Ok, Who Hit the Hyperspeed Button

on 2008? As in: How in The Hell is it already February!?

I seriously cannot deal if this is how fast the year is going to go by, and me having not remembered any of it passing. It just doesn't feel right, at all. An' I don' like it, nope!

BUT. I have managed to finish up a few things - I finally! mailed a long overdue care package to a fellow artfriend from Nness who needed cheering up ... My painted BG papers and rubberstamp images for a Yahoo group swap (that were due in Nov. Yeah, I'm a leeeetle behind shedju-uhl) are ready, but I still have to complete some decos that need to mail with them. Sigh.

I still owe a "PIF" from this very blog, that I said would be going out last month - not ready. I have a new series of zetti-inspired creepy eye collages that are totally stalled about a quarter way in since I've had no time to work on them. I need to do a major artroom cleanout, or I will never even find them - or anything else I need to work on. I owe my son a long-promised workday of listing some stuff on eBay, or at least a how-to lesson so he can do it himself. I have not taken and thusly, not uploaded, any new pics to Flick'r in soooo lonnng (and that makes me soooo sad) -and- I have three major family birthdays coming up at the end of the month - all within about a week of each other! plus I'm heading up the ice cream fundraiser at my youngest's school which puts me in the cafeteria every Friday during all lunches. (Yeah, WHAT was I thinking when I signed on for THAT? Answer: I clearly WASN'T.) eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

In the good news column: I HAVE sold three prints of my collages: two on eBay, one on Etsy (my 1st ever Etsy sale, w00t!) - and intend to get some new ones listed really soon, the plan is to start focusing more on Etsy listings since eBay has disappointed me too often of late.

Thats enough updatey for this month - I meeeean, today ;)
See ya next time, and hopefully sooner rather than later!

~ gem ~

ETA: Almost forgot! My mom got me a Roomba for Christmas and while I used to look at them and smirk thinking "yeah, riiight" - Oh.My.God. if itsn't the best thing ever, I lovvvve it! It's been sweeping up my tile floors the whole time I've been working up this post. All hail ROOMBAAAAA! Shweeeeee!

Pay It Forward

I've participated in PIF projects at other swap and mailart groups (PIF = Pay-It-Forward, which, in the arts & crafts world is basically: one person offers something up, maybe a small artwork like an ATC or deco or some type of supplies or scraps ... the next person to post claims it then offers their own 'whatever thing' to the next person, and so and and blahblah ) but this was the first one I joined via a blog, and I really like the idea and also liked Sparrow's art and lucked out that I was the last comment to snag hers :)

If you want the breakdown (and I knowww you do) I'm PIF'ing it from Sparrow's Tree, who got it from Blissful Mama, who got it from Not Cherry Pie, who got it from Danielle, who got it from Lori, who got it from Katie (whew!) and I'll pretty much stop there because Katie posts alot and I just couldn't track down the exact PIF thread in her blog ... I don't "know" any of those gals, but have a look at their blogs (AFTER you finish reading this, please, thank you. hehe, 'cause I get sucked away easily too, that's all ...) They all seem to make pretty cool stuff and have interesting things to say ... Anyway! onwards ...

First three people to comment to this post and also pledge to PIF themselves, will get some kind of handmade something from moi within one year (they all say that and I think it's kinda funny, but really - knowing how projects can go, it IS nice to have the leeway, haha!) I promise I'll try to be timely even though it's not my strong suit. And that's it kiddos, see ya later!

~ gem ~

Birdhouse ATC Set

Birdhouse ATC Set
Originally uploaded by gemgirlart

I just wanted to write a quick note about this set - done for a swap at ATCards.com, and for the life of me I don't know why I decided to not only DRAW the birdhouses, but draw from scratch, thinking up the images myself. That's like my worst type of art to attempt (I can draw okay enough if I copy a photo or recreate a "still life" setup, but straight out of my head is super hard for me) So yes, I know they look pretty juvenile, and the perspectives and proportions are all weirdly off, but - I am NOT going to let it bother me. Can ya tell.
-=teethclentched=- I am soooo not bothered by that upper addition to the white birdhouse that is just sort of ... floating behind the main part. Whyyy would I be irritated by the altogether WRONG shadowing of the birdholes? Don't care. So what. They're fiiiine.

ANYWAY: Quick-sketched the shapes with mechanical pencil then outlined and colored in with regular old colored pencils, using a Prismacolor blender to sorta meld the colors a bit. I actually LIKE the colors, and yes the horizon lines are off-kilter on purpose but I think it works. And there ya go. Hopefully whoever gets one will be quite happy to overlook it's shortcomings. Like I am. Sorta.

'Later!

~ gem ~

Art Journal Letter

So, sadly - one of the players in the Artist's Bakers Dozen swap at Nervousness got flaked on - I offered to send a new package on to her and that entailed creating another personal letter in art journal style. Here is the finished product and the original blank BG I made (I posted the background layout on Flick'r prior to adding my text ...)

- be sure to view full size -

Basic watercolor wash on sketchpad paper ... stamped on with some random foam and rubber stamp flower images (this was a fairly old BG paper I dug out of my stash, I wanted a lightweight paper as opposed to my usual textured watercolor paper) then I added some images - magazine clipping and vintage bird drawings printed on the computer, with a little acrylic paint wash added around those - the textlines and accent outlines in white gel pen, and finally my journal text in fineline Sharpie. I took my content cue from the imagery I'd created, and related a quick little (multi)bird story from my own life. I tend to be short and sweet with any of my journalish projects, so even though this was technically supposed to be a full-on "letter" (and I could have rambled on a few more bird things but ran outta writing space on this one) - overall I'm calling it a success.


Oh and I haven't gotten a chance to sit'n sew yet ... soon, I hope!

~ gem ~

Da NaNa NaNaNa, Ya Say It's Ya Birthdayyyy!

... well it's MY birthday too, yeah!

I'm trying to get this typed and posted before midnight so it get's timestamped while it's still actually my birthday, but my hand is swelling up & hurting so we'll see ... (dogbite - not fun) ... Anyway!

I participated in a couple swaps at Swap-Bot recently and wanted to show the results; one was a Gemini Birthday swap which yessss even though my partners ALL sent my packages early, I did wait until today to open them. I have Extreme Willpower! Here they are, in no particular order:

PACKAGES AWAITING ME!
(note: Apr 2014 - in going thru all the posts trying to update old broken image links - I have been unable to find copies of the pics for these swaps! Bummer ...)


All were excellent, thoughtful, well put-together packages and my swap partners really took care to read my profile and sent things perfectly suited to me - I loved EVERYTHING! So big thanks to them for making today a super special day :) I'll be trying to make the rating rounds tomorrow, at least before the weekend's over ...

Next stop: ATC MEGA SWAP! It's a week past the mailing deadline and I ended up with 18 out of 20 cards ... though at least one person sent 2 cards, so we'll see if those missing ones show up later. But for now ...

I REALLY WAITED TO OPEN THEM ALL TOGETHER -

And here they are, at last! Really nice looking set of cards altogether, don't you think? I stacked the envelopes largest to smallest, then opened them and layed them out in that order - kinda funny how batches of similar hues/colors ended up together.


Fun swap, I'd totally do that one again sometime. And finally - a completely unexpected surprise from my family - as usual I requested "no gift" and as usual they ignored me ... I hope I didn't ruin their excitement or fun in giving it, beacause I REALLY DO LOVE IT! but I realllly didn't want them $pending the money on me like that. But they did and there ya go. So anyway, here it is:

** again - had to dig thru my pic files to replace the originals and this was the earliest one I could find -

it didn't actually come with the stickers on it, that's just something I did later **

I KNOW, RIGHT!? It's great, I've casually mentioned wishing I had a sewing machine now and then (gee, they really DO listen, whatta ya know?) but I certainly didn't expect one. It's not the biggest fanciest thing ever but it looks pretty darn cool to me! I can't wait to get started using it, but since I'm a total sewing novice it's gonna take some time before I'm posting any of the "Makings from the Machine", I'm sure. I can also pretty much guarantee a cutback in paperart stuff as soon as I learn how to work it, since I tend to get completely 1track for a time when it comes to new arenas / projects / etc ...

Bedtime now - I'm so tired and my hand hurts real bad. But otherwise it was a super duper birthday (even without cake or the song) and hopefully thats a sign for how this "new year" is gonna go ... which is what I'm doing right now! Going!

~ gem ~

ATC Mega Swap @ Swap-Bot

Okay! Finally have my sends ready for the ATC Mega Swap over at Swap-Bot. My original idea for this project when I signed up was to do one single art piece and then cut it up into the 20 required ATCs, and send those out. Kinda like a "One Part of a Whole" puzzle type thing ... Anyway to keep it more manageable, I ended up doing 2 seperate pieces that were 17.5" by 5" - which got me 10 cards on each piece. I kept it simple by doing my usual Sharpie Abstract background, but did one in my favorite Black, Red & White "fill-in" theme and the other I just randomly colored in with metallic markers in a green, purple and blue palette. And here's how it progressed:

STEP 1
I randomly drew lines in black Sharpie marker, bisecting and looping and dividing until I was satisfied with the overall layout and individual sections. Did the same for second piece.

Step 2
Then I started inking in my spaces, adding little designs - stripes and lines, bubbles, dots, squiggles, hearts and stars - my usual arsenal of random abstractyness. I just go by a mantra of "fill the space" when I do these - it's seriously the quickest and easiest method I know of creating original, fun looking art - and no "talent" required! I usually prefer to leave some whitespace, especially in this particular color scheme. Here are the stages of this process:

I then repeated the process for the second piece, only without the added design elements - I simply filled those spaces in with solid colors to give it a sort of stained glass effect. I also had to re-ink the black border lines on that piece, as the metallic markers dulled the ink whenever I strayed outside the margins. Which was often. Sadly, I didn't continue my photo documentation past the early stages on that one and have no finished piece to show (Roops!)

Last step was cutting them into the 20 individual cards, attaching a backplate to each with the swap name and the number of the piece as it corresponded to the original it came from (1-A1, 2-E2, etc ...) then getting them into their envelopes, addressed & stamped and ready to roll!


I added images of the full size pieces to my Flick'r page: 1 (red&black) 2 (metallic), with an approximate breakdown of which individual card came from what section* (was kinda hard to get those note boxes to just the right size, plus I'd already sealed up the cards by then and couldn't doublecheck the actual card "contents") , so my partners can have a look at where their own card started out ... though the stained glass piece is a bit sad looking since I didn't photo it as a finished piece before I cut them (what can I say?! - kids are set to get outta school this week and I been a busy mama with all the end-of-year activities and running around and stuff. I was lucky just to get the ARTWORK done!)

Anyhow - that's it ... Just thought ya might like to see what went into creating my ATC Mega Swap submissions ... and I hope you like'em, those of you who got one!

Happy swapping!
~ gem ~

eta: Oh yeah, 2 things ... Number 1 - the PINK envelope in the mix there is a "WINNER" that I randomly chose from my partnerlist, they will get a new, personal piece of artwork made by me once they email me with their theme and choice (ATC, 4x6, 4x4 or deco) ... AND secondly ... I have steadily been recieving my ATCs from this swap, but as I said from the start - I'm holding off opening them until I either get all 20 sends, or a week or so after the swap date passes. No kidding!

*FYI- since I am no longer on Flickr, those links are dead

Journal Style Letter

So, I'm in this swap at Nervousness right now and one of the items we're to send our partner is a personal letter in journal style. I don't really like to write so I kinda agonized over this and waited til the last minute to finish it, but here it is:

The paper is handpainted with my standard BG technique (see previous posting) and then collaged just a bit with some magazine and computer printed images, plus some vinyl stickers - lines were added with an acrylic paint wash. The writing was done in Sharpie (after many attempts with PITT pens, Flairs, ZIGs) - the Sharpie just let me work alot faster, and it didn't turn out TOO bad, even with my horrible hodgepodge mess of handwriting (I've always envied those journal'ers who had font-perfect writing!) Accents were added with my new favorite! White Gel Pen - and I colored in some of the letters (which I wasn't crazy about afterwards, but -eh- I can nitpick anything I've made to death so may as well just stop now). Anyway it's done, it's true to what I was feeling when I wrote it, and hopefully will speak to the recipient in some way.

Now I gotta jet - summertime is upon us and the end of the school year is SO busy I can barely keep up ... just gotta tough it out a couple more weeks then sweeet sweeet summer ... ahhhh. Love it!

~ gem ~