End of September Pot Luck including GPP Crusade No. 44

You might think I'm just scraping by....
In a sense, I have been.  The September Green Pepper Press Crusade challenged us to prepare a journal page by scraping on paint.   I often use a palette knife, but an old credit card makes a wonderful tool. 

This time I also used some unused plastic dividers from a storage tray... you know, the kind found in the fishing tackle section of the big box store.  I buy them to store beads.

I really didn't have a lot of time to spend on this crusade.  Good thing it was simple.  I started with paint colors I was considering for some "serious" art.  That decision served me well.  I was hoping to replicate a color mixture that I had used previously.  The teal color wasn't turning out as I expected.

After scraping around on my journal page, I remembered that I had forgotten to mix a bit of red with my blue & gold.  Yes, I have this written down in another journal, but I thought I had it memorized better.

I've only shown my "official" crusade page, but I scraped paint more simply in another journal to use up the paint.

The lighting was less than optimal for this flat on shot, but you can see the variety of marks that I could make with my little scrapers.  I wonder what Michelle Ward will challenge us to do next?

This is a little mixed media piece in progress.  It's part of a trio that I painted for this upcoming event:

I'm looking forward to hanging out with fellow artists at Snus Hill Winery in Central Iowa.  Since we will be indoors, it will be a great day to shop for art and taste some wine.

More ATCs for this event (which will make them ACEOs).  Names.  I will be following up soon with replies from my previous post. 
And just in case that wasn't enough, I've been in rehearsals with our church choir.   We will be part of a mass choir (nearly 200 singers!) singing with Simon Estes on Sunday, October 10th at 3:00 at Cornerstone Church in Ames, Iowa.
The proceeds of the concert will benefit Habitat of Humanity in Story County.  Our choir is joining the high school choirs from across the county to perform beautiful music.  Mr. Estes is a world renown bass/baritone.  If you are in the area, this will be a treat for your ears.
Well, I better get back to preparing for this coming Sunday!

Celebrating RGR Designs Blog Post No. 250

August 30, 2007 was the birthday of this blog.  At the time, I had considered creating a blog to help promote my jewelry creations in my Esty store, but I was intimidated by the process of setting one up.  Hubby and I had attended local art festival that summer with the intent of researching ways I could display my work at my first outdoor festival.

In July, we met Brandie Butcher Isely of Little Pieces of Art at the Marshalltown Art Fest.  She is a wonderfully sweet artist who encouraged me, and she gave me concrete advise for setting up my own blog.  I started following Brandie's blog and those of some she had highlighted on her blog.  I was astounded by the generousity and depth of sharing of the artists I discovered in Blogland.  So I launched my own blog.

Now it is three years later and I am writing my 250th post! That is an average of about 1.6 posts per week.  Whew!  I've kept to a goal of posting at least once per week.  Well.  Sort of.  There have been times when I participated with a blogger challenge of posting each day and followed through pretty well.  Then there were the times when energy is low and life is busy and no blogging. We all go through that. 

Experimentation has been a driving force for my art, but being part of the art blog community has pushed me to extend my boundaries by trying even more techniques than I would have come up on my own.  I also have a frugal streak.  These traits can cause inner conflict, but there is a way to reconcile them. 

While working on my "serious" (HA!) art, there is alway extra paint left on the brush, palette, or tool.  One way to use it up is by applying the paint to a sheet of art paper.  I recently created the "master" sheet pictured below.

Once the page was mostly covered with paint, I added layers of stenciling and monoprinting to add texture to the page.  Next I cut the paper to the standard ATC size (2.5 x 3.5 inches).  Then I looked at each card as a separate art piece and embellished it.

Sampling of ATCs

Stamps, stencils, ephemera, gesso, pens, ink and paint were used to embellish the cards.

To celebrate my 250th post, I will be giving away some of my ATCs.  Please comment by 9/23/10 to be put in a drawing for the give away.  Be sure your comment has a way for me to contact you if you are a winner!

Being a blogger has been a journey that has helped me grow as an artist. Communicating with other artists across the globe has been a thrill.  I am SO GRATEFUL for all the encouragement that comes from your comments. Thank you!