Tag — collage
The Bright Side of a Rainy Day In Summer
Oh, it’s raining again! Usually it’s sunny by July, even in our grey Seattle. But this Summer brings only extremes — 90+ degrees one week and then more rain in one day then we usually get all Summer. Both the girls woke up weepy and out of sorts today — Cate complaining of a headache and Eden saying she felt “too sad” and had to go back to bed. It’s hard on days like this to always look on the bright side of life. So here’s my list of things to revel in this Summer….maybe we’ll use this rainy day to get that day glo nailpolish on our toes!
Cheers!
Altered Imagery
The Complete Guide to Altered Imagery
Karen Michel
For those of us who are mucking about with mixed media/collage, there are a plethora of books out there. Many of them focus on using turn-of-the-century ephemera and photographs. While these are both lovely and inspiring, after awhile all the examples in them start to look awfully similar.
That’s why I was so pleased to find Karen Michel’s book, The Complete Guide to Altered Imagery. The cover art alone announces “fresh approaches to collage work inside!” The featured techniques are accessible to a newbie artist like me, but would also add to an experienced artist’s cache of ideas. Most of the techniques apply to altering photographs and Michel’s starts us out with bleach, stickers, crayons and gel pens. While the supplies might be basic the results are sophisticated and stunning.
Michel’s section on working with scanners and using digital imaging programs has lots of tips and suggestions. You could scan in one photo and try each of her techniques in turn to see the different affects. This would rapidly expand your editing “tool kit” without a lot of slogging through program tutorials or manuals. There’s also sections on altering Polaroid’s (Polaroid cameras can be easily found at thrift stores these days); basic linoleum and rubber block print making; and incorporating found object and altered images into each other to form a finished piece.
Order The Complete Guide to Altered Imagery now and get inspired, because next month I’ll be launching the First Friday Creative Challenge — a series of little assignments to help jump start our inner artists! (The book won’t be required for the First Friday Challenge, but it will help!)
Something Good Finally Got Itself Born!
Tweet! : a ‘zine for summer is finally here. It’s chock-a-block full of beautiful images, cheeky sentences, and hidden surprises. Like her cousin Hiver, this ‘zine has a secret prize or two inside. (Mmm….just like Cracker Jacks at the ballpark!) Reach for the sun with this feminine tome to the loveliness of Summer.
See more pages and order via my etsy shop, or by emailing moi@magpie-girl.com with your snail mail address.
Price: $10, $2 ship/handling
- order 2-5 copies for no additional shipping costs.
- bulk prices available for orders of ten or more.
Asking the Universe
Although Paul and I have been trying for more than two weeks now, we cannot find a local printer who will give me a reasonable price on printing a small batch of my latest zine. Jen says I should ask the universe to send me a kind and affordable printer, which I am doing with all my heart. But I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask the blogosphere too. Does anyone have a lovely connection with a printer who might do a small batch full-color job for a reasonable price? Oh, do tell! Because this really should come to life….
New Motto: DO LESS
I have to use white out on my calendar. This is not my work calendar or anything, it’s just our family calendar—like the one your mom hung in the kitchen to keep track of the soccer games and such. Ours was hung on the side of the refridgerator, right next to the door from the garage. Many were the times I would come into the kitchen to find my mother speaking tersely to one of us, usually my brother, when a scheduling conflict arose. “This. Was. Not. On. The. Calendar.”
I have always had a thing for calendars. Its comforting to me to come to a clean page at the beginning of the month and fill in a few activities on those little boxes. It fels orderly, manageable. With the advance of time and technology my calendars got an upgrade. There were computer-generated weekly schedules and palm pilots that warned me when someone’s birthday was coming up. These magic electric things could change font colors, flash reminders, and–wonders of all wonders—sync.
Then, I quit my day job. I blissfully relegated my PDA to the back of the junk drawer. No more meetings! No more babysitter juggling! No more multi-tasking! I could downsize to an Ann Taintor calendar. Life would be SO MUCH simpler.
Maybe I should have actually read the caustically funny barbs on the Anne Taintor calendar, because the whole “life is simpler” stay at home mom thing doesn’t really exist. Not then. Not now. Almost as soon as I tacked up my quaint little paper calendar, reality hit. Followed by white out. There is so much stuff on my calendar, and it changes SO OFTEN that I can’t fit all the stuff into those moderate sized squares. I have to scratch things, shove stuff into the margins, and add little extras on with florescent post-it notes. And of this calendarizing doesn’t even begin to reflect all the stuff I really do in a day…”grocery shopping” isn’t up there for instance, or “bill paying,” or “dish washing.” You get the idea.
Recently a friend suggested I solve the problem by getting a bigger calendar. Maybe one of those desk-sized calendars or a big soccer-mom style dry erase board? This does not seem like a good idea. Bigger calendar = more space to schedule stuff = more white out.
Instead, I think I’ll downsize. Yes, gentle readers, “Do Less” is my new motto. Doing less will help my kids be less stressed. It will help my brain stay out of the theta state where all the intake nerves are firing at the same time. And it will help me live counter-culturally to my experience-obsessed cohorts who seem to think their kids will end up living out of a grocery cart if they don’t have some sort of after school activity everyday of the week and twice on Sundays.
“Do Less”
It sounds nice, doesn’t it?
How about it? Wanna try? What are some of the things you need to do less of?
Happy St Patrick’s Day!
Read how this Irish lass celebrated here.
May the road rise up to meet you, and may the wind be always at your back!
Hiver: A Zine for MidWinter
Oh my lovelies, it’s finally here! Can you believe it? After a year of waiting in the dark, my very first attempt at a zine has made it off the presses and can soon be in your warm, cupped hands! I’m holding my breath with the excitement and (small) miracle of it all!
Here it is, complete with ad copy!
This precious little ‘zine is hot off the xerox and ready to bless your wintry home. Make your hibernation place a sacred space with prayers, songs, and tiny rites. Host a mid-winter supper with comfort-food recipes and a list of tunes to defrost by. And best of all, there’s a take-away prize tucked inside! (Just like a box of Cracker Jacks!)
Twenty-four hand-lettered pages fill this 5inch ‘zine with homemade words and images. Yours for the price of a greeting card, and ever so much more nourishing!
To order:
Email moi@magpie-girl.com with your address and you’ll receive a paypal invoice.
$4.00 each (includes shipping)
(p.s. This is just the art for the cover. I’ll post a real photograph tomorrow so you can see the cunning Japanese style hand-sewn binding, complete with a twig from my Hawthorn and a tiny recycled glass bead!)
Everything I Needed to Know I Learned from Eric Carle
Yesterday Paul, Rebbecca, the kids and I drove an hour to the Tacoma Art Musuem to see a special exhibit of collages by Eric Carle, children’s illustrator and author. Carle’s most well known book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Carle, now 78 years old, comes across as being the Mr. Rodgers of the world of children’s illustrations. His gentle manner of speaking and streamlined, basic explainations of his artistic process belies many years of paitently interacting with children. Though he could easily have walked a filmaker through his cabniet of awards, a video at the exhibits shows Carle holding up page after page of paintings done by the pre-K to K set of child artist. At one point he says, “Oh! Look at this one! This one really taught me something!”
I took a lot way from the simple, colorful images and the kind words of their creators. In honor of the Creator of the Caterpillar, here’s my list of
Everything I Need to Know About Art I Learned From Eric Carle
Simple materials and techniques can go a long way. Cut, Color, and paste. It’s so easy Carle can explain the whole process with a few powerpoint-style slides. Paul encouraged me greatly when he walked me across the gallery to show me a few line drawings Carle had used as the template for one of his newest books, 10 Little Rubber Ducks. They were no more accomplished than my own new attempts at drawing, yet they were the first step for some lovely art.
Gimmicks can be wonder-full. Many of Carle’s books have a gimmick — the hole in Caterpillar, flashing lights in The Very Lonely Firefly, the creeking sound of The Very Clumsy Click Beetle. As Carle recounts the hisotry of his works, he blantanly and joyfully talks about searching for the next gimmick. He asserts that often there is nothing wrong with being gimmicky, provided that the gimmick is not a selling ‘hook’ but a means of inducing wonder.
Share your techniques. Carle gives his ‘trade secrets’ away gleefully, in You Can Make a Collage collage kit for kids, in his inclusive The Art of Eric Carle catalog of works, and through videos.
Follow your Bliss. Carle was a trained fine artist from the prestigous Akademie der bildenden Künste, in Stuttgart, but what really “made” his career was his love of paste and colors.
Ideas may take a long time to come together. Carle once had an idea that he chewed on for 15 years before it made it into a book. (I think it was for Draw Me a Star.) Be Patient.
