Thursday, November 30, 2006

Nonsense




"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"
from Alice in Wonderland

This is a digital graphic I created for a Paper Traders project Calendar Project. The border will probably end up being one square of the checkerboard, not two. There's an allowance for the full bleed. I was inspired by looking at some victorian 3d cards. I wanted to create that feel. Next time I'll really exagerate the effect so that it looks like a pop-up card. There's always next time.

A friend once said that's in the artistic temperament...that stretching and reaching. It may just be obsessional. I'm not sure.

I had fun with "flip horizontal".

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Kat Soto's web site


I've been working furiously all week to get this new website finished. The client, Kat Soto, adorned the windows at Shreve & Co. in San Francisco with her mannequins and the unveiling was the day after Thanksgiving. So the site had a strict deadline. I'm really happy with it, and so is Kat. She said it's like looking through a View Master. :-)
I created a set of backgrounds using William Morris patterns, layering them over each other, playing with the transparency and deconstructing them. The objects, trims, tools, and such are actually Kat's equipment. My husband took a bunch of photos and I painstakingly erased the background out.
Some of the objects on the page above were created from nothing...purely digital...like the board complete with screws, and the hang tags. All done in Photoshop.
Take a look...and view the galleries. Her work is incredible!
KatSoto.com

Thursday, November 16, 2006

paper cuts


My cousin Mary Ellen sent me a few images of some incredible art. Check out the work of this exceptional papercut artist! His name is Peter Callesen. I love the way he uses both the negative and positive shapes. And his 3d folded paper is intrinsically tethered to the cut-out shape. Almost a tragic feel to it. I wonder if its cut with a laser?

Here's his cut paper work.
Here's his home page.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Snow Angel

This is one of a dozen cards I made for a Paper Traders ATC swap. The description of the swap was "Ornaments can be any shape as long as they remain within ATC dimensions, are decorated front & back including a small signature and incorporate a hanging device of some kind.". The hostess is Gisele of Jersey UK.
I kind of stayed within the rules. The card itself is ATC size but the embellishments stick out a bit. Lets just say it definitelty WON'T fit inside the standard plastic sleeve. But it'll look great on a tree.
The found the image of the young girl on a disc I bought from Luna Girl. I added wings and painted the furry parts with irridescent medium. I glued on mica bits, snow glitter and opalescence flakes. Trimmed with birch twigs dipped in fake ice. Added a boingy wire to hang and shredded a very wide ribbon to create the fringe trim. It reminds me of an old tree top angel we had as children with hair of fiberglass strands.
On the back is a quite by Norman Vincent Peale: "Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful."

I have six left from this series if anyone wants to trade a christmas ornament, one for one. Let me know. I'd love to start a collection of paper ornaments. :)

Monday, November 06, 2006

black and white


These are a set of digital ATC's I made a while back for a swap themed "black and white".
I created all six at once on a template for ATC's that looks like this:

You can download it if you want. Here's a large version (8.5 x 11 x 200 dpi). I filled each rectangle with its own composition of images, some overlap onto more than one card. I found the images on a Google image search. They're old scientific drawings.
I then hit the "invert" command in Photoshop and created the same image but...well, inverted.


Then I printed each page on heavy weight glossy paper and cut each card out, mounted it on black cardstock, glued its inverted partner onto the back of the card and ended up with 6 cards of both black and white images. Next time I'll print them out with a laser printer though. I looked at them after a few months and they are starting to fade. Live and learn.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

My Life is in my Hands



































A spread for a RR in Cynthia's Art Journal called Arc of Life. Its shaped like a fan. I scanned my hands, eliminated the background, used a PS filter (rough pastels), and sketched in colors with chalk pencils and ink.

Friday, November 03, 2006

Gluttony

This is a spread in my neice Hannah's Round Robin Art Journal
called Sin and Virtues. I chose "gluttony" as my preferred sin...
these days anyway. :-)


Its straight up collage work. I started with a Basic Grey background paper.
Added torn and cut paper elements.
Some writing and scrawling.
eat,eat,eat,eat,eat
Eat everything on your plate and you can have dessert.
There are children starving in China
If you're good you'll have some pie.

And this little piggie cried all the way home boo hoo.
Inside the box is a big X.