Standing In The Twilight Giveaway

Announcing a giveaway in honor of the release of my first limited edition print; Standing In the Twilight. I just finished mounting them. I created 12 of these and one is already on it's way to it's new home and one is for a certain someone.

Each reprint is on heavy weight, archival, lignin and acid free, high quality paper and is mounted on 300 lb cold press watercolor paper. The print is 4" by 3 1/4" and is sewn onto the base paper which has been lightly collaged with my own hand dyed fabric scrim and/or papers. Each base is slightly different, no two are alike.

The Giveaway, here is the scoop. It's easy peasy. Leave a me a comment on this post, stop in and say hi; get comfy and for twice the fun, become a follower and you will be entered twice. I will let the magic number generator at random.org do it's thing and a winner will be announced on March 1st. Please remember to leave me a way to get in touch with you. I will also be including a collage pack and a 2nd runner up will have a chance at a collage pack of goodies and maybe even an extra surprise in the mix.

And more Etsy news. I will be creating custom made, truly unique, one of a kind 'fragment' journals. Many people love to collect stuff but never find the time or the inclination to do anything with it all. You can see all the details in my Etsy shop if interested. I will continue adding new and different journals to the shop as well, as I get them made. Next up for the shop is a journal I am calling 'the daily grind'. Sneak peeks coming soon.

Rollin' On The River

I have been meaning to share these pics since I finished this journal but life has been just a little chaotic the past few weeks. So here are few shots of Eternity. This is all one journal, though it looks like a whole lot of smaller journals that have been grouped together.

Here is another shot.

And a few close ups.

And we finished working on the river. It will go to the studio tomororw and I will have my kitchen back. VBG!!!! We still have lots of boulders and rocks to paint but we can do them as time allows over the next few weeks.

I can honestly say that the photos don't do this justice. The flash washed out all of the colors which show up much better in the close ups. And one last pic.

Jazz on Pride rock.

Cotton Candy Angel

Journal page.

This is a page in the Eternity journal. It is one of my favorite pages from the journal. The girl appears to be wistful, full of hope,  and anticipating the sweetness in life. The colors together inspired the title.

Etsy news. I will be adding a new line of custom, made to order journals to my shop. Details to be announced soon. The perfect journal for anyone who wants a mostly finished, yet very personal keepsake and still have plenty of pages that can be added to. I am also going to be adding limited edition prints of some of my artwork to my shop. My first release will be of the collage from the previous post. More info on those soon. I also have several other journals 'brewing' which is just a tiny hint about them.

Needless to say I have a lot going on. Life has been very busy in my corner of the world. There have been some bright spots and then there are the dark ones. My sister past away on Feburary 7th. We knew it was coming, she'd been battling cancer for over a year, but death always is difficult no matter what the circumstances. Family to attend to, phone calls, preperations and still, life must go on.    

It's my busy season when it comes to my part time job for the dance studio; creating the props and stage pieces for this year's competitions and recital in May. They need to get started and finished within the next couple of weeks. My deadline is mid March.  I've not had a lot of time to create 'art' or journals which always leaves me feeling disconnected and out of sync with myself. I love the challenge of creating props, but I miss my own art time.

Thus far, I have made one standard size 'faux' surfboard, (on wheels), carved a 4' by 6' river out of heavy upholsetery foam plus boulders and various size rocks for it's banks. This began as a giant wedge of heavy and dense white foam. It is very heavy.The rocks came from another wedge of foam. I used several different saws and blades to carve it out. Luckily it was warm enough for exactly 3 days so I could do it all outside. It made a huge mess. We have a snow storm headed our way, due to arrive tomorrow and the temps have gone right back to where they belong. I am glad that part is behind me.

The 'river' will be viewed mostly from the side when it's on stage and needs to be painted. This is how it looked before we primed it ( my DD's are helping with this job) it is after all, for the dance studio and it helps pay the fees. The big piece is the river with a big boulder at it's base, the smaller rocks and boulders will be around it to form it's banks. Everything will be painted and detailed to look real. Since the river will be viewd from the side, it will be painted to show the river bed, the banks and the water in relief. I've already determined this in the way I carved it all out.

Needless to say I won't be doing much cooking the next few days. Once it's painted it's pretty much where it has to stay. It is on a small platform on wheels so I can push it around a bit if I need to.

This is one of the bigger boulders. The smaller rocks were painted and are on plastic down in our family room and in front of our front door to dry. This is the first coat (primer). We are treading carefully around everything, painting foam is like painting a giant sponge, it sucks up the paint and takes longer to dry and should you bump up against it while it's wet, you will be marked. We are being stalked by painted foam. It's everywhere and then there is the little clingy bits of foam that come off as it's painted and that falls to the floor where we step on it and it gets tracked anywhere we walk. I will be VERY happy once this task is done. I can't wait to take the river back to the studio.

And if anyone is wondering, this is all being painted with acrylics. Once it's primed, it accepts the paint easily. I am actually looking forward to the point where I get to add the details and blend the colors as that will be fun and I can actually bring my artistic talents to the project. I have about 20 different colors to work with to bring it to life.

I have other props also in the works that are in various stages of production. My personal goal is to have most of this done in the coming week and the river really does have to get out of my kitchen fairly soon as we can't afford to get take out every day. I think tonight it will be pizza. LOL

So now you know what I have been up to.

All My Heart

8" by 10" collage on canvas board

acylics, images, marks all, graphite, charcoal; sealed with Dorlands wax medium.

There was a boy with skin as dark as the earth

 and a girl with eyes as blue as the deep 

and they loved each other so well

that people could not tell them apart,

 for in their hearts,

there was no difference between them.

http://www.storypeople.com/

Wishing everyone much love on this day of celebration of the heart.



Glimpses Of Eternity

I don't know how long I can do this, she said. I think the universe has different plans for me & we sat there in silence & I thought to myself that this is the thing we all come to & this is the thing we all fight & if we are lucky enough to lose, our lives become beautiful with mystery again & I sat there silent because that is not something that can be said.

http://www.storypeople.com/

Here are a few more glimpses into the pages of eternity.

Found The Time Eternity Journal

Standing in the twilight

watching the world with soft dark eyes.

http://www.storypeople.com/

These are a couple of pages in the newest journal I will be putting in my Etsy shop soon.

Found The Time Eternity Journal

I thought this was the perfect title for this journal as soon as I created the page which is bound inside it.

If eternity could be captured forever in fabric and paper form this is what it would look like as a journal; 16 working spines holding 160 pages with 64 fabric pocket pages all wrapped up snug with a 59" wrap around closure. This is just a wee bit of eternity at 3.5" tall by 3.5" wide and about 10" in length from cover to cover. It might grow just grow a little longer once I bind in the pages.

Here are a few more page peeks.

Beloved.

http://www.storypeople.com/

A journal page and a perfect way to begin the month of February.