Miscount/Mistakes (Happy Accidents)

Turns out my total count of cards was off. In the five years since I started this, I’ve made more than 250 cards. Here are the most recent:

Métro-Metro (collage)

After “Party in Seattle,” I seem to have started a public transit series. I still have a London Oyster card stashed away, so there may be more. This is the Paris Métro and Capital Metro in Austin.

Float Like a Butterfly (collage)

One of my favorite exercises when I started back to school for an art degree was taking images of totally unrelated objects and combining them in a way that made some sort of compositional or artistic sense. In that first exercise I slapped a Portuguese man-of-war (i.e. sort-of, though not biologically, a purple jellyfish) on top of a croissant. Someone else in the class put a big pickle on an arm of a saguaro cactus. I called this one “Float Like a Butterfly,” but not really after Mohammed Ali. I just liked the title and really enjoyed putting the weird objects together. I’m posting it full size for the details to show.

Pastel Box (collage)

This is literally the palette and part of the wrapper from a box of pastels.

Wonderful Bird (collage)

Since this was another combination of weirdly unrelated objects, I just focused on the pelican and called it “Wonderful Bird,” attributing the title to what I mistakenly thought was a poem by Ogden Nash. So I learned something today: my favorite “Ogden Nash” poem is by Dixon Lanier Merritt.

A wonderful bird is the pelican
His bill can hold more than his belican
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week
But I’m damned if I see how the helican

Dixon Lanier Merritt

After weeks of collage, it’s time for a change in direction. I may go larger; I may go with markers, or paint, or fabric/stitchery. I also have about four knitting projects going. Is there possibly a way to KNIT a postcard? I may try!

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Still on a Roll

After a great start to the school year, I’m keeping up a pace of a card a day in the second week.

Two things are different, and I’m embarrassed to say that as an artist it’s way late for me to come to this:

1. Soon after I get home from school drop-off I head into the studio and get to work, instead of taking care of laundry or other household chores. In the past, unlike Anne Lamott, who wrote in “Bird by Bird” that she could write with a “corpse in the sink,” I have a low tolerance for dirty dishes. I’m learning to me more like Anne.
2.  Also for the first time, I can get so absorbed in the work that I lose track of time–the “time of the game,” as my philosophy professor called it, because he said that’s why casinos don’t have clocks. They want people to get lost in the game and forget the time. (I do manage to get to school for pickup, or to appointments, and I don’t go to casinos.)

I’ve kept count of the cards I’ve done since the first swap in 2014, and I’m up to 209. Not great for more than five years, but watch me now! Here’s the current output:

Shuffle #12, Summer Garden (collage)

This is part of the “shuffle” series, using random colors from a Color Aid pack. I sent it to a neighbor who recently had knee surgery to cheer her up.

Terra Sun and Moon (original photo, color aid paper)

The title is for the photo of sun and moon art taken at Terra Arts, outside Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Wiggins Farms

When I bought the watermelon I had to keep the label!

Hand-made (collage with hand-made paper)

 

Floral Dream (collage)

I made this while my cleaning lady was here and she seemed to really like it, so I mailed it to her for a surprise.

Party in Seattle (collage, stamp by Nat Uhing)

Still using the precious faux Australian stamps made by the late Nat Uhing. I think she’d like to see her work still circulating. The ticket is from my Jeopardy! audition trip.

I wonder how long it’ll take me to reach 300! At this pace I should be get there before the holidays.

 

Five School Days, Five Postcards

Now that my granddaughter has gone back to school, the longer days (or earlier starts) have made me more productive. In fact, these are the first cards I’ve made since the spring swap. I hope I keep up this momentum into the school year.

Blue Horizon (collage)

When this collage was done, I decided it needed words. It reminded me of the song “Beyond the Blue Horizon,” so I added “Beyond the blue horizon…waits a beautiful day.” I love that song so much I now want to play it at the start of every day!

Shuffle #10–for Nat (collage)

Part of the “shuffle” series, in which I pull out random colors from a pack of Color-Aid paper and figure out how to make weird color combinations work. The “stamp” was part of a pack made by Nat Uhing, one of my favorite bloggers, who died earlier this year. I will continue to use Nat’s stamps, always thinking of her. The link is to her final post.

It was Good–Cafe Sol (collage)

We ate at this Tex-Mex restaurant in Greenwich in 2013, after straddling the Prime Meridian, and I saved the card. We were longing for margaritas, so we decided to give it a try, ordering nachos and margaritas. We told the server we were from Texas and we had high expectations. And IT WAS GOOD! We gave our compliments to the cook, who, we were told, was from Turkey!

Shuffle #11–Be the Breeze (collage)

Another in the shuffle series, also including one of Nat’s stamps. The little fish windsock is from the package of an actual windsock, and I’ve had a lot of use out of the package (the actual windsock hangs by our pool). The “Welcome to Scotland” card in my last post shows what it looks like.

Trebuchet in the Garden (collage)

I struggled over the title of this one. The main image is from the Crusader Bible, “Saul Destroying the Ammonites,” with a little bit of Monet’s water lily garden in the corner. But that was pretty clunky, so I settled on something shorter. I just liked the colors together, along with the “shuffled” Color Aid paper.

Please plan to come back for shuffles 12 and beyond! This is the process: during the day scraps and odds and ends appear on the art table; I pull images out of my “inventory” of various images I have saved in bins and drawers. I fiddle with them whenever I walk past. (I’m so glad the art table is in an open space I pass often, rather than in an isolated studio over the garage or in the back yard.) During the night the pieces sort of rearrange themselves like iron filings to a magnet. In the morning I move the nascent arrangement into a more coherent composition, then take a photo of it so that I can paste everything in more or less the same place. The finished product will always be slightly different–either by mistake or on purpose.  Happy accidents make art even more fun!

Spring Postcard Swap

After receiving only nine cards in the Spring ihanna swap, I assume by now there will be no #10. Here’s what I received:

These were from Sweden, California, Idaho, Washington and Michigan:

These came from Switzerland, California, Connecticut and right here in Texas:

No more postcard for awhile, but I plan to get back to painting soon. We just returned from a very tiring trip. Thanks for visiting and come back soon!

Barter

A dear friend who is a seamstress gave me a blanket, which my granddaughter immediately coveted.

The dog was sneaking past as I took the photo.

So I asked my friend to make a blanket for her, saying I would of course pay her. She said she would love to make one but would like a painting in return. She took C. shopping to pick out material and showed her the space where the painting would hang.

Finished blanket.

What to do during a thunderstorm–dog and child snuggled on the sofa.

The granddaughter’s painting; she doesn’t title her work:

Untitled. Acrylic. By C.W.

And a bonus painting I did for the friend, sort of deconstructing the colors in the larger piece.

Prism. Acrylic, me.

Since we got starting painting, she did a couple of paintings and “framed” them with duct tape:

Finally, I did a small painting. Its title: “The title of this painting is not ‘Purple Rain.'”

I haven’t posted the cards from the spring iHanna swap yet because I’ve received only nine. I’m hoping #10 is coming from Bora Bora or Australia or some other very faraway place.

Spring Postcard Swap + Bonus Cards

I’ve been on a roll, and have more than the 10 cards needed for the Spring ihanna swap.

“Shuffle” series came about when I remembered an old pack of Color Aid paper (explained in a recent post). The exercise was so much fun I did nine cards, all based on randomly selecting six or so colors from the pack. I allowed a switch out if two nearly identical colors came up, and allowed myself to just drop out one color. I also added other visual elements to increase the fun. One thing I find interesting is that, for all the “randomness” (I swear I selected the colors from the backside, blindly), there is a lot of consistency in the color palette, with pinks, purples, golds and oranges predominating. My favorite piece is the rainbow koi windsock flying over Inverness.

Here are all the recent cards, 10 of which will go in the mail to Canada, Sweden, Thailand and all over the U.S. in the next day or two.

Shuffle #2: Dots (there is no #1–the first Color Aid shuffle was in the previous post.) (collage)

Shuffle #3: Butterflies (collage)

Shuffle #4: Canyon (collage)

Shuffle #5: Journey (collage)

Shuffle #6: Believe (collage)

Shuffle #7: Rise and Shine

Shuffle #8: Floral (collage)

Shuffle #9: Splash Pad (collage)

Welcome to Scotland (collage)

A Walk on the Pier (collage)

Splash Pad (collage)

And, a fun little wrap-up (I need to take break and do some other things for a while!):

A Crawl on the Pier (collage)

New Under the Sun

My studio looks out onto our front entry, an atrium. This was my view when we moved here:

 

A brick wall is not very inspiring.

Then I added a big metal sun. I love suns and have quite a few around the entry.

At least it was something to look at besides a brick wall.

When we were in Bandera a few weeks ago, some of the antique and western art shops had old or distressed furniture. I was thinking a table or old stepladder would be nice under the sun, with a plant or two. Not wanting to pay $25 or $30 for an old table, I looked in thrift shops here in Kerrville and found this table (at the appropriately named shop, Finds*) for $2. It’s truly junk, particle board with veneer peeling off and blobs of wax on the top. With so little to lose, I knew I could just have fun.

One ugly table, $2.

The legs were a bit wobbly, so I shored them up with Gorilla Glue.

C-clamps are so handy!

Stripped off the loose veneer, cleaned it up and spray-painted it dark green. When that dried I painted over the green with thinned-down yellow acrylic paint and wiped most of it off. Next I tried spatter painting, but I ended up with more drips than spatters, and not Jackson Pollock-level drips, either.

Using a big rough masonry brush, I stippled with yellow, brown, gold and a little red. A couple of coats of varnish, and voilà, our “new antique” for under $10:

I’ve had the yellow pail for years. Finally found a place for it. 

Don’t you think the sun seems happier now?

My new studio view.

* Finds consists of two adjacent stores. One is more boutique, with good china and furniture. The other has just about everything else, from tools to yarn. Sadly, they no longer carry clothes. This table came from the cheap side. In a previous post about furniture restoration, the shelf came from the boutique side (and cost a lot more).

 

 

Art days = hens’ teeth

Like almost every retired person I know, I find my days fill up quickly. Appointments, meetings, exercise, household, yard and pool chores, pet care (yes, I have help in all these areas), usually take up most of about four days a week. (That’s not to mention the 12-year-old granddaughter and a husband with a chronic illness.) I also volunteer with two local arts centers, which at least counts as “art.”

So I manage to squeeze in a precious art day now and then. Recent output includes a painting and some postcards. When I finished the painting, I didn’t care for it much, but after it dried I decided it fit nicely in our foyer, with its touches of blue and gold.

The lava lamp is a recent garage sale purchase, for a couple of dollars.

“Bluedrops” – Acrylic, 12″ x 12″

 

I did this photo-collage as a retirement gift for our minister–images from the church’s interior.

Here are postcards since my last post:

“Springtangle” – pens, Prismacolor pencils

“Paris from Montparnasse Tower” – original hand-colored black and white photo (taken on our October visit to Paris).

“Spring 2019” – Watercolor and pen (sent to a friend in Canada to brighten her winter days)

 

“Ganesha goes to Bali” – Collage (sent to congratulate a friend on her 100th birthday)

 

“Get Your Feet Wet” – collage, including day and night images of Kerrville’s splash pad.

Finally, I dug out a stashed box of papers I’d almost forgotten about,

Fun with an old friend, Color Aid, a beautiful matte silk-screened paper that comes in more than 200 colors a pack.

and created this collage, limiting myself to only these scraps of (not necessarily harmonious) colors. It turned out better than I expected–sort of an homage to Matisse’s cutouts. (I have seen two exhibits, one at the Hirshhorn in Washington in about 1977*, and a fabulous exhibit at MOMA in New York in 2014.)

“Finding an Old Box of Color Aid,” collage.

* Funny story: I saw the Matisse cutout exhibit with my mother and then-4-year-old daughter. While Mom scoffed that “a kindergartener could do this” and the guards warily eyed the child, I tried to enjoy this incredibly beautiful “kindergarten” art. (Matisse was quite old when he did the cutouts.) Finally my mother offered to take the child out so I could peruse in peace, which I did. When I saw the ’14 show at MOMA, there were school kids on a field trip, enjoying the art immensely. It was wonderful.

 

January ’19 Output

My goal was five postcards a week, but the month was crazy and challenging and I made only five in the whole month (plus one I’m working on, a manipulated photo from Paris that I’m experimenting with hand-coloring; look for that in a later post).

Here’s my 2019 output so far:

Page Torn from a Unicorn’s Library (collage) (given to a friend along with a hand-knit gift)

 

Doodle #26 (Shuttle Art markers)

 

Winter Dawn with Venus, Jupiter and Mars (water color)

 

Zen Tangles Meet New Markers

 

Happy in Water (collage) I am thrilled that this card will be sent to the remote island of Tristan da Cunha, in the South Atlantic, whose inhabitants have requested mail art for a permanent exhibition for island resident and visitors. Isn’t that the coolest thing? I chose this card with its water theme since it’s going to an island.

November Postcard Swap

This may be my last swap. The cards are beginning to look so much alike that it seems there’s one classroom, technique or factory cranking them out.

My goal for 2019 is to produce “Kindness Cards,” which I may donate to organizations that can sell them to their members to raise money, or I will send them or give them away to remind people of the importance of kindness. Some will be original art; others may be produced with computer graphics, allowing me to make many more cards.

The cards in sent for this swap can be seen here.

Here are cards I received from the Fall ihanna swap. Most are from around the U.S. One was from the U.K. I received only nine this time; the tenth one below, the small one on the lower right, was a return in thanks for one I sent.

 

 

 

I’m giving myself an art day today. I’ll work on some knitting, begin a stitchery project, and organize the studio to get started on 2019’s Kindness Cards.

Make something beautiful this year!