No more blank pages: Lesson 1 in Pam Carriker's "Visual Journalism 101" class

Lesson One of Pam Carriker's "Visual Journalism 101" class through Artful Gathering. As neat as this page is looking, there's still four more lessons and lots of layers to go!

Mixed-media puzzle pieces

My art group exchanged puzzle pieces. Each member wrote her theme on the back and, if desired, included an arrow indicating which direction was up. When we get all of our puzzle pieces back, we should, technically, be able to fit the puzzle together to resemble a large, themed collage. Most of us exchanged large-ish puzzles pieces, the kind you find in 25- or 35-piece children's art. For the 3 pieces below, the themes were "Golden Era of Movie Stars" and "Summer Wings." I'll post more as I complete them.

Charmed, I'm sure

When my art group met last month to exchange charms, I was aghast to find out they had meant *handmade* charms when I had brought only some lame store-bought metal charms. (It was my first meeting and none of the preceding e-mails had actually said hand-crafted... Big "DOH!" for me.) Although all my artsy friends were very gracious about it, I vowed to set the record straight and make my first set of charms for our upcoming meeting. Here are the results.


I made these using a meltable/modable plastic textile (I cannot remember the name of it), a rubber stamp to emboss, wire and various beads.

Spring Art Doll - Your Mind Is a Canvas

I made this art doll using some found items from an estate sale: a wooden spindle of some sort and a cork stopper.

More Splashin' with Mermaids

Joined another mermaid swap, 'cause I just love these gals. These ATCs are made with a combination of acrylic paints, art paper, acrylic embellishments and transparency sheets, on which I collaged some sea life.

Get Your Kicks on Route 66

Two of a set of seven ATCs for a Route 66-themed swap.

CREATE banner

Fun class today using a variety of papers and picking out ribbons and coordinating colors...

Six ATCs for Easter Egg swap

Hot Mojo - playing with meltable textiles

From my Hot Mojo art class (dabbling with meltable fibers, textiles). I put the piece together at home and embellished it with various metals, but the centerpiece was made in class using hand-painted Tyvek, finely shredded cellophane called Angelina, and little snippets of Textiva, all melted together. I also sewed some bronze beads to the Tyvek. The background canvas was painted black, then washed with a copper shimmer.

"Monster" Artist Trading Cards

For a swap at Art Forty Two.

I painted these cutie-monsters with acrylics on art paper with rub-on fleurs at the top.

Mermaid love

One of a trio of mermaids for a swap (acrylics, tiny beads, transparent overlay).

Faces: the Heart of People

I've been wanting to create this kind of character artwork for more than a couple of years now, inspired by artists such as Monica Zuniga and Kelly Rae Roberts. Here is my first attempt. A little rough on the blending (I used a combo of art pens and acrylics. I think I'll use mostly acrylics next time), but I think overall I like how she turned out and can't wait to make more. Her dress is made of vintage sheet music over which I painted.

Domino Effect

Here's a series of domino art I made in a workshop earlier this month. These were so fun and easy! I used alcohol ink pens for the color and Stayz-On for the image base. Each step was protected by a matte finish coating to protect.

Two spreads in a journal RR

Here are two spreads I did last night in artist Terri N-W's journal round robin. Her theme was Pierrot/harlequin/Marcel Marceau/jesters, etc.

(My scanner cut off the pages a little, but you can get the gist of it.)

What a cutie!

Festisite has a fun money generator. Pick your currency, upload your pic and there you go!

Postcards from around the world

The Postcard Crossing Project has been around for about three years now, but I just stumbled on the Web site through another artist's blog (thanks wackystuff!).

You sign up to send and receive postcards from people all over the world. One member just received his 1,000th postcard! The site is trying to log 2 million received postcards and is about 23,000 shy.

I just signed up because it sounds like fun -- and it's so much better than getting only bills in the mail!

Check it out:





I also put a perma-link in my right-side column.

Monica Zuniga's giving this away!

Uplifting spiritual artist Mónica Zúñiga is giving away this beautiful piece of art on canvas. Check out her blog by clicking the title above this post to find out how to enter. Or check out the link "Hands & Heart" on my artists blogroll to the right. I've been a fan of her work for a long time and recently bought one of her gorgeous paintings!

So much art, so little time...

Perhaps this time piece I created earlier this month at Jo's will help remind me to make more time for art. I'm so busy, art has taken a back seat recently to all my other priorities. Which is a shame, considering that art helps ground me and bring peace to my otherwise hectic life.



This clock is made out of a little tin lunch box -- about 4 inches by 3 inches. It was primed with Killz before I splotched on acrylic paints to give it an antiqued look. Others dabbed on alcohol inks, which I did use for the clock hands to dull some of the shininess.

The swirls and stuff are from a rubber stamp and some rub-ons. The BINGO card is a cut-out. The clock numbers are on little round pieces of wood, on which I stamped the numbers. Some artists used Scrabble tiles.
.