It's been a long dry spell, but I'm feeling more creative these days.  After years of stained glass, quilts, and art dolls, I'm trying to break out of the rigid mold of precise designs and working tolerances of 1/16'' or less.
This is an assemblage of things made of plastic. wood, metal, and wire unified by painting in one color.  No pre-design, just paint up a lot of stuff and start gluing.  It was fun and turned out a lot better than I thought.  You're never to old to learn something new.

Haven't been doing much lately.  Must be another block..  I started painting on raw canvas to make an apron for my studio work. It's an interesting technique and can be used for lots of items.    This collage is just a butterfly on stretched canvas.  The decorative part doesn't even show up.  The black on the wings has black glitter glue that sparkles.  That why I named it Social Butterfly.  I've been experimenting with altering photos and metal embossing but I can't seem to get my energy level up. Must be the weather changing.  I hope we don't get 100 inches of snow again this winter. Yikes!!

Here are 2 collages using Claudine Hellmuth's techniques

The Bird

The Textured Paint starts with a very thick layer of white acrylic paint.  Write in wet paint with the end of a paint brush.  Stamp with foam stamps and make a smooth area for pictures.  Dry. Using several colors, wash thinned paint over canvas and rub into grooves.  Wipe off excess. Glue pictures and varnish.

The Mystery

The Peeling Paint technique uses Vaseoline as a resist.  It's a little tricky but has a neat effect.  Paint canvas, dry. Seal with gel medium.  Apply vaseoline to areas that will remain base color.  Paint entire canvas with second color.  Dry.  Wipe paint off resist areas.  Wash canvas  with warm, soapy water to remove all vaseoline.  Glue down ephemera.  Seal

My husband made the frames.  I used molding paste to add texture.

This is another fenceboard piece, mounted on pine with a foamcore roof.  The title is No Escape.  Even though she has butterfly wings she can't get out past the lock.  You can interpret the symbols any way you want to.  This is the last finished piece in this last artmaking run.  Now I have to wait until inspiration strikes again.

This is an Owl Shaman Doll assemblage.  The box is a wooden tray turned on end and glued to a pine base. The face is sculpted from paper clay, mounted on a dowel and a soft body fashioned around it.  There is a piece of agate and a bone inside the box and plastic willow branches on the sides. The owl is a symbol of wisdom and spirtual awakening.

About 24 yrs ago I did some charcoal work in one of my art classes and I really liked it.  For some reason I never followed up on it and got involved with textiles.  A couple of weeks ago I got a yen to try it again.  The skills are RUSTY, but I thought I'd inflict the pictures on all of you anyway.LoL
I want to do some more and hopefully get better.  Maybe good enough for fridge magnets. ( more LoL)



I did the owl first, then the landscape, then the portrait.  What do you think?

This is a collage done on a cedar fence board.  It has a foam core roof, paper wrapped and painted, and is mounted on a pine base.  Click to see a close up.  There is also some ephemera on the back.

This is an assemblage box made from foamcore and crushed tissue paper.  It seems a little on the dark side but not really.  The title is Mortality and the sign over the skeleton says Journey, one we all take.  The box is on a pine base.  It's about 12 x 12.

I don't know if this is art.  It's more like an illustrated political statement.  I've been furious for years over the wanton damage done to the creatures of the ocean.  I found lots of copyright free pictures and got a paper mache book and
made a storybook.







On the left side is a description of what we've done and the results.  I made the right side look like a porthole in a sub looking out on a reef, with a photo montage and on the "bottom" of the sea a beach with coral, worm tube, shells, etc.
The clock says time is running out.

Here are two more of my Wings series of wall collages.  Pictures are printed on fabric and sewn to paper.

  These pictures are two of my "wings " series.  They are about 10 x 10.  The pictures are printed on fabric.  The base is foamcore, cover in paper, etc., and painted.





Christoff and wolffeathers, this is a picture of your great aunt Elizabeth.  Grandma's sister.

 This collage may be disturbing to some.  The Lady looks like a nice person.  Inside the box is an accordion book with pictures of sad-faced children.If you can't understand the connection to the darkside, enlarge the picture and take a look at what she has in her hand.  Then look at the picture on the front of the box.

 

This is a Natural History assemblage box as done by a young boy in the 1930s.

Sir David Attenborough is my favorite naturalist.  I'm sure he collected stuff as a boy in the 1930's and he must have made boxes similar to this one.
Everything is a genuine specimen except the cricket (I'm not into killing and collecting) and the bird's nest.  I made it out of blue oat grass, and the eggs of paperclay.  There are fossils, rocks, shells, an arrowhead, a shark's tooth, beach glass, bones, a mineral cabinet, etc.  I had to raid my own collections, but it was in a good cause.

 

This shrine is in honor of the Native American woman of old. (shrine directions are in the book Crafting Personal Shrines by Carol Owen)  On the right side are feathers, beads, and a metal dreamcatcher.  The drawer holds a polished stone.  Inside the roof are twigs and bones.

I did the beading on deerskin many years ago.

 

This is a victorian sewing room in miniature. the box stands about 9".

 

This is my take on the old monkey routine.  Click if you can't read it.

This is a paperclay and wire sculpture based on a magazine picture of a casting of an ants nest.  I call it Baccadon. 

 
This is me after years of disability.  The box contains pictures of all the stuff I've had to give up , plus my garden.  The white dots are the heads of pins stuck in the joints.  At least I can still make art on a small scale.

 
Here are my Shaman dolls made from foamcore, paperclay molded faces, handpainted papers, beads, etc.  Plus m first embossing medallion.  My favorite painter of shamans is Susan Seddon Boulet. 

These dolls are also made from foamcore.  They represent the Four Elements. I designed a dancing figure because this is a dynamic planet and the Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water are always moving.