My Yearbook Photos

"A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words..."

I couldn't resist having some fun with a picture of myself last night. I was on my friend Kim's blog, and she had found this kewl website where you can make yearbook pictures of yourself. I was intrigued by how realistic her pictures looked, so I thought I'd give it a try. Here are the results. Wow, I really changed over the years, huh??? In fact, in 3 of the years, I seemed to have morphed into an African-American!! If you're bored some day, check out the site at http://www.yearbookyourself.com/, and have some fun of your own!!!

(Update: My husband, Mike, saw this posting this morning, and he actually thought they were my yearbook pictures!!! Geesh....I'm not that old! LOLOL)

Somerset "Workshop" Publication

"The object must act

powerfully on the imagination;

the artist's feeling

expressing

itself through the object

must make the object worthy

of interest;

it says only what it is

made to say."

- Henri Matisse

(The Good Eggs - L to R - My Mom, Uncle, Dad, and Grandma)

I can finally post some pictures of my artwork. It seems like everything I've been making is always for a publication, so then I'm not able to publish it. I received a phone call from Stampington & Company about a year and a half ago, asking me to be one of the artists' featured in "Workshop." The issue I'm featured in hits the newsstands on October 1.

(Surely You Jest! - Starring Otis, Mugsy, and Popeye, with Sophie as the Ushers)

I received my copy about a week and a half ago, so I thought it's time to post them on my blog.

They wanted me to do "Altered Images" for my portion of the publication. I came up with this technique a while back for one of my projects in "Inspirations" magazine. They really liked my style, so I came up with these for my projects and gallery.

(A close-up of the Boyz)

I used vintage family photographs, and jazzed them up with a little color and whimsy. For some of the pictures, I clipped out heads from family pictures, and pasted them over the existing heads in old CDV photographs. Examples of that are the picture of my sister and myself, my husband Mike and myself, and of course my 3 little "boyz"...the pugs.

(My Sister and Myself - The Evil Looking One!)

(My dad when he was 6 months old - He's 91 now)

(This is Mike and Myself)

My section is wayyyyyy in the back, and there is nothing of mine shown on the cover, so you probably wouldn't even know my artwork was in there unless you really looked through the magazine.

( This is My Grandma in the purple dress, with three of her friends)

They did use one of my pieces in their promotional advertisement for this upcoming issue in all of their other publications, though.

(The Picture I did for my Bio...with Otis, Popeye, and Mugsy)

So now I am busy working away on my charms and atc's for the upcoming swaps I'm participating in next month. Which, by the way, is quite unusual for me, because I am the queen of putting off working on anything until the very last minute.

I've Been Busy, Busy, Busy!!!

"A friend is a person

with whom I may be sincere.

Before him (or her)

I may think aloud."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

(I'm busy cutting out 43 sets of bird wings - UGH! It took me all afternoon to 'clip their wings!')

I have been busy in my studio for the past week, trying to pump out 43 pages for a chunky book swap which will take place at Kim Nugent's "RaeVn's Nest Art Retreat" in Cedarburg, Wisconsin next month. I knew about the swap for several months now but, true to form, put off doing my pages until the very last minute. Literally! I finally put the finishing touches on them this afternoon and sent them to the hostess of the swap with "overnight" delivery, so she has them on Saturday morning when she begins to assemble the books.

(Here are all the wing to attach onto my front page)

Kim came over 3 times in the past week for artist 'play-dates' with me down in my studio. She enjoys working down there with me, and the two of us have a lot of laughs while we're both working away on our own art projects. She brings a tote with her supplies, knowing that if she forgets something, I am certain to have what she needs.

(Kim is always so organized, and is much faster at getting her pages finished than I am!)

We both signed up for the swap, so she was working on her pages, while I worked on mine. Kim was an 'Artist-on-Call' for Stampington & Company's "Inspirations" magazine during the same time that I was also one of their 'Artist's-on-Call.' What we both find amusing about that, is that her oldest son and my son were good friends back then, while her and I didn't even know each other. I had called her one day back then about some 'Stampington stuff,' and her son happened to be within earshot of her. He must've said something to her, and she asked me, 'do you have a son named Joe??' When I said, 'yes...why??', she told me that he was friends with Aren. Then it clicked for me...I had heard Joe talking about him quite a bit in the past, but I never put two and two together. What a small world!!! (Another view of the wing pile...they will be going over the pin-up girl like a shawl)

Since that time, we became good friends. It is so nice that we live relatively close to each other, and both share a love of creating art. Plus, when we're having fun doing our art down in my studio, the time seems to just fly by.

(This is the back side of my page...I didn't take a picture of the front side, because I was so sick of making the pages!)

Kim had been thinking about organizing an art retreat for a long time, but this past year she began to make her dream a reality. I am looking forward to attending her retreat next month and meeting other 'artsy people,' and also to take several workshops again with Michael deMeng, and a workshop with Laurie Mika. Check out her website for the retreat at http://www.raevns-nest-art-retreat.com/.

Oh...I almost forgot....I DID get my jewelry piece finished for Opie and Linda O'Brien's book, and they received it this past Tuesday. I am happy to report they liked it! Now I just need to get my rear in gear and finish the written part for them....

If at First you don't Succeed........

"Every mistake has a halfway moment,

a split second when it can be recalled

and perhaps remedied."

- Pearl S. Buck

I've been working on the necklace portion of the jewelry piece for Opie and Linda O'Brien's book. The pendant for it is finally finished. I plan on completing the necklace and shipping it off to them this week. Yesterday, I was in 'creative mode,' so I started to design the clasp for the piece. I'll bet I spent well over an hour hammering, bending, twisting, and forming rebar tie wire (which for those of you who have ever worked with it, know full-well how horrible it is to work with). Finally, after a lot of fine-tuning to get the stupid thing 'just right', I was satified with the design. I pinched the wires together where I planned to wire-wrap it, and....you guessed it.....SNAP! The wire broke!!! I guess with all the hammering and bending I had done to it, I overworked the wire and it weakened and snapped! So that was the end of 'creative mode' for me for the rest of the day. Today I went down to the studio with all good intentions of starting on another one, but each time I looked at it, I procrastinated and decided that tomorrow would be a much better day to work on it.

When that's finished, I've got to get busy and pump out 43 chunky book pages which are due around the 20th of this month for a swap, and also a bunch of charms and ATC's for some swaps in October. All these items are for my good friend Kim Nugent's upcoming 'Raevns Nest Art Retreat' which is going to be held October 16-19 in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Check out the website for it at http://www.raevns-nest-art-retreat.com/home.html. She's got the following instructors lined up to teach workshops during the retreat: Bernie Berlin, Michael deMeng, Jill Berry, Judy Wise, and Laurie Mika. I'm really looking forward to it, but I guess I better get my 'rear in gear' to get my stuff made for it!!!

My daughter, Jessica, came by to visit me this afternoon. She brought me an 'In the Loss of Your Pet' sympathy card, along with this book: "dogfessions - secret confessions from dogs." She is such a thoughtful girl!! This book is very similar in style to the book, "A lifetime of Secrets: A Postsecret Book" by Frank Warren, and is based on the website http://www.dogfessions.com/, which is a collection of handmade postcards that reveal the deepest confessions from dogs and their owners. The postcards are really cute.

I would also like to thank those of you who posted comments on my last post about losing my beloved Otis. It meant a lot to me to read your kind words of encouragement.