New Book

I am designing a new book that will be based upon Monogram cutouts. Here is the first in the series. The book will be bound by hand in a limited edition run of 25 books.

Each page will feature a monogram cutout. The models are in a much larger format so I can see all of the nuances of the cuts. Each cutout for the book will be a 4" by 6" size. I might even do a series of miniatures.

Here is the letter T.




The red background is just for the model. The pages of the book will be white.

Damn you Leslie H. (just kidding)

There are some blogs that I read every day. I am most appreciative of those artists/crafters that share their endeavors on their blog. One artist that has been very kind in sharing is Leslie H. from Comfortable Shoes Studio.

On this particular entry, Leslie describes how to make and use handmade alcohol inks. Of course, you can buy them at ridiculous prices, but Leslie shows you how to make them on the cheap—which is BRILLIANT.

Naturally, I had to make some for myself and now I am hooked. I went out and bought all of the spray misters that I could find on a Sunday afternoon. I will put in an order on Monday with Ultrecht which has great misters.

They worked wonderfully. What I like about them is that you can customize colors. Right now, I have ten colors made. The fun aspect for me is the chemistry of making the colors that I want--pastel shades, jewel colored shades and dark shades.

Here are some postcard backgrounds that I made and one completed postcard for a swap.

alcohol ink backgrounds

Swapbot postcard

Damn you Leslie H—I’m addicted.

BTW—thanks.

Struggled

(left) The rejected project
(right) The final project

What should have been an easy swap turned out to be an unnecessarily agonizing journey. One of the problems that I have when creating is that I become fixated on a single concept of the project. Unlike one artist who has the ability to go with the flow, I know what I want and I will be determined to continue to try and get what I want no matter how many times I have to attempt the project.

The problem with this approach is that I end up wasting time and materials and in the end, I still switch to something else. Granted, most of these projects are paper projects that are easily replicated. I don't think that I would be so determined if I were working in larger or more expensive media.

The project was supposed to be a postcard based on birds--that's it. Since I have been working on my book of silhouettes, I thought that I would do something on that order. When I found out the theme, I automatically thought of of the nursery rhyme Four and Twenty Blackbirds. I used a watercolor card base. I then printed the tag line from the rhyme, and place the matted silhouette over the card. I just couldn't get the silhouette that I wanted. As I was getting more frustrated, I started to get sloppy. The best card is the one that I show above--including all of the fingerprints that found themselves in the ModPodged edges.

I then took a day off and decided to try something different. I printed the word "bird" on the right margin on the postcard. I then glued a sheet of handmade petal infused paper on top of the written card. I used a tissue cut flower that my friend makes in Hong Kong. On top of that, I put a simple hummingbird silhouette that I designed.

So simple. Why couldn't I just do that two weeks ago?

Birthday Card

A good friend has twin sons that will celebrating their 10th birthday in a couple of weeks. I made this card for them. The were heard talking about the card that I sent them last year. Who says you can't feel pressure from 9 year olds.


I never think that you can go wrong with SpongeBob. The SpongeBob paper is cut as an overlay that is then folded in half. The blue card stock is cut as the background shadows of the greeting. The SpongeBob paper is then glued to the card stock using the fold as the guide.