Postal

I've finished another postcard to send out to Tally for our swap:
It started life as one of those free postcards you can pick up near the door of certain bars and restaurants. A big sneaker company put these church lady-looking women in their shoes for the ad. I picked up a lot of them, and mostly have been using them as the base for the other altered postcards. But this time I decided to alter the image using a challenge technique I'd seen Jen Worden use.

I seem to be getting worse at following directions as I get older, I swear. You start with a glossy magazine image; I figured the postcards were plenty glossy. Next, you're supposed to draw the broad outlines with a Sharpie first, and THEN gesso in the parts you want to cover, kind of like painting by numbers.

No... I had to slap the gesso on first, and then realize I couldn't see the image well enough. I ended up watering down the gesso so I could see a little more detail. Here's a lesson: it's really easy to dry up the extra-fine end of your Sharpie if you're dragging it through gesso. But it was still really entertaining to outline the face of the woman on the right.Sorry about the sideways orientation: Blogger is having issues, as usual. They were the right way when I uploaded them...

Anyhoo, I added scraps, one of my favorite text stamps ("Things just weren't the same at St. Alphonse convent after Sister Agnes went on her shooting spree "), then the dancing girls stamp which I colored in with pens, and glazed the edges to blend the top with the bottom a bit more. I also used the dancing girls stamp on the back, on a transparency, and colored in their legs.

So that was a little bit of fun that'll go out in the mail today or tomorrow.

Introducing... Kicky McAngrypants

I figure every crying newborn looks pretty much the same, so I'm bending my rule about No Pictures of The Boy on le blog.Aside from a little matte medium to seal the inked paper edges, this new page is done. It's about how I discovered that sticking out the lower lip when angry is something babies really do, without being coached.

You know how some people (um, me) rename people "Something McSomething"? It's a habit I picked up from my sister-in-law while she was living in L.A. So it was inevitable that The Husband and I would apply that to The Boy in the first few months of his life.

The Boy was not keen on swaddling: he had to have his arms free, and very soon he decided the legs had to be free too. So one evening, while The Husband was bouncing The Boy on his knee to calm him down, he came up with "Kicky McAngrypants."

I typed "Introducing" and "Kicky McAngrypants" in Blasphemy [hee hee... "blasphemy"] font, then did water transfers of both in different font sizes. I also gessoed, then painted the nameplate space with a cream acrylic, then adhered the water transfer with matte medium. Just for good measure, I painted a little more cream around the edges of the nickname.

Finally, the fun part: I blended it in with the patina of the nameplate by painting it with the special Michael de Meng schmutzing colors. I love it when things turn out the way they look in my head!The "Introducing" water transfer sits on top of cream acrylic paint too, because I figured it wouldn't show up very well otherwise on the purple cardstock. A little more schmutzy paint on that and the prickly cactus loteria card to tie them all together, and there we go.
I also made a mica and vellum paper sandwich, bound with wire. Someday The Boy will look at this page and not find it funny at all, of course. So this is my (ultimately futile) explanation that he was not, in fact, tortured by his parents for the sake of a picture. Geez, The Boy got nursed and a bottle right after I took the picture! What does he want, blood?

Oh, yes... of course he will.

My kind of physics lesson

The Husband drew diagrams just for this post. See, if I'd dared to take physics in high school, this is the kind of lesson that would've had me taking notes that I actually re-read at home. For fun.

The Bluebird of Testosterone

The Boy has begun making the occasional comment that seems to indicate the presence of a completely testosterone-driven portion of the brain.

It started one day when we were driving to the mall, and The Boy said he saw a bird where none could have been. About as elusive as the bluebird of happiness. The Husband went along with The Boy's story, saying it was a bird only guys could see; therefore, it must be the Bluebird of Testosterone.

Today I was buckling The Boy into his car seat, but I couldn't get it to click closed at first. I realized what was wrong, and said, "Oh, your shirt was in the way."

The Boy's response: "And my penis was in the way too."

Uh-huh.

I love them, theoretically

I post this picture only to make a point. A shuddering, gagging point.

Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

How is it that I can have this reaction to just a picture of an insect...

[disgusted, shuddering scream while covering mouth so bug won't fly out of picture and down my throat]

... and still think Nina Bagley and Jane Wynn's necklace pendants are gorgeous? I just finished reading the latest post on Ornamental, and almost went permanently cross-eyed trying to read the text without seeing the cicada pictures.

Some of my favorite designs they've created are modeled on insects. So on the one hand, I'm reminded that I live in a place where there are

[THANK YOU JESUS]

very few large bugs, but at the same time I like their ornamental representations. I love the fragility of the wing structure, the delicacy of their limbs, but... to have the insect use those wings... to fly near me for some unknown reason...

Can't type. Skin has crawled right off my body.

I'm almost as bad as the "Letty Bell" character from Little Britain who loves frog toys and other paraphernalia. Just not, you know, the real thing. I think the part of my brain that is grossed out by the buggy reality must sit right next to the part that's fascinated by surgery reality shows.

If you stop making art, the terrorists win

During the past two months, I've been dealing with things that terrify me: conflict and money. Life is reminding me I have limited control over how fast I can get this thing done. And the Thing can't be done without a certain person who disappears from view unless his priorities happen to coincide with mine.

Have also noticed it seems I make more art when I'm stressed out. I now understand Twyla Tharp a lot better: "Art is the only way to run away without leaving home."

So I tried to divert some of my energy away from worrying and toward altering more postcards. Which is what I meant to be doing anyhow.














Here are a few peeks (not "peaks" or "piques") of the finished card. If I could make another card every time I felt this stressed out, I'd have enough to wallpaper the Great Wall of China.

Shiny, at times brilliant

I've been meaning to post this for a while... LK Ludwig passed on the love and named my lil' ol' blog Brillante. Besides being a sweet thing to do while she was up to her eyeballs in work, LK lifted my spirits on a day I wasn't feeling brilliant in any sense of the word. She lurks on my blog (her words). Imagine that.

Of course, there are rules:

1) Put the logo on your blog
2) Add a link to the person who awarded you
3) Nominate at least seven other blogs
4) Add links to those blogs on yours
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs

Seven other blogs... hmmm... I know some of the other folks won't do this, but I just like reminding them that I think they rock the cas-blog:

1) Lisa Hoffman (good thing we don't live next door to each other. Our men would constantly be retrieving us from the other house)
2) Tally Oliveau (she'd be my Big Love sister-wife, if it weren't for the illegal, appallingly sexist , already-got-a-husband-thanks aspects of the arrangement)
3 ) Jane Wynn(she's made the big jump out of the day-job world recently into full-time arting. Whoa.)
4) Laurel Steven (chunky clay-heart goodness, and a loyal reader)
5) Julie Brill Molina (makes me laugh my ass off. You see I have none left)
6) Catherine Witherell (I would follow her in her glorious precious-metal-clay footsteps, but for me that way lies bankruptcy)
7) Judy Wilkenfeld (her artist books make me stutter in awe and amazement -- and she's so modest about them)

EDIT: Honorable mention: Blaiz Christopher, whom I didn't realize had a blog. But fortunately, she's recently been named Brillante too, so that work's been done for me.

Gotta go and shine up the brilliance for work.

It was really hot last night.

Not by my old, high-desert standards, but certainly by the yardstick I use when I'm pregnant in the summer. Usually my hands and feet get cold easily. But that hasn't happened since, like, April. I am now at the belly-as-portable-shelf stage, and I'm only in the second trimester. So I will be big. Beeeeeeeeeeeg. As my dad used to say cheerfully, "Don't worry. It'll get worse."
So The Husband thinks ahead and picks up some ice cream. I come home from work and put on his old undershirt, which is long enough to be worn as a (flimsy, obscenely short) shirtdress at home. We keep the lights off and the fan on. It would be nice to have central air conditioning, but even summer heat here is kind of intermittent. So every summer, people run to the hardware store for ginormous fans that they'll use for two weeks, max.

I once read a novel set in pre-revolutionary China that depicted a family who could afford marble or slate floors... the family would cool down on summer nights by sleeping on the floors, with just a thin bedding layer between them and the cold stone.

Ooh... Coldstone Ice Cream. There's a thought.