Wednesday, March 25, 2009

New Cards, Updates on ATC and Destination Heartfelt Art

Artwork Update:
In addition to the Artist Trading Cards added to the slide show, I made some fun cards and legacy pages this week. Shown here are some of the cards I made.








The Birthday Cone: Created around a sticker set I’ve owned for several years. I ‘puffed” the ice cream to give it dimension as well as aging the sticker with sand paper and ink.











The Now Moment: Done completely with scraps from the Club Scrap™ cardstock base (I haven’t been a member for 3+ years) to the polished stone inked background and stray die cuts—all collaged into a fun card.








The Birthday ATC: I used my Colluzle™ to cut a tiny envelope for an ATC and sent it as a gift on a card. The ATC is secured with another Club Scrap™ left over-the printed twist tie.












The Floral Tri-fold Pocket: The ladies on Jean’s Art Dolls had a challenge to make these cards from instructions on Split Coast ampers. //www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/trifold_pocket_card/ Mine came out very pink and festive.






The Taj Tri-fold Pocket II: My second attempt with this template evolved into a moving card for a friend. She’s not really moving; she is merely expanding her kingdom…


Seven seems to be my stopping point

As mentioned in the last post, I decided to try the 7/30/365 ATC challenge from Flickr. I made my seven, but I’m not sure I want to go forward. The effort helped “spawn” lots of other projects—still, I’m not motivated to go on and I haven’t made an ATC in two days now.

I posted the final three to the Flickr album at right. I like them all and if you visit the album on Flickr you can see the story behind each one. I think I may add the ones I didn’t give away to a legacy art piece as a collection.

Studio Make-over and Austerity Plan

I’ve had a set back in the Austerity Plan—of course, we addicts have lots of excuses that justify our mistakes and I’m no exception. I said I wouldn’t spend over $15.00 per month on my art supplies. I spent my $15 this month on adhesives, a bit of print paper, and some envelopes I needed for spring cards. That went very well. Then I watched Home Shopping Network for a special National Craft Month celebration and totally lost my resolve. My excuse was I had a little extra money that my Daddy had slipped me when he visited.

The item that was my downfall is the We R Memory Keepers™ Ultimate Cutting Tool Kit. It was especially designed for HSN and included a 17” by 14” magnetic mat, a circle cutter (their new one) plus the paper trimmer with scallop and straight blade, ruler, ergonomic cutting knife, extra blades, and magnets to keep your work in place. It was a Today’s Special Value with them for $29.95. Here’s a link to their site, currently priced at $39.95. If you click on the video you’ll see what I just couldn’t resist.

The purchase, and the inevitable guilt that followed, inspired me to do some additional work in the studio. I moved out a bunch of empty containers that I’ve been tripping over because I wanted to use them for organizing. I sorted a 12” high stack of papers and scraps that needed to be put away. I asked Sir Henry to stabilize a shelf I’ve been using to store papers which had sagged. I really did work.

I had one of the most productively creative weeks ever in the studio as well. The seven ATCs, three legacy art pieces, and several cards all flowed out this week. I also worked on the web site and posted some new pages as well as doing clean up. One set back doesn’t mean the end of my plan, it just means I’ve had a wake up call and now I’m back on track.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Nudge in the Right Direction

Big Inspiration in a small format
Explorations and destinations this week have been fruitful this week. I visited the web site of an old friend
and, as always, I was inspired anew. Aisling D’Art was one of the first Internet friends to make me feel right at home in my art while helping me realize that chaos and/or change spurs creativity. She hosted the yahoo group on art journals when very few people had ever heard of art journals and she opened her journal pages for the world to see as she experienced some significant life changes. I still think of her as the original blogger.

Her site linked me to the 7/30/365 Art Card Project
and that just blew me away. I visited the Flickr group and was impressed with the work I saw there. I have been working on an ATC article for Suite101 and marveling at the number of people that are still making artist trading cards after what seems like all this time.

Give yourself a nudge
What I love about the 7/30/365 challenge is that you can just do it for a week or for a month—then you keep going from there. It’s one day at a time in a very artful direction-like a nudge instead of a big challenge. I decided to create an ATC series celebrating the scraps in my studio and the influences in my creativity over the last 15+ years.

I have created a Flickr account and posted my first four artist’s trading cards. With just four cards I have learned so much.
* I learned that making these small treasures gives me a sense of accomplishment.
* I learned that, as with legacy art, this format allows me to revisit memories and be inspired anew.
* I have learned that one small piece of artwork often leads to larger creations.

I’m not as enamored of the artwork in these first four designs (see slide show at right) as I am of the process itself. When I look at the creations of the artists that have been doing this for months, I am humbled by the primitive appearance of my own work. Yet, I love the story wrapped up in each of my designs and I look forward to the progression in style and execution.




ATC-Admit One 2001
This is one of the earliest artist trading cards I created. I don't have photos of the earlier ones which I cheerfully traded away.
This one was created with the 10 from 1 method where you decorate and then cut 10 trading cards from one sheet of paper. This topic will be featured in my upcoming Suite 101 article.
Coming soon:
Progress and setbacks in the studio
Austerity plan update
More cards from the Within Reach Doctrine and tri-fold cami cards
Stick Figures reemerge.—see preview here
http://www.nachattin.com/gallerystickfigure.html

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Dreams, potential nightmares, and video

Here it is for all the world to see...a video of the current condition of my art studio. I made the video on 2.18.09 and posted it to You Tube. I've also made a web page for reference here...http://www.nachattin.com/artiststudioupdate.html

This video is rated SS for "strong stomach" and is not for the faint of heart or the well organized. I am not a video journalist and I certainly don't have any editing skills--you have to tilt your head to the right to see the video in the upright position. My apologies to all those with neck issues...



Progress report:

**I have located some inspiring articles on organization and journaled some ideas and plans. My favorite web site so far is called Simplify 101 and here's the article I started with: http://www.simplify101.com/create-a-space-you-love.php

**I didn't get much done while my parents were here (they just left Wednesday) but it has been on mind and I collected some shoe boxes to decorate and use for storage from my shopping trip with Mom.

**Yesterday, I began emptying the drawers of my "tiny stuff" cabinet so that I can have things most useful closest to me and move my beading supplies to a central location.

**My brave friend Jill, who is very organized and has a beautiful studio of her own, has volunteered to assist me. We hope to set a date for that very soon.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Worth Saying—AGAIN








Check out Jean’s Art Dolls online forum http://www.jeansartdolls.com/ to join a friendly, creative, online community. I am honored to be serving a short stint on her design team which fits in beautifully with my Destination Heartfelt Art journey. Jean encourages design team members to create what we wish as we wish—our main commitment is just participation.

I post new artwork to the gallery every week
http://post.jeansartdolls.com/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=1647 along with filling up the digital scrapbook forum and contributing to other topics and challenges as they appeal to me.

I love all kinds of online art communities for all kinds of reasons and I probably would be hard pressed to even list all the ones where I hold membership and drift in and out. This one, however, has become my home base and I’d love to welcome you there as well. If you join and introduce yourself--please say hi to the Artful Tourist.

Artwork notes: JADs community has inspired me to continue on my "Stick Figure" collection of paper art dolls. The doll above is the Mood-o-meter stick figure doll created in 2007. She tickles my fancy.

Look out below....



I am blog posting in more erratic patterns lately. Be sure and look down the latest entries to see if you missed anything.





Each entry shows up as a seperate note on my Facebook page too, so check the full blog sometimes if you are reading from there.





Yes, I am still enjoying Facebook and my friend list always has room for more so send me a request to be friends with you. Do say how you know me too please, since I have lived so many places, loved so many faces, and gotten on in years--it's hard to place people sometimes from those tiny pictures...


*Digital scrapbook page/party decoration for Daddy's brithday today. He's in Florida to celebrate this year and we're so happy.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Mail Art My Way



I love cards, the designing, the making, the sending...it's all good. I most frequently create what I call "flash cards" that are easy to create and put together--usually with scraps from other projects. (See the Within Reach Doctrine post). I just don't believe every card should take hours to complete. I mail out more this way and I have more fun too.




When I feel the need to do more elaborate cards or cards for class projects, I turn to Split Coast Stampers first and usually don't have to go further for inspiration. The step card I created last month is a perfect example.




In keeping with my Destination Heart Felt Art--I am creating things that I love and finding ways to share that with the ones I love. I have released my fears that my "messy stuff" will not appeal and I just create with love in my heart. I'm very pleased with the results so far.




Here's the latest Mail Art My Way that I created for my precious niece Katie. She's pregnant for the first time and I thought I'd send her some smiles and affection. I purchased a set of funny buttons from Wal-Mart and mailed them with a tag message about cherishing the moments while counting the days.




















The tag front was "within reach" from a tag calendar I had designed, started, and then abandoned because I decided to do big photo calendars instead. The padded envelope was recovered in my great study overhaul of 2009 and was the perfect size for the tag and buttons. As always, you can click to enlarge the photos.

Joy to you!

Grandma Moment







Last weekend (2.21.09) we went to visit my step-daughter, her husband, and OUR GRANDSON SAM. I'm really liking this Grandma stuff. We've been tracking his progress with Snapfish and video, but there is nothing like going in person. He's a big boy already and thriving with his caring and loving parents. What a joy and what a blessing.
Of course I'm going to scrapbook the pages, but thought I'd just share a few glimpses first....