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!

Illustration Friday - Wide

It's been a very busy month with not enough energy left to keep up with blogging. But a bit of serendipity has worked to give me art to submit for IF this week. I've been working on a couple paintings. I audition some of my color schemes on ATC's. That's what you see in this post. This acrylic on paper.
Now just how does this fit the theme "wide"?
After I added the calligraphic marks on these cards, I realized they resembled the form of a woman's torso. Then I had to smile at a memory. Years ago hubby & I were visiting his sister & her hubby. We played Pictionary, women vs. men. During one round, both teams had to draw and guess. The word was "wide". Oh boy, what to draw. I drew lines similar to those on my ATC's. I drew a horizontal line with arrows across the area that would represent the hips. My sister-in-law quickly understood and shouted out, "Wide!" The men were stupefied. How did we get that so fast? My hubby was attempting to draw something that would represent a truck with a wide load. It was much too complicated for the competition.

I got a bit of good news today. One of my colored pencil drawings has been accepted in the Octagon Art Center's Community of Artists Show. You can see it here.

Other good news from this month is that I've been accepted as an exhibitor at the Central Iowa Art Association's Art Fair on July 20th. I'll share more details later.

Illustration Friday - Primitive

Today while reading Fannie's fabulous blog, Imagine Create Inspire, I was reminded of this ACEO I created that fits the IF theme Primitive. The first thought that came to mind for the word Primitive was of naive art created by untrained artists. Then I remembered the art created by The Quiltmakers of Ghee's Bend. In 2003, they were featured on PBS, which is where I first learned of these artists.

Last year I was introduced to ATC's. (Artist Trading Cards) They are 2.5 x 3.5 inches, which is the same as any regular trading card. When they are made for sale, they are called ACEO's. (Art Cards, Editions and Originals)

This card was made using gesso, Liquitex paints, and colored pencil on paper. When I realized my abstract marks looked like a primitive house, I added the canceled postage stamp using acrylic matte medium. It was a nice bit of serendipity to have painted with the same pink as one of the fabrics in the quilt.

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