paper doll with moveable legs on back ground cardstock from Ciao Bella.  legs, face and partial arm from Vogue. body parts painted or embellished with watercolor or pen. used six images from mixiepixies rad sheet for week 70 Collage Play with Crowabout. border bevel by artist on computer. some digital paint programing including the quote from the fabulous French bon vivant and writer, Colette, who sported the en vogue pear shape at the of the turn of the century. Her scandalous bio here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colette
crown embellished with scraps and rhinestones by artist; coffee cup from paperscraps.
size is approximately 10×12

It has a bit of green in it but since she is a coffee drinker you can assume she is on the wagon today….Have a grand day in parade or what ever you do today-and unless you enjoy being pinched you’ll be wearin’ the green, I hope!

week 43 was really hard for me…it took about five tries before i gave up and came out with this…so now everyone wants a BOOK/zine with the stories on the inside….I need a manager. i am up too late…had to wait for the frieworks to stop…

here is the collage sheet from Nancy; I used almost all the elements. I am seriously considering a small 12 page zine for my flickr crowabout friends.  maybe magcloud?

Cade, Avery & Aric had a great time on Grandpa’s boat up on Frog Lake last summer. The original photo was lacking the postcard quality background so I cut that out and superimposed them on this great shot of Mt Hood. (Frog Lake). Each child’s paper doll template contained between 8 and  12 pieces! This one took two week-ends to complete. I am going submit the before and after shot to K&Co’s editor and show her that their cardstock pads can be used more creatively than just scrapbooking!

Once I had the kid’s outfits glued into place and their skin colored in with pencil I decided on the background. The image was digitally enhanced in Photo Impression and then printed on a clear transparency. Then the transparency was placed over another *blue* sheet from the K&Co collection. Mount Hood was printed on plain paper and colored over with oil pastel and pencil. This was slipped between the transparency and the cardstock.

I rearranged the kid’s for balance, putting Avery in the center. The dragonfly hairclips were the last embellishment. Vellum, pencil  and OPI glitter top coat (Paris Couture For Sure) gave her some sparkle (since you can’t seen her fairy wings under the safety vest).

there is a challenge on Flickr called: The Many Faces of Mona Lisa. You can submit any kind of artwork as long as Mona Lisa is in it and it’s G-rated. ‘Mona Leasha’ is Kirsten’s idea-but I created the artwork. It is vellum on a Formica chip from Home Depot with ink and pencil. The chip is glued to a  3×5 piece of black mat board.  The dark circle around her eye is NOT an eyepatch. It is the hole cut out of the chip to hang on the display. This chip is just one of many left over from my kitchen re-model five years ago. I knew they would get used someday!

Crowabout Collage Play Week 39 featured some vintage ads and a rooster head I could not resist playing with. Here are the details on this 12×12 collage.

“The Wigwam Villages went out of business in 1939 after their award winning White Rooster “Big Daddy” collapsed under the weight of yet another insatiable female patron. The owner’s put up a sign explaining what ”happened” and why they had to close their teepees and lucrative side show entertainment featuring the 10 cent rooster rides and the Talking Tuxedos, two cats that did vaudeville schtick and who peed on command. The Most Unique Tourist Haven in America was truly an example of what my father called: High Weirdness. It has been rumoured that Big Daddy is still alive and living with Zibelline in Minnesota. The cats are still roaming about Cave City looking for handouts and clean litter boxes.”

Thanks, Nancy B for the collage sheet. *Rider* courtesy of Lunagirl Images. Cat heads are from NYPL digital image collection.

The body of the rooster is cut out of cardstock from K&Co’s fabulous dual sided Que Sera Sera collection. It was made out of  ten different pieces; four wing parts, one body part, two thighs, two legs and of course, the rooster’s head, which was enlarged and cropped from the collage sheet. Rider body was copied off of Lunagirl CD from ‘bathing beauties’ section and then hand colored to match the lady head on the collage sheet that Nancy sent.  Her bathing costume (and shoes) was created by making a vellum template of the orignal and then pasting pieces from the collage sheet onto the vellum. The patchwork was sealed with  clear tape and cut out and placed over the orignal. Hat was made from enlarged dahlia and embellished with adhesive gems. Pop dots, glue and doubled sided tape were used to put the rooster and rider together.

Columns and banner header were digitally manipulated from collage sheet. Banner was hand colored with pen and and ink to add more contrast.

Cat bodies/heads were reversed before construction. Text ‘yourself’  & ’10cents’ from collage sheet; the rest from my computer printed on yellowing design scrapbook paper and then hand colored and cut out. Arrangement was difficult as my scanner only takes an 8×11 photo.  the 12×12 background is a cardstock page by basic grey.com (wassail/olive branch)

I will do some reserach on the Wigwam Villages…I would not be surprised if a Walmart has permanently replaced this property. The term “High Weirdness” was coined by Ivan Stang, founder (publisher) of the Church of the Sub-Genius, a compendium of oddball culture of which America is famous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Stang

The only energy I have when it is 93 degrees in the shade is to go to Safeway’s Starbucks and get a caramel light frappacino. Then, of course ,  I wander the aisles in air-conditioned comfort hoping they will not notice I am pushing an empty cart.

I was exhausted after doing Crowabout #38. Nancy was sneaky and posted the collage sheet on her photostream and NOT in the Collage Play with Crowabout group on Flickr. I think only 3 of us have posted so far.

Jessica came over last night for *art night*. We each worked on different projects and ate chips and salsa & ice cream from the dairy bar.

I worked on Crowabout #37. Since I wanted to be totally original with my collage I created a kalidescope effect with the floral border that came on the collage sheet. There was also a pig and a flapper gal and a bunch of bird eggs and vintage fruit crate labels. I am sort of hooked on the adhesive gems and went a little psychodelic on this one:

 I cut up all the text from the fruit labels and came up with:

Date Dribble Deluxe A Circle Of Luscious Girl Fruit

I stuck an egg on the Blue Ribbon Berry’s and put that on her tummy. I also put an egg on her head. I had a dress in the image stash (not part of the collage sheet) that I colored with pastels to match the blue sky background.

I think she is Egg-Ceptional.

Don’t you?

I was invited last week to join a weekly artist’s challenge on Flickr, hosted by Crowabout (aka Nancy Baumiller). The host sends out a collage sheet on Sundays to all members of the group by posting it on Flickr. From there it’s basically a free-for-all; you are allowed to do what ever you want with the images to create a piece of art. You must use at least 3 images to be in the running for the weekly prize. But you are encouraged to use all the images.

The challenge as I see it is to create an original work that uses the images in different and unexpected ways. I was so excited to play I made mine into a real game, based on the old game spinners of yesteryear , that I’ve noticed are finding their way back into vogue. So I put the collage sheet into the collage creator program and separated the spinner base from the other images and enlarged it. I printed the spinner base on card-stock. I then hand colored the spinner base and all the little faces. I made a real spinner out of another image (printed 5x in a row) and cut it out in the shape of a needle spinner. I poked a hole in the center of the base and attached the spinner to the base with a copper brad.

This game was then placed on top of a variety of images from the collage sheet, including the tattoo of a pretty senorita. The senorita I also enlarged and flipped and printed on card-stock. Her blouse is another image of an old box of beef bouillon cubes!

I embellished the senoritas with pencil, ink and gems.

The Crow-about Challenge was lots of fun and took me most of Sunday to complete. I guess I will go outside now and enjoy some of this summer weather!

I used bubbles on some images…

and photo slides on others…..

also pull outs and fold outs

the hard cover was made with card board and masking tape and then wrapped with designer paper and adhesive…

I drilled a screw into the  back cover and inserted some velour yarn to the front cover to bind the book shut cause it is so thick. I trimmed the bottom edge with some leftover trims from the sewing box.

I had started it in November and finished after the Christmas Donner Party snow event.

Unfortunately the story did not all fit on 14 pages–so I will have to do volume two!

The cover was rubber stamped and embossed with black detail powder. It is OOAK and was a wonderful learning experience. Stay posted for Volume Two.