Finally getting around to posting some new art...

Greetings! Wow ... it took me a while to get around to posting this... that this art doesn't even feel new to me anymore! haha!

For the Fall Tea Swap for my Tea Group we had a "destinations" theme. Each person in the swap was to select up to three destinations to where they'd like to travel. These destinations could be real or fantasy.

My partner chose "Art Gallery in Paris," "Fall Festival" and "Outdoors/Camping" -- the Outdoors/Camping one was also specific to the sounds of nature.

For a combination of the Fall Festival and Outdoors/Camping theme, I made her this field journal, where she could sketch or write (or both) ... I imagine with her emphasis on the sounds of nature, she could also use it to write her feelings as she listens to those sounds...

As you can see, I used the box of my favorite cookies from Trader Joe's (these cookies are awesome!) as the cover of the journal, and inside I used blank watercolor paper that I stained and stamped with inks (just to take away the new whiteness of the paper ... I find that intimidating sometimes, don't you? It's much more fun to journal when you have something already on your page!) Finally, I bound the pages with my Rubicoil machine... which I love!

For the "Art Gallery in Paris" destination, I decided to create a "having tea in a Paris Museum" type of route, and included tea and chocolate truffles, and wrapped the box in a cool Paris themed paper. I also made a "scrapbook" type of fatbook for her that includes images of famous paintings that can be found in Paris's Museums. The fatbook ended up being 14 pages thick (I think -- I can't remember!) and is anything but conventional, as I took a cue from one of my favorite artists, Aileen from Outside the Margins and went a bit outside the margins of this book. Several of the images of the paintings were larger than the 4 x 4 size, so I simply ignored that and so some of the pages don't look like they fit!


Neither my hubby nor my oldest daughter liked the fact that this book went beyond it's boundaries, but I really did like it. Sure, when the pages fit nice and neatly inside a book, it's all well and good, but I like my fat books to be chunky and a bit unusual, I think it gives the book more character like that.

~Anne

Some New Art - Finally!

Greetings!

For those of you who know me, you know that I've been having issues with my creativity lately. It's been difficult to find the inspiration to work on my artwork, and when I feel uninspired, whatever I might create comes out quite disappointing.

Fortunately, my trip to Tohono Chul Park had a very positive effect on me, and I have been more inspired to work!

It really is a great feeling after such a long period of feeling so uncreative.

I finally got around to completing my entry in Bonnie's True Color Journal!

As you might have guessed from looking at the picture, Bonnie's chosen color palette is all shades of blue.

When I think of blue, I am reminded fondly of my gramma, as it was her favorite color. One of my most cherished memories of my gramma is that she would have tea parties with me. I had quite a few toy tea sets, and she would lay out her best lace table cloth and I would choose some of my favorite tea set dishes to use. She'd mix coffee and milk together and this would be our "tea" (gramma never really did care much for tea). We'd share cookies and "tea."

Thank you to Bonnie for allowing that memory to come alive in my artwork. I hope that you like the spread I created for your journal as much as I enjoyed creating it.

~Anne

PS: Be sure to check out my "Fall Is Coming" sale on my teas in tins... only in my artfire shop!