Pocket Treats

I finished Claudia's Moleskine this weekend and I'll post it here as soon as I organize and write up what I was thinking. You can get a sneak peak if you check out my Flickr stream.

In the mean time, here's the default set of pocket treats I'm putting in everyone's books:



The trading cards and some of the stickers are the same as last year, so it's a good thing that there's plenty of new people in the exchange this year. I've added a new owl sticker that's super nice quality - it's weatherproof too, so if you want to put it on your mailbox or car or whatever. Also, you might recognize that owl from the last books in Round 2 ;)

I added a few new black & white stickers featuring my favorites, Carl Sagan & Isaac Asimov. And lastly, I had my friend James screen print my artwork onto the cover of some Field Notes books. The drawing of two birds on donut break is from a little tiny Moleskine I was working in.

Muammar Gaddafi

This is in Mary's book. Definitely brighter that I would like it to be.

awkward self in Aya's book

I swear I will get this in the mail on Tuesday, Claudia! I apologize that it's a week late!

and EVERYTHING in BETWEEN

Well, didn't finish Mike's Mole this weekend, but I did finish this one drawing. The facing page, as you might recall, has the words "Life and Death." So this one has "and Everything in Between." Wax crayon for the backgound color, then I fix with a matte spray, then pen and ink for the lines.

OK, onward.

Damselfly, last one in Gretchen's Mole

Hopefully, I will package this up and mail it tomorrow or Tuesday!! It's all done and there are some pocket items in there.

Sadly, I kind of messed it up. In several ways. My metallic pens aren't as nice as yours, Gretchen--what kind do you use?

Also, I got the damselfly's body at the wrong angle and the wings aren't the same size. In real life, it could be flying, but in art, it would be nicer to be more symmetrical. My hands aren't as steady as Gretchen's, either.

The top one, I adjusted the angle in photoshop. The bottom one, for inquiring minds, is as drawn. :-( Sorry! I am not as good as some people are in making everything turn out great. :-( Anyway, it's done and will be sent off as soon as I can get it packaged up.

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.

Measles on measles, First half of a collaboration with Mike in Ballookey's

This ended up going in a different direction than I'd originally intended. Probably not the best technique to use when you're overdue--very time consuming. Multiple pen varieties, Micron, Faber-Castell PITT, etc, and then some acrylic because I do not own a white gel pen--or if I do, I couldn't find it.

I forget how long it takes those blasted metallic gel pens to dry and stuck the heel of my hand in it and smeared it on the bottom right--sorry!! :-(

Turtles and Roses for Round 3 (Stephanie's book).

Here we have a Zentangle sea turtle and compass rose. The compass rose is the collaborative piece.

Ode to Pisces, Round 3 - Stephanie's book.

Since my birthday is March 16 I thought it would be neat to add a Pisces tribute to my art projects.

Falling into spring. Round 3.

Pen and ink Leaves. These are done with colored micron pens I picked up with my Christmas gift cards to the art store.

Floundering in Stephanie's book. Round 3.

Continuing with a "circle theme" I added this flounder to Steph's book. Because most of my work is pen and ink (mostly black ink on white paper) I decided to add a reverse style to my favorite medium here by doing white pen on a black page.

Stephanie's book. Round 3.

This is the collaborative piece with Stephanie. (At least I hope that is what you intended Stephanie.) I took your theme of circles and continued them throughout the pieces I added. This piece I added a spring theme to.

Anders book (round 2) in the pocket

A lord of the ring audio book (I listen to it about once a year or so).

Anders book (round 2) last pages

There are still quite a few empty pages in Anders book, about 8 or 9 of them. I don't know if he'll want to leave them empty or fill them in, but I made a page that I thought can work well on either an ending or a middle page.

Anders book (round 2) Galadriel's song

Damn, now I really got sick again. Ned's had this since Thursday, and in the past couple of days, I've had absolutely no energy and been sleeping so many hours.

But, in the hours that I was sort of awake, I finally finished the pages in Anders book.

For Anders pocket

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.

Too many deadlines

I have two moles, Ballookey's from Round two and Gretchen's from round 3 and I will be late mailing them unless there is a miracle, which I highly doubt--AK! Sorry.

I have too much classwork due for my poetry class (the final project for the whole course is due March 15) and I also had this other exchange which I started before round 3--and didn't have the round two book at the time--it's a paint by number exchange and I'm just finishing it up.

The deal is to paint a paint by numbers picture and alter it in some way and then send a postcard to all the exchange members of the altered painting. I took the watermill picture (Reeves) which I painted (took MUCH more time than I had hoped) and I added myself and some feathers.

In apology to Balookey and Gretchen for being late with their books, I am adding them to the list of the exchange people for the PbNs exchange so that they will receive my postcards for the exchange to save for their mole pockets. This will take a week to ten days. Watch for your postcards, gals.

I apologize to everyone. I have started the moles, but not finished yet. Click postcard to view larger.

Finished with Ammon's Book

Finished with Ammon's book and wish I had more to work on. The piece above was black gesso, acrylic paint, white gel pen and Sharpie paint pen.



A collaboration piece with Ammon. "Authenticity means taking risks to remain true to who you really are." (I made that up as it seemed relevant to me at the time. Colored pencil, gesso & gel pen.



Vintage flexi Parker fountain pen filled with Herbin Violette Pensee ink, colored pencils and other inks.



Collaboration piece for Ellen.



As previously shown, created with various markers.

Will be mailing soon, then eagerly awaiting the next.

Anders book (round 2) The Sea

Another Tolkien poem that I like in Anders book.

I wanted to write some things about it, but I'm so tired, yesterday afternoon I learned from a guy on facebook that one of my favorite art shows from last year is having a second round and that the submission deadline was today! I decided to stay up all night and make something for the show.

The show's name is "single fare" and it's paintings done on MTA cards. Last year I did a tarot deck using those, this time due to the very short hour, I only did 12 little drawings, but I'm pretty happy with them.





And here are the metro cards: