Origami postcard project ...

Hmmm ... been a while since I posted anything here ... here's what's on my desk this evening ...

Finishing up some postcards for a postcard swap, and using up what's on my desk, including a package of 2"x2" neon origami squares. They've been hanging around awhile and I thought it was time to turn them into art. I had no clear plan when I started these, just trusted that something would happen as I went along.

One thing that happened is that I kept wanting to add *more* stamping to fill in the emptyish bits. As in more stamping than I would normally do. I thought it might be fun to show you all the "steps" as they came to me. A few words about stamps ... I have a lot of them, but I tend to a) buy them on sale and b) not buy any set that doesn't have at least one stamp that I think I'll be able to use on multiple projects. It was kind of fun to "shop" through my stamp collection for just the perfect little thing.

For those who *really* want to know, here are the stamp sets I used ~ and just one stamp from each set.
Step 2: Stitching from Kelly Panacci / Sandy Lion's Clear Borders.
Step 3: Sun from Farm House Paper Company's Fair Skies Dusk.
Step 4: is from ... uh oh ... clear alphabet set I received as a gift ... not sure of the origin.
Step 5: Text Strip from Prima's Christina Renee My Rose set.
Step 6: Flourish from Penny Black's Dancing Deer set.

For those who know me, these are not the usual colours I work in ... but the contrast of the bright neon origami papers seemed to really need that crisp black in the stamps. These postcards are heading off to Tangie Baxter's Art Journal Emporium's postcard swap at the beginning of March ... good to have them done!

That's all for now ... planning to post some of my day to day journal pages soon. I've been re-inspired by seeing some other people's working journals and thinking it might be time to share ... more to come!

Wherever you go, my heart will follow ...

Yet another of the heart-themed projects I created recently. This one was a page in a collaborative book hosted by Jeneen Weekes of the Courtenay, BC Artist Trading Card Group.

In some ways, this little piece (4.5" x 7") is a bit of a departure from my previous work. For one thing (and my friends will spot this right away), it uses a ton of colour. I've recently discovered the joys of digital paper, whereby you purchase a digital image that you can reprint as many times as you wish. This piece uses several layers of digital papers, and since the image is digital, you can layer things on top of it before you print, which is what I did here. I stamped the girl (I love Teesha Moore's quirky zettiology stamps!), then I removed her hat and drew in a suitcase. Then I scanned the new image, and laid it on top of the digital paper, which is a page of vibrantly coloured strips and printed it out. Then I cut out the girl and coloured her coat and stockings with pencil crayons. Torn strips of the digital paper become both the ground she stands on and the wall behind the El Corazon wall poster.

Various other things were done to the piece (obviously!) including sanding, a light gesso wash over a stack of admission tickets along the right-hand edge and overstamping with a flourish behind her head. I created nine separate pages, and on each one of them, the colour from the digital paper fell in a slightly different place (I moved my image around on the page before printing to make sure that happened!).