Category Archives: Art Abandonment

Mother’s Day Art Abandonment, Rockingham

Art, Art Abandonment, Gelli Plate Printing, Monoprinting, Social Networking, Techniques, Travel, Tutorial, , , , , , ,

“Castaways” is an annual sculpture exhibition held on the beach in Rockingham, Western Australia. It’s the little sister of Cottesloe’s “Sculpture By The Sea” exhibition held in March each year. “Castaways” uses recycled materials, with a nod towards environmental awareness, and is held in May or June each year.

This year, The Kid and I went to see “Castaways” on Sunday, which also happened to be Mother’s Day. I thought, why not gatecrash the party and add some Art Abandonment into the equation? So we did.

I printed out some Art Abandonment tags onto cardstock. I then experimented with glitter paint mixed with regular acrylic paint, and Gelli Plate printed an A3 sheet of paper using just 1 doily stencil and 1 trivet with circles. I kept it simple, with just 3 paint colours – dark green, yellow and blue. I inked the empty white spaces with a Tim Holtz Distress Inkpad, Picked Raspberries (a ravishing neon pink). I like how the glitter effect turned out, so I’ll be experimenting further with that later.

imageThe glitter paints. They were too transparent to use on their own for Gelli printing, so I mixed them with regular acrylic paint, in dark green, blue and yellow.

imageAt the top are some Art Abandonment tags that I printed onto cardstock and cut out. I Gelli printed an A3 sheet on one side only, and then divided and cut the sheet into 12 pieces, to be adhered onto the Art Tags, then trimmed to fit.

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The bookmarks assembled. On one side is the Art Abandonment tag, on the other side is the Gelli print. I then single hole-punched the tops, to tie hemp twine to later.

imageThe 12 finished bookmarks. I stamped some positive, affirmative words on each card.

And here are some close-ups. Sorry about the light reflecting off the cards, the photos were taken at night under my kitchen lights:
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Art Quotes

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Last week I posted on Facebook’s “Art Abandonment” Group Wall about my handmade Juicy Journals that I was abandoning. I thought I might get a dozen or so people commenting on it. Imagine my surprise when I received over 400 “likes”, and several dozen compliments about my Juicy Journals. That’s way more than my usual Facebook Wall posts ever get. Really chuffed and greatly encouraged by my fellow Art Abandoneers, thank you folks! :-)

I had several enquiries about whether I would be selling any of my Juicy Journals. I haven’t made enough to warrant selling them on my Etsy store yet…but you never know. Money is not my motivation for creating Art…but it does come in handy to buy more paints, inks and paper.

In addition to the 10 Juicy Journals that I abandoned in my town, I posted off a further 5 Juicy Journals to people who had expressed an interest in getting one. One of the 5 is a teacher in America, who intends to use my Juicy Journal as an end-of-term Art project for her class. Honoured, I am!

All this got me to thinking: “What does Art mean to me?” And so I did my usual modus operandi and looked up Art quotes on Google Images. I found several that resonated with me, so I’ll share them with you here:

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I also found one that describes me. I realise I am an Artist who also creates handmade/handbound books, marrying my passion for Gelli Plate printing with the same for making one-off Juicy Journals.
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Art Abandonment Rockingham : Juicy Journals

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This year, my first Art Abandonment exercise was back in January, on Australia Day, when The Kid and I ventured to the Rockingham Foreshore to Abandon several books wrapped up with brown paper, and tied to some Lenormand divination card decks that I’d created and had printed.

We did another Abandonment in February, but that time The Kid and I cycled around Rockingham and posted some of my Inspiration Deck cards through people’s letterboxes in their gardens…so it was more of a choreographed affair, and not as random. I had an interesting discussion about the legalities of this with the Art Abandonment crowd on Facebook. Many of the members, being Americans, advised that it is actually against US law to just pop something into someone’s post box if it hasn’t gone through the Postal system. Luckily, I was able to ascertain that this isn’t the case in Australia. Hence the inordinate amount of junk mail we get over here…hmmm.

I’ve decided it’s high time I did another Art Abandonment. I’ve decided that my earliest Juicy Journals would make the best candidates. I reckon about 10 of them should do it.

So, these fellas:
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I’m going to do the Abandonment on May 1st, traditionally Labour Day. Oh, don’t mind me, I just like picking days that stick out…and oh my, I’ve just realised that nearly half the year is gone already??! Tempus Fugit!

I’d better get cracking finding some envelopes to put these babies into, and printing out some Art Abandonment labels.

I stamped the backs and some fronts of the journals, with a Chinese “Happiness” stamp that I’d had for many years. I felt this was appropriate, in keeping with the Art Abandonment philosophy of spreading Happiness the world over through Art.

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The smaller Juicy Journals will go into these button-string envelopes that I’ve stuck an Art Abandonment tag on. The bigger ones will go into envelopes or ziploc bags.

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Like so! All done, and ready to rock and roll. I think this time I’ll hit the cafe strip and discreetly leave my gifts at empty tables, where customers will find them.
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Update: 10am West Australian time. 1st May 2015. DONE!

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The next 2 photos show an elderly couple after finding one of my gifts on a park bench by the beach. And a young couple with 2 kids in a stroller after picking up another of my journals.

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Mission accomplished! :-)

Juicy Journals

Art, Art Abandonment, Books, Design, Gelli Plate Printing, Monoprinting, Printing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve heard the term “Juicy Backgrounds” used by several mixed media artists. What they mean are journal pages that are ready prepped, either by printing or painting or the addition of ephemera, as opposed to a pristine blank journal page. This helps jumpstart the creative juices, and goes a long way towards overcoming fear of the blank page, or Artist Block, if you will.

Which makes a lot of sense to me, as I would love to start an art journal, however I’ve never been able to find something worthy to throw onto a page and go on from there. Until now, that is. When my stash of Gelli Plate monoprints started overflowing, I decided it was time to do something with them. And I hit upon the idea of creating mini art journals with those pages. I love books, both to read and as an art form, and making my own art journals using papers that I’d printed seemed an ideal way of marrying the 2 art forms – Monoprinting and Handmade Books.

I’m calling my Art Journals “Juicy Journals” because they are already filled with colour splashes, abstract shapes, glitter and shimmer, stamped alphabets and numbers, so in a sense they are very “juicy” indeed. They’re meant to be enjoyed on their own, or, if you like, you can draw/stamp/paint/etc over them to your heart’s content. There’s no right or wrong way to enjoy them.

Here are some photos of the books I’ve made thus far. I started out with simply tying the pages together so more pages can be added if needed. Then I ventured into pamphlet stitching, hard and soft covers, and even created a few bookbinding stitches of my own. Two of these “Juicy Journals” are winging their way to friends in the UK and USA as I write this, and I hope to sell/give away/Abandon the others.

Enjoy!

20150419_113532Two horizontal Juicy Journals.

20150419_113825Top: 2 vertical, 3 Alphabetica pocket pages, 2 horizontal, 1 soft cover hand bound, 1 square ring bound.

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My 8 original minis, rebound with coloured hemp cord.

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Inside one of my “Alphabetica” pocket pages. The 3 little insert cards go into the button-n-string envelope.

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My 3 “Alphabetica” pocket pages. I love those little button-n-string envelopes.

 20150419_113100Detail of one of the pages of my ring-bound Juicy Journal.

20150419_113425Detail of the inside of 2 of my horizontal Juicy Journals.

Project Palimpsest/Butterick: Part II

Art, Art Abandonment, Recycling, Repurposed, Techniques, Tutorial, , , , ,

Okay, continuing from yesterday’s post, I’ve decided to add just a few more details to this project. (Not too much, as I was working concurrently on another Palimpsest/Butterick project and muddied things up by adding too much, too soon…and now I have no choice but to gesso over the whole lot and start again).

So, this is how my 2 pieces ended up:

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I added some blue to the first, as an afterthought, as I didn’t want the other canvas to get lonely. I also added a bit more blue to the second canvas, around the lower right edges.

These look almost Australian Aboriginal to me, with the dressmaking lines, red and blue paint dots, and circular stamps serving as representations of rivers, people and watering holes (billabongs). They also remind me of Ordnance Survey maps.

Now all that’s left to do is to paint the sides of the canvas black, then seal the whole thing with a couple of coats of spray varnish. I use a gloss car varnish, if you must know…after much experimentation with art store spray varnishes, and much disatisfaction with their results, I have finally found the varnish I like, and I’m sticking to it. Unconventional, I am! 😄

I just got an idea, I’ll take close-up photos of these and save them to my phone’s camera roll. That way I can use them as backgrounds for future projects. Clever, eh? ;)

Art Abandonment # 3 : Rockingham

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For our 3rd Art Abandonment exercise, the Kid and I decided to drop some Inspiration Cards I’d created and printed, into random letterboxes around our neighbourhood in Rockingham. (For American readers, this is Australia and it is NOT illegal to post unstamped, unaddressed letters into mail/post/letterboxes. Local politicians and real estate agents do it all the time. Even Australia Post workers post brochures and other junk advertising mail into people’s letterboxes).

The Art used this time was from my Inspiration Deck, a set of cards with inspirational sayings that I’d created on my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and then sent off to be printed as 3.5 x 5.75 inch cards. I’ve already posted about these cards in an earlier post.

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Hope the folks who get these unexpected surprise cards appreciate them. The Kid and I enjoyed our “Reverse Robbing” exercise, even if we got rumbled a couple of times by people coming out of their houses or twitching their curtains at the windows.

They’re Here!

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Aliens, I mean. No, no, well yes, aliens have been on Earth for quite a while now, only I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting them face to face. But that’s not what I meant.

I meant to say that my INSPIRATION DECK has arrived from the printers. And they are beautiful, and exactly how I envisioned them to be.

Okay, the deck I created only had 24 designs (I thought I uploaded 25, but maybe I’ve forgotten how to count in my dotage). I’d doubled the designs and trebled a couple, to get a pack of 54 in a white window box. This is only a test deck, at the moment, while I surreptitiously work away on more inspirational sayings and backgrounds.

The real INSPIRATION DECK, when it’s ready, will have 50 different designs. And it will be expandable, so should I be able to muster the strength to make another lot of designs, they can be purchased as “Booster Packs” and added to the existing one.

The purpose of these cards? To serve as a daily reminder that Life is good and not to lose sight of your dreams as you rush about your everyday lives. Keep the cards for yourself, or share them with friends or strangers, it’s up to you. My hope is that the cards and sayings inspire you to be your best, and give you good cheer on hard days.

I’ll be abandoning half of this deck in and around Rockingham, Western Australia, on the weekend of Valentine’s Day 2015. It’ll be my Secret Valentine’s Day present to unsuspecting folks. I’ll also be giving some to my adult cousins and my Aunt and Uncle the weekend after, when we gather for our Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner.

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THE INSPIRATION DECK

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I wrote about my INSPIRATION DECK Project a short while ago, in the post “The First Twelve”. Since then, I’ve completed 25 different card designs, all with inspiring phrases on them. And I’ve decided that they should be part of a deck that’s expandable. So, the first deck of extra large (3.5 x 5.75 inches) cards will have 50 different designs. And any subsequent “booster” packs will have the same back designs, so one can simply shuffle the new cards into the old.

I’ve gone ahead and ordered a deck with 2 of each design. Now, here’s the method to my madness:

1) the printer’s templates offer a maximum of 54 cards per deck. The price is the same regardless of whether your deck has 1 card or 54. So, it makes sense to double up on the designs and use up all the card allocations, for the one price.

2) I’ve sent off for a deck now because I’d like to be able to let my adult cousins and my Uncle and Aunt choose a card for themselves over our annual Chinese New Year Reunion Lunch at my 2nd Uncle’s. Like a party favour. I’m the “poor” cousin, and good for comedy effect as well as entertainment value LOL. CNY 2015 is on Feb 19th, which is mid-week, so I guess our family reunion will be the weekend after.

3) I’ve promised The Kid that we’ll have the cards ready before Easter. We intend to pop the cards into envelopes with Art Abandonment tags or labels on them, and then randomly drop them into people’s letterboxes around our area. Might make someone’s day, who knows?

It’s going to be such fun!

Anyway, here are some of the 25 designs, which I’ve collaged together into a frame, for ease of uploading to WordPress. See, this old dog can learn new tricks still! 😄 When the deck arrives from the printers, fresh off the press, I’ll be sure to photograph them all and blog about it in a later post.

Meanwhile, enjoy!

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