Take Me To Your Leader - Altered Envie

What happens when your mail art trading partner's interests are very different from your own?  Well, you can either disregard her likes or you can stretch yourself.  This month, I decided to stretch myself.  Science fiction?  Aliens?  No sweat!  (I told myself, somewhat confidently.)

I started with a monoprint I made a while ago using my Gelli Plate. Once folded into an envelope, the patterns in the print reminded me of photographs of the Milky Way.  That created a perfect backdrop for my alien.  I used an image I found on the internet as a guide and black, white and gray acrylic paints.  I was pretty pleased with how he (she? it?) turned out, since I can honestly say that painting aliens is not in my bag of usual tricks.

On the back, I stamped a simple message that always reminds me of the old Bugs Bunny cartoon character, the rather inept Marvin the Martian.  Is anyone else old enough to remember him?

Speaking of simple, this post will be short and sweet, as I try to get back into the habit of regular posts.

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a fabulous day.

Handpainted Tulip - Altered Envie

My altered envie partner for July has received the envelope I sent her, so I can share it with you here.

My partner lives in The Netherlands, which is famous for its tulips.  Since my signature flower is the tulip, I decided that would be my theme.  I started by creating my own envelope using a monoprint I made with a Gelli Plate.  I used acrylics to paint my tulip, and let me tell you, that right leaf took a looooong time to get right!  Thank goodness acrylics are very forgiving.

On the back, I wrote a quote by Anaïs Nin:  "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

Thanks for stopping in!  Take a risk and blossom.

ICAD No. 12 Gelli Print Make-over

If you think this card looks like a companion to yesterday's (ICAD No. 11 Silhouette), you would be right.  I actually started this card first, reached a certain point, and got stuck.  So I set it aside, made yesterday's card using the paints I still had on my palette, and came back to finish this card today.

The background is a Gelli Plate print I made on sheet music a while ago.  Unfortunately, the original color scheme (blue and yellow) was not inspiring me at all.  So I dry-brushed white acrylic paint over the entire piece to tone down the colors, and then used pink, green and additional white accents to transform the color scheme to one I liked.  Like yesterday, this card was also inspired by a couple of Dina Wakley techniques: drawing simple shapes and fixing overwrought layers.

Have a great day!

Supplies:
4x6 index card;  Gelli Plate print on sheet music; titanium white and pink acrylic paint; black and white Stabilo All Pencils; picked raspberry and mowed lawn distress inks; Signo Uniball white gel pen; Tim Holtz collage stamp; Faber-Castell black Pitt artist pen; Tim Holtz alpha stencil; punchinella.

ICAD No. 11 Silhouette

This card was inspired by a project in Dina Wakley’s book Art Journal Courage to use a silhouette.  My silhouette started as a photograph in a store flyer I received in the mail.  The flyer was printed on heavy, glossy cardstock, and I saved this particular figure because it was about the right size for any number of projects (journal page, index card, whatever).

After cutting out the figure closely, I laid it on my index card and painted right over it with the three colors of acrylic paint.  (Because of the type of paper the silhouette was printed on, it made a good mask.)  After the paints dried, I loosely outlined the figure with a pigment pen and wrote a message to myself in the white space.  I used black and silver Gelatos to add the shadow on the left, and a black Stabilo All Pencil to trace the “Viewmaster” stencil.  My final step was to test whether the white Stabilo All Pencil would write over the Gelatos: umm, not so much.  The Signo white gel pen didn’t do so well either.  Still, this card was a fun experiment and I like the color scheme a lot.

As always, thank you for reading my blog and for your thoughtful comments.  I always enjoying hearing from you. 

Supplies:

4x6 index card; white, pink, and green acrylic paint; Faber-Castell black and silver gel sticks; Stabilo black and white All Pencils; Balzer Designs stencil; vintage sheet music scrap; Staedtler pigment pen; Faber-Castell Pitt black artist pen; Signo Uniball white pen; Tim Holtz alpha stencil; Niji water pen.