Washi Tape ATC's Continued

I went to visit my friend in Idaho and toured the beautiful state not too long ago and found much beauty in the mountains and the water. This next set of ATC's were inspired by my time with her and my trip. We visited a couple of hot springs, one of them along what seemed to be a turquoise river. We hiked around some mountains and drove through plenty of valleys.

The mountains in these scense are actually Colorado ranges from a very old scenic photography book. Again the washi tape is great in creating layers, like landscapes, and shapes.

 

 

Each one of them has the post card template on the back of them in case I want them to be multi-purposed.

Washi Tape ATC's

It's safe to say I am addicted to washi tape... who isn't. It's pretty irresistable, especially en masse... Yeah? You agree?

 

Any way, once I got my first round of tape home I laid out several layers on a sheet of paper and then cut the page down into ATC size. From there I went crazy. I think the most appealing part of washi tape for me is how it layers and tears.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the first round of washi tape ATC's. These are available... anyone want to trade?

 

Collage Themed Zine- Spiro Love

I followed up my last swap with this one that was a collage themed zine swap. I started making a few collaged zines here and there and was looking through my collage elements I keep on hand both physical and digital and I came accross my spiro collages. Instead of mining them for elements I decided to straght up use them from their original state. For one of the panels and the front and back cover I did take parts from other collages to make new ones coming up with this latest spiro collage

Again, I had a lot of fun creating this one and look forward to more projects coming down the line. I am appreciating that I can find the balance between combining material, in person, original elements and then taking them to the scanner and creating more from there. It provides great flexibility, possibilities, and a more polished look. I am still a major fan of cutting and pasting with paper

though!

 

The zine layout...

 

Next swap I signed up for is to create a zine kit so someone can build their own zine!

 

 



Magazine Zine- Swap

I signed up for a couple of swaps last month on the heels of completing Maggie's 1 year Zine hoping that it would continue to propel me into a creating frenzy. Once I started working on the first project, a zine that is made from a magazine, I was hooked and didn't want to stop. I pulled out an old (1949) Saturday Evening Post and started to cut and paste. I created the cover as an individual ATC and then worked on a few other collage elements from there. I scanned in what I had plus a lot of other elements from the magazine that I found visually appealing (patterns, ads, images, & fonts). Then in Photoshop I went to work with some digital collaging. I printed out a copy and then went back to work with paper, tape, and glue adding in more elements. Once I was happy with the finished product I brought it to the copy machine and printed off a run of my zines.

 

I like how the zine as a whole turned out. The older hand-created elements of design from the 40's meshed with more modern design schemes. The old and new colors go along well... a hint of trends recycling from one era to another. 

 

A picture of the original ATC, the finished orignal zine, and the so satisfying stack of copied and folded zines. I sent out two to partners and kept a small stack for future trades. Anyone want one? I'd love to trade for your creations!

Working alongside the zine I created a "Woodland Forest" themed ATC for another swap. Ok, so it is a far stretch from Woodland Forest but the pieces I had in front of me went together so well with the bear. I hope my partner enjoys the loose interpretation of the rules.

 

I signed up for another zine swap in June and look forward to pulling that one together and sharing with my partners!

Mother's Day!

This Mother's day I was surrounded by Mom's and mom-like figures. I wanted to do something special for those ladies in my life so my sister and I did a little decorating and some cooking. A great brunch of lox, mimosas, fresh fruit, and ham!

Zines!

There is something hugely satisfying about large quantities of neatly organized multiples of anything. Case in point.

A stack of freshly printed and folded Zines.

 

For Maggie's first birthday I continued the tradition of making a Maggie-Zine... a second edition, a continuance from her birth announcement Maggie-Zine.

 

It is my goal to continue the Maggie-Zine tradition at least once every year. I'll have her join in the fun of creating soon too!  

 

Until Next Year...

 

Just because Maggie's Zine is an annual affair doesn't mean I won't be jumping in to other zines! I am feeling hooked lately. This is one of my trip to Taos in which I visited with my school age girlfriends! It was an incredibly relaxing and enjoyable trip with the ladies.

 

Much like my holiday cards and everything that I have been working with lately the base of this started with good old scissors, paste, and paper then scanned in and embellished digitally.

 

I have signed up for a swap in which I will be creating a zine that is created from an existing magazine. I am thinking of doing one based off of one of the old magazines from the 50's that I have. It has been awhile since I have pulled on those vintage images. Post of that to come.

Catching Up! Taking Stock...

Whoever said your personal time and energy after you have a baby no longer exists?! Oh wait... they were right. Kind of. Thirteen months after the bundle of joy arrived I am still learning how to find balance for my personal activities. I feel like I have been fairly lucky in getting sleep, exercise, and time for work but finding time to do the things that I gain energy from (creating!) has still been tricky. Tip #1... stop trying to keep up with eleven games of Words!

Honestly though, with some pretty large shifts in my life I am attempting to find a balance where I can maximize my time and fill it with engaging, nourishing activities. With that said I am aiming to get back to more crafty type stuff.

Over the last half year+ I haven't been completely sedentary though. Some projects I have worked on...

LMI Fitness- a group of friends and Like Minded Individuals that like to get outside and play. I have been playing with a possible t-shirt/blog design logo:

A few t-shirt designs for the CrossFit Gym that I workout and train at:

I am working on the next step of this process and starting to make the screens so I can screen print some of these bad boys. I had good feedback about the first and last designs.

I have had a few good hikes and a great trip down to Taos to see some friends that helped get the creativity spark going (a seperate post about that shortly).

Those are just few things that I can think of in review over the last several months. Now is the time for spring renewal and a chance to clear out the cobwebs and start chugging along again. I have no doubt that will bring many activities in the months to come.

2012 Holiday Cards

Merry Christmas! (in May..) hey, there is still snow on the ground here in Denver, maybe that is what prompted this post. This past holiday season I didn't dedicate as much time to holiday card creating as I usually do but I am pretty happy that I cranked anything out. All of these cards started on paper with different elements from books, washi tape, stickers, rub ons, papers, etc and then were scanned in and added to or cleaned up digitally. I am enjoying the process translating from originals to digital and altering small details to make series if wanted.

 

 

The 2012 a.m. design Holiday Collection! 

 

Wedding Invitations- Janna & Spencer!

I am happy to say that a close friend from childhood and on into adulthood recently moved to the Denver area. Along with their move, new jobs, new house they are getting married in August and has asked me to design their wedding invitations. I was completely flattered & excited and a little hesitant to jump into a project while I was still getting my feet wet as a new mom.

 Luckily with a few conversations with Janna I had plenty of inspiration (their wedding is going to be at Red Rocks, so beautiful!) to push the project into full gear and get an invitation, Events & Particulars card, and RSVP cards together in a set for them.

I finished cutting them and wrapping them up today to deliver for envelope stuffing and mailing. I am feeling pretty accomplished and now can't wait for their wedding!

Baby Maggie!

I can't say that I have been producing too much art lately. That is mostly due to the fact I have been busy making, delivering, and growing a sweet little baby girl.

 I was able to make an announcement of her birth soon after she was born, a "Maggie-Zine"

Here it is unfolded.
I sent them out with my thank you cards for all the great gifts people gave to help us welcome Maggie into the world.

As with everything I find fascinating and beautiful I take lots of pictures. Needless to say I have a selected few of the thousands (yes, already) of pictures of Maggie on my Flickr page.

Yeti Lives!

After our Thanksgiving Portland trip I passed along a few pictures of my Dad to him and he captioned them Yeti lives! I think this response was partly fueled by my sister's boyfriend's somewhat sincere belief in Bigfoot, and how we all like to give him a hard time about it. So I got an idea for their Christmas presents.

I made several digital designs combining Yeti & Mt. Hood silhouettes and adding a few design/composition elements. I would have loved to hand pull these prints on t-shirts but had time constraints so went for iron-on transfers. They turned out so much better than I anticipated.

Needless to say I will be making more apparel with t-shirt transfer material.

2011 Holiday Cards

About this time of year I am unable to do anything but think about holiday projects and what I would like to do as gifts for my lucky friends and family. The last several years despite high ambitions of wanting to make  calendars, ornaments, cards, tags, etc I seem to fixate on cards and tags.  The first three cards are ones that I made last year for my digital art class.

The rest of the these cards were created this year with a mix of paper collage, print, and digital collage. I made a whole slew of them for a craft fair and now have them listed on my Etsy shop to see how they do out there in the DIY/craft world.  I am selling the cards for $3 each and hope to list smaller tags of the same designs for $1-$2 each. I hope this is a good kick off for me to start actually using Etsy again.

Hero! Martin O'Neill

Flipping through my Google Reader today and came upon some interesting prints by graphic designer Martin O'Neill. It is a style that I would love to achieve myself so I had to investigate further and I think it is safe to say I have a new hero. This guy's prints are just lovely and incorporate all that I appreciate about art. Taken from his page about his process:

Martin’s work evolves from a subtle alchemy of collage, silkscreen, photography, paint, and digital techniques. Fifteen years of experimental image making has resulted in his unique and instantly recognisable brand of illustration. Martin works from a vast archive of found and self generated material and also works with stock and supplied imagery.

Catalog: Rollotexture

Signed and numbered Giclée print
in a limited edition of 50.
Paper size A1
594 × 841mm / 23.39 x 33.1 inches
308g Hannemulle paper
Printed by Andrew Turnbull at Professional Fine Art Printing Solutions in central London using archive quality inks.

And this one caught my eye because it provides inspiration for a project once I am done making holiday fun. I have a plethora of handcut images that I hoped to use for some collage at some point but it just didn't make the cut at the time. I want to pull together all of these pieces into an explosion. It will help me clear out my stashes and start new without feeling like I have wasted anything, a purging of sorts. 

Dogs and Dice Poster

Litho print in edition of 100
Signed and numbered
613 x 490mm
170gsm Recycled paper

Fall Love

I learned two cool things today, I think I bore my little bun in the oven with my day to day routines and copy machine art rocks. Somehow I learned both of these by taking a walk at lunch in a park with some beautiful trees turning for fall.

I keep meaning to make it to the mountains (now foothills) to collect some leaves or just collect some pictures of leaves but one thing after another and it just hasn't happened within the season as it is late fall if not early winter in the higher elevations and there are just a whole lot of brown crusty leaves to be found.

On my way to work yesterday I was trying to plan my ideal weekend in my head which included going on a hike to take pics and I looked over to my left to see a whole park with a plethora of leaves of every color. So I made a lunch time plan... walk 10 feet inspect the lower branches of a tree pick the best leaves, move on.

My first discovery, about boring the baby. I am a little more than 20 weeks pregnant with a baby girl (I know it has been awhile, I haven't even said anything over here!) and according to the literature I should be feeling the baby move and while I have, here and there, nothing significant. About 20 minutes into walking she started moving all over non-stop for the rest of the walk for about another 25 minutes. It was strong and bizarre and cool and almost left me off balance a couple of times. As soon as I got back to the office, nothing, not even a hint of movement, I started to think it was just digestion or my imagination.

At about five o'clock when the office vacated (god forbid my office peeps see my eccentric side) I pulled out my stash of leaves and spread them all over my desk and started rearranging. Then with the best array of colors and shapes in hand I visited our awesome copier. I achieved these variations through playing with the color settings (color inversion & erasing settings), I was really on the verge of going crazy with different scans. Lo and behold about 15 minutes into playing the same attention catching baby flips returned and stayed with me throughout until I got a call from the other half wondering what in the world would motivate me to still be at work so late on a Friday.

Whew... that's a lot of talking. Now the results. (By the way, M still thought I was maybe a little too enthusiastic about it when I came home and showed him what I was up to. So I may be on my own in believing I discovered something awesome with the copier)

What I started out with more or less.

Really love the ghostly nearly translucent effect of the cooler colors.
...and the pops of pink. Does this tree exist somewhere because I wanna see it!Now off to wall paper the nursery with these ;-)

As usual, more variations to be found on my flickr page.