Happy Holidays From Rabbit Hop!

(Card from Hallmark)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I appreciate each and every one of you who take the time to visit my blog, and I hope your Christmas stockings are filled with an abundance of health, love, peace, and happiness for the coming year. Looking forward to sharing a creative 2011 with you all. :)

AEDM Weeks 3 & 4 and 21 Secrets-A Hodge Podge of Creativity

I didn't have as much time the last two weeks to create as I did the first two of AEDM and today is the last day, so this post counts as one of my creative things for today. I only created for a few minutes each day, so all of what I'm sharing are works in progress, except maybe the first one. There is also a daily list of creativity about half way down if you're interested.

When I worked, I worked on the same painting, adding layers every day and using the leftover paint on the journal pages in my Doodlicious Day Book, created in the 21 Secrets workshops (registration closes tomorrow, Dec 1). I've had fun arting every day, whether I have a finished piece to show you or not. Here's what I played with...

These two pages were made for the 21 Secrets workshop, Doors and Windows to Your Soul with Paula Phillips. The left page of a two page spread, using leftover paints, stamps and ink, and zebra duct tape (LOVE the zebra tape!). The big letters are sponge stamp alphabet letters randomly stamped around the page. The star shape is a cookie cutter. The cat is stamped on a piece of card stock, held down with zebra tape and a red sticker.

The words stamped down the right side also trail up the left side, across the top, and onto the door on the second page, and they say, "You Never Know Where A Puddy Cat Might Be Hiding."

The right side page of the spread (left page above) with the door closed. I made photos of the whole spread together, but they didn't turn out well at all, and the scanner won't scan both pages together. Anyway, the closed door is cut out of painted cardstock and is held on with a zebra duct tape hinge, inside and out. The G and stars trail down the door and end with an X under the copper wire door handle.

There he is! The right page again, door opened. There will be writing on the lined paper on the back of the door as soon as I figure out what I want to say. The other piece is some writing that I tore up and collaged on with pinkish/greenish cellophane on top. The cat is stamped on top of the cellophane...hiding. :) I may or may not add some more to these pages. I really kind of like them the way they are...

A random page from my Doodlicious Day Book, with the doodling still visible on the white background. I had some black paint left over, and I had been using the sponge stamp alphabet on a large painting, so I used up the paint with random letters on the page. There will be other elements added eventually.

You may remember the marbled book page from another post where I was learning the shaving cream/marbling technique. The journal page that it is on is actually pink marbled card stock, and they look much better together in reality than they do on here. The page is from the book "The Dancer" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer (I think that's her name). I was going to cut it off even with the journal page, but I kind of like it hanging over the top and bottom. I will put my own thoughts down on the left side.

Just a piece of cream colored card stock that I took a cookie cutter and used up some left over burnt umber paint on. This could be used as a journal background, or I could cut out the stars and paste them down on another project. Incidentally, I do have othe cookie cutters, but I like the star, and it's usually laying handy. Acrylic paint dries fast, you know. :)

These are my daily lists up til today, and I see that I scanned them out of order. Oh, well! I AM perfectly imperfect!

OK, This is the first draft of the 20x24" stretched canvas I've been working on for two weeks. It was another project for the Get It Out Get It Down workshop with Connie Hozvicka in 21 Secrets. I really like the idea and the design, painted better of course. I can't get it to post right side up, so you will have to tilt your head to the right. Sorry! Anyway, the base design and colors...see next photo:



Sorry, you'll have to tilt right again! This is the same painting after several days and multiple layers of writing, glazing, stamping, squiggling, and the light glaring on the top, since I couldn't scan it. Love the message. It's what the preacher preached at my aunt's funeral, and it has stuck with me. But the painting is too much like party confetti or something to me. Incidentally, the two doves are also done with a cookie cutter, a thinner one than the stars. Didn't like it at all, so...see next photo

 

Same painting yesterday after I added a burnt umber glaze then a burnt sienna glaze over that to tone it down. Hated that, so I then added a layer of gesso mixed with gel medium and smooshed it around with a sponge in a very thin layer. Over that I added a layer of red oil pastel and rubbed it on with a rag, which is what you see here. BUT I hated that too, so I took a bit of turpentine on a rag and took the oil pastel off, washed it off with water to get the oil residue off, and it now has another thin layer of gesso swirled around on it. So, basically, I'm now back to the beginning, only I already have a background of elements showing through the gesso. Where it goes from here, I don't know yet, but I'll show you when I quit on it. :)

This little fellow I just decided to throw into the mix. He's on the bottom corner of my apron. When I was learning the shaving cream/marbling technique I had a lump of shaving cream/paint left on my plate and without thinking I wiped it on my apron, which is why I don't wear good clothes when I paint. After it dried it kept reminding me of a bird. Of course, I was looking at it upside down. Anyway, the other day I had some black paint on a brush, so I painted him a head while I had the apron on. I like him! :)

A page that I've just started. It's on yellow cardstock. The acrylic paint is swiped on with an old credit card. The other day I was gluing this page to the back of another page, and I noticed these star shaped cut outs, cut out of textured scrapbook paper laying on the table, so I just stuck them on the page and outlined them with a black marker. There will be more elements and writing added as they come to me. :)

The left side of a double page spread. Below is the right side. OK, I worked all morning one morning picking up papers and cut out shapes off my table and gluing them to these pages with gel medium. Both pages are pretty much covered, giving it a lot of texture. A few days later I had quite a bit of paint left over in different colors and these pages were laying open just begging for some color, so color they got. Fluid acrylics were smooshed around with a brush. I layed a paper towel on top and pressed and pulled it up to leave the little dotted texture (love dots!). Then I took a brush and slung yellow paint on them. What fun! You can see a little bit of the underlying cutouts if you look closely. I love it! :)

Right page of spread. I don't know what possessed me to put that bright green star in the corner, except that I had green paint left over and the cookie cutter was handy. LOL That may not stay, and, of course there will be writing on it when the words come to me.

Left side of a two page spread. You can see some of my original Doodlicious doodling under the layer of paint, left over, of course. See, I told you I had other cookie cutters besides the star! I love this fish one almost as much as the star. I wonder what my nieces would say if they knew I was using the cookie cutters they give me for Christmas to journal with instead of to bake with. Tee Hee!

Right Page of spread. I kind of like these pages as they are, plain and simple. Right now I'm thinking some writing will be all I'll add, but that could change...

Are you worn out yet? :) Almost done! This page is textured scrapbook paper with a pocket of red and gold metallic smooth scrapbook paper glued to it with a note sticking out the top. Lots of space to the left for me to chatter on, and of course there'll be a secret on the pocket note. ;) 

The right side of a two page spread, and it's a manilla envelope, which is smooth and yellow looking with left over paints smeared and drizzled over it. I free hand cut the angel from a paper towel, seperated it into two one-ply angels and used gel medium to glue them down. The flying hearts are the cutouts from the center of her dress skirt. They tried to disappear on me when the gel medium was absorbed into them. The envelope can hold extra papers, cutouts, secrets...

Left page of the spread. It's on a textured piece of scrapbook paper that had alphabet letters in shades of gray, which accounts for the difference in texture and color. I like the ghostly appearance of the paper towel angels. There will be more added to these pages as I go along.

Last picture is of yours truly in heaven. Mp3 player plugged into my ears, styrofoam plate/palette in one hand and a paint brush in the other! Happy times! :)

Everybody asks, so, no, I didn't paint the little girl in the picture. Wish I had, but it's a Renoir print. The eyes on top of my head belong to my little dog angel, Kibbles, in an oil painting, which I almost have finished.

Ok, I'm tired and I know you are, so I'm off now to check my email and see how else I can torture that painting that I shared above. I may not get it finished today, but that's my creative project planned for this the last day of AEDM.

It's been a lot of fun for me, and even though I've shared a lot of works in progress with you, I hope at least one thing made you smile. :)

PS-Apologys for the form of this post. My laptop is trying to quit on me and I think Blogger was too. :/

Week 2 AEDM and 21 Secrets-Another Mixed Bag of Creative Attempts!

This is week two of art every day month and I am still participating in the 21 Secrets playground and again I've saved the week into one post, so there is a mixture of projects and another list of what I did creatively this past week.

I scanned the list pages in backwards, so you have to read the right side then the left side to read them in order. Sorry! I am perfectly imperfect! :)

 More experiemnting with shaving cream and fluid acrylics on card stock. Love the top one! From the workshop Everything But the Kitchen Sink with Heidi Dilley.

 Another shaving cream/acrylic print on green card stock this time (top). The bottom is an experiment on off white card stock using blue and yellow linoleum block printing ink brushed on, then I took a Q-tip dipped in clorox and drew the face. Not too good a drawing, but I like the effect. The clorox/ink technique is also from the Everything But the Kitchen Sink workshop with Heidi Dilley.

 More experiments with clorox and ink-with the wrong kind of ink apparently. Stamps dipped in clorox didn't work and neither did a Q-tip on the bottom one. It did a little on the top one if you look closely. I still have some pretty journal page backgrounds.

 OK, this is more like how the clorox/ink technique works. The right ink makes all the difference! This is in my Moleskine journal. I still haven't gotten my rubber stamps to work on any of them, but Q-tips dipped in clorox worked well. I like it, but I'm thinking I need to visit Heidi's workshop video again.

Another clorox/ink page. I love this one on salmon colored cardstock using a pear shaped sponge and Q-tips dipped in clorox. I don't know if I'll be able to do anything to this as a journal page or not. We'll see...

Trying To Live Life in Color--This is a double page spread in my 11x14" Canson sketchbook/journal. It's a project for Connie Hozvicka's workshop, Get it Out, Get it Down! We were to paint standing up and being fearless in applying paint, textures, etc. We were also to write a letter about something that was bothering us, tear it up and layer it among the paint layers. That way we get it out of our system, but nobody else can read it.  I didn't have anything in particular bothering me at the time, so I just wrote stream of conscious stuff on magenta unruyu rice paper, tore it up, glued it down, and covered it up. This is very freeing, and I love how it turned out. Sure it's not perfect, but I loved doing it, and besides that, Perfect is Boring!

Faith--Another 21 Secrets project--This one is on a 9x12" canvas (the next one will be unstretched and larger) and is from the workshop Running Loose on Canvas with Samantha Kira Harding. We learned to do all sorts of things to the canvas and this is something that I also love and will be doing more of. There are multiple layers of fluid acrylic glazing, drawing, writings in gold and black, glued papers, etc. The angel is one of my paper cut outs, as are the flower and two hearts. The little bunny square over her wing is one of my original inchies. I used the top of a cookie cutter to make the stars. The buttons are sewn on by hand with copper metallic embroidery thread, and so is the fabric with my Granny S's drawn work in it. It's from a pillow case that I wore out and saved her work from. When the side with Faith on it is lifted up there is a gold metallic piece of a paper doilie over a burgundy ribbon from a flower arrangement from my dad's funeral. I'm happy with how this turned out too and look forward to doing one on flat canvas where I can use the sewing machine and some hand embroidery.

Just fooling around with paper cutting on the cover of a booklet from The Renaissance Center. I layed it on the greenish background for scanning purposes, but I like it. :)

Just some idea doodling that I did in my Moleskine last night while watching TV. I visited someone's blog who did mandalas in a different way (I'm sorry I don't remember whose it was) and doodled an idea. I also jotted down a list and some notes. Couldn't find a black pen, so I just went with a red sharpie. I did mean to put a watercolor wash over them before I scanned them, but forgot. Oh, well...

Please lay head to right shoulder to see correctly--It's turned right on my pictures, but I tried three different times and it wouldn't upload right on here. Don't know what the problem is, but it should be standing on end. :/

Anyway, this is a 20x24" canvas that I started yesterday, so it is a work in progress and this is just the beginning stage, but I thought I would share it as something I worked on this week. I used Connie Hozvicka's Fearless technique by painting standing up and just putting paint to canvas. Of course, it will look nothing like this when I'm finished. I'm already thinking of incorporating ideas from the Running Loose on Canvas class into it. I'm loving the idea and the colors and layout so far, but I'm just getting started so we'll see how it goes along and I'll show you when it's done. :)

I guess that's it for this week. I'm hoping to do some art stuff today (Sunday), but also expecting company, so whatever I do today I'll share next time. Hope something on here made you smile!

Week 1 AEDM & More 21 Secrets- A Mix of Stuff!

Last Monday was the first day of Art Every Day Month, and I have been creative every day, but haven't posted until now, so this is a long post of pictures and projects from the week. The projects are from classes I've taken in the 21 Secrets Playground, which closes for registration Dec. 1. Click buttons on sidebar for info on either activity.

There is also a written list of what I did that I don't have pictures for.

                                     Week 1 list of creative activities- Monday through Saturday

This is a mixed media postcard from the Glazing 101 workshop with Less Herger. It's supposed to look like a night sky with a lot of starry depth, but I got carried away with the spattering of the stars and they look more like fireworks. The herons started out as pink rice paper cut outs, but didn't show up well, so I painted them black with a sharpie, still didn't like it, and they wound up gold. The moon is white and gold glitter glue. It didn't turn out like I wanted it to, but I learned from it, and I can live with it. :)

Another mixed media post card with various techniques learned in the workshops from different instructors. It has glazing, spattering, text transfer, paper towel, and one of my cut out paper angels. The text is from an ad in a magazine. I don't remember which one or what it was advertising, but it says, "There are 1,440 minutes in a day. Take at least fifteen for yourself." I gave my angel red shoes and a goofy face, cause even angels need fifteen minutes for themselves in a day, don't you think. :)

These are just some papercuts out of pink unruyu rice paper and doodles that I did while watching TV the other night, just fooling around. I had the paper folded, so I have several of each one. The little pink parchment paper card says "Wall Flowers" and the figure is wearing one of the paper dresses.

This started out in my Moleskine journal as a technique by Heidi Dilley in her workshop Everything But the Kitchen Sink. I was supposed to use clorox with the stamps on dye ink. Only I was out of clorox and did the inking wrong. Clorox wipes didn't work, so I just stamped white ink on them, added the mouse stamp, and moved on...

Another technique from Everything But the Kitchen Sink with Heidi Dilley. This one is really messy and fun! Also in the Moleskine journal. It involves shaving cream and fluid acrylics, because I forgot that it was supposed to be ink. Anyway, I loved the marbling effect on it. Unfortunately, I decided to try the ink/clorox technique above on the back of the left page and the ink pads bled through onto the marbling. I should have known better! But I can always cover it up with something else, can't I? :)

This is the second print off the same shaving cream as the one above. Experimenting. Colors a little more muted. I see all sorts of shapes in the patterns!

The third pull off the same shaving cream pile as the two above. More pastel. Still in the Moleskine.

I decided to try a book page on what was left of the shaving cream pile. I love it! The page is from the book, "The Dancer" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. I used to would NEVER have torn a page out of any book, especially one that I enjoyed. But I've gotten brave in these workshops and am trying everything. I'm so proud of me!

Also, someone in the workshop asked me if I'd noticed the face in the marbling. Sure enough there is! Do you see it?

Hate this one, but decided to share it anyway. Have to take the not so good with the better, you know. It's on a gray piece of card stock, and I had very little shaving cream left. I used red and black sumi ink. It smeared some, and I don't really like the colors. I'm going to buy some regular inks and try them, but I think I really prefer the fluid acrylics. Anyway it's a very fun technique that could get addictive.

Another failed attempt at ink and clorox on an off white piece of card stock. I stamped the teal ink pad down once, but it didn't do well, so I took a paper towel and smeared it around, then added red and black sumi ink with more teal added in. The clorox wipes and stamps still didn't work, so I took a wet sponge pear and blotted it over the red. That didn't work like I wanted it to either. There is a faint image if you know it's there. It'll make a good journal page background though. One good thing about messed up pages and experiments. You can always cover them up or cut them up and use them elsewhere. Another thing I've gotten brave about in these workshops. :)

Another card stock post card. This poor card has been through so many changes and glazes that I can't even remember them all, but with the help of glazing layers, I really like it now.

The first art postcard I did in the workshop with Lis Hofmann, Art Journaling's Sassy Little Sister: The Art PostCard. I took a bought postcard and sanded the glossy finish off, added a layer of gesso, then started picking up little scraps and other stuff off my table and gluing them down. I added doodling, spattering, glazing, some paper cutouts, and whatever else seemed to work at the time. Another fun project doing stuff I used to not be brave enough to do!

The list for Sunday Week 1 --One of the shaving cream/acrylics marbled pages I experimented with and a couple of character sketches from memory from a movie I watched Sat. night.

Well, that's it for week one. Looking forward to seeing what everybody else is doing, and I hope that you are all having as much fun as I am, and I hope there is at least one thing on here that made you smile. :)