Hooray for the Red, White & Blue

The Veteran in my house....

Altered Book

Veteran of the War in Afghanistan

 

My siblings and I email back and forth, often testing each other's knowledge of our family history.  Most recently, it was about our paternal grandfather who died when my father was in college.  He's buried in Arlington National Cemetery.  Sometimes I curse modern technology and sometimes I embrace it...but who knew that you could email the cemetery and they could email what the actual headstone looks like!  Well, they did and my brother shared it with his 3 sisters.  I'm not posting that photo here, but suffice to say....it's pretty nice to have.  He died in 1938.  

The pages above...I am so proud of....I didn't really paint much of anything here except a little of the background. The red, white and blue in the top right hand corner are paint chips I picked up in the hardware store yesterday.  I was going to paint the back of Tom's car, but I didn't think I would do it justice.  Yesterday in the drizzle here, I asked him to go outside and take a photo of the back of his car and, especially, his newly acquired license plate.  The photo of him was taken in 2009 when he became a Marine at Parris Island.  The flag on the left was cut out of a Coastal Living magazine.

That's all of my Memorial Day art work for this weekend....I have to save some ideas for the next holiday....July 4th!

 

 

Memorial Day Weekend.....

Altered Book

These two pages were so much fun...I'm not letting the rain outside dampen my spirit.  The start of Memorial Day weekend is always an "art inspiration" weekend for me....the beginning of the summer, honoring our military and celebrating all that is good about where we live.  

I painted the little cottage this morning.  I named it Haven.  All done in acrylics and ink.  The right hand page I started on Friday.  My inspiration was a photo of a bowl of strawberries...but I couldn't do regular strawberries...so I made them...as you see them here.  And the flag pennants across the bottom...cut out of the Pottery Barn catalog.  A closer look at the pages...

HAVEN

Home Grown Berries

My birthday falls on Memorial Day this year....how can I not paint about the red, white & blue!!!  It's in my DNA.  There is one more inspiration I have for this weekend...and I still have time to get it done. 

Starting a New Altered Book....

Inspired by the latest Pottery Barn catalog......

 There's More to Explore

and my Gelliarts plate.  I am a beginner with the Gelliarts plate...I am  altering a book whose title is The Deep End of the Ocean... starting with the color blue... my favorite color to work with.  So yesterday, I decided to make some monoprints directly into the book for some interesting background pages.  The page on the left....

 is done in midnight blue and white acrylic on the gelli plate and you can see the pattern of swirls done with a stencil.  The white parts look like ocean surf and the effect is that the ocean is a bit churned up...is this where art imitates life?  We have been "churned up" lately....   On the right hand page....

I again used the gelli plate...this was the 2nd print off of the one above, so there is less color.  The hearts were cut from the catalog and there are strips that I also cut from the catalog that I've used on the edges of the pages and around the square.  I know you can't tell from this photo, but again, the top right and bottom right triangles on this page....really look like water.

Soooo, being that  Memorial Day weekend is coming up soon....and having the red, white & blue going through my head....I decided it was time to do a changeover in the kitchen cabinet....

I'll be revisiting Memorial Day later next week...this is just for starters.
 

It Started in the Produce Section....

Home & Garden Altered Book

Acrylics, water soluble crayons, collage, ink and stamps

I started these pages yesterday...a rainy Saturday...guilt-free to work on my altered book...since I couldn't go out and weed.  I got my grocery shopping out of the way early.  First stop in the store...is the produce section and I have to say the piles of bright yellow lemons and limes stood out.  When I got home and sat down at my desk....the bright, yellow lemons stuck with me.  And I wanted to try something different with the pages.  Starting at the top photo, you can see that I tore the pages on the right side to reveal in layers what's underneath while still looking like they all go together.

I painted the left page a glossy yellow and stenciled some white flowers onto that page.  Then I went to the very last page of the series, skipping what's in the middle because I didn't know what I was putting there....On the last page I used a paper napkin that had lush lemons and greenery on it.  I added the word "Lemons".  Opposite that page...I had a great gift bag...it was a shame to cut it up, but I knew that it was the perfect paper to cut lemon shapes and add to that page.

Lemons & Life Give You Zest!

 The middle pages show a beautiful floral fabric ( my neighbor provided from her quilt stash) and a Metro North train ticket.  Where the conductor punched the hole...I added a button.  How perfect that the ticket color went with my color theme.  No piece of paper is sacred around here...I found the ticket lying on the kitchen counter where my son left it.

On the first page of this series,  I glued The Herb Garden Seed Kit in a Box.  I've been telling my son that I wanted to pot some herbs this summer so he gave me this garden to plant.  That was the last piece I glued to this series of pages.  It all came together.  Today is Mother's Day.  That little seed planted 25 years ago....has grown into a wonderful young man. 

 

LAZY SUNDAY

Home & Garden Altered Book

I'm almost finished with this altered book.  It's so full that it was hard to take a photo because the pages don't lay flat...  These pages are done with water soluble crayons, rubber stamps, pen & ink and some acrylics.  It's a beautiful spring day so I thought....why not flowers.

 

WINE & PAINT

 Saturday Night

Wine & Paint Class

I went to my 2nd Wine & Paint Class last night and our inspiration was a painting by Will Tams, a California artist.  Needless-to-say, we all did our own version of the painting and how amazing it was, at the end of the evening to see  how different all of the paintings were.  Am I bowled away by my painting?  Definitely not, but there are things I take away from the class that I know will help me to continue to ...grow my art whether it's in an altered book, art journal or any other painted surface.  

I  think the most interesting part of a dragonfly...the wings.  I also think of a dragonfly as being more delicate, which this is not.  

It was a great time, getting together with like-minded people ( at least when it comes to art) and I look forward to the next class....!