Packing Tape Bag

With the help of DH, I finally finished the packing tape bag I started during my failed art retreat when I got so sick. This project is from the book Kaleidoscope by Suzanne Simanaitis. It's found on page 104.

Overall, I'd say the effort required is NOT worth the result. I invested about 4-5 hours in this little project, and dealing with the packing tape was extremely frustrating. Next time I think I'd try clear contact paper instead. But the bag IS pretty cool.





The thing that really held me up was the handles. I wanted to use clear plastic tubing with ribbon inside, but couldn't figure out how to attach them. Enter DH with his cool little pop-rivet tool! Evidently these rivets are used mostly for sheet metal, and Mark has used them for attaching things to his kayak. But they worked pretty well here and I'll definitely call on him again to use these nifty little guys on purse handles!

Hand-Cut Silhouette Stencils

I recently purchased a heat tool for cutting my own stencils and have been having a ball tracing the silhouettes of people and things from magazine photos. I started out with some fairly simple uses of these, as stencils:









Then I used the latest batch as both masks and stencils in layers to make some papers using old sheet music and plot maps, with the addition of layers of stencils from commercial stencils. Unfortunately, these photos don't reflect the irridescent and metallic paints I used very well.



























I'm supposed to be spending my time working on Xmas gifts and sewing things to sell at the local consignment shop, but this is just way too much fun! I'm thinking some of these might make interesting journal covers, or even pages in an art journal.

"Squares" Mixed Media, Continued

Okay, I finally photographed the new squares collages I did for my mixed media class at Ventura College. The assignment was to do a piece "in the style of" or "influenced by" a well-known artist. I chose Jasper Johns and tried to achieve lots of texture and color.















These two pieces work so well with the large squares collage I did previously, that I reworked it a bit and now it's becoming a series. I feel like I still have more to explore with this grid pattern.

Denver Doodle Art

While at my sister's house, I mostly did kid art with my niece and nephew, including a huge election scrapbook project with Ryan that took quite a few hours. But in between all that and in the middle of the night in a steroid-induced bout of insomnia, I doodled!

Family Visits in Denver

Wow. Ten days in Denver went so fast! I had such a great visit with my son Kyle and his girlfriend Mel and my sister and her family. I also met Mel's family and had a fun time with them.

Kyle and Mel have a new apartment and it's fantastic. Hard wood floors, two bedrooms (a guest room for Mom!), two bathrooms, a big loft for Kyle's "man cave," and a view of the snow-capped Rockies and the sunset. And it was good to see the grand-kitties, Loki and Oni and meet Mel's cat Bella (who only bit me once!).













I had so much fun with Jen and Jim and Ryan and Alexa. On the first day, we went out to the ranch where Jen keeps her two horses. Four-year-old Lexi took most of these photos!



















I spent lots of time doing art stuff with the kids. They loved drawing and using stencils with metallic markers on black paper, painting little wooden toys, and doing origami.









Kyle and Mel and I took the kids to the Downtown Denver Aquarium one day and enjoyed it so much. We took our time and relaxed, had a great lunch, and the kids spent a lot of time petting the bat rays and stingrays!











On my last full day, Jen and I took the kids down to Garden of the Gods, a beautiful park at the foot of Pike's Peak featuring fantastic rock formations. We also went to the funky little mountain town of Manitou Springs and ran into their annual coffin race and hearse parade and had lunch at a wonderful little diner. Of course, this was the day all my camera batteries decided to die, so I've got to go steal some of Jen's photos from her online album. I did get a few:











Can't wait to go back and see more of this gorgeous state and it's new inhabitants from California!