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.

30 Days of Creativity

Well, I completed the 30 Days of Creativity Challenge and, boy, is my brain tired!

Actually, I'm feeling excited and stimulated and ready to keep on rolling with another 30-day challenge tomorrow. But more about that later.

Right now, I'm just very happy that I (mostly) kept up the pace, flagging a little at the end of the month as the dual challenges of 30 Days and my Art On My Door Project got a little too much to handle. Originally, I hadn't wanted to let my AOMD projects count, but I realized that creativity is what counted.

Only With The Heart

Only With The Heart, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

Today's effort for the 30 Days of Creativity challenge. It turned out rather nicely, I think. The quote is from The Little Prince.

Art journal page

Art journal page, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

I worked on several projects for the 30 Days of Creativity challenge today, but this is the one I finished, an art journal page that expresses one of my fondest wishes.

Maid of Orleans

Maid of Orleans, a photo by LA Smith on Flickr.

I've decided to take on the 30 Days of Creativity Challenge this month. Here is tonight's effort, a 7"x7" mixed media collage.

Birthday Thoughts

This is an ancestor nicho I made a while back. It features my mother's high school graduation photo from 1939. She was born on 5/15/1922 and gave birth to me 38 years later on 5/15/1960.

That makes me 51 today, and my mom would have been 89. She passed away on December 17, 2003.

Every year on our birthday, the first thing either of us thought to do was wish the other a happy birthday.

"Happy birthday, Mom," I would say to her.

"Happy birthday, Baby," she would reply.

I miss you, Mom. Happy birthday.