Let's Wrap This Up.

Hey guys!  

I haven't been making as much art as usual in the last couple of months, but I'd love to show you what I DID manage to finish.  Wanna see?  

This little guy is an ATC.  It's a little 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" card, made from some very soft watercolour paper. The little critter is a Blue-Footed Booby. I did him for a swap I was involved in, and he's off in the mail to someone in the US. Safe travels, little buddy!

I waited for what seemed like FOREVER for Jill Berry's new book about maps to come out, and it was worth the wait. I've had a map obsession for years, and now I'm actually starting to make some maps on my own. I started with this phrenology doodle in one of my art journals: 

You might see more noggins in my work. I liked being able to pin down everything that was floating around my head and causing me to procrastinate. 

Next, I did this compass rose, inspired directly by Heidi LaMoreaux (she's one of the featured artists in Personal Geographies.)

I had so much fun making this. I actually got out my compass and ruler and spent a very peaceful evening creating this from scratch on watercolour paper. Then I used an X-acto knife to cut out all the blank areas. The page is now mounted on vellum, which is that cloudy white behind the compass rose. I have lots of ideas to make more of these, in different shapes and forms. We'll see how many of those actually materialize.  : )

 

And then last night, on a total whim, I stuck five shipping tags together and drew the road I live on. I wanted to capture the stories of all these homes and families on the road I've lived on for most of my life.  It's not as colourful as some of the stuff I've been doing, but it does have a certain charm.

After I had an argument with my 7-year-old about which house was ours (he strongly disagrees that we live on that side of the street); I dragged out the old typewriter and typed up a couple of sentences about each house on the map. For me, half the fun and charm is the fact that you can't erase your mistakes; but my kids thought this was horrifying. They both tried their hand at typing after I was done, but beach left the room in tears because they couldn't get it just right. They are definitely children of the technological age!  Oh yeah, my 9-year-old also wanted to know "what are all the little poops" on the page. *sniff* It is SO nice to have a family who's so supportive of my art!!

Finally: this is one of my favourite things that I've worked on recently. It's pretty big; 19 1/2" across and 6 1/2" tall. It's on a piece of black heavy-duty paperboard? I'm not sure what it's called. I think you could use it as book covers, it's certainly thick enough.  I was totally inspired by this Halloween costume I saw on Pinterest.  Pretty sure I like my version better though!  HAHA!

That is all for now!!  I hope that you have all had an EPIC year, and that 2012 brings health, happiness and lots of art to all of you.

xoxoxoxox!
Shelley