Love Is In the Air: Part 2

For some reason, I've really caught the Valentine's Day card-making "bug" this year!

I've never been drawn to the heart motif necessarily, and yet right now I just can't seem to get enough of it.  When I sat down to create Valentine's Day cards, four different series developed.

These labels appear on the back of the cellophane bags that hold each greeting card.

The first set I worked on I called my "Valentine Poste" series.  They were inspired by a design from Colette Copeland in the Volume 4 2010 edition of Somerset Holidays & Celebrations magazine.  I used reproduction Victorian scrap and mailing labels, while the postcards are all from between 1910 and 1913 (except, perhaps obviously, for the "Seattle" postcard in the last photo!).

If I had to choose, this card is my very favorite.

I love the look of brown kraft paper for these cards!

How neat that the purple color on the Victorian-style scrap matched the original "Philadelphia, PA" stamp perfectly!

I owe Karenann many thanks for coming through for me when I couldn't find my mailing labels
in time to make these cards when I needed to!

I added foam dots on the back of the couple at the forefront of this card to add some fun dimension to it.

For my second series of cards, "Homeycomb Poste," I used a beautiful piece of scrapbook paper with collaged hexagons, which look just like a quilt.  I just added the stitching to complete the look.

 

There are a total of six of these cards.

The third Valentine's Day series I made is called "Birds of a Feather," which I think is a fun sentiment for the holiday.  And, as you can see with almost all of my cards this season, I had to "put a bird on it"!

These are all quite different from one another, and some have a "Happy Valentine's Day" sentiment inside, while others are blank cards.

It's hard for me to resist adding some stitching to my projects!

Some of the cards do not acutally SAY "Birds of a Feather" on them, but the sentiment is still there!

I used the foam dots on the back of the hearts to add some dimension to the card.



The fourth and final Valentine's series that I created is called the "Love is in the Air" series.  These cards are also all quite different from one another.

I used a postcard of Raphael's famous angel duo that I purchased in Italy for this card.

This is a vintage postcard from the auction I frequent, with reproduction Victorian scrap added.

Still putting a bird on it!

Amazingly enough, after all these cards, I'm still playing around with hearts.  I will share with you three fun ways to create heart embellishments for your Valentine's Day cards and other artwork in my next post!

Love Is In the Air: Part 1

Love is in the air early at Studio 791!

Valentine's Day is one of those holidays that I usually don't pay much attention to until it is a day or two away.  This year, though, I have been creating cards and collages to sell at the lovely gift boutique Gabby's Jar in Wayne, PA. 

My collages were inspired by a piece of art by Nancy Gene Armstrong published in Volume 4 of Artists' Cafe by Stampington & Company.  In her piece, titled M, Nancy tied vintage book papers with string, with a transparency image on top.  The tied, layered pages made me think of love letters, a perfect reference for Valentine's Day.

The collages that I created exemplify what I find both exhilarating and painful about creating collage art.  I have such an abundance of vintage text pages that I don't have a hard time parting with them for my work, and I know that my transparency images from Art Chix Studios can be replaced by a new purchase.  But the 1930s handwritten text page used as the backdrop for the piece above, and the undated letter on extremely old graph paper in the piece below, are unique pieces of paper that can never again be found and never again recreated in all the world.  How precious!  What gems!  It is exhilarating to use these truly ephemeral treasures in a work of art, and yet painful to part with them, as well. 

I used frames from Ikea for these pieces, and was thrilled that the dimensional aspects of the collages could be protected and still appreciated behind the glass. 

Here are additional views of my first two pieces:

In my next post, I'll share some of the Valentine's Day cards that will also be available at the shop!

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Would you be interested in exchanging Valentine's Day cards with me?  If so, send me an email message to aleakaskey@yahoo.com.  We will commit to create handmade cards (which could include cards, postcards, or ATCs tucked into a card), and to send them out to one another by February 12, so we can enjoy them right near the holiday. 

 

I look forward to hearing from you!

 

Art Retreat!

I am extremely happy to announce that I will be attending the 2013 CREATE Mixed Media Art Retreat in Somerset, New Jersey, in July!

I thought that I would have to wait for a "different season of life" to go to an art retreat, especially since they all seem to take place on the other side of the country, in California, Oregon, and Washington State.  When I found out that there was a retreat taking place just an hour-and-a-half from my home, I jumped at the opportunity.

I have all my preferrred classes picked out for Saturday, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning--along with alternates in case I get closed out of any of my first choices--and am poised for registration at the end of this month. 

I plead with all of my online friends on the East Coast to come together during the weekend of July 19-21.  (The retreat actually begins on Wednesday, July 17, but I can't leave my home and family without maternal guidance for quite that long!)  How exciting would it be to meet face-to-face, and to take classes with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, Seth Apter, Joanne Sharpe, Jodi Ohl, Michelle Ward, Jane LaFazio, and other "superstars" from our online world?!

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I hope you've known about Nathalie Kalbach's Creative Jump Start Summit 2013,

taking place this month.

Every day in January, I get a video tutorial sent directly to my email account with fantastic lessons that have, without exception, made me want to make a beeline for my art room!  You can find a list of this year's contributors here.  At this point, I've only watched about five of the videos, but I have until mid-year to catch up.  Last year was filled with such inspiration, and Nathalie has "done it again" with this year's line up.  (And if you need any more incentive, there are plenty of giveaways to enter!)

 

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One final thought:

After preschool this morning, my 5-year-old daughter Katy told me, "I only painted a short time today, because holding the paintbrush the right way messed up my painting."  I asked her to show me what got messed up, and this is her picture:

She made the little red fish on the left "her way," but the teacher aide told her to hold the paintbrush a different way before she tried to paint her orange fish, which she decided she couldn't do.  I asked her, "So, she said there was a right way to hold the paintbrush?"  "Yes."  "Show me how she wanted you to hold it."  (She held it like a pencil.)  "And how did you want to hold it?"  (She showed me the paintbrush gripped in her hand held like a fist.)  "And she told you that you couldn't hold it that way?"  (Katy nodded.)  "Hmmm, I never really thought there was a right and wrong way to hold a paintbrush.  But I guess we have to listen to what our teachers tell us to do."  Katy then asked if she could sometimes disobey her teachers.  Wow, those are tough conversations!

So, what do you think about her teacher telling her that there is only one way to hold the paintbrush?  I understand that the children have to learn how to hold a pencil properly to write, but I didn't know that translated into rules for painting.  I am curious to hear your opinions!

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Enjoy a creative weekend!

 

I will be back to post soon so you can see some Valentine cards and collages I have prepared for sale at Gabby's Jar in Wayne, PA!