Blog candy on its way

Here's one of the pieces of blog candy Tally and Cheryl will receive:Thinking, a series of two ATCS

The wooden faces had been hanging around for a while in my stash... I got them from a woman who brought them to a class I took in 2004. I stamped the test onto the woman's face, then pasted a matte medium transfer of the baby's face on top.

The denim background is kind of new: it's adhesive-backed denim from the Creation Station, which is an art/recycling place I like to visit from time to time. It's a lot like Scrap in Portland. I distressed the denim with a retractable knife/box-cutter thingy.

Then I painted the denim, hoping for an interesting color combination, but I learned this: Denim is quite absorbent. It likes acrylic paint. I know, I know... all y'all who work with fabric in your art coulda told me this many times over. But I'm learning. Eventually.

Time's up!

We have two winners! Tally guessed where I kept the figure while I was at work -- right in front of the iced tea...... and Cheryl guessed the closest to the actual number of matchsticks -- 51. (I screwed up the first masking tape t-shirt, so I had to start over.) When was the last time you saw a fire in a fridge? Huh? Can't hear you.

Full disclosure: Tally might've had a bit of an advantage on guessing I'd be crackheaded enough to put the figure there. We've known each other for 30 years. (That still trips me out.) And Cheryl will be one of my Artfest roommates. But the hints these lovely and talented winners received were the same ones you also read in the two previous posts. The only difference was that they shouted their answers before you did.

Blog candy on its way to Tally! Cheryl, email me your snail mail address and I'll get your prize out to you quick-like-bunny.

Next month, we'll have some more fun, with blog candy to someone(s) lucky. Maybe it'll be Valentine's-related, maybe not... depends on my mood. I bet if it's Valentine's-themed, Julie will win. She's the Empress of Sweet.

That's more like it

Good guess, Julie... 32 matchsticks is definitely closer. Keep trying 'cause you've officially overtaken Laurel as the leader. And don't forget to throw in a guess as to where I kept the figure while I was at work.

HINT #2: The container has large doors.

If you figure that one out, you're going to think I'm simple for storing the figure there. But it was my first time burning masking tape, on a wooden figure no less! I wanted to make sure the house didn't burn down in our absence! Horrifying visions of the fire captain assessing the damage: "We found the accelerant. It was some sort of wooden doll covered in tape."

Laurel did it. You should too.

My sassy girl Laurel took the first stab at the blog candy and guessed I used 14 matchsticks, with the figure "behind curtain number one." Boy, I shoulda taken a picture of the pile to give you guys a hint! Well, what's done is done. You'll have to live with a written clue.

HINT #1: I used more than 20. And I stored the figure in a container about ten times taller than the figure.

Y'all got until 11:59pm (Pacific Standard Time) next Thursday night to guess the answers... So far Laurel is in the de facto lead!

First steps

I've just gotten started on the next piece... this one will come with me to Artfest. I have a very specific outfit for her in mind, based on women's clothing I saw in Ghana, a country in west Africa. It's sort of an everyday outfit, comprised of a blouse or loose dress under a skirt wrapped around the waist.
Her shirt is made of strips of burnt masking tape, a technique I wanted to try in Michael de Meng's class during Art & Soul, but I didn't have time. An excellent way to relieve your pyromaniac tendencies, I might add. I would've used a cigarette lighter, but thank God The Husband no longer smokes, so that's not readily available. So I used those long fireplace matchsticks.

Most of this will be covered up with other stuff I'm planning to add. I might paint the "shirt" too... just dug up some photos from that Ghana trip and I'd forgotten how much vivid color people wear there.

If you can guess how many matchsticks I used up to make the figure's t-shirt, I'll send you some blog candy. Extra candy for guessing where I stored the figure after I was done...

New Flickr pix

Finally got around to downloading some more pix into my Flickr. Go see.

Blog candy from the 800-lb. gorilla

One of the ATCs for those lovely peoples who put in suggestions to name the 800-lb. gorilla: Tally, Mija, Cathie and Stacie.
From Tally: "Tar-zhay" for Target;"Las Vegas for kids" for Chuck E. Cheese
From Mija: "No Morals Mart" or "Smallheart" (more love for Wal-Mart); "Suckway" for her local Safeway supermarket; "Greedy Boss" for Reed and Cross (a high-end gift shop in Oregon).
From Cathie: "Ghetto Gap" for Old Navy. (In case y'all didn't know, Gap owns Old Navy and Banana Republic.)
From Stacie: "Group Death" for Group Health Cooperative (it's like Kaiser Permanente); "Boring" for Boeing.I glued images down first, then surrounded them with Golden light molding paste. Then I mixed Quinacridone Red and Oxide Yellow to make orange, and painted the paste.
Next, I painted the image as well as the paste with a drop of Iridescent Bright Gold (Fine) mixed with some gel matte medium. It helped tie the image to the paste color, but the paste was a little too bright.

So I coated it with a wash of Michael deMeng's special secret sauce that he uses to grunge up his creations. (See, I'm using what I've learned, Mom.) Then a hole punch in the corner for some fibers and voilà -- coolness.Fun, fun, fun. I like this game.