A gift from Hennie Mavis) and then painting over that with glazes of blue acrylic.  I drew the flowers on the girl's pajamas with colored pencil and then painted them in with watercolor.

I have a lot of dreams of being chased down dark alleys by men who intend me harm.  They are nightmares, because I wake up terrified.  Not sure if that's what Andrea meant.

Click on the image to see it much larger.

I am still sick and my work is going slowly.

Collaboration: The Pigephant (Evolution of the grub)

Someone left me a perfectly nice outline of an elephant, I assume as a collaboration, and I messed it up BIG TIME.  I'd never used oil pastels to speak of, so this was my first attempt, and I didn't really know what I was doing.

First try:

Pigephant (the grub)

My husband said it looked like a grub.  I was calling it a pigephant.  I decided the back legs were too far back.  (That was something I did!)  I kept fiddling with it and finally had this:

King Tut-tut

I decided his trunk was too short.  (?)  I made it longer.  I moved the tusks (but couldn't quite hide where the old one was.  I also moved the eye.

King Pink

So here is the maybe final version, in my round 3 book, a collaboration.  It may still need more work.  Can anyone tell me how to preserve it when I finish?  Can I spray it with fixative?  Will fixative stick?  Do oil pastels ruin the paper?

I am sorry to say I haven't had a chance, with the wedding et al, to post about my returned round 3 Moley. Sometime relatively soon, I hope.

Gretchen and Mary in Ellen's: Wind

"Wind"
Collab with Gretchen and Mary
in Ellen's Mole

The half collab left for me by Gretchen reminded me of blowing hair.  When we visited Slovenia, many women (and men) had hennaed hair.

Splotch Monster Collab with Steve Loya, round 2

Splotch Monster Collaboration with Steve Loya
in my returned Moleskine from Round 2

I forgot about finishing up my Round 2 Moleskine.  So here's the first of those.

The Hills at Sunset on Acid (Collaboration with Gretchen)

Various Jelly Roll Pens, metallic etc.  I am sorry my hands aren't as steady as Gretchen's!  Click to view image larger. 5 x 8 watercolor Moleskine.

Frayed Rope, Collab and last one in Andrea's Mole

The reason it took me so long to complete this collaboration is that I wanted to use the same pens Gretchen used, and I sent away for them, and waited and waited and when they came, I was away for a week. turns out they aren't exactly the same anyway. But they look closer in person than they do here.

The other thing is that these are metallic. They're shinier than they look here. To view larger, click on the image.

This is a collaboration with both Gretchen and Roma, sort of. I used Roma's frayed rope girl on a swing. I'm picturing her swinging from a hot air balloon. My hands aren't as steady and Gretchen's, either, I'm sorry to say. If you'd like to see Gretchen's original first half of the collaboration, it is here. Roma's is here.

Since I have completed the book, I will be sending it off to Ammon, ASAP, but I am not sure when that will be for sure, as my schedule this week is extremely full.

So, for Aya, here is a small sad poem I wrote today:

Strings

The sad saw of violins, cellos, bass

lowers the temperature in the room

five degrees, ten degrees, twenty degrees.

Snow falls from the darkening ceiling,

gathers on the small shelves of our lips

and filters through our minds, erasing

hope and love and leaving

only blank white in its wake,

white that greys and darkens

until every tear is frozen

in night's icy symphony.

Mary Taitt

for Laurent and Aya

Collaboration with Roma in Mike's Round 3

I tried to follow suit with themes of color and shape already begun by Roma. (Click image to view larger.) It's fairly textural, which doesn't show up in the scan. See her part without mine here.
here are some details:  (Click images to view larger.)

Collaboration with Gretchen in Mike's Round 3

Apologies to Gretchen, Mike and Aya for taking those absolutely gorgeous delicately rendered sunglasses and putting them on a pig. I felt driven to do so for some reason. Aya, you can print the original post by Gretchen and make something else out of it for her!

The scan never comes out quite like the original. I've included a detail because it doesn't show up right in the scan.

My part was done in Faber-Castelle PITT pigment artists pens and gel pens. A touch of oil pastel on the glasses. Gretchen's pens are much nicer than mine--Gretchen, tell me again what kind of pens they are.

Click the images to view them larger.

In Ellen's book- collab w/Aya & soggy-sad-face

Collab. Page with Aya:

Half a collaboration in Roma's: Flying fish

This is done with Staples metallic and iridescent pens. A little acrylic, also. Click image to view larger.

I will be at a poetry workshop all day tomorrow, then leaving for Texas. May not post again for a while? I'm not even taking a computer with me to Texas. I will probably take the mole, though.

I took this with a camera because it was still too wet to put in the scanner.

Life and Death

The past two weeks have been tough, so I haven't worked much on Mike's Mole, but his collaboration page was exactly what I needed to reflect on the cycle of Life and Death.

I'll need this coming weekend to finish out my pages, Mike. I hope to add more color to your book.

Collab w/ Aya in Aya's book

I don't know if I'll add more to the white space or not... I think I like it as is. Aya's drawing was so lovely, I hated adding anything at all!