On To Something New (for me)

Every 5 years or so I find something to get excited about and with retirement time on my hands -- that's a good thing (keeps me out of trouble). First it was scrapbooking 40 years of photos (that had been dumped in a box). I started with cut-n-paste techniques and graduated to doing digital scrapbooking pages. I have a bookcase filled with all but the last 2 years of photos. My kids (and grandaughter) all have scrapbooked albums of weddings, first grandchild and major events. I won awards for my pages, was published in a few books and magazines and then started looking for something new to do.

Next it was writing -- I always wanted to write, just never sure what, when or how. But when I found some discarded vintage photos, I started writing and I wrote and wrote and re-wrote their history into a manuscript called Lost and Found and a web site: Attic Whispers. It is out and about in the publishing world just waiting for an agent to get excited (a few have) enough to take on the project to get it published. It's a waiting game (game being the optimal word). Wait-Wait-Wait.....

Then a couple of weeks ago my daughter and daughter-in-law and I stopped at an artist's studio during the Bellingham Artist Tour (she just happened to live on my street). Maren Larson is a mixed media artist with a studio/home filled with her amazing creations. We ou-eed and ah-eed over her talent, picked up a couple of pieces -- and I had an "Ah-Ha" moment. I could do that! So with my knowledge of scrapbooking supplies, being an art major in collage (no biggy - everyone was) and needing another exciting thing for an excuse to get messy -- I started doing some mixed-media art. And like all my previous endeavors - I can't get enough. So, I've invested in some canvases, paints, medium gels, gesso, brushes and the tools to make magic and went to town (as it were).

Here are a few of my first attempts --- next week I can display a few I did that I really love (but they are going to someone special and I don't want to spoil the surprise of opening a box off the FedEx truck) and one that was I was commissioned to do.

This 8" x 16" (my favorite format) is now hanging in my studio -- as most scrapbookers do when they stare at a blank page (or canvas as the case may be) we scraplift an idea from another artist. I found something like this one on the web and put my mark (and papers) to the sample I scraplifted.

It took me weeks to figure out what to use for shading (and lots of bucks spent experimenting) but finally found some wonderful Faber-Castell PITT pens that are fantastic over and under gel medium.

These 2 canvases will hang in my kitchen (I couldn't wait to hang them to get photos) on our red kitchen wall. I wanted something powerful with very white backgrounds to pop-off the red wall.  The white background is textured and the flower petals are all shaded (just hard to tell in these photos).

I'll separate them by a couple of inches when I stack them on the wall -- photos of placement to follow.

I also tried my hand at some colleges -- This 8" x 8" canvas was for my daughter

 

Another one I did for my daughter-in-law (they were with me for my "Ah-Ha" moment and got the first of my new adventure. (again, an 8" x 8" canvas).

So there you have --- I'm painting with paints, paper, vintage post cards and photos and using up my huge stash of scrapbooking supplies in my new found love -- mixed media.