For those who have no pumpkin to carve...

I'm currently waiting for my sister to arrive so we can have an evening of scary movie watching but I came across this little site via http://alteredroute.blogspot. It passes a few minutes and I might just come up with a few ideas for next year's pumpkin. Have a go :
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/timages/page/pumpkin_sim.html

Happy Halloween!

Yes, it is Halloween - my favourite day of the year. Not that I like all the commercialisation involved. I prefer the more traditional approach. Halloween for me is a day for remembering loved ones lost as much as for watching scary movies. I do carve a pumpkin though. Every year a new design - from cats to ghosts as well as the traditional scary face. I have gone for the scary face this year but here is a photo of one of my pumpkins from a couple of years ago.

Just a few more bits and pieces. I have some inchies for an Italian swap (inspired by Leonardo da Vinci and Rome), a Halloween ATC and some little pillow boxes.

Evening sky papercuts

I found a few of my own design papercuts and thought I would upload them. Instead of the traditional pale background I used an alcohol ink background. Nice and zingy but maybe a bit too much. Slightly diluted inks might have been a more subtle idea.

Polymer clay mosaic

I bought myself the Mixed Media Mosaic book by Laurie Mika the other week and this is my first attempt at a mosaic. The photo does not do it justice though. The colours are much nicer in reality. Lots of pearl ex and lumiere paint was involved. While arty Renaissance style art is the usual central image for these mosaics, I put a photo of my old Sam in mine. I think this might be slightly addictive though. Making little tiles with as many different designs as you can imagine is a nice thing to do in quiet moments. I have to buy some more clay first.

A cut on the wild side

Having now sorted out my internet security problems - it took two hours 20 mins to update my anti virus and my internet connection cuts out after two hours - I can update my blog without wondering if something untoward is going to shoot down the phone line.

I have been working on some papercuts for greetings cards recently. This is one of them - a scene made up of designs by Ellen Brown. I have a few others but have not go around to scanning them yet. There are so many ideas going round in my head right now and finding the time to get them all done seems to be getting more and more difficult. I think I need to send my brain on holiday to Transylvania for the weekend. Why Transylvania? It's nearly Halloween and I have always fancied going to Transylvania.

My new Open University course materials arrived the other day - Perspectives on Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo is known as the ultimate Renaissance man but it seems that he was not all that different from other artist/craftsmen of his day. Looks like there is plenty more info to absorb. Although the course doesn't officially start until next week I am already on week two of the study book. There is just no holding me back when there is something new to learn.

Variety is the spice....

This is my first attempt at an altered photo. It took me three days to pluck up the courage to start abusing it but once I got started there was no stopping me. The picture was printed from my PC onto gloss photo paper then sanded, bleached, sanded some more, alcohol inked and drawn on with permanent marker. Then I took a pair of scissors to the edges and scored merrily along the bottom and sides. Although I have altered photos with graphics programmes before, doing it to a physical photo is new to me. It totally lacks finesse but I love the colours that the bleach and sanding creates. I may be able to use these techniques in other work.

I got a soldering iron for my birthday too. Nothing is safe from me now. Metal is being soldered left, right and centre. Great for making wire embellishments. I just have to figure out how to make my joins a bit neater.

There has been a distinct lack of pictures on here over the last few entries. So I have added some for your perusal today. My first attempt at an art pin, some pop-ups, mini tags and those ubiquitous inchies.

Paper engineering is my latest obsession. The pop-up ATCs above are actually a design by Rober Sabuda. I just printed it smaller so it would fit on an ATC. Take a look at the link to see lots of projects you can try yourself. http://robertsabuda.com/popmakesimple.asp

A Place to Bark auction

I was sent an e-mail this morning from one of the ladies on an inchie group I am part of. She has contributed some work to a charity auction for Bernie Berlin's A Place to Bark charity and wants to spread the word. The link is:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290166306486
There are some lovely ATCs in the box and the price is climbing steadily. A worthy charity in my view.

Skull-A-Day pt 2

I'm on Skull-A-Day! Well, not me, personally. Some of my work is. Totally wonderful! The link is: http://skulladay.blogspot.com/2007/09/braincase-xi-doublewide.html I can't tell you how exciting it is. This guy is a genius and so many other talented artists submit work to him. I have a very silly grin on my face, let me tell you.