Stencil Storage

There are a number of expensive cabinets and the like for storing stencils -- but one look around my studio/office reminds me that adding one more piece of furniture would require either hanging it from the ceiling, blowing out one of the walls, or ... need I go on?  But I do have built-in book shelves (that and the lighting are the reasons I love this room, which started life as the master bedroom.)  For me, then, the answer is 3-ring looseleaf binders filled with clear page protectors.  A recent Internet search showed me that others have adopted the same idea. 

Since  www.StencilGirlProducts.com and other makers of artists' stencils provide a range of choices as to stencil size, from small to large, I've decided to use the 12" X 12" binder-style "scrapbooks" available at places like (brick-and-mortar) Tuesday Morning and (online) Staples.  At the Staples website, I had to do some serious hunting, but finally found a reasonably priced product.  I don't need a binder with metal tips nailed to the corners -- yes, a true scrapbook is meant to last for generations; but immortal stencils ...?  By the time I'm gone, my beloved stencils will probably be so well-used that they may as well be placed alongside my body in the box.

2013 Monmouth Festival of the Arts

I was delighted to be accepted into the 2013 Monmouth Festival of the Arts, April 13 - 17, in the Fine Arts category.  I won't know which of my six submissions will be on display until that information is posted --
http://monmouthfestivalofthearts.com/
-- in mid-month.  But I do know it's time to choose some of the possible pieces to include among the allowed 10 portfolio pieces ... meaning that they will be wrapped in acetate and displayed in portfolio bins at the show, rather than wired for hanging.  One to three of my original six submissions will be on display as hanging art on the walls of the gallery.  And everything, of course, is to be labeled.  I need to finish the preparations as soon as possible since I have another event coming up that will keep me occupied for awhile, prior to the festival.

Last year I was saddened to be passed over in the MFA, although I am glad that artists need to jury in there every year, each year with a different juror making the selections, so as to keep the quality of the artwork high, as well as to reflect a variety of artistic tastes.  But then, less than a week ago, I learned that Jane Lux had also been passed over by last year's Fine Arts juror -- a discovery that nearly loosened my teeth.  Jane Lux is a top-drawer watercolorist and her favorite subject, flowers, is a forever-favorite among collectors.  Her website --
   http://janelux.com/Gallery.html
-- gives a glimpse of her exceptional skill, but as is often the case, seeing her artwork in person is an experience that allows the viewer to fully appreciate the nuances and subtlties that make her artwork truly gorgeous.  Her colors glow like jewels.

During the two college years that I spent majoring in commercial art (now called graphic art) I did just enough watercolor painting to realize how very challenging this medium can be.

I have no doubt that this year, when I check the MFA website next week, I will find Jane's name right where I feel it deserves to be -- among the listed artists whose work will appear in the 2013 festival.

Mary Beth Shaw -- StencilGirl and her book

Flavor for Mixed Media: A Feast of Techniques for Texture, Color & Layers, by artist and StencilGirl Mary Beth Shaw, sits on my sagging bookshelf within easy reach.  I haven't kept all of books I've bought on the subject of mixed-media art-making -- and I've skipped buying some of them altogether -- but this one definitely made the cut.  I  never open it without finding new inspiration.

In the "small world" category of things, I recently learned -- soon after deciding to create my own original stencil designs -- that this same Mary Beth Shaw is the artist who created StencilGirl ... http://stencilgirlproducts.com/ 

To my delight, Mary Beth has welcomed me to join the fabulous and creative team of artists behind the stencils already displayed on the StencilGirl website.

As the New Year begins, I'm looking forward to posting images of my StencilGirl designs here on this blog.  They will be available directly from StencilGirl.

Having already purchased StencilGirl products and put them to use, I can happily vouch for their quality.  They are sturdy enough to stand up to the less-than-gentle treatment that my unfortunate art-making tools must endure.

A peace-filled New Year is my wish for everyone out there!  

Pat Dews -- a beautiful soul

I was unable to attend either of the 2012 Pat Dews' wokshops for which I had registered, but that disappointment was followed by Pat's kindly personal invitation to meet her at a recent award ceremony of the New Jersey Watercolor Society, which now -- fortunately for me -- meets in my figurative backyard, at Middletown Arts Center. (If you live in NJ and take NJ Transit from any of the Shore Points to NYC, you ride past this art center every time you pass the Middletown Train Station. These two buildings are rock-throwing distance apart. Not that I'm suggesting you throw any ...!)

My art-world experience was launched in college, in the prehistoric days before popularized computer use, when my major was labeled "commercial art." ("Graphic design," I think, is the modern label.) My focus during that era was representational art. By 1995, however, I had been bitten by a different bug and came down with a full-blown mania for nonobjective abstract art using mixed media. The fever has never gone down.

Thanks to creative minds like Pat Dews', it never will.

http://www.patdews.com

A Happy New Discovery -- StencilGirl Stencils

Although I was unable to attend either of the 2012 Pat Dews' wokshops for which I had registerd, nonetheless, signing up for them rekindled my fascination with play-tools used in mixed-media art-making.  This interest was heightened by Pat's kindly personal invitation to meet her at a recent award ceremony of the New Jersey Watercolor Society, which now -- fortunately for me -- meets in my figurative backyard, at Middletown Arts Center.  (If you take NJ Transit from any of the Shore Points to NYC, you ride past this art center every time you pass the Middletown Train Station.  These two buildings are rock-throwing distance apart.  Not that I'm suggesting you throw any ...!)

Not long after meeting Pat -- voila! -- I came across the most happy discovery of StencilGirl stencils, the brain-child of Mary Beth Shaw, whose name was already in my vocabulary since I often refer to her book on mixed-media artmaking.   I placed my order and quickly received high-quality plastic stencils that my fingers are itching to use.

My art-world experience was launched in college, in the prehistoric days before popularized computer use, when my major was labeled "commercial art."  ("Graphic design," I think, is the modern label.)  My focus during that era was representational art.  By 1995, however, I had been bitten by a different bug and came down with a full-blown mania for nonobjective abstract art using mixed media.  The fever has never gone down.

Thanks to creative minds like those behind StencilGirl, it never will.




 

Ideas for using digital clipart in your creative projects...

Ideas for having fun with CD clipart:

Once they've been downloaded at DigiScrapStation, these images can be easily reversed left-to-right, either in your photo-processing program or in your printing program; printing them “backward” gives you two sets of images for the price of one! The only exceptions are the images containing text. These cannot be flipped -- unless your creative impulse leads you into trying backward text just for the fun of it!

You can print in black-and-white, then add your own unique color combinations to the print-out. If your inkjet printer uses dye-based ink, add this personal color with dry media -- colored pencils, rub-ons, oil pastels, etc. If your printer uses pigment ink, you can use wet media like acrylic paint.

You can print on patterned paper. Best results will come from choosing a pattern that’s light in color.

Another option: Create a transparency by printing on the “right” (rough) side of a transparency sheet of film (available at office supply stores.)

Or, use the same transparency film to make transfers: In your photo-processing program or in your printing program, flip an image or text horizontally, making it “backward.” Print this reversed text and/or image onto the “wrong” (shiny) side of a transparency. (Prior to printing, adjust your printer’s ink flow; you want a light flow, since too much ink will create puddles that bleed and blur.) Handling the transparency carefully as it emerges from the printer, immediately place it – wet side down -- onto the receiving surface. Holding it in place with one hand, use the other to burnish from the top of the film, using fingertips or a bone folder.

Transfer-Making Note 1: Transparency films can be used over and over. Simply clean off the residual ink with rubbing alcohol and allow dry-time. One sheet of film, although it will grow stained, will nevertheless work just as well countless more times.
Transfer-Making Note 2: If doing several of these transparencies in a row, take a few minutes to clean your printer following manufacturer’s instructions which in most cases can be found on manufacturers’ websites.

***
For a totally new look, try printing on mulberry paper – here’s how:
Set up a sheet of ordinary printing paper for use as a “carrier sheet:” Add strips of two-sided removable cellophane along the edge that will feed into the printer.
If using a flat-feed printer, this should be the only taping necessary. If using a printer that requires the paper to make a U-turn or an L-turn as it’s printed, add one length of tape along each of the long-side edges of the paper, and a third piece of tape down the center of the carrier sheet.
Cut a sheet of translucent mulberry paper to the size of the carrier sheet and gently press it to the carrier, securing it onto the pieces of tape. As the printing begins, hold one hand gently at the end of the paper opposite the feeding end, to help guide it into the printer just in case this should happen to be necessary.
After your first print, you will know whether or not you would like to adjust the ink flow for printing on mulberry paper. My personal preference has been to use either the “medium” or “photo” setting. Sometimes the “photo” setting results in the residual image on the carrier sheet (after the mulberry paper is carefully peeled off) becoming background paper to set aside for a future project.

Mulberry paper prints have a delightful and uneven translucency that make them fun to use in layering techniques for collage. The edges can be left with the original straight-edge cut, or the paper can be torn along the edges, with beautiful frayed edges that increase the areas of texture in a piece of art.
When using mulberry paper prints in collage, I’ve had the most success using dry adhesives like glue sticks.

***

I’m sure you’ll enjoy working with my CD digital clipart as much as I enjoyed creating it!  Since I own copyright on these images, they are not to be re-sold.  However, they can be used on products to be marketed for personal financial gain, when credit for the clipart is given to http://heartworkbycecilia.blogspot.com.  Many thanks!

"Gingko and Flowers," a collage



(Click on the above image to enlarge it.)

 My collage Gingko and Flowers is a small work that recently won an award in a local art show.  It's available for purchase at my Zibbet shop (see upper left column.)  Like most of my collages, this artwork is difficult to really "see" when viewed this way ... digitally.  In person, a viewer sees the translucency of the two diamond-shaped collage elements, and translucency is a quality I love in collage, both for its building of layers as well as its inherent way of hinting at mystery. 

A year or so ago, I made stacks of gelatin monoprints, using gingko leaves from my own tree, as well as a variety of other elements.  After these monoprints dried, I scanned them and altered their colors in Photoshop.  I then printed out these images on mulberry papers, using two-sided temporary tape and carrier sheets in the printing process.  Two of these print-outs became the diamond-shaped elements in the above collage.

I almost always opt to tear the edges of these print-outs before using them in collages; now, what to do with the leftover scraps? 

This is one answer -- mulberry paper is so easily shaped around objects that it was a piece of cake to glue leftover scraps onto these wooden hearts.  The hearts will live on as greeting card embellishments.

Alice I

(Click on the above image to enlarge it.)

Alice I, available for purchase at my Zibbet shop (see upper left column), is a collage-verging-on-assemblage ... or to put it another way, a three-dimensional, highly-textured collage.  I loved combining the wildly different elements to create this artwork, especially the translucent papers, which always add a touch of mystery in the way they partially cover whatever happens to be under them.
  

One of my artworks ...

"M," above, is a mixed-media abstract that I created after watching Carrie Burns Browns' DVD, distributed by Creative Catalyst.  The custom-made paper on the upper left of this artwork is one of the many exciting papers I enjoy using in my art.
"M" is available for purchase here:
   http://www.Zibbet.com/HeartworkByCecilia
This is the home of my Zibbet shop, where I have available several mixed-media artworks, all highly-textured and created on gallery-wrap canvas.  Each of these artworks extends all the way back to the wall on all four edges.   With gallery-wrap canvas, framing is optional.  To hang without a frame, attach two eyelet screws to the back of the built-in wooden frame, and string wire between them. 

"M," above, measures 16" wide, 3/4" deep and 20" high.  Click on the above image to enlarge it.      

DVDs and in-person art workshops

I just ordered the new Anne Bagby DVD, Pattern and Form:  Advanced Collage Techniques.  I greatly enjoyed Anne's first DVD and I think her new one will delight me even more.

DVDs are a fraction of the cost of a live workshop, and they have the advantage of being stoppable at any point, so that I can go straight from watching a demo-in-progress to working on applying what I've just seen and heard.  Some live workshops offer the same opportunity, but, it's been my experience that workshop facilitators, in the interests of saving time, often combine several techniques in each demo session, before giving participants a break in which to apply what's just been presented in the demo.  If too many steps are presented to me in rapid sequence, I tend to forget parts of the lesson, here and there.  If I'm in a workshop that is my very first exposure to any given material, I do much better when I watch a single technique, then immediately follow this with a practice-period.

The other advantage of DVDs is, of course, that they can be watched over and over.

All this said, however, I'm happy to say that soon I will be taking off for 6 days to attend a workshop offered at Hudson Valley Art Association, leaving my husband to hold down the fort (and to care for the cat, who will not be overjoyed at the prolonged absence of "Mom-mom.")  This is the good part of having turned 62 -- now  receiving Social Security benefits, I can start attending farther-afield workshops.  I've yearned to do this for years and years, but was limited to workshop and class opportunities within my local area.  Not only have these been far and few between, but also, they have tended to be aimed at people just starting to stretch their artistic wings.  I've found that when I attend workshops and classes aimed at intermediate and advanced artists, I learn from my fellow participants in addition to learning from the facilitator; and I find this very stimulating and enriching.

How blessed I am, to now be at a place in life where I can have the best of both worlds -- DVDs as well as live workshops.   

at my local library...

 As of this morning, "M," shown in an earlier post, and 22 other pieces of my abstract contemporary art, hang at my local public library, along with collections of artwork by two artist friends.  We were so happy when we finally finished hanging this three-artist show ... tired, too.  Now we three can rest for a few weeks, until the 21st, when we will host a reception at th library.  Then on June 3, we'll take everything back down, re-pack it, and start the cycle all over again, somewhere else.

I'm so grateful to have these two friends -- I never could have filled the large meeting room at our library with only my own work.  And doing things as a group is so much more rewarding and fun than doing a one-person show ... which I've promised myself to never do again.  I'm also extremely grateful to have a wonderful husband who came when I called -- since it turned out I needed someone much taller than my 5'1" to maneuver the library's hangers.

Here is Ragged, one of my pieces that was hung today--

    And here is one of the paintings (entitled Three Blue Tables) hung by another member of the 3-part team, Norma Wokas--

And here is a painting, entitled The Rose Garden, by the other member of our team, Leonia Mroczkewski...

Both of the above paintings make me want to walk right into the scenes they depict.  I see the personalities of these two friends in these artworks of theirs.

I'm getting a little old for all that climbing up and down a ladder -- but getting this display hung was worth it; all three of us feel we've scaled a mountain and reached the top.  We hung 57 pieces of artwork in all!

Anyone living in central coastal NJ is welcome to stop by to see the show; it's at Middletown Twsp. Public Library, 55 New Monmouth Rd., Middletown, NJ.

Somerset Digital Studio publication

One of my Steampunk collages (from the Steampunk Mega-collection of clipart, available at DigiScrapStation) has been published in the spring 2011 Somerset Digital Studio.  This is my second publication at SDS and I really enjoy working with its editor, Jana Holstein -- she's a doll!  I'm adding a sidebar link to the magazine.

An "Old" Movie Treasure, Just Discovered

This movie has a PG rating, but it's hard to imagine how there could be a movie any closer to a G rating than this one. It has a strong message of marriage-affirmation, and its second-strongest theme is the importance of friendship. There is one character who has previously been living an immoral lifestyle, but this is only alluded to; and this movie does what all my favorite movies do -- it shows character growth; thru the course of the film, this character comes to understand the emptiness of her past life as well as the inevitable unhappiness it brings. The ending is happy, and the scenery is gorgeous. The movie is Enchanted April; you may find it at your local library, as I did, or via Red Box, et al.


  

To Learn More about this Book, See Upper Left Sidebar

This altered pear is featured in the book Exploring the Latest Trends in Mixed Media, Vol. II, edited by Cindy Powell and Sherre Hulbert.

Altered Art

A lapel pin made with 2 altered puzzle pieces and other embellishments.

I altered puzzle pieces to embellish these necklace pendants.

Necklace pendants that I made by altering puzzle pieces.

This is a lapel pin that started life as a dangle earring from the dollar store.  Its embellishment, likewise, had an earlier life ... as a puzzle piece.

This altered pear was created using an artificial plastic pear from the dollar store.

This piece contains a clay mask I made using a dollar-store candle-holder as my mold; the frame is from the dollar store, too.

I altered this wooden box using my own original clipart, assorted embellishments and a "dressform" that came from a dollar-store purchase of doll clothes for my granddaughter.  It was sold at the 2010 juried Monmouth Festival of the Arts.

Here, I altered dollar-store pears and mounted them in a shadowbox frame.

Vintage Ephemera for Sale

I've said for a long time that I would do this "someday" -- and the day has come. I have to make room for finished pieces of my artwork, and that means letting go of my collected pieces of vintage ephemera. These are original cabinet cards, snapshots, greeting cards, ad cards, documents, etc. None of the ephemera is a reproduction except for the pre-1923 magazine pages, most of which feature ads, images and text.

For $20, you'll get 60 pieces of vintage ephemera.  This price includes postage within the USA.  Add $10 for international.

You can make the purchase via Pay Pal, using the "Buy Now" button below.
Thanks,
Cecilia

samples of ephemera for sale

To purchase, see above.


Click on image to enlarge.

samples of ephemera for sale

To purchase, see above.

Click on image to enlarge.