Funky Fish

...not smelly...

    I'm probably echoing the same lament as my fellow bloggers. I haven't started off the year with tons of posts! My issue, however, is a bit unique. I recently moved my furniture around, which has me feeling like I can't really produce anything that I'm excited about. My table used to be right under a light, but now I don't have the main light for the room, over my table. I turn on lamps, open windows and added additional lighting, but I just can't seem to get it to feel normal. Anyhoot, isn't that a weird reason?! Some might say to move the furniture back, but I lived with the same arrangement for nearly 8 years and I happen to like the way everything is right now. So, I guess I'll just have to adjust. 

   Sheesh, I probably lost most of your attention with all this blabbing! So let's get to it! Funky fish...it's a mail art swap that I played in a few times. will probably play in it for a few more times. Here's a progression of one of the fish that I did...it starts with a simple sketch...

I lined my sketch with a Micron pen to start. (Forgive my experimenting with picture taking. I'm adjusting to using a new gadget for that as well....)

At this point I really don't know what direction to take this, but I start with some yellow watercolor. 

I love the look of dripping paint. I painted on clear water in the areas that I wanted the paint to follow. I loaded my brush with yellow watercolor and let it flow. I then took some dark pink watercolor and let it mix and turn orange. 

Here it is after much fooling around with watercolor.

Often times I have songs that seem to play in my mind when I'm creating my works. I'm Like A Bird by Nelly Furtado was the song this time. I dunno why....'cause I'm working on a fish! ...it is what it is I guess....

Here are a few more that I did...

Fungus Mail

     ...grunge it up...

    On my last post I shared some of the mail that I sent out. Here's the break down, or the build up, of one of the pieces. I call it Fungus Mail. :) 

There's the front...

...here's the back...

I used my personal wax seal, that I bought on Ebay years ago. It just so happened to have my initials on it.

I use a gold stamp pad first before plopping the seal down. It helps to defines the design.

To start I used a kraft paper envelope. I then took apart a vintage envelope, that I got at the flea market. I glued it down with matte gel medium. Did a quick sketch of my fungus. Lined the drawing with a Micron pen and colored it with Inktense watercolor pencils. I then added some Asian paper, gifted to me by a friend. 

I activated the Inktense pencil with a brush loaded with water. Three colors were used there. Two different reds and a yellow. To grunge up the envelope, I used water soluble wax pastels around the mushroom. Again, with a water loaded brush, I did small circles and pulled the color outward. I rubbed some more pastel around the perimeter of the envelope and activated that, too, with water. That set up my base. Everything else was added a little at a time...just whatever came to me...:)

Outgoing!

...recent mail...

    

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted anything. The holidays got SO busy! Anyways, I am trying to get the art going for this brand new year. The above is a handful of things that I have done thus far. 

This is the first envelope that I did for the new year. I'm happy with the way it came out. I'm still addicted to the water spots. I did the below envelope with drops too.

I've been doing grungy works a lot, too, lately. 

The front.....

...below is the back...

Here's a postcard that I did for a birthday. I likes the way it looked with just the face colored and almost left it that way.

However, I continued and this is the finished work. It's inspired by another artist. I forget her name! Eek sorry!

So now you're up to speed on where I'm at. :)