Guest Artist: Kathy Greene, Angel Kat Creations

Lavender Gold by Kathy Greene, Angel Kat Creations

Yipee! My first ATC arrived in the mail last week, much earlier than I expected! This one is “LavenderGold” by artist Kathy Greene of Angel Kat Creations. Kathy is currently a stay at home mom with five kids and three grandkids, and lives with husband Steve in Pendleton, SC, USA. Kathy enjoys paper crafts, crochet, knitting, cross stitch, plastic canvas, and needlepoint, to name a few.

Now this ATC is so pretty — it reminds me of a fresh, dew-filled Easter morning when everything’s in bloom. I just love the colors! Too bad I couldn’t capture the gold butterflies very well in the photo. I’ll have to work on that.

Anyway, I do hope you enjoy this ATC, even if it’s just the picture. I’m lucky because I got the real thing! Thanks again, Kathy!

Tags: Art Cards, Artist Trading Cards, Artists, ATCs, Crafts, Paper Crafts

Challenging Myself

Note to self: Find time to make stuff!

I constantly need to challenge myself to “make stuff”. Otherwise I’d end up vegging my weekends away and not getting any art or crafts done. Blame it on poor time management! I envy those artists who challenge themselves to produce one piece of art on a regular basis and actually stick to it — like Randel Plowman and his Collage a Day project.

One of these days I’m going to join Sunday Postcard Art, which shouldn’t be that demanding on my schedule (I hope) since the challenge is weekly.

But given my currently hectic lifestyle (yes, I’m blaming the Day Job!), I needed something that would still challenge me to actually make something based on certain criteria, but would not be too tough on my schedule. My solution? An online craft course!

Last month I signed up for My Creative Classroom’s free course called “Everyday Moodlings”. Every month you’re taught a fun craft or technique via video or PDF, and you have to upload a photo of your assignment to the site for grading. Since classes started last January, I’m like four assignments behind (argh!), and have lots of catching up to do! I’ve already submitted a few assignments, and I’ll post them here next time. For now, I’ve some homework to finish…

Tags: Artists, Collage, Musings, Online Courses, Postcards, Websites

Brian Dettmer

Dettmer's take on Webster's New International Dictionary, 2nd ed. Photo courtesy of Packer Schopf Gallery.

Brian Dettmer is brilliant! He’s the guy who carves old books into awesome works of art. And I mean AWESOME! Talk about altered books!

Frankly, I’ve never heard of Brian Dettmer before I read “The Cut-Up Artist” in the May/June 2008 issue of Fine Books & Collections, a copy of which I discovered in the bargain bin just last week. Oh, happy find!

Till that moment, my pathetically limited idea of altered books meant painting, tearing, and collaging pages until a book remotely resembled its former self. But to seal a book and dig out the illustrations one at a time — now that’s a real mind-blower!

Brian Dettmer’s official website is still under construction, but it links to other sites that feature his works, including Packer Schopf Gallery, Kinz + Tillou Fine Art, and Flickr. Check them out for more inspiration!

Tags: Altered Art, Altered Books, Artists, Book Arts, Brian Dettmer, Fine Books & Collections, Inspirations, Sculpture

Via Mermail

Via Mermail, 1 May 2006. Collage.

Can you imagine what it would be like if you had a message from Atlantis? The old message-in-a-bottle route might work, but surely there must be a more efficient way of getting a message from the deep blue ocean to its intended recipient!

I was playing with the words “Mermaid” and “Email”, and quite naturally stumbled onto “Mermail”. I then knew just what kind of graphics I needed: an old world map, a sea monster of  sorts, and a quite modern stamp from Singapore. The map, merman and text were inkjet printed on cardstock; the stamp was saved from some old business correspondence.

This is my first-ever ATC, heavily inspired by Nick Bantock’s “Urgent 2nd Class: Creating curious collage, dubious documents, and other art from ephemera”.

Tags: Art Cards, Artist Trading Cards, Artists, ATCs, Collage, Nick Bantock