ZNE Book of the Month Club

I'm excited, to once again, be coordinating the assignments for the ZNE Book of The Month Club. We're working on Michael de Meng's wonderfully, colorful book, The Secrets of Rusty Things.

Just what does this mean???

Chel in the Land of ZNE sends me the book! I study over the material and devise a writing assignment, an art project and other prompts for the book club participants. Each book will have 4 weeks of assignments. The participants post their reponses to the Discussion Boards on the ZNE Network. I take their responses and post them to the Book Club blog for the world to see. Sometimes we don't share all the secrets so you need to sign up!

Each participant also receives a ZNE goodie bag, that I put together from my stash of stuff! ZNE covers the postage. A Place To Bark receives $10 of each participants registration fee.The Book Club went "LIVE" today, so there is still time to sign up. ( the link may show the last book club title, but it's still the place to sign up!) We will conclude this book in mid December, stretching out the assignments, with one in October, two during November and the final one in early December. There is ample time between assignments, and extra time for Thanksgiving and completion in time for Christmas.
























Our next book club will start in January, we'll be working on "Artful Paper Dolls" New Ways to Play with a Traditional Form, by Terry Taylor. Lots of time for all of you international ZNE fans to get your book online!

ZNE Book of the Month Club

Do you love art books? Do you have several ( lol) on your shelf, and you've only looked at the pictures? Have you been meaning to try out some of the projects and techniques? Do you find that your spouse or significant other, or other family members are really tired of saying, "Oh, that's nice!" in response to your asking "Well, what do you think?" As you hold up your latest creation, beaming, and waiting for their glowing response?

I think the dumbest thing I do ( well one of the dumbest, we won't make a list here, today, anyway) is show my dh a stack of ATCs or cards or dresses from a swap, and then ask him "Dear, which one do you think is the best?" He knows it is really code for "Pick mine out of this batch, buddy!" and that he is doomed!

So join us in the ZNE BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB. Each month, or so, we work together through an art book. This month is Kaleidoscope by Suzanne Simanaitis. Each week there will be an assignment posted from the featured book. It will include reading a selection, a writing prompt and an art project. Maybe an extra credit assignment! Then you post your response to the prompts and post photos or scans of your art. We discuss ideas and each other's responses and work on the ZNE Book Club Boards, and then those are edited and posted to the ZNE BOOK CLUB BLOG.

It's a great way to try out new ideas. techniques, meet new friends, and get feedback from someone besides your relatives.

I have been given the opportunity to be, as Chel describes on the Book Club Blog, "The Fabulous Assignment Coordinator" (I'm pretending that Fabulous is included in the title or perhaps she means the assignments are fabulous, nonetheless, I shall use it anyway!!)

You can sign up for the Book Club on the Book Club Blog. There is a special deal for those who were in the last selection's session, so check out the Discussion Boards. Every participant will get a "Party Favor", admission to the ZNE Book Club Room ( Discussion forum, just for registered participants, a coordinated collage kit from the ZNE STORE, and $10 of your entrance fee will go to Bernie Berlin's " A Place To Bark"

Many of you know Bernie Berlin as the fabulous mixed media artist and author of "Artist Trading Card Workshop"

Hope to see you in the Book Room. We go "Live" on Monday, July 7, 2008.


Extra Thanks go to: Claudine Hellmuth for the kind permission to use her artwork, above.

Collage Lost & Found - Week 4

Our last week working in Collage Lost & Found with the ZNE BOOK CLUB. I love all the ideas and techniques in this book by "Josie" Cirincione. Easy to follow instructions and great photos that show you "how" it's done. Our last project was to make a domino or game piece pendant, and tell a story.

The pendant with the girl and dog is one of my favorite clip art images...I love dogs...and the words "good friends" come from a Bobbsey Twins book my mother received as a Christmas gift from her parents in 1931. It is really beat up, other people would have put it in the trash by now, but it is perfect for making collage pieces that need words and this edition has great words about family, Christmas, travel, animals...very fun stuff.

Both pendants make me think of last weekend at the Castle in the Meadow event, in Detroit, Michigan. Good friends love you no matter what, and I find the zne art group loves you and your work,...no matter where you are on the art spectrum.


The castle is one of the castle images we received from Luna Girl, the words are also from my Bobbsey Twins book, a chapter title. I was searching for words and came across "Safe from the storm" and thought how the castle had kept us safe from the storm that hit the area at the end of our day. The staff and police asked us to stay til the tornado warning passed. I was amazed at the damage along the route I traveled back to my hotel in Novi/Livonia. If we had left the Castle at the designated time, we would have been in the middle of the storm....so these pendants are dedicated to the wonderful participants at the Castle in the Meadow party! they still need beads and wire....and the diamond glaze.....

Collage Lost & Found

Another fun project for the ZNE Book Club. We're currently "altering" our way thru "Collage Lost and Found" by Giuseppina Cirincione. Creating unique projects with vintage ephemera.

This piece measures about 3 by 6 and features a tranfered image of my mom and her brother cira 1937 or so, my mom would have been about 15. I've used this image on several other projects. I love their "stand up and smile at the camera looks" on their faces. They are standing on a box of some sort in front of a wooden fence or wall, well weathered. ( The fence, they were too young to be weathered. They look like they are happy and content, but I think they had a pretty hard life, by today's standards. I like the quote from an old "Red Pepper Burns" Book..."Doing well, everything satisfactory, and I've not a care in tnhe world." Ahhhh ... to live so simply!

And even more exciting.....in July...for the ZNE Book CLub, I get to lead the book club, and will update the ZNE Book Club blog. What an exciting opportunity. I can't wait to get started. Our book for July will be Kaleidoscope by suzanne simanaitis, ideas and projects to Spark YOUR Creativity. It is written in the style of an Art ZINE and very different from any art book I have seen recently. Topics will include...passionately curious? Identity, mark making, Sanctuary, Imagination, Reinvention, & Obstacles.

Be sure to sign up , so you don't miss out on this adventure. You can sign up here "ZNE BOOK CLUB" proceeds from the book club entry fees go to help support A Place To Bark

"A PLACE TO BARK is a no kill foster and adoption rescue, in Portland , TN, dedicated to the welfare of animals. Established in 2001, we mainly work with Animal Control Agencies, rescue animals from high kill shelters and foster them till they are healthy. This provides the best possible situation, for the animals. They are then placed for adoption through Humane Societies in various parts of the country. We cover all costs for the medical care of the animals with no cost to the Humane Societies they are going to. We also do some private adoptions after a strict screening process. " A PLACE TO BARK is operated by Bernie Berlin a mixed media artist and author of several books including Artist TRading Card workshop.

Check back and see what's happening!!!!

Monday Night is Art Night

Tonight on Circa Arte, "blog talk radio"you will hear Chel interview Claudine Hellmuth, author of many beautiful art books, including "Collage Discovery Workshop."You can join in on the live chat board, or call in and say "hi" at 8:30 PM ( central time). This particular book was a ZNE Book of the month club selection in 2007. Featured here, are a couple of the projects I made for the club. Chel posts an assignment every week or so, and then the participants respond to the assignment on the chat boards and then Chel posts a summary on the book club blog. Check out the book club blog. The project at the top of the page was suppose to be inspired by the cover of Claudine's book. It was to include a vehicle, a map, a monument, and the text, I discovered Claudine's Collage Discovery Workshop. So there it is. Other projects used tips and techniques in the book and we were to make projects inspired by Claudine's work in the book. We rusted metal with bleach and vinegar....be careful....very stinky, and must be done outside and with protective gear. We worked on background images and made some transfer images and an altered tin, and worked on an art journal.


I was inspired by Claudine's work with an altered tin , transfered image and a playing card, see page 80 of her book.

Her Father's Daughter

The Zne Book Club is working on "Collage Lost and Found" this month. A very cool book by Giuseppina Cirincione, you can see it below on my "book shelf". I'm a little behind on my projects. This one was to feature an art piece that had an element that you could open, such as a door or window. I have this lovely window stamp from Lost Coast Designs.(Oh no, I just checked out their website and I think they may have a few new things I "need". But, I'm saving up to attend a couple of art retreats this summer, so I will resist the temptation!)

This piece is made with the window stamped and embossed on some celery cardstock . The background papers are fromn Daisy D and Basic Grey. Scrabble tiles, and text from a Red Pepper Burns Book. We were to reveal something about ourselves inside of the window. I am a pretty open person, and pretty readable, most days, so I was having a hard time coming up with something that most people didn't already know about me.

But I ran across the text from the Red Pepper Burns book, "Courage for facing things - the unknown, and other piece of text " After all, she was her father's daughter." and "anxieties that really matter."

It made me think of my father and how he and were alike...being worriers...among other things. We would worry about the iron being left on , or the coffee pot was plugged in, or to check the back seat of your car. Most were good things to be concerned about. But we would obsess about some of them at times. I think we did it, hoping to control some of life, when we have so little control over most of it. So I think we both would Choose Courage, to face the unknown....and worry about things that were really important....like our families and friends. This was an interesting project to work on.

Journal Pages - Parata Di Arte

I'm still working on this whole concept of art journal. On Parta Di Arte Flickr group, the theme for the week is art journal, I posted the page above for the "contest". I used masking technique and rubber stamps for the background. The stamp came from Stamp Francisco, I believe. They have very cool rubber stamps, lots of vintage images. The photo is of my mom and uncle taken in the 1930, in some Texas oil town. My grandfather was a migrant oil worker in Texas and Oklahoma. My grandmother wrote that she had been married 35 years and had lived in 35 different places. My mother said she went to 16 different schools while growing up. Anyway. I think some days were probably good for them, and others , not so good. It was the Depression. But both my mom and uncle ended their lives living with Alzheimers, and the lesson I learned watching my mother was this: Enjoy the precious Present. Today. She may not have remembered yesterday, but whatever presented itself today: she enjoyed!
Both of these journal pages are a part of an art journal I started during the ZNE Book Club. This photo shows the Oklahoma City Memorial. I took this photo in Janaury or February 2006. I did some altering tips with water, sandpaper and marker. The stamped image is from Inque Boutique, added for the joural page. While it is not a dove, it makes me think of the spirit of the men, women, and children who lost their lives that day in OKC. If you are in OKC, take the time to stop by and see this memorial.

More Glam Girls

Finding Mojo - See it Say it Saturday - ZNE

It's See It Say It Saturday on the Zne Blogz and today's featured work is the lovely angel piece shown below by Diane Duda. The angel is so sweet, unpretentious and just beautiful. She is surely thinking about spring, and its impending arrival. ( Any day now, wouldn't you say.)

At the top of the page, is my response. I thought about doing a simple sketch, but that implied that I knew how to do that. (NOT) So I tried a doodle glam girl, who is surely an angel, she is wearing her heart so all can see, she appears to be trying to find mojo. Surely that means she is looking for spring.

The background piece is a half of a game board that I used the "peeling paint" technique with petroleum jelly and acrylic paint. You apply vaseline, then wipe some of it off, smear on some paint, and let it dry and wipe off the vaseline. You can learn all about this in Claudine Hellmuth's book, "Collage Discovery Workshop" One of the books from the ZNE Book of the month club

The Doodle Glam Girl idea came from Traci Bautista's book "Collage Unleashed".

So how do these relate? Well.....glam girl is looking for peace, too, aren't we all. She has some wild hair, and great eye lashes, and wants the world to know that she is full of love, peace and goodness. Plus she was kinda fun to draw. I'm enjoying these doodle glam girls, a lot! Check out the ZNE website.

Diane Duda

Zne's Parata Di Arte - Theme Week Winner

I am very honored to have had my Dogz Charm Necklace chosen for the 1st Place Award for The ZNE Theme Week on Zne's Parata Di Arte on Flickr. The Theme for last week ( week #7) was Charms or Dangly things. This is a piece I made during The ZNE Book Club when we worked out of "Pretty Little Things" by Sally Jean Alexander.

Soldering can be a dangerous thing....ouch....so be sure to read the instructions. I used assorted dog clip art to make the charm collages before soldering the glass. Be careful that the glass doesn't crack. I also soldered the scrabble tiles, and added some "rabies" dog tags, since I save everything I had a few, of assorted shapes, hanging around. ( We have 4 dogs.) The hardest part is soldering the jump rings. That is one of the things I need to practice. I think I have found a way to get that all to work out better, with some ideas from "Collage Lost and Found" by Giuseppina Cirincinoe, which will be the ZNE Book of the Month for March. It's not too later to sign up!

I am very honored to have been selected by the group. Check out the link and see the other entries. The artists are amazing!

Leaf Skeletons and Blog Talk Radio

This evening on Blog Talk Radio - Circa Arte we talked about many things, among them, The Pause for A Cause group for this evening Honor with Art a group dedicated to the cause of missing and exploited children. Be sure to check out their website and various projects.

We also talked about the "stuff" that mixed media artists tend to accumulate. I found this cool leaf skeleton in my yard, and dragged it into the house, and then began to wonder if there was a way you could make them yourself. I know you can buy them at the craft stores. But how would you make them, from your own leaves. Well, of course an internet search was in order, and here is what I found. A great set of instructions. Now, we just need to wait for spring and summer, which here in St. Louis , feels like they might, actually, finally show up. There are still clumps of snow in the shade, but the sun has been out and while it's not quite short sleeve season, it's getting close. Check out below how to make a leaf skeleton, pay attention to precautions and have fun!

How to Make Skeleton Leaves

Skeleton leaves are perfect accents for all craft projects. This article briefly describes how simple it can be to make them.

Steps

1. Take long leaves and press them between old telephone books. They should remain here in a dry, undisturbed place for several weeks.


2. Make a solution of washing soda, and carefully lay the pressed leaves into the solution.


3. When the flesh becomes pulpy, take the leaves out of the washing solution and rinse them carefully in cold water.


4. Gently brush away the pulp with a toothbrush.

Tips

• The skeleton of a magnolia leaf is a beautiful example of a decorative or ornamental skeleton.


• Magnolia leaves or maple leaves are a good place to start for beginners.

Warnings

• Washing soda is caustic (alkaline pH of 11). While it does not produce toxic fumes, it is important to use proper protection when handling; the best thing to do is to wear gloves.


• Don't let kids do this without proper adult supervision. It does make a great science project, so just be prepared to help them and ensure that they are wearing gloves when handling the washing soda solution.

Related wikiHows

• How to Preserve Pinecones


• How to Press Flowers and Leaves


• How to Reuse Old Toothbrushes

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual.

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.

Action Crayons

Action Crayons. A submission for the ZNE Book Club. ( Read previous post) We chopped up crayons and baked them at 250 degrees in a muffin tin lined with foil. Bake about 10 min. Carefully remove from the oven, and let cool, you then have cool ( in many ways) crayon cupcakes. THEN....you hold your cupcake with a pair of pliers or some other tool and apply it to the heating surface of a hot iron.....and then apply the iron to your paper. I used a small craft iron. It took some action to make this painting. It may become a background for another project. Who knows.

Check out this link to inspiremethursday and read all about Action Painting

Crayola Art

BOOK CLUB ASSIGNMENT

The ZNE Book Club continues with projects from Traci Bautista’s book “Collage Unleashed“. This week we are playing with crayons. We were to take broken crayons and place them in muffin tins lined with foil and heat them for about 10 minutes at 250 degrees. This created a very colorful crayon cupcake. After cooling we applied the crayon cupcake to a heated iron and then apply the iron to cardstock, and create a fabulous background. Be sure you get specific instructions and use an old iron, before you try this at home. I used some of the crayons I had at home, and loved it so much, I went over to our church and “borrowed” one of the huge dishpans of crayons. I plan on picking thru them and getting out the old broken ones and do some more with this. ( I’ll take the rest back, but have you ever known a school or Sunday school to run out of crayons, at some point you always get new ones before the old ones run out. They seem to clone themselves.) So here is a great use for those crayon stubs that the kids don’t want to use.




















CHILDHOOD CRAYOLA MEMORIES

Next! We were to talk about a childhood crayon experience. I always remember the first day of school and getting new crayons. As little kids we got those jumbo crayons. We each got our own set of 8 in a real box with a lid, not a fold over flap. I remember one girl who sat behind me who always borrowed my purple crayon, it seems it was her favorite color and she wanted to keep her crayon perfect. She did, she used mine all year. I tried not to sit by her after that.














MOST MEMORIBLE CRAYOLA EXPERIENCE

My most memorable experience with crayons was in 1997. I was taking a drawing class at the local community college. We usually drew our projects with “prismacolor” pencils. Our last project for the year was to make some sort of imaginary drawing that in some way involved a Monopoly ( the board game) board, cards, dice, playing pieces, etc. I don’t know what I was thinking about, but I saw a short article in the newspaper, about that time , at the back of the business section, that inspired my project. The article stated that Smith-Binney ( owners of Crayola) was closing its Winfield, Kansas Crayola manufacturing plant. The company only made $92 million in profits and had anticipated $96 million, or some other ridiculous figure. Winfield had recently suffered from the closing of a state hospital and an oil refinery. The job losses were pretty large. The community was also going to suffer from the loss of tourism as many folks passing thru Kansas on the way to other attractions would stop for a tour of the plant.
Thus my art project evolved. I made this illuminated manuscript / stained glass window to lament the closing of the Crayola factory, and decided to do it with crayon. You notice the bad folks are all on their way to …..with out passing GO? Who knows ? The photos are not the best, the piece is framed,and has glass so there was some reflection from the flash. And it is really large. I enjoyed doing this, coming up with the color palette. I never thought about the color palette of my crayons when I had only 8.





Check out the slide show below!

Illustration Friday - Multiples

Check out the fun stuff on Illustration Friday. An interesting art blog with a Friday Challenge. The new challenge of the week was posted on Friday, February 22, 2008. MULTIPLES. And here is my response.



The clock photo was taken on Canal Street from the streetcar window. We took the street car to the end of the line and I shot pictures from the window as we went. This clock was on Canal Street near the French Quarter. I converted it to black and white and did some extreme settings on the contast and played a little with the color blending. (Does it sound like I know what I am doing???)I printed several sizes of the image, but liked these three of the same size the best for this piece. I then searched the internet for poems or quotes about time, for something that might be appropriate. Here's what I found.


Not one
but twenty-four selfgiving hours
Everyday I have
For my use.

Sri Chinmoy


Multiple clocks, multiple hours, perhaps multiple meanings.

Collage Unleashed / Let Go & Just Do It

Collage Unleashed by Traci Bautista is the book for February for the ZNE Book of the Month Club.
Our first assignment was to experiment with inks and paper towels, to use for backgrounds. I used rubber stamp pad ink refillers on top of the shiny side of freezer paper, squirt your ink on the paper and splash with a bit of water, then go for it.




Traci explains her philosophy around collage and the act of creating in the introduction to her book. As part of our assignment we were to think about writing our own book about the act of creating art - what would the title be and why.

“Just Do It” comes to mind.( I know, it’s been used. ) I know we all struggle with things wanting to be perfect, the best, most original. I need to remind myself ,in many areas of life, to go ahead and just try, it doesn‘t have to be perfect, sometimes just showing up is enough. Yeah, we all want to do more than show up, but you have to start somewhere Once you show up you are on your way. Go for it…just do it..

Sometimes we feel like we have to have special equipment or the right art space to make something creative. Just experiment and give it a try. Use what you have,. Learn by trial and error, when all else fails read the instructions, and really only do this when everything else fails. (Now I wouldn’t want the brain surgeon trying this method)

I also think, too about 12 step programs, sometimes I feel powerless in a creative issue, I really want to control the situation, I find sometimes that something more powerful than me is in charge of the project, and I have to let the “spirit” guide me. Then something inside tells me…it’s just right. Call it the Holy Spirit, “Sophia” or some other entity.

So…. my title would be Let Go and Just Do It. It might work as a title.

Sunday Best Paper Dress

Almost ready for mailing!! My submission for Lennea's Art In The Word "Sunday Best Paper Dress Swap" http://www.onceuponacottage.blogspot.com/

This is a link to Lennea's blog, we met as members of the ZNE Design Team http://www.znedesignteam.com/ be sure to check our team blog here!

Here is the second image.... and the final image for this project! I kind of like the circle copper tag.

On the ZNEnetwork we are working on the end of our January Book Club selection, The Complete Guide To Altered Imagery by KAren Michel. It has been a fun book to work with. On this project we altered an image with the computer. You'll see the photo in my avatar altered for this project.

I converted it to black and white and then took the contrast and brightness to extremes, adhered it to a scrap of mat board, applied gesso around the image, then used one of those cool multil-lead water color pencils to apply color around the image.

Then I stamped over the water color with an image of a star and angel, it is hard to see in this photo....I can't decide which version I like best.