30-Day Art Challenge: Catching Up

It's been a busy weekend and I've been forgetting to post stuff I'm working on. Some of it is boring, like the inventory list for my upcoming show at Sky River Mead. I've also been taking a photo a day, like this one, using Instagram and cooking and baking because that's how I roll.

But the biggest project, by far, remains the pieces for the 30-Day Art Challenge. I've been busy preparing the canvas boards with the shredded text backgrounds. I'm using pages from a truly awful and terribly damaged old book, old copies of The Wall Street Journal, an old telephone directory, and a couple of remaindered textbooks --including one Chinese accounting book-- for the backgrounds. I'm using a simple solution of Elmer's Glue and water to adhere the paper to the canvas boards and drying them partially with a blow-dryer before leaning them against the studio window to dry thoroughly.

Now that I have a few of these prepped, I'm ready to start adding layers of color and texture  using a variety of techniques including stencils, hand-carved stamps and rollers, dry-brush & sponging.

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30-Day Art Challenge -- Day 4

Another layer of color



And the last element, some text.


First one done & I'm ready to rock the rest of the designs.|

30-Day Art Challenge -- Day 3

Adding some layers to the piece now.



Still taking it slowly as I discover what I like or don't like in the process.
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30-Day Art Challenge -- Day 2

I want to get this post started before it gets too late.

First two steps on canvas #1 for the 30-Day Art Challenge. I've glued down scraps of text torn from an old and irredeemable book called "The Infinite Woman," a fitting beginning for this piece. The figure is one of my favorite stencils. Next, comes some more color & texture, but I may have to leave it here tonight because I'm just flat-out tired.

I suspect weekends will be more productive days on this project.
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30-Day Art Challenge -- Day 1

I picked up my canvas boards today for the 30-Day Art Challenge coincidentally just in time for Traci Bunkers' latest 30-day art throwdown.

I have to admit that the stack of them is a little daunting, particularly as I am also making some new pieces for my upcoming show at Sky River Mead later this month. Still, I think I'm up to the challenge, I have a great concept for the set of 30 pieces, and I think I'll be able to do a great job carrying it off as long as I stay focused and make sure to do at least a little work on the canvases every day.

This is as far as I got with the actual art-making tonight. Ironically, when I tried to make this post from my phone, the App kept throwing an error, so I'm up late anyway, downloading pics to my laptop so I can upload them to this post.

Long day & I'm too tired to stay up making art. More time and energy for art tomorrow.

Assemblage in progress

Assemblage in progress, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

All I managed to do for 30 Days of Get Your Art On today was paint the background inside the box for the assemblage I'm working on.

I'm hoping to make some better progress with this piece if I leave it on my work table instead of shuffling it off to a side shelf. Tomorrow, I plan to work on the "set" pieces: the next of twigs and bones and the cracked egg shells.

Then I'll be able to work on the central figure, the little baby harpy, and finish the outside of the piece with legs, a pediment, and some other decorations.

Chicken of the Sea: finished piece

Chicken of the Sea: finished piece, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

For 30 Days of Get Your Art On, I finished a piece I created last month during the 30 Days of Creativity challenge.

The Altoids tin washed in a lovely faux deep-sea tone contains my "Chicken of the Sea" plastic animal mashup of a chicken head and a whale's tail. I gave her a little nest of sparkling green algae and a brood of little pearlescent eggs.

Today, I mounted the piece "properly" in this swanky frame I found at St. Vincent de Paul and gave her a label with her name in both English and Latin.

GYAO Day #3: Art Journal Page

GYAO Day #3: Art Journal Page, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

I spent a lot of my creative energy today making an awesome dinner of brown-sugar and balsamic vinegar glazed salmon on the grill and then having dinner and excellent conversation with my husband, Damon, and our friend Claire (who is one of my favorite artists).

Still, I managed to get another of the "mini flap" pages in my art journal done.

The page is about strength. I wonder sometimes, what it really means to be strong and how we can tell the difference between being strong and being stubborn. Not that I have a problem with that. Heh-heh.

GYAO Day #2: Assemblage in progress

Assemblage in progress, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

I don't usually post process shots, but since I'll be working on this project for a couple of days, I figured I might as well post some images to document the work during Traci Bunkers' 30 Days of Get Your Art On challenge.

Just before Easter, a friend and fellow artist, Randy Widmer, sent me a box of fun that included some ridiculously cute doll heads mounted atop some very stiff wire. Almost immediately, I dipped my hand into the jar of plastic animals and extracted a rubber bat. I just knew that little dolly was going to sprout wings and become a sweet little baby harpy.

The rest is the future, at least the next day or so, as I paint and assemble the pieces.

Good fun, huh?

Art Journal Page

Got off to a good start on Traci Bunkers' 30 Days of Get Your Art On challenge with this little "flap" page in the 16-page "Teesha Moore-style" art journal I made last winter.

My rules for this challenge are pretty simple:
1. I will work on art in my studio at least 30 minutes each day
2. The little pieces I make for my Art On My Door Project don't count
3. I will post photos and some blah-blah-blahgging about each day's effort here.

I've been tossing this journal in my bag from time to time, but never really getting to into it, mainly because the style hasn't really felt like it was mine. One of my challenges this month will be to finish the pages of this journal, reclaiming the book and making it mine-all-mine, even if I end up covering every page with a fresh coat of Gesso and starting over from scratch.

This page started with a pair of lips I'd cut from a magazine ad ages ago and a collection of exotic frogs featured on some of my favorite gift wrap. When I saw them, all I could think of was that old French fairytale about the two sisters who meet up with the fairy at the well. The one who is mean to the fairy gets cursed with snakes and toads leaping out of her mouth every time she speaks. The one who is nice drops pearls and gems from her lips when she talks. Not really sure if the latter is a blessing or a curse. Anyway, I like this page enough to call this challenge well-begun.