Weekend Work

My husband and I are using the weekend to clean out one of our upstairs rooms...

it used to be my studio but has turned into a messy junk room.

It' s a Huge Job to go through so much stuff and we spent all of yesterday doing just that.

I found some really cool art supplies (including a small bag of unidentified bones),

two of my grandmother's old dolls (with leather bodies)

and a sketchbook that I had as a young artist.

It was amusing, to see those old drawings that I did.

I loved drawing as much back then as I do now.

I spent a lot of time with my sketchbook, drawing the world around me.

Copying other artists, learning from them...

teaching myself.

My family was fairly poor, no money for something as frivolous as art lessons.

So everything I learned was a result of putting pencil to paper.

I have to get back to work on that upstairs room now -

I'll leave you with a peek of new work that I started Friday night

(when I was supposed to be cleaning up in the downstairs studio...).

"Lonely Tree"

9' x 12"

Mixed Media on collage background

$205

This is a mixed media painting that I did this fall.

I have gone back and added an edit to this post.
I originally did not add the meaning behind this painting.
I decided to just put it out there with the painting as it is the reason for it.

This fall, my mother in law passed away.
I watched my father in law those days after she died.
 I spent a lot of time gazing out the back window at their house, looking across the open field...
lost in thought.
As I looked out that window, I could see a line of trees.
One of them was bent in the wind a little,
much like my father in law was - bent in the weight of his wife's death.

I started drawing the tree in my sketchbook at first.
I was obsessed with the shape, with the meaning I had attached to that tree.
The only way that I could get it out of my head was to give in to it and paint it.
And it really helped me to work through the grief of my friends passing.

Jenny Doh can you hear that?
Art DOES save.

 I used vintage book pages, tissue paper from my grandmothers patterns and old hymn books.

The tree is painted in acrylics and watercolors

and then detailed with India Ink.

I love how the vintage papers peek through the background.

It really gives it a lot of dimension and texture.

Email me if you're interested in purchasing this.

"She Ruled The Roost"

A peek at the latest mixed media fiber piece.

"She Ruled The Roost"

Carol Sloan

2010

vintage photo transferred to fabric, textiles, found items

mixed media fiber collage

As usual, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

I love the burned fibers around the photo!

I recently got a new (and more powerful) heat gun and I am really enjoying it...

More Sketching

Well, it seems that when you have a broken leg ( dear husband)
and other health issues (dear me) -
you spend a lot of time in doctor waiting rooms...
waiting of course!

I NEVER leave home without my handy dandy sketchbook
and Pitt Artist Pens.
NEVER.
You shouldn't either.
This is a page that I worked on while they were
REMOVING HUBBY'S CAST!!!

YES!
He got his cast off after 5 weeks of being restrained in one...
Mind you, he is still restrained (are you reading this dear husband?!)
but the cast is gone, gone, gone!
He is still on crutches, with orders to limit his weight bearing to about 20-30%.
But he is healing - which is great!
Thanks for all of the emails and well wishes.
I (well we) really appreciate that.

I'll try to post another finished sketchbook page tomorrow.
Maybe a new piece of artwork as well!
Yep, I completed yet another mixed media collage piece today!
I mounted the piece in another shadow box, with a black background this time.
It really looks so nice with the different background.

Hope that you all are keeping cool in this heat wave in the east.
I'm doing my outside work early in the am
and then late in the pm...
like every other southern resident!

Stay creative, my friends.

New Art Work

While tending to an injured husband,
I have managed to find a tiny bit of studio time.
I've had this piece percolating in my mind for quite a while
I just couldn't get into the studio long enough to make it happen.
So, I finally let everything else go (after I had my husband situated best I could)
and headed into my studio.

POW!

"It" happened.
"It" being those precious times that things just flow...
Have any of you out there had that to happen?
You begin a little slowly, trying this or that...
changing that for the other...
and before you know it -
you are surrounded by the magic.
I almost completely finished a new piece of art work that day.
Even placed it in a shadow box.
I was looking for a quote or poem to go with it and decided to just write one myself.
I used to love to write poetry
and that day I remembered how...

I just let the magic of doing what I love guide me.

Here's a peek.
It's not finished at the point of this photo but this is the chick that inspired me.

Goldfinch Collage Page

This is one side of the book page that I am working on.
I used a manila folder (cut to size) plus duck tape plus collage elements to build this page.
The painting of the bird is one that I painted and then printed on some kind of photo paper.
We have an apple tree in our backyard that the Goldfinches love to visit, eat and rest on.
So I used small twigs from that same tree to add to the bottom of the page.
I painted "tuna" cardboard - oh, someone asked about that.
It is a great art supply from the grocery store -
straight from the tuna boxes on aisle 7 (just kiddin', I don't know what aisle they are on).
But they are in the boxes of packaged flaked tuna. Great corrugated cardboard without all the work.
And your local grocer will gladly let you have it!
Even if they do look at you kinda funny when you ask... I did add some type of oriental coin charm thing on the bottom of the page.
I tied it onto the waxed linen that I tied the sticks on the page with.
The page is still functional as a folder.
This is just the way I work -
A light bulb goes off in my head (not too painful and I'm getting used to the glare).
I run to my studio, twigs, paint, fiber, glue, thread, paper flies...
I finish the project and then go back and say things like
"Well, if I did it again, I'd do this different or that..."
You all know how that goes, right?
But I did do one thing differently this time.
Since I knew ahead of time that this would be developed into a class,
I wrote down what I did as I went along!
How cool is that?!
I usually finish up and then try to remember what I did...
that doesn't always work with me...
When I finished the page I took a different colored index card (that's what I was writing on at the time)
and wrote down the things I would do differently next time.
Hopefully I can remember to do this on the next page...
Yeah, yeah, I see all of you shaking your heads - thinking "there is noooo way she will remember to do that..."
Well...I might.

Mixed Media Artist Book

I have been making plans for a while now for a mixed media artist book (or journal).
If I complete it like I have planed, or even close to it,
there should be a ton of techniques in it!
I made the first (of several) folders that will be inside of it.
This one is a manila folder that has been cut down to size,
painted, inked, sanded, stenciled, spritzed, grommet-ed, taped,
and waiting for a collage element on the front of it.
I'll use screen fabric, a copy of a bird painting that I did,
along with painted/sanded and torn tuna cardboard and maybe a few circular washers...
or a feather...
Either way -
It's going to be great!

Creative Offerings

Here's a small (4" x 5") collage for the mixed media book that I am spending way too many hours on...but totally lovin' it! That is DJ Pettitt's image (from a cool postcard).
Hey, look at what I painted when I got home from Weaverville NC today! I had THE most wonderful day with three beautiful and talented women. It was a totally inspiring day! What about you?
What about a little Funky Chicken? Everybody needs a Funky Chicken in their life...
here's one just for you!