Back in the swing of things with ATC's

They are where I started but it seems that lately I've done anything but ATC's.

I was asked to do a private swap with an amazing partner who had just started doing ATC's so I wanted to do something special for her. She said she really liked the Poe tag I had done for the tip-in swap so her first card I based on this info.
After doing so many inchies it was funny that the size of this ATC felt HUGE to me. That made me laugh. I almost did something else because it just felt...huge.

Here is the Crow Dude in his sleeping state. It was a long flight and he's a bit tired now.I did a version of this little guy when I did the inchies and thought that my partner would really enjoy him. He's so totally based on my orange cat Ralph. He's a petty little tyrant too, hehe.
Then after doing a bit of post stalking on another site that my partner is involved in I found out she likes the band Gorillaz. Welll, anything of a cartoon nature is right up my alley. I will admit to not coming up with my own artwork based on the group but I will say that I did draw it out myself and I used my trusty prismacolor pencils for it. I do love them so.

I'm really hoping to do more ATC's soon but you just never know. Dick Blick had a massive sale on stretched canvases and I had money burning a hole in my pocket.

Let's just say I'm swimming in them now!

Must run off to paint some of them now...

Chunky 4x4 Page

I'm sure that by now my partner has received her page although she hasn't let me know yet, I think I'll go ahead and post it anyway.

The theme of this swap is Create and can be whatever interpretation you want. A 4x4 Chunky Tip-In. For this partner at least I'm going with 'Life is Art'. I may carry this theme out with all my pages but you just never know. We get partners every two weeks and I may be in a completely different place at a later date. I had visions of being able to sit down and get a number of pages done at one time but I'm not sure who I thought I was kidding, hehe.

My little bird is done with my mainstay acrylics on a washed and mottled background. His feet and the leaves are cut out and glued on and I collaged some of the letters. I did have some copper wire laying around and I've been wanting to see if I could form it into words and I thought this would be the perfect application for it. I really like the way it turned out. That may be my running theme in this swap *grin*

The blue grid in the background was from something I picked up off the construction site to save for later. I've been finding lots of cool and interesting things to use. The word 'Art' is hand drawn and I was excited that it came out the way that I wanted...yay me!

My Grandpa

Talking about my Grandpa got me thinking about him and made me want to put a picture of him up. I can't believe I could only find this one picture. He's the extremely handsome one in the middle and that's my Grandmother directly behind him.

I miss him!

Not the usual art post

I've got all kinds of art to post but thought on the off off chance that any of my partners actually come here and read my blog I thought I would hold off posting them until they've received, hehe, teaser I know.
Soooo, in the spirit of wanting to have something new to post I've taken some really pretty desert pics from my trip into the mountains yesterday.
I kept imagining being an early traveler through this wilderness in a wagon as I bumped and bounced along in my truck at only 15 miles an hour on a road carved into the wilderness. It was a rvery rough road but at least it was a road. Those poor people had nothing to guide them through. I feel fortunate. Lovely little barrel cactus. Don't let its' size fool you. This cactus was about 4 feet across and the word "prickly" doesn't even begin to do this justice.
Joshua Tree. They were everywhere. Las Vegas is just on the other side of that Mountain you see in the background. I was only 20 miles from my house. For some reason I was thinking I could get close enough to said Mountain to get a great shot of Vegas itself. Ha! I was mistaken. That Mountain was ALOT bigger than I realized.
Keeping in mind that I am not a photographer by any stretch of the imagination I think this shot is so pretty and turned out rather well.
Supposedly there is a hidden forest out here somewhere on the other side of this particular hill. Someday I shall return and find it. I had no idea the vastness of this area.
Here is an 'artful' close up view.
This rock was just sitting there waiting for me to come by and see it. I was amazed by it's coloring. It was just sitting there surrounded by all these other less colorful rocks being so pretty. I just had to bring him home with me. He's sitting here by my computer right now. I may have to build him a home in the backyard in the flower bed.
And then there's this shot. This is a rock and must be sandstone to get that hollowed out space there. My rock hound genes (got them from my Grandpa) went into overdrive when I saw this. How cool is this? Another rather arty shot. The rock itself was about 2 inches across. My camera takes much better close up shots outside it seems than inside...hmmm.

A Header...Finally!

After not even knowing that I had Adobe Photoshop on my computer, let alone knowing how to actually use it and especially to my advantage, I find that it actually worked! Yes, my photo needs a bit of tweaking and I had a really great type on there that I spent some time on that apparently got lost when I saved it, or...something.
Other than that I'm rather pleased.

With a Haughty Glare

My latest journal page for my new partner from the tip-in swap. I has asked her what elements she liked from any of my past works and tried to incorporate them into something new. I really hope I did that. Heh, I probably went way off base but I still liked the way these turned out. The color combination, amazingling enough, actually came as inspiration from a display that was in Michael's when I went in there to use my ubiquitous 40% coupon. Hmmm, what was it that I just had to have? Oh yes, a Crop-o-dile! Yeah yeah, I know...back on track.

I just loved the color combination of these two colors and I seriously loved the way they aged up.
I also really like the idea of using inchies on these. They seem so perfectly suited for it.
Here's a close up of them:
For some reason I love doing birds. I had no idea I loved doing birds...curious.

I found some short sentences in my much used copy of LIFE from the 50's and used them to construct a rather nonsensical poem, if you will, I feel that Zetti is nonsensical in it's style therefore the letters and poems should be as well. "With a Haughty Glare" would never be used in today's terminology. I like it.