Making A New Collage, with a Little Video Slideshow

I always like to look at artwork that is a little complicated, that has layers and different techniques and media, things to engage, and to puzzle out. So mixed media collage art almost always draws me.

Although the process was not new, collage got its place of importance in the early 1900's art world from Picasso and George Braque, who coined the term, from the French word, meaning "to glue". Other artists of the era, such as Henri Matisse, an impressionist painter, began working in collage, in works like the famous "Icarus".

Although my recent art focus has been painting, just lately I've worked on a few collages. Not ones with clean, simple lines like this lovely Matisse, but more layered and complex works.

I started this new mixed media collage by first laying down both cut and torn papers, including text from old book pages, prints of some of my photography and acrylic paintings on art paper, onto a wood panel, glued down with Golden semi-gloss gel.

 Acrylic paint, colored pencil, conte crayon (similar to chalk pastels), sprayed layers of fixative, were then layered onto the base layer of papers.

A few more bits of paper collage and a some final subtle mark making were added.

I made a short video slideshow of the making of this collage in the movie making program Open Shot that I am in the process of learning.

The cool music on this movie is called Mirage, and is from the YouTube audio library of free music.


Here are some of the supplies I used to create this collage. Click to see details on Amazon.



 And most important for all the shading:   

I have been cheating on you. With another blog.

After my recent trip to Sicily,  I started my new travel blog, at Garden Nomad.net.

I'm excited because I love to travel, and wanted a place to ponder and write about travels, adventures, food...food adventures, travel food, food.

I'm still keeping this blog, tho she has been neglected for a while, because it is my "kitchen sink" blog. Where I can come to talk about anything.

And I do have garden posts I am planning in my head, and art and painting posts I want to make.  (Fluid acrylic painting is kind of new, and cool.)

But first let me talk about writing this last Garden Nomad post. Because writing is what this blog is about too. It was brutal.

I started out thinking I was writing an article about arriving in Palermo, with a little history, food, art, and photography thrown in. I was mistaken.

What happened was, all the grief journey and emotional stuff poured in, into my article and into my life.

Well, it is always there, and will always be a part of me. No surprise.

But it was really hard to finish, to blend into a cohesive whole, all of that. And so...I stopped.

Queen of writers, Procrastination, reared her head. I slept too late, played scrabble on my phone, scrubbed the floors, fought with my love. And while I went back into the computer file and sometimes did a little this and that, it was like a cat, hunched over and retching, tortuously retching, trying to get the thick mat of accumulated hair out.

"The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible."
            -Nabokov

How NOT to Exhibit Art in a Show

I'm sure that I am not the only artist that gets a little warm fuzzy feeling upon seeing their work hung in a gallery with other inspiring works of art. After all, not only can you and your friends and family make a night out of going to the opening reception and a yummy restaurant, but you know you will not be showing said friends and family embarrassingly crappy artwork, because someone else has already validated it by choosing it for this exhibit. (Insecure, moi?) For me that process has been on the back burner for a number of years as I dealt with other issues, but earlier this year I started to peruse the call for art listings and chose two local shows I wanted to submit to. One in Dallas and one in my own town of Fort Worth.


So I did the difficult selection process, and the almost as difficult titling and pricing. Only paintings that were already adequately photographed were in the running. Dimensions were recorded, files were renamed, and the submissions with their artful (one hopes) images were sent off into the world of web. (And for those of us who were artists back in the day, isn't that a wonderful step up from having to get slides made and physically mailing them out?)

Then I planned for my trip to visit my friend in California for her birthday, all the while imagining how excited I would be if my paintings were accepted. I may have even mentally composed a FB post announcing my inclusion in the show.

Well.... after a lovely visit, during which, I assure you, I did check my emails and other essential media via my cell phone, I thought, Hmm, let's just check on those art submissions.

Joy! Two of my recent paintings were selected for the FWCAC show. Great news, especially as this is a place Edward and I make a point to visit when we are available for their monthly gallery openings. They have several usually themed rooms, and always have some cool and interesting art. 
Sorrow! Because the intake of the art happened while I was in California, and I totally missed it.

This cringe-causing statement was in the Congratulations! acceptance message, If you do not respond with the information above in a timely fashion, we will assume you will not be able to participate. Sigh.

So, here are the two pieces that would have been in the exhibit.

Swan Lake Haiku   acrylic on canvas


Can you see the swan?

The Drawing of the Moon  acrylic and pen and pencil on canvas

Both of these paintings have as their base a really interesting painting technique that I have been experimenting with for a while, fluid acrylic pour painting. So many marvelous results can be created with this technique, both as final products and as incredible backgrounds for further work.

So, to avoid this kind of disappointment, (because, given the post title, there must be a moral to this story) always read the details carefully, be aware of when the gallery or institution will be making its decision, and aware of when the intake of art will happen.

{In addendum: I want to acknowledge that I did, early this year, have some paintings in an absolutely lovely local gallery, The Grackle, accepted in a less formal way than I have talked about here. More about that later.}

Focus on Photography: EyeEm

EyeEm is a photo storage and sharing site as well as a micro stock photo outlet.

A couple of months ago, I became interested in editing, sorting, and perhaps marketing my photographs. As I was doing research, I came upon EyeEm. I started uploading some of my photos.

Southern California beach 2015

After a while, I read something disturbing—that some pictures might be chosen for the collection, to be marketed by Getty Images (seemed like a good thing), but that I would lose the rights to my images, and to ANY taken in the same batch (! seemed like a very bad thing). I could sell prints, like at an art fair, but could no longer market them to stock and micro-stock.

As I began to receive emails that some of my photographs had been chosen for the Collection/Getty Images, I felt both pleased (validated?) and conflicted that I would no longer have rights and control of my pictures.

Fall Color Blue Ridge Parkway 2015

Fortunately, not too long after I started placing my pictures on EyeEm, the policy changed. Now the message about the collection says this:

EyeEm Market allows you to offer photos from your profile for sale. Photos you upload to EyeEm attract a lot of interest from global brands, agencies, magazines and other creative industries. 

And this:
Market lets you earn money for doing what you already do best: taking real, authentic photography. Photos are made available through licensing. This means: buyers can use your photos and you keep the copyright and ownership of what you decide to sell. You’re always in control.

So:

My kiddo in the Texas Snow

So, woo-hoo! It's been really nice to go through my photos and reminisce. I have had many "likes" and quite a few "follows", and maybe I will get some sales. Who knows.

Grieving Mom

It has been a really long time since I wrote a blog article.

I thought about sharing all of my thoughts and processes of grief much earlier, both because I heard and read that writing was a very good tool for healing, and because I thought sharing my feelings and experience might help others who had suffered terrible loss.

Obituary for Ian Patrick Barnard Kent

Ian Patrick Barnard Kent, 27, left this world on Saturday, September 27, 2014, in Garland, Texas.

Ian was born on January 14, 1987 in Fort Worth, where he lived most of his life. Ian was beautiful and talented. He had a good ear for music and a lovely singing voice. He played baseball for many years and had a great throwing arm. He was a cub scout and a boy scout. As a child Ian drew pictures and many cards for his parents and drew and wrote comic strips. In middle school his poem about Dr. Martin Luther King was selected for publication. He played the drums as a teenager, rode a skateboard which he continued to enjoy as an adult, and enjoyed playing disc golf. Ian had a kind heart and was a compassionate pet owner. During the below freezing temperatures the past winter, Ian rescued a stray kitten, “Kitty” whom he loved. Ian was an active member of the recovery community in Kerrville, Texas, where he sponsored other young men in their journey to wellness. As a young adult Ian was surprised to discover a passion and talent for dance and choreography. He taught dance to grade school children in an after school program and performed in dance troops in Fort Worth and in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, where he majored in dance at SRU before his back injury. Ian was sensitive and kind, playful and mischievous. He was a loving brother, son and grandson. 

Ladies and Gentlemen...The BEATLES!

    A couple of years ago, my eldest daughter wanted an original piece of art from me for her birthday. Like all of our family, she loves The Beatles, and her favorite song is "A Day in the Life". I was so excited to find an image of John's hand written manuscript for that song to incorporate into a mixed media collage for my daughter. (Warning, these are not professional quality photos of these pieces, just what I took at home..the lighting is not so great.)

   The next year she expected a new piece in the series. (I didn't know it was a series.) And I did Paul, and found his writing of the lyrics for "Hey Jude", which my daughter and I sang along with him (and thousands of others) a number of years ago at a concert in Dallas when she was about 13.  (My oldest son was also there; he was working the show and had set up, handled Paul's instruments, and sat with us for a while before the show began.) It was awesome; I cried.

The Beatles In Their Own Write Series so far, mixed media collage

This May I did the latest, George, with his handwritten words to "Something", a song that B loves and has often said she wants played at her wedding.

The epilogue to this is that later in the month we took my youngest daughter R on a long (school night) road trip to Tulsa, amid the risk and reality of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms, to see Paul McCartney in concert. What a fabulous night!..even if we were soaking wet during the concert...and we were... 

Paul rocked long and hard, sang all the songs you'd want to hear, was charming, energetic, nostalgic, dynamic...and as her first real concert, all the shooting fire and indoor fireworks during "Live and Let Die" really blew my 15 year old away. (You can see pieces of this concert tour at youtube, and even of the Tulsa concert we attended. With the pyrotechnics.) I was so touched and emotional during his tributes to John and to George, and with the lovely Linda moment of "Maybe I'm Amazed", such a wonderful song, but my most emotional and moving moment was during the sing-along portion of "Hey Jude", once again, looking over and seeing R and Edward singing along. I felt teary, exulted, grateful, included in a meaningful community experience, full of love.

On the Dark Path—Out in the World and Available for Purchase

It was a long wait, but last week I mailed the fairy tale anthology to 47 poets, from the US, Canada, Spain and Jamaica  (I was in the post office an hour! I didn't know you had to fill out custom forms for Canada. Also, discovered there is no international Book Rate or as it is known now, Media Mail...not even for Canada. On the upside, I did see two ducks waddling across the PO parking lot in the rain.)

On the Dark Path is also now available from Amazon.

Fairy Tale Poetry Anthology Ready Soon

“On the Dark Path is a hauntingly beautiful collection of poems that lead us deeper into these ancient tales than we’ve been before. Powerful, surprising, sometimes brutal, these poems enchant the imagination and linger in the mind for days.”        
                       —Michelle Rhea, editor Incarnate Muse Press                                    

                       
So happy—the book is almost finished. We have the proof copy in our hands, and it looks wonderful! We have a couple of minor changes to make and are still looking at it closely. I have to admit that there were times that I doubted this anthology would ever be born.

We even have a reading and release party already set up, thanks to Karen X Minzer at WordSpace.

What: Book Release: On the Dark Path: An Anthology of Fairy Tale Poetry
When: Saturday, May 11, 7 pm
Where: Lucky Dog Books, 633 W. Davis, Dallas (Oak Cliff)

Speaking to us from the woods and the cottage, from the marriage bed, the hospital bed, the writing group and the camps at Dachau, the forty-eight poets in this anthology of poems based on traditional fairy tales, edited by DFW poet and longtime fairy tale enthusiast Anita M. Barnard, bring their personal worlds to the fairy tale and the fairy tale out into the world at large. The reading will feature some of the local poets whose works appear in the book.

French Wedding, Zazzle and GIMP

Zazzle makes it pretty easy to coordinate your wedding (or anniversary, reception or other event) with all the stationery products you need, with customized cards you design yourself or a huge variety of interesting designs from other designers. I am going to use a few products that I recently designed as an example.

I have been kind of interested and charmed lately by the vintage bunting/garlands that have been popping up in many places lately. Some might recall the Halloween bunting I made for our home decor and my daughter's birthday party last month.

SPOOKY Bunting

I used GIMP, my free image manipulation program, to make French ephemera wedding bunting to apply to various products in Zazzle. The background for the letters to spell out OUR WEDDING is   made of lovely vintage French typography, advertisements, receipts, etc. - all from Karen at the Graphics Fairy. It took a bit of time to shape each piece of ephemera into the pennant, or equilateral triangle, shape before applying the letter to each one. I used a great font called Chocolate Box Decorative.

I then applied a background and text and came up with invitations, Save the Date postcards and RSVP cards.

OUR WEDDING Vintage French Bunting Invitation by 13MoonshineDesigns

OUR WEDDING Vintage French Bunting Save the Date by 13MoonshineDesigns

OUR WEDDING Vintage French Bunting RSVP Card by 13MoonshineDesigns

Table seating cards and menu cards are also possibilities.

I have the French Wedding bunting with alternative backgrounds that I have not yet posted on Zazzle. These are more colorful designs with swirls and leaves in the background in either aqua/teal or purple/lilac/tan.

Now, I have to admit that I had the individual pieces of the wedding bunting done right after I made the Halloween banner, but I could not for the life of me draw a satisfactorily smooth line as the "string" the bunting pieces were attached to. I tried again and again. Guess my hand is just not that steady.

So, in the interim, I have been watching quite a few GIMP tutorials on YouTube, and been reading a lot of GIMP advice. When I found this written tutorial about how to draw a circle, and other shapes in GIMP, I knew it was just what I needed for this bunting project. 

Basically, you use your select tool, in this case the circle (or oval) select. Position your selection where you want your line to be; it doesn't matter if part goes off your image (mine had to a lot to get the correct curve) or if there is extra where you don't want a line, you can just erase later. When you have your selection positioned, go to Edit-Stroke selection, then make your line as thick as you want it (I believe mine were 3 pixels). This also works for squares and rectangles with the rectangle select tools and for other shapes with straight lines. This was a great discovery for me.

I made this funky, fun design

Vintage Octopus Christmas Card by 13MoonshineDesigns

...by drawing a circle the same way on a transparent layer as a guideline for laying out the wreath, then just making it invisible (or deleting it) later.

I know this GIMP "discovery" is probably very elementary for most GIMP users, but I am still reading, watching and learning (mostly through trial and error) and it was just what I needed.

Halloween Party Ideas

I know it has been about 100 years since I wrote a blog post.

My garden is still plugging along and getting a bit refreshed in the Texas 2nd growing season...I have lots of little red peppers, arugula and a couple of little Fairy Tale eggplant, plus so many happy herbs.

Also, I have continued with my art and craft projects, especially creating and posting lots of stuff to my Zazzle store. I am totally unprepared, but a lot of people seem to be getting ready for Christmas already, and are buying their cards and ornaments, especially popular have been the international Santas, like the Paris, Rome and London cards and ornaments.

But here lately, I have to admit, I have been a bit preoccupied by Halloween. You see, my daughter, who has a mid-October birthday, has decided that she wants to have a Halloween costume birthday party at home. ! What, you mean I have to clean and organize my house?? Actually, I love the idea, and we have been brain-storming lots of cool decorations, foods and spooky activities.

Today, I made this "SPOOKY" Halloween banner, using scrapbooking paper, card stock, a scalloped paper punch, a great font, Elementary Gothic Bookhand, and small black fabric ribbon. Here it is hanging from our antique (past its prime) piano.

I had wanted to make another banner that I found as a free printable on line. I think this person did such a good job in designing this banner, but I just couldn't get it to print right, after selecting landscape a few times, and other options that should make that work with my printer...even tried it with another computer. Alas.

I do have about 2/3s of it printed out  and cut out, so I will ask my computer expert to help me with this.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time today soaking, scraping and scrubbing labels off of various "potion" and "poison" bottles for beverages. Here are some cool sites and resources for printable Halloween bottle labels. The 1st is one of 2 I found at the Graphics Fairy site.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglMbPxI8tg8C0h0AnyIU9vHShyphenhyphen6OVeVU1DRL_b1qgXWi1XFmjXqBL6g3AsSmFr7kQmJVlIDacHCy_IZPeK9RET_XfIwvSKFjJy6nPwFItiuctAqhgX20_3zQFqpegRGaWmzqgTuMBSUb0/s1600/potions+copy.jpg

These are going to be awesome beverage labels for my daughter's party.

Also, I found out the most awesome thing online...but unfortunately, I do not remember what site it was on. If you add a little tonic water to a beverage, then it will glow in a black light. (I'm really excited about this one!)

Well, that is what is going on with us this season. Maybe, I'll post party pictures later. And after that is all over, maybe I will even get around to painting again.

Chilling Yet Personable Dystopian Novel "When She Woke"

I have almost finished When She Woke by Hillary Jordan, a re-imagining of "The Scarlet Letter" set in the not too distant future, and reminding me a lot at times of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" and often as disturbing. The reminders the reader gets that the novel is set in the future in our country, such as technological advances and gadgets, do not seem very far fetched at all, and the changes in policy, attitude and law that have pushed society to the situation in the book seem chillingly likely and address many present day political and social concerns. That the book is set mainly in Plano and Dallas, with mentions of familiar places like Oak Lawn, Mockingbird Station, SMU and Garland, only serves to bring it home more strongly to me, a lifelong resident of Dallas-Fort Worth who grew up in Garland. The main character, Hannah Payne, obviously a more modern day sounding nod to Hester Prynne, a young woman who grew up in a loving but very limiting, extremely Christian family and environment, is easy to care about and her emotions, predicament and realizations are very easy to identify with. The book addresses some pretty thorny topics, and I needed to take a little break from my growing apprehension as I approach the end, but it is also well written and engaging. I recommend it.


Hillary Jourdan is the author of Mudbound (2006), a prize-winning, New York Times bestseller. (Which I have not read, but I mean to remedy that soon.).

Thanks to Michelle Rhea for the gift of the book. (I hope you got one for yourself too!)

Fused Glass and Arts Goggle Festival

It's time for spring Arts Goggle in Fort Worth's cool near Southside neighborhood tomorrow afternoon and evening. One of the things I have been doing this week to get ready is creating a few more fused glass suncatchers. (Starting in the morning before it's too hot to run the kiln!)

A few of the older suncatchers, available on Etsy

Paris Eiffel Tower suncatcher

Backlit with some sun shining through

Experiments with wire-wrapping, copper inclusion

Since I will have a space outside this time around instead of the large room and wall space I have had for some previous shows, I will be showing mostly jewelry, these suncatchers and a few smaller pieces of art.

I'll be at 300 South Main Plaza Saturday May 19th from 4-10.

May Day Poem and History

Happy Mayday!

Today I thought I'd share a May poem from about 12 years ago. The daughter in question is now a beautiful young woman who will be turning 24 later this month.



My Daughter in Baptist Youth
for Brenna, age 12


Sometimes I throw out words,
casual, not an issue,
words like Maia, Athena, Mara,
names of goddesses.
Words like myth and story
when we speak of these old tales
and dictums, histories of magic
and supernatural cruelties,
campsite tips - things we are
told to live our lives by.

Sometimes, her faith
held tight in her young heart,
she balks, challenges,
walks away, hurt and tearing.
And so I keep it easy, thrown in,
aside. The myths an option,
all the other stories - tidbits,
tastes of all belief,
the names sprinkled in like salt.

Sometimes, on a spring night,
we come together, blissful,
around a leaping fire,
roast marshmallows and
admire the flowers resurrected
after winter.
Celebrate Beltane, her birthmonth,
bring in the May.


by Anita M. Barnard
published in Above Us Only Sky
Incarnate Muse Press 2003





This is also Beltaine. The Celtic festival "Beltine (or Beltaine) was celebrated on 1 May, a spring-time festival of optimism. Fertility ritual again was important, in part perhaps connecting with the waxing power of the sun, symbolized by the lighting of fires through which livestock were driven, and around which the people danced in a sunwise direction."  -Nora Chadwick (from Wikipedia, where you can read more). We love a festival involving fires and often make a fire in the fire pit on this evening...it also makes a good excuse for roasting vegetables (or marshmallows) over the wood fire.

May 1st is also Labor Day in many countries.

The vintage Maypole image is from the Graphics Fairy.

Designing Pillows —- Digital Art for Zazzle

Sometime in January I posted in a Zazzle forum calling for ideas for new products how cool it would be if independent designers (me, for instance) could design throw pillows to be produced by Zazzle. I was pretty excited on February 7th when I found out that they now have that in place, and I quickly designed 3 pillows on GIMP. A really nice thing about these pillows and the other housewares products that came out at that time, is that they are being manufactured by a company that "sustainably employs" and supports single mothers.

Here are the three pillow designs that have sold from my store so far. You can see a theme emerging as far as what is popular. (I also see that with my iPhone cases and cards.) Two of these have a digitally collaged background of  vintage Parisian and French ephemera, including an old invoice, receipt, handwritten letter, the handwritten manuscript of Madame Bovary, lovely typography and old stamps, with a number of the vintage images from Karen at the Graphics Fairy.

Vintage Blue Hydrangea French Ephemera Pillow by 13MoonshineDesigns

Paris Eiffel Tower Butterfly Pillow by 13MoonshineDesigns

Vintage Paris French Ephemera Pillow by 13MoonshineDesigns

Three of my other pillow designs were featured products on Zazzle, wining Today's Best Awards.

Vintage Chandelier Gladiola Pillow by 13MoonshineDesigns

Sunflower Ancient Rome Italian Pillow by 13MoonshineDesigns

And just a couple of days ago:

Vintage French Floral Dress Forms Pillow by 13MoonshineDesigns

I have actually designed 49  pillows that are available in my store.

If you are a Zazzle designer who has sold any pillows, add a comment to my post with a link to your best selling pillow design.