Catch A Falling Star,See It Say it Saturday, ZNE BLOGZ

Donna Cook a/k/a bonniebluedenim

It's See it Say it Saturday in the Land of ZNE. Each Saturday a mixed media art piece is featured and you are invited to post a response to that work. Shown below is the piece for this week. A lovely piece created by Glenda Bailey. As a Zne Design Team member I got to pick several pieces to be featured. This was my first pick. I love the dreamy girl saving all her stars, to wish on, for something special. I think I was also attracted to the color scheme, my favorite combos of magenta and blue. It's a pleasing layout, very comforting, and the black and white accents make the image and colors pop right off the page.

My response is posted above. When seeing Glenda's piece, I immediately thought of the song "Catch A Falling Star" (....put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day. We sang that song in high school choir. The 4 part harmony was wonderful...but I digress as usual.) I love this Dover Clip Art image of the girl, with her umbrella casually laying on her shoulder. I think she belives her wishes will all come true. Look at all those stars!

The background was fun to make. Using gesso and my Alexstamping sky tool stamp, I made a background page on a large piece of blue cardstock, I cut out a 4 by 4 piece and then cut the rest into atc sizes for future projects. This stamp has a funny shape but your just smear it around your page and reink as desired, and you create some interesting effects.


The text letters are cut from headlines from my most recent L.L. Bean Catalog. ( I hope they don't mind, it keeps a little trash out of the landfill, of course I do recycle the rest of the catalog) The black and white borders are scrapbooking border stickers from " One Heart ...One Mind". I got a huge roll of them at "Tuesday Mornings". ( It was a deal I couldn't pass up")

ZNE is a wonderful online art community that has become my "virtual" home away from home. ZNE was founded by Chelise Stroud Hery . ( The loving Queen of the Land of ZNE) When I refer to ZNE as a community, I mean that in the most wonderful sense of that word. It is an international group of mixed media artists who support, educate, promote, care for, share with , and love each other.

Glenda Bailey

In the meantime.....wander over to the ZNE Blogz and tell us your response to Glenda's work. It doesn't have to be a mixed media piece, it can be a quote, your thoughts, a photo, a poem. Enjoy!

Chocolate Unavailable for photos!

Say What????? Yes, I ate all the chocolate! The members of the Zne Design Team had a great Spring Time Swap! We were to send 16 goodies off to the Land of ZNE in Pleasanton, CA ( where I get to go in AUGUST!!) And we received a bag of goodies back, just in time for Spring.! It reminds me of the time that I got to go with my brother and his date to the Mama's and Papa's concert in 1967. Huh???? WEll, you know, my brother was/is my hero and I got to go with him, on a date, to a concert, to see one of favorite groups, it was so cool, to play with the college kids, and I was just in 8th grade. It was so special.....well this is what playing in the ZNE Spring Swap feels like, all of these incredible artists who let me come along for the ride, and play along with everyone else.....just like I'm a real artist too! So here are some photos of some of the great stuff we received in the mail, minus the chocolate, they were no longer available for photos!

<

The photo above shows my submission to the swap, it's an ATC/ACEO kit, including two vintage playing cards with pretty ladies and an altered photo I took of a huge street clock in New Orleans on Canal Street, taken from the street car. It includes several color coordinated pieces of cardstock cut to the standard atc size of 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. There is also a similarly sized piece of mat board. And color coordinated fiber as well.
I love the Paris 4 by 4 and the little duckie assemblage...I need to reglue her to her crystal base.

More cool Paris ephemera and tags, and a beautiful domino pendant, and a French ATC, very pretty.
More beautiful pendants and tags!!!

A cute little girlie atc, oops chopped off her head, and a fimo clay atc

Copies of vintage photos, a little cone with a birdie, a bag of chocolate goodies, ( container only remaining with tag), little girle atc, a cute button, and other embellishments, little pom pons, and I know I've missed describing something, Study all the photos carefully and soak up some inspiration!!!!!!

Bunny Blot w/egg

The theme everywhere I've been on-line lately..well two places, has been doodling. On Inspire Me Thursday, we find a challenge of making an inkblot and then doodling. Here is my first try with a doodle. Bunny Blot with egg. So, try to make some ink blots and doodle! Have fun!

Hmmmm....more Asian Art

Hmmmmm......another Asian Themed project. Two birds with one stone as they say. This is suppose to be my project for the February Book Club Week Three...Traci Bautista's Book, Collage Unleashed. We were to use photo copies as a background base, I rubber stamped images. Then we were to glaze over with heavy bodied acrylics. I wasn't sure what that was, so I used my matte gel medium, then painted onver with three different acrylics in a wash, applied some copper acrylic paint, adhered some of my Asian tissue and more gel, then voila...( oh, that's French) attached the little umbrellas. It needs some words or other flourishes. I'll let it dry and think about it some more. The embellishments are from my Asian Za Lotta Grab bag. It goes with the music.

I love color. I think I have a “feel” for color. At least on paper or in a project. ( I won’t discuss my early dorm room décor here,….and I moved out of the dorm room …a long time ago…but that’s another story.) I love to come up with color palettes. I love fabric stores, yarn stores, and paint chips. I want my house to be purple or blue, but we have boring faded yellow siding. SIGH. But it’s home. I digress again. I think with color I can have various moods. I can be bright, vintage, shabby, gloomy, moody, cute. It depends on what has caught my eye when I last shopped at the scrapbook store for decorative paper, or the fabric store remnants or the rummage sale vintage linens, yard goods or clothes. I have always been in love with blue. As a little kid I saw blue wagons at the store. ( you know the little red wagon, only this one was blue. ) My folks got it for me for Christmas. Then one year it was blue ice skates. I know they had to hunt high and low at the store for them.. I miss them, my folks, the blue wagon and the blue ice skates. But what I don’t get is why they painted my room yellow. Sigh….they never did explain.

Now I have to argue with my dh about what color things should be. Doesn’t he know I’m suppose to get to pick out the colors of everything.,(LOL) ok, this is minor in the whole life scheme of things.

My understanding of the color wheel is a fairly recent phenomena in my life. And I love it. I do consult it quite a bit when thinking about color choices. I use it as a guide, it is not stone. My favorite color has evolved from blue to expand and include all the colors on the color wheel from blue - red in a clock wise rotation around the wheel….blue, blue violet, violet, red violet, and red…and all the hues, tints, values , and shades that lie there in. But really, there is no bad color.

A fun project for the Zne Design Team

This month I had the opportunity to review the Za Lotta Grab Bag, available in the ZNE store. ( Only $8 with postage) The grab bag is a great collection of asian trinkets, dodads, background papers and images that will be great for your altered art projects. Check my other posts here for Asian Art, I have some ATCs that I posted last week.

This was fun to put together, out of the box for me, Asian Art is a new theme for me. All of the embellishments and images are from the Grab bag. I provided the red paint to a small wooden shrine from my dollar store stash. I was a little worried when I started it, it seemed "clunky". But I am pretty pleased with the finished project. Back to the drawing board to see what else I can come up with from this cool stash of Asian Stuff.

Pretty Lady and Peace Cranes

The pretty lady in the atc is from the March collage sheet for the ZNE Design Team. The cool background paper is from the ZNE Store "Za Lotta Grab Bag". The text is from an Asian newspaper and it could say that I have a used car to sell, or looking for cute single men. I don't know. I altered the image with the mosaic texture on Photoshop Elements 6. I like that look.

Now..below .....no laughing please, is a fun mobile I made with stuff from my ZNE Za Lotta Grab Bag, great asian stuff. The cranes are from oragami papers I received in that stash as well as the little drum with bells, the back scratchers that became the top of the mobile, (incidentially, I used my cool, dremel tool to drill holes, my father would be proud) and the flappy things. The cord, and beads were from my stash. Who doesn't have a craft stash somewhere in their house? ( If you said yes, I have some great stuff to share with you.) I wanted to take the mobiles photo outside...alas, it is snowing again in St. Louis, there are of course no leaves on any trees, the wind was blowing about 20 mph with 30 mph gusts. I didn't want to chase the mobile down the street, my neighbors think I have lost my mind already, I think it's the pink bowling ball in the flower bed, but hey!

Click on the photo to see an enlargement and a close up of the cranes and other cool trinkets.

I have to see what else I can come up with from this great stash of stuff. I'll post the stash photos later.

Asian Art on the ZNE Network

I remember fish stories. When I was little , say 5 years old, my dad would take me fishing at a pond in a neighborhood park that had been stocked with little sunfish and bluegill. I fished with a bamboo pole, and a little tiny hook and a worm. Dad would put the worm on the hook. One day a fellow was wandering around the pond with a magic fishing pole. He said you would catch a fish on his pole everytime you said Coca Cola. He let me try out his fishing pole. If you caught 5 fish he would give you a button, which probably said something like " I caught 5 fish with the magic coca cola fishing pole. I caught 5 fish and got a button. I just remember that day. When I see fish art, it makes me think of that day with my dad.

I liked doing things like that with my dad. Missing him lots.

This atc has an asian flair and a fish. When I see fish in art, I always think of my dad and that trip to the park. This atc is made with some asian background text, and collage ephemera from the ZNE store. Check out the ZNE Design Team site.

I'm working on some asian projects for something special coming your way over on ZNE. Don't miss out. It is still a secret until March.

More teasers to follow.

ZNE Design Team - Asian Art

New and exciting activities are happening over on the ZNE Scene. Be sure to check it out. As you know I am on the Design Team for year 2 and hope to do a creative job for them. They are a great group of artists to work with. My assignment for March is to do a product review. I don't want to give away all the details until they are released in March, so here are some
ATCs to spark your interest.

First I have no knowledge of any Asian language, and I am going to trust the source of these materials. Take a peek at my first ATC which has images from a graphic novel, funky asian, decorated pink tissue, and lettering from an asian newspaper, and then the same ATC altered with Photoshop Elements.

More to follow!!!