BOOKMARKS! ~ Artists Play Room challenge

Jennifer McLean of Just Add Water Silly, and hostess of the Artists Play Room, gave us the topic.. "Bookmarks" for this week's challenge.

Now I have bookmarks that i painted in watercolors in my shop, but I wanted do try creating them in mixed media collage. Besides, for Mothers day, my daughter gave me a Dick Blick gift card and took me to their shop in Chicago. What i time i had selecting all sorts of gorgeous papers, it felt like heaven!! 

So by doing my bookmarks in collage, i would be able to play with & to experiment with the papers!

P.S. Postcard Swap!

The Inspiration Avenue's "P.S."  postcard swap is in full swing! Postcards are being mailed and postcards are being received, and good things are arriving daily!

Here are the postcards that i have mailed out. Three are going to IA sisters. These three cards all have something in common, they have a chickadee bird. What makes that special is that my sister-in-law gave me a very special birthday gift which was wrapped in gorgeous bird tissue paper. I love that paper & have saved it to use on special projects.  I thought this paper would be perfect for my IA Sisters postcards!

The other two postcards are on their way to South Africa and England.

So far I have received three and when all five arrive I'll share them with you right here! :)

Darkness & Light ~ Artists Play Room Challenge

Jennifer McLean's challenge for this week's Artists Play Room is Darkness and Light.  I've been thinking about this all week and decided to do a landscape. The  challenge for me was having a strong sense of the darkness and light  (my weakest area) yet i didn't want it to be too harsh.

So I did an ink & pen landscape, then added washes of color. I really liked it but for this challenge i wanted to see what would happened when i enhanced it digitally.

 4x6 inches, Fabriano 140 lb Hot Pressed

Thanks so much for another terrific APR challenge Jenn! I loved doing it :D

Days of the Week - I A Challenge

Kim of IMGIRL, is hosting her first Inspiration Avenue Challenge, her theme, "Days of the Week" as according to the nursery rhyme.   We were challenged to create a piece of art that fits the description for the day we were born. Kim even included a link so we could determine that. :)

 Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

 It turned out I was born on a Wednesday.... "full of woe".

I tend to create more uplifting or even whimsical art & landscapes and rarely create anything somber, so this was a bit of stretch!  What kept going though through my head was the classic Spiritual... "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, nobody knows but Jesus. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen; Glory Hallelujah."

I painted this with burnt umber ink and and a bit of Mayan Blue watercolor, on 5x7 Fabriano Hot Pressed paper.

 For this version I played around and digitally enhanced the color a bit .

It still isn't too late to submit your entry for the Inspiration Avenue's challenge, you have till Sunday noon!
Thanks so much Kim for this interesting & terrific challenge! I really enjoyed this!... oh maybe i shouldn't say that since i'm a woeful Wednesday child... revise that... it was a miserable experience! LOL  ;D

What an ART themed Week!

Wow this past week has been brimming over with artistic milestones for "The Expressive Palette"!
The first time my art was published, the first time my art was featured in a blog, and the first time i "hosted" an art challenge, all happened within one smashing week!


First, Jenn McLean, artist and blogger extraordinaire  of Just Add Water Silly,  did a feature on this artist and her art! She took me by surprised when she initially asked if she could write a feature about my art. It has been barely a year since I began my journey  back to art; and I am still finding my voice & my medium.  Yet Jenn wrote as if I am an established artist already. Bunches of thanks Jennifer for your generous spirit, talent and encouragement! You may read her feature here.

 Second, it was the very first time i  hosted the Inspiration Avenues Weekly art challenge. The theme I selected was art "Inspired by Words". We had twenty four awesome entries, making it very difficult selecting just one winner. In the end I selected a 3D piece of art by Angie called "Unwritten Poem".

Then, lastly, the magazine "Featuring" came out, and I'm in it! All of this thanks once again to Jennifer for asking me to submit a butterfly painting for "The Butterfly Project".  This project is for the Holocaust Museum in TX.  Jennifer wrote a wonderful article that "Featuring" published!

and on the back cover....

 :)

Making Time for Tea - APR challenge

Jenn has a new challenge in her Artists Play Room, "Coffee & Tea"  and boy was this fun to do! In fact I had so much fun playing around that it was difficult to stop!

I didn't go with any of my usual mediums, instead it was all digital photography.

Thanks so much Jenn for this wonderful challenge!!

Foliage ~ IA's Team Challenge

Jenn from Just Add Water Silly, is this weeks hostess For the Inspiration Avenue's Weekly Team Challenge, and her theme for this week is "foliage".

Originally i intended to do a watercolor with lots of ferns and fiddle-heads that i am so fond of; however yesterday i changed my mind & decided to try this as a collage. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment in the process of creating this piece, and with each collage i make, i love the medium more and more.

Stormy Weather - IA Team Challenge

Inspiration Avenue's team challenge for this week was Stormy Weather. I'm late in getting to it, but here is my entry called "Storm's Brewing".  This is a Vermont scene with Camel's Hump mt in the distance.

Artists Play Room Challenge ~ ZenTangle Doodle

The Artists Play Room Challenge was to doodle or zentangle your name, initial or a favorite word. It sounded so easy and lots of fun; when Jenn asked for suggestions for a challenge, i suggested this. Well, would you believe that i  that i did this 3 times before i submitted this entry?!

The first one i did is my favorite, but after it was finished i thought to myself, "is this really a doodle"??

So then i did another this time in ink on a small 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches aceo card. But after seeing the amazing entry by VonnyK , i decided to try it again.

The third one is better than the second and was done in brown ink & is about 5x7; still, i must confess that my favorite is the watercolor even though it's not actually a doodle/zentangle.

Doodling for a finished piece of art is far different than doodling on the church bulletin or a scrap piece of paper as i tend to do! Yet isn't that why we take part in a challenge, to stretch ourselves & grow? So here you go Jenn, and thanks for this APR challenge! :D

And if you haven't done so, i encourage you to join in the fun at the Artists Play Room!

dissatisfaction and a Re-Work

Have you ever done a piece, and even though people said nice things about it, the more you looked at it, the less you liked it?  Well that's the way i felt about a piece i did for IA's Team Challenge on texture.                                                                 
                

  Although i loved the color palette of the "green"
version, it was just way to busy, and i became increasingly dissatisfied with it. So i "quieted" the noise with more torn paper for the corners and with transparent acrylic paint and mediums, trying to give it that mellow encaustic look.

I'm content with this piece now, but am considering adding green and perhaps a bit of blue transparent acrylic layers to it.... hmmm

I'm very taken with the combining of paint and collage and have more ideas in my head waiting to get out!

For the BIRDS

I am always on the lookout for beautiful papers & wonderful vintage items for my mixed media collages. Just recently i found an old paper back bird book dated 1949. My heart skipped a beat with this fabulous find! As expected there were  marks & stains on some pages,  nevertheless, it is wonderful for this creative soul.  The hubby & i love watching the  birds  that come to our feeders and have three other bird books in the house so i had no guilt about tearing up this old book for art's sake :)

The first collage with Sparrows was small, just 4x4 inches while the second of the Eastern Blue Bird is 5 x 7, both are on Ampersand board. I must confess that i am still learning as i go with mixed media collage. The first small one, was almost  perfect, but i decided to add some handwritten verse to it. Yup you guessed it, i blew it. Fortunately collage is a forgiving medium allowing me to change the design of the piece. Two more are sitting on the kitchen counter awaiting the final touches.

a bit o Green for the Artist's Play Room Challenge

The much long awaited Artists Play Room Challenge is launched today by Jenn McLean, blogger and artist of  Just Add Water Silly at etsy. To celebrate her Irish heritage, our challenge is "GREEN". 
So here is my entry.... lots of green grass and a sky of gold for the proverbial lucky Irish "pot o gold"!

~ Vintage Feel Of Gentler Days ~

We have a new Inspiration Avenue host for this week's challenge, Shel, and her challenge for us is "Vintage Photography" to capture the feel of days gone by. Now this, I have to say, had me stumped for awhile because i'm a painter, and rarely does my work have an old fashioned or vintage feel. I tried "aging" a couple of my paintings and the results were just OK at best; but it was when i took out an old painting that things changed.

This is a watercolor painting that i did of my daughter about 18 years ago.

Below is the painting after I cropped it and put it through a few filters and this is the result, and to my surprise, i like this version much better!!

It's not too late to join the fun & try the IA challenge, in fact why  don't you join our team? We'd really love to have you! :)

IA Challenge "You've Got Mail"

Jennifer McLean is this weeks Inspiration Avenues' weekly team challenge host. It is her first time hosting and she has done a fabulous job! Jenn's terrific theme is "You've Got Mail" and was alot of fun to work on!
The size of my piece, an ACEO ) 2.5 x 3.5 inches)  allowed me freedom to try something different.I've always loved the look of "painted" collages and this is my first attempt at it. The end result is quite a bit different from what i had planned, yet I'm rather pleased with it.
I'm always amazed at the fabulous artistic talent from Inspiration Avenue! Go and take a peek at this week's challenge & consider joining in on the fun, you have till noon Eastern Sunday to submit your inspiration :)

"from my heart to yours"
miniature collage by Diane Rank , the Expressive Palette

the Butterfly Project

"The Butterfly"
	The last, the very last, So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow. Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing against a white stone....

Such, such a yellow Is carried lightly ’way up high. It went away I’m sure because it wished to kiss the world good-bye.

For seven weeks I’ve lived in here, Penned up inside this ghetto. But I have found what I love here. The dandelions call to me And the white chestnut branches in the court. Only I never saw another butterfly.

That butterfly was the last one. Butterflies don’t live in here, in the ghetto.

Pavel Friedman, June 4, 1942

Born in Prague on Jan. 7, 1921. Deported to the Terezin Concentration Camp on April 26, 1942. Died in Aushchwitz on Sept. 29, 1944.

Whether it was the fact that my early childhood was in a Jewish neighborhood, or that the mother of my first childhood "crush" was a survivor of the camps; I have always held a special place in my heart for the Jewish people and especially for the victims of the Holocaust. So when I heard about the Butterfly Project by the Holocaust Museum in Houston, it wasn't a question of "if" but "what" shall I make. The inspiration for this, was the poem itself. I tried to put myself in the ghetto or a camp, & think about what seeing a golden butterfly would represent. It would represent Hope of a life outside these walls, Freedom to fly wherever without fear or cruelty, and Life instead of death.
This is the piece I am sending for the Butterfly Project. You can learn more about it here.

Stop Motion Animation - A Map Comes To Life

This is fabulous & i just had to share this with you. This ingenius piece of film was made by
Anderson M Studio go & check them out!
For more amazing paper art check out  Jo is Howeunique who posted this film.
Interested in more paper art? Elly MacKay who has a shop, Theater Clouds at etsy tells beautiful stories with her work.

Inspiration Avenues Team Challenge ~ Texture!

I was so excited about starting this, my first team challenge for Inspiration Avenue! It's all about texture, & a mixed media collage seemed like the perfect medium. A little woodsy square that i made a couple of years ago with polymer clay  became my inspiration jump off point. Lots of gorgeous handmade papers, vintage items, including a playing card from France, a large piece of mica & some other finds compose this highly textured piece.

From exercise to art

 This began as a simple exercise in trying out some new watercolors, seeing their color & how they glaze. I was thinking of growing grass & sunshine as I was making this &  really  liked the abstract look that was developing. I added drops of acrylic paint, gave them little tails... sort of like little bugs, dont you think? The thick acrylic drops dried with an indentation in them adding even more texture.

I'm not listing this in my shop, but i thought it was so cool that even a simple exercise could become art.

even a blade of grass.....

"The moment one gives attention to anything, even a blade of  grass, it becomes a mysterious awesome indescribably magnificent world in itself." ~ Henry Miller

When i read this quote it was an instant connection, "yes!!" that is exactly how i have always felt, but never quite put that belief into words. It's akin i suppose to "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", but it goes much farther than that, putting the wonder of the object totally within us. We have to be open to see it's wonder, & then allow ourselves to express the feeling of what we are beholding.

That is how i paint, more than what i see, i paint what i feel.

This is a mixed media piece-  a miniature watercolor painting (ACEO), combined with collage. It is entitled "Even a Blade of Grass".