Aluminum as art.

Once upon a time, I joined a group who were creating a periodic table with only the following requirements: your element must be made in a printmaking form, be 6"x6", display the atomic symbol & no. somewhere in your design. I picked two elements, Aluminum & Thorium. This blog post is dedicated to Aluminum! I am not going to go on and on, off on a tangent about how I love aluminum; you can read all about THAT in the listing for the print in my ETSY shop.

I just want to give the Aluminum print some extra love here :-) The project as a whole can be viewed here. This project was the brainstorm of Jenn Schmitt come to fruition. She collected all of the prints from the contributors and has put a lot of time into promoting our Printmaking Periodic Table and getting exhibitions lined up for display of the periodic table. I think that Jenn Schmitt is tops and appreciate everything she has done. No slouch of a printmaker herself, check out her ETSY shop here. She does really beautiful work & I enjoy how she layers colors.

Have a happy sunshine day y'all!

Before "The Absence," there was...

...."Liebe von Volkswagen"

Love of the Volkswagen is right. I've always had a soft spot for VWs. Nothing quite looks, smells or sounds like them. They are perfectly imperfect without apologies. They strive to be nothing else, they are copied from nothing else. In high school, I drove a 1976 VW Rabbit (not for long) & finished out my senior year in a turquiose 1965 Beetle. In 2000 I bought a VW Jetta TDI and have put 175, 000 miles on it. It is dinged here and there. It makes suspicious sounds at times. It is much more imperfect than perfect since the day I drove it off of the lot. The passenger window fell out again but I just love this car. What can I say, love of the volkswagen.

This print was my first try at reduction printing. For those of you not familiar with fine art printing, I used the same piece of linoleum to print all four colors. I started with white, then cut the lino for light gray, then cut the lino for dark gray, then cut one last time for black. This means I had to print in between all these cuts. AND to add extra adventure, I used no means of registration for alignment, just eyeballed it....cuz I like to add a pinch of madness to everyday life :-P

As I do not own or have access to a printing press, all of my prints are completely hand-pulled. It is a bit scary to do just one print, let alone 4 prints on top of each other! In the end, it turned out pretty cool but I am not sure when I'll do another reduction print any time soon.

Fortunately, I got some good prints out of this effort and you can check them out in my Etsy shop!

It is purrrrdy

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far! ~John Muir

A screen shot of my most recent treasury. I just love it and want to preserve it in some form before the treasury gods swallow it whole tomorrow. Simple enough, looked for black & white trees and found this group. One of my favorite photographers here is Chicalookate. If you haven't checked out her shop on Etsy, well, you should! I've bought a few of her photos and just love her style! If you hurry quick like fox, you can get a close up view of this treasury. Otherwise it will be gone by the date listed at the bottom of the image (3pm~June 20th).

Breaking News and all of that there...

A few days ago I was forced at art knife point by Amoeba and her Friends to publish a blog post about how disgruntled they were. Amoeba is a wee bit aggressive I think. Today I start chatting up with some of my Etsy friends and one of them, Jooley of Little Killers, informs me that Amoeba and her Friends made the Etsy Frontpage! At the same time another buddy ol pal ol buddy, Janet from MonkeyDog Studio, captured a screenshot for me to cherish forever and ever :-) Thank goodness these ladies had their heads on a swivel! I must also give thanks to tofunutloaf for creating the treasury that found its place on the frontpage. Amoeba is on the far bottom right corner.

Happy Happy Joy Joy!

Why can't I be popular?

ORIGINALLY POSTED 6/7/2007

Yes. Why can't I be popular? I am not asking this for myself, I am asking this for one of my paintings "Amoeba and her Friends."

Personally, I could not careless about popularity contests but this is not the case for Amoeba and her Friends. They are so put off by the fact that they have received nearly the least views of anything else listed in my ETSY shop. Ever since I've created Amoeba, she has griped and groaned about "that hideous acid green" that I've set her afloat in. On and on she goes about "why did I finish with gloss varnish here" or "why am I so obsessed with adding texture" to everything. What a crab she is! Perhaps the Etsy world will decide that Amoeba and her friends need to remain hanging on my wall. That would be alright by me because I love that acid green color I mixed up one sunny Sunday and as for Amoeba's filthy mouth, well at least she cares, right? :-P

BRILLIANT!

ORIGINALLY POSTED 6/6/2007

Oh dear...I've been away for too long! Forgive me tiny readership, forgive me please.....

Sometimes, it is the most innocent, haphazard things that you create which catch someone's eye. For April's Fools day, I drew my "Buddies" illustration for my Etsy shop. A group of us nutters decided to proclaim April 1st Avatar Butt day and we'd create butt themed artwork for sale. The funny thing is, out of all of the items that I've listed on Etsy, this Buddies illustration was the most viewed/most marked as favorite & sold before anything else since it was listed. It is a cheeky drawing and maybe I should explore my cheeky side more often :-P

I would like to thank my models for the photo which lead to this illustration, Smoky Joe & the Princess Sophia. My darlings, I know that the 3 day journey in the moving van was unpleasant....but it paid off for momma. Treats all around!!!

A Printmaker's Project

ORIGINALLY POSTED 3/17/2007

In the event that you are a printmaker, or at least someone who wants to give printmaking a whirl, I have come across a sweet project for you. Select an element from the periodic table (about half are yet to be claimed) and create a print. Even better, you have until May31 to ship the print off. This is open for all skill levels (beginner to superhuman), so don't be shy. I haven't created a print in over 20 years, but this project just seemed like too much fun.

All the guidelines are at the following links:

http://azuregrackle.com/blogs/index.php?blog=5

http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5055577