Adventures are the Best

A little while ago friend asked me to make a 'congratulations on your wedding day'-type card for an old friend of hers, after seeing some of my mixed media canvases.

I let it all out. I love giving 'enjoy your adventure'-type messages to newlyweds, much more than the regular (might I say boring?) 'congrats'.

So, on a theme - in that the creation was also an adventure - I made this:

I gotta say, I liked it so much I didn't really want to give it away. But you gotta, you know. If you don't make something you don't wanna give away it's not worth giving.

I lost count of the layers on this. I used mists, inks, paints, chalks, stamps, stencils, stickers, paper, heat embossing... it really was an adventure through my art supplies.

I liked the theme so much I continued it for a wedding we went to not long after:

I hope all the newlyweds appreciate the message.

Speaking of adventuring, we're off to Paris today to meet up with my parents and show them around this new favourite city of mine. Adventures are the best!

Meanwhile, somewhere in the Netherlands...

(this one is a project long in the making. a true labour of love.)

Last year, we planned a surprise 30th birthday trip for two friends to come see us, and then go see a favourite band in the Netherlands. It was such an intricate plan, with us only telling them at the last minute that they'd need to pack their passports, and such an exciting secret to be keeping.

The band, The Slackers, were playing their end-of-tour gig at a bar in Sittard, where they'd previously recorded two live albums, and we were going to be part of it.

Their flyer started me off on my colour scheme - black, white and yellow.

Their own 'tagline', from one of their songs, gave me the title. I used an acetate cover to add more interest and dimension to the front page.

Their singer, with his odd, funny in-jokes, gave me the style: he kept talking about events in comic-book terms ('meanwhile, somewhere in the Netherlands'). I went heavy on the layers for the front page, too - loads of paint, ink, gesso, newspaper and glue.

 

And the genre of music gave the pattern: ska. Behold the ska car! First I painted this wooden car shape with white acrylic paint, then stamped the checkers on. After I covered it with a layer of crackle glaze and waited for it to dry.

 I love this photo of the three best friends.

We got a bonus band, too. The New Town Kings.

I used the Fun Days kraft patterned paper and chipboard pieces from MME. They were a perfect background for the stamping, painting and inking.

The filler for this frame was an awesome find from my mum - wrapping paper from Tesco!

An amazing double gig ended with us partying with the two bands in the cool May evening air. What a day. What a brilliant surprise.

Lucky 13

So, a little belated, but happy new year.

I've been looking forward to 2013. Never been one to shy away from that number, and for various 'first-world problem' reasons 2012 was a bit of a washout (although I can say I'm still happily married, and making good savings from the boring office job I took on).

So, looking forward to it, not in hope, but in determination - because things are going to be different this year. We know what we want and what we have to do. We've made plans. We have goals. There is an unshakeable optimism emanating from me this January - something which January has rarely, if ever, brought out of me - and nothing is going to stop me, or us.

I just finished reading Art Saves by Jenny Doh. That was a good way to start the year, creatively speaking. From feeling a bit lost last year, I now have direction. That book, even if it took only a couple of hours to read, has little gems in it that spoke to me, made me sit up and listen, and most importantly, made me act.

I spent the last few months of 2012 doing a lot of thinking, a lot of reflecting, on me and my identity as an artist (in truth, I didn't know what my identity was any more). And I was pretty much blocked in terms of letting it flow out. That book helped me let it flow out - I got unblocked.

I made this little canvas:

...with important messages to me on it:

And I made this, using a ton of Gauche Alchemy stuff, also with a message to me:

These are messages to live by. They've already brought good - I played around with ink and watercolour afterwards, and loved the result. It was one of those rare times when I had a vision in my head, the night before, and the end result looked exactly how I'd envisioned it. That's something I'm keeping close to my chest though for now.  

Time Travel

Hop in. I'm going on a short journey back to May, before we got married, before we (and by 'we' I really mean 'I') lost the plot and spun off into a crazed wedding-planning-induced stress, before my bout of blog neglect, and before I'd even considered the issue of identity and name being, somehow, inextricably interlinked.

A calm before the storm, you might say. (We did actually have a storm on our wedding day. It was forecast for the afternoon, but because I obviously didn't have the time that morning to check a weather report, I didn't have anything to worry about. I woke up to bright blue skies, and as far as I knew it, that was all there would be. All day. Ah, the power of positive thinking. The skies remained bright blue until they turned dark blue, and it wasn't until most people were inside and the band was playing that the heavens opened and the lightning forked and the thunder crashed, although not as loud as the drummer in the band drummed his drums.)

Anyway, in May we took a short trip to Copenhagen. Not the best of weather, and not the lightest on the pocket, but it was a welcome break and we had a mad 'quick, let's fit in as much touristy stuff as we can' weekend to bring the trip to an end. So there were lots of nice photos that made it look like we were there for 8 nights, not 4.

I knew from the moment I flicked through the photos on the way home that I wanted to make a mail art-inspired album to put them in. I also knew I wouldn't have time to do it until after the wedding. Meaning I had a lot of time to think about it, and that anything could happen in the meantime.

So what did happen in the meantime? Well (*grins*)... I made this awesome video, and became a video tutorialist for Gauch Alchemy, who then released a mail art kit called Going Postal (new this month!), and only went and sent it to me to play with, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Look out for the video tutorial for this album on the Gauche Alchemy blog soon!

A Blank Canvas

On Monday I said I would share a few more things from the market, so here I am, with my first real foray into mixed media canvases.

Up until last week I had three small (A6-ish) canvases sitting in a drawer, since forever probably, and although I knew they were waiting patiently for the right time to be unfurled to the world in their proper state, I was a little impatient with myself for not being ready for this magical time to occur.

Last week the time came. I laid out inks, sponges, brushes, paints, stamps, glue and a few other miscellanies and got messy. Here's what I came up with:

... and now I've released them to the world, where they can fulfil their destiny.

While I've got your attention, I'd like to announce quickly that following a short delay, March's scraplift challenge is up and running at the True XOXO Girls blog - pop on over if you feel the need for some layout inspiration. If you do end up lifting any of the gorgeous pages there, including mine (let's just take another look at it)...

....then you'll be in with a chance of winning a luscious prize from Candy Shoppe Designs. I know their kits, and I can tell you they are DELICIOUS.