Home & Garden

Altered Book

I haven't completed my Home & Garden altered book, but I got tired of looking at the brown cover so I painted the front and the back in shades of pale green, yellow and blue and then ultimately decided that the front needed...a home and a garden...a little cottage by the sea.  I suppose I could have put "Home & Garden on the front...but I didn't want words to interfere with the scene.

Meet "Angel"

 These two pages I just added in my Femme Altered book.  The left side is a background pattern done with acrylics, pens, collage.  The right side features "Angel".  She was on the cover of National Geographic c.1983.  She's made from recycled trash and I just love her!  I don't know who created her but she's perfect for my Femme book.  The back side of her is featured in an earlier post as I used her in a collage.  And while I was searching for some little thing for that upper right hand corner of the page...I was looking in a button jar and I have no idea why a Chinese fortune was in it...not where paper items should be stored....but there was the perfect piece to finish the page.  It reads "Know and believe in yourself and what others think won't disturb you."  Obviously...Angel has no problem with that. 

Taverna - Altered Book

These pages in my Home & Garden altered book are inspired by a napkin I used.  The doorway and window on the right hand page are from a napkin as is the single window on the left hand page.  I painted the background and I added the windows above...there's room at the inn!  Napkins are really fun to incorporate into art.

 

Replay - The Wedding

I can't get the wedding out of my head yet.  In my previous wedding painting, I only painted the bride and groom.  Here is a different version, done in one of my altered books.  I decided to add a crowd in the background and I did this one with watercolor pencils vs. watercolor on the previous painting.  This captures more the feeling of Courtney & Jason's Second Line.....

And here are the pages together...the map of the French Quarter, a profile of Louis Armstrong, the Musee Conti where the reception took place...

and the small black rectangle says...and this is the essence of New Orleans... "It's New Orleans...You're different here." 

Courtney & Jason

I hope Courtney & Jason will forgive me....painting people is not my area of expertise.... but I wanted to paint them celebrating their wedding day on St. Patrick's Day in New Orleans.  They danced their way through the French Quarter to the wedding reception at Musee Conti....led by a jazz band and followed by all of the guests at the wedding....it was unforgettable....we were all singing "Hey hey baby...I wanna knooowww, would you be my girl....hey hey baby....waving green kerchiefs in the air.

WHO AM I?

WHO AM I?
 This collage is really all about me today.  It's not about previous....anything.  I spent a day recently with a dozen women doing a collage workshop.  We had to have an idea in mind before we arrived.  Some people did family, some did their mothers, some were about recent personal journeys....they were all impactful.  I can't wait to do it again.