Paper patchwork background

The baking is postponed, maybe Christmas will be canceled? Haha, wouldn’t that be something? No, I’m not worried. I know it will be okay, we’ll all be well in two days I think. And in the meantime I feel like blogging, so I’m going to ramble on because I usually don’t. I tend to plan my posts a bit to much maybe? We’ll see, I kind of like writing right now. Did I say that? ;-)

I’ve been making my art in bed lately as you know. I’ve been messing up the duvet cover with pink drips of acrylic paint. One of many thrifted wood trays was standing on the floor next to my bed all along, saying nothing. Not until this week it dawned on me that I could use the tray that I bought. I’m all this will be decoupaged and beautified with rose napkins and white paint later some day… But really, it’s a great steady tray, right? And very useful for cups of water and acrylic paints when working on a soft bed! Now I’m thinking maybe it shouldn’t go shabby chic but instead artsy-fartsy?! Yes, I think so!

This week I grabbed a plastic lid (not in the picture) for a lost bucket of jar (that just had me laughing, I meant to say:) a missplaced jam bucket that was stored in the food cellar. No use for a lid without its bucket you say? Well, it is perfect as a palette! I have been mixing my colours on bits of newspaper and it always creates a mess, which tends to make me use the colours as they are and not mix them very much. That’s just boring. An artist needs a artist’s palette, don’t you agree!?

Recent inspiration comes from the magazine Cloth Paper Scissors that I mentioned yesterday! It’s a collage, mixed media artistic discovery magazine that I’ve loved since they started to publish it and I read every article in it, sometimes twice. I’m still reading the November/December 2007 issue. Artist profile is about Judy Wise whoes journals I love. I did even mark some of her quotes which I don’t do in magazines very often. I’ve started a little Book of Quotes (because I love to collect good quotes) and Judy’s words were some of the first I wrote in it. Like this one:

I believe we could all live in a heavenly place if we just put ourselves there.
Judy Wise

She is truly wise!

Another mixed media idol of mine is Kelly Rae Roberts who has written a very inspiring article called Patch it together! Under title: Create free-spirited patchwork paintings using collage elements and paint. With beautiful pictures and easy to follow step-by-step guide.

I’m always fascinated with backgrounds, and that is what her article is about. How to use beautiful papers as backgrounds and make the patchwork blend together to a new whole. Love it! Now, why didn’t I think of that? Maybe because I don’t use my scrapbook papers at all because I don’t know what to do with them? Hmm… I’ve decided to start using everything without hesitation. Maybe I’ll add that to my list of news for next year? But I’ve already started!

And I covered the canvas with papers and did a sketch in my journal to see if I could do it, and then on the canvas and it looked like this:

I was surprised over how much I liked the finished little painting. I call it/her Joy. Joy is a redhead with a transparent blue skirt and a lot of happiness to share with the world. She loves her little bird friend but wants more canvas friends. I’ve allready already patchworked another small canvas, but then I stopped and felt I couldn’t do another one. Maybe I will feel up to it soon again. A cool note: Paulette Insall with her artistic beautiful redheads and other paintings commented on this painting on flickr and that made me so surprised and happy. I mean, that is how I want to paint and here she is telling me my little doodle is So soft and sweet…!

All of this is amazing, don’t you think?

Who could have thought that little me, over here in Sweden, would read a magazine with articles by and about artists that I admire and whose work I can follow from day to day (in their blogs) and contact from my fingertips without talking to publishers or editors? That they, these cool chicas of art, can come over here and have a look into my world of art and craft too? That you, out there, can read about this? And I can still remember reading about the Internet for the first time – and wondering what it was, feeling that tickling curious feeling in my stomach that I always get when I hear about exiting new things that I know I will have to try! And here we are today…

I could go on and write for ever, but I wont. Bye for now.