More of Everything

 

This is my latest favorite organizer because the bottom of it holds my tape runner and a lot of refills for making my collages.

This is my latest collage, the fun thing about this is that the music tells the story.

The bottom half of the collage.

The top half of the collage.

This was an older collage that I had cut in half to make cards out  of.

Latest Garden Photos

The strawberry box seems to be doing well. All 3 varieties are blooming but only time will tell if they have actually been cross pollenated. It really won't show until we see the size of the fruit.

This is another look at the lily of the valley here.

As you can see, the bed has gotten away from me and i am hoping to sell or give away some of the extra bunches until things are  more under control.

There are several small lilac bushes in two different shades of lavender. These are the brighter, darker ones.

Here's a tangle of yellow geraniums, hosta and lilies I'd love to separate and rearrage in other parts of the yard.

More lily of the valley.

A few violets.

 

So many collages

 I've done so many collages that I've missed posting about. Here are a few of them.

Some of these you may have seen before. what confused me was that many of them share a lot of the same images  because I had a lot of copies of the same source material. To the point that I can't quite tell them apart myself. Anyway I hope you're still enjoying them.

If not please leave a comment to say so.

 I'm still loving collage and just can't stop making them and then going beyond that to make things out of the collages.

This one is still in progress but looks promising to me. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

These were fun and as well as using them in the regular way, I decided to cut them in half and make greeting cards out of them.

This is bound to be a special surprise in a few peoples mail boxes when I send them out soon.

This is an in progress photo of this piece.

This is the finish of the earlier in progress photo.

A New Twist on an Old Idea

Round and round I go between types of projects that I work on around the studio. Somehow every decade or two I pause to collage. For one thing it helps clean up the place because I tend to use up all of the loose paper bits, watercolors, and drawings in a more useful way.

The new twist this time was after I'd seen a couple of you tube videos by a guy who only uses cereal boxes.

For some reason he only uses cereal boxes. And that intriguing. the first reason was that it's totally self contained. As long as you have a pair of scissors and glue you don't have to buy ANYTHING. How often do you find an absolutely FREE art or craft project ? I was hooked and had to try it.

I had made the mistake of using a generic brand which left too many awkward white spaces which I filled from my text stash (various letters and words I clip from newspapers and magazines that I keep in a small box for situations like this one) and found that I liked it much better after that.

Another step that I added was to make a black and white copy just in case I would like it better, time will tell.

It was an interesting experiment and I highly recommend it. It's a great way to chase the blues away or just spend a rainy afternoon.

Daffodills

 Todays daffodil photos won't make much sense because it's just parts of 2 different paintings but I wanted a record of them anyway.

This was a close up idea from a photo my sister sent me of a field of daffodils.

I used a painting knife to lay the background in with.

This was a distance view more like the photo.

Art Everywhere

It's still raining so as usual there is plenty to do in the studio. Here is another collage in the works and it just didn't seem to be coming together so I pulled out my paint's and as you'll see in the next photo was able to come to a conclusion that finished it off nicely.

 

The main difference here was adding a few more paper embellishments and then painting areas in a more unifying color. Other that all I did was add a lot of leaves and vines to tie it all together.

I'm always surprised at how these collages look when put on curved surface. They really seem to pop.

This organizer was the best thing by far that, my hatband found  for the studio. He got me one for the brushes and one for my pencils. They're only six inches square but they each hold 196 items. The brush holder emptied 3 vases and saved a lot of space on my work table. I'd highly recommend them or any product like that if you are trying to organize your art supplies.

This photo shows all three mugs I've put my work on this month.

This was one of my paintings. I'm sure you've seen it before but I really appreciate it now that I can have my morning coffee out of it and get a close look at it.

This was one of my favorite collages of recent years and my current favorite mug for coffee lately. It's more of a garden theme and the gnome makes me laugh as I sit out in the garden these days.

The next 2 photos are the same mug but are from a 25 year old collage that I had cut down to fit in a storage box. Details of that are in a previous post but the only way to get it all on the bug was to make each side different.

Foggy Friday

 A lot of the time here in Minnesota the weather is a factor in how we plan our activities. Today was foggy with temps in the 40's so I didn't feel like spending it outdoors.

What's fun about that is having a great excuse to spend the day in the studio. That sounds great, doesn't it? Until I realize that "my studio" is just a 6 foot long board 15 inches deep. That we mounted under the living room windows to hold all of my art supplies.

Of course, once I get involved in a project I'm so happy that it doesn't matter where I am.

Today I started by clearing off the old typewriter cart that I use for a work table before diving into my next project.

Before I forget, here's a photo of this years daffodils that I took yesterday in my favorite vase.

 Beyond cutting out more items to collage with and making this card for a friend I didn't do much but had a great time any way.

Wonderful Wednesday

BEFORE

AFTER

One of my favorite things today is how much easier it is to get things done now that my supplies are organized. 

My next project will be to get a desk top storage drawer unit to organize my paints in. As those of you that follow my blog may remember, I have tried many different ways to do this but hadn't found one that really worked. It will be interesting to see if this will really work.

Making this card really amused me. The card stock that I made it from was what the stickers came on.

added to that was a scrap of a map, flowers cut from a sale flyer and I finished it with the last sticker from that package.

I couldn't resist the urge to make anoher garden themed collage. this one is actually more paint than paper. I LOVE IT!!!

 Yes, this is another head of lettuce. We're now growing enough of our own that we hardly ever have to buy any and that is wonderful indeed.

The Honeymoon Post - Lettuce Alone

 I'll bet you were wondering what you'd find on this post.

The simple answer was an old joke my Dad used to tell when my Mom was a waitress (and yes, i know how unbelievable this sounds) my Dad was a travelling salesman.

He was always doing things to get her attention so when she'd ask "what do you want to eat?" he'd say "Honeymoon Salad" and when she asked "what is that" he'd reply "lettuce alone" (let us alone).

He used to crush the napkins into the shape of a horse and leave them for her (often in place of a tip)

She must have enjoyed his sense of humor because he kept telling that joke and they were married for over 60 years.

I guess that makes me the punch line.

The one little hydroponic grower that we have

has been producing very well. If I grow lettuce in all 3 spots I can raise enough for salads but lately I've just been growing one and that keeps us in enough for sandwiches and burgers etc.

I even took some time to do a painting of those beautiful leaves.

I grow different varieties from time to time but found leaf lettuces too limp and much prefer the baby romaine that I've been growing lately. It's beautiful, has more body to it and the leaves are just the right size for sandwiches and burgers.