coconutannies

Emotions

Studio Friday : Creating Emotions

For me, whenever I create a collage piece I first tap into some very emotional memory. I almost always use an image or picture of a person or place that is important to me. As  I layer on paint and paper I am traveling back and remembering a special time. Without the emotional thrill this brings I get easily bored putting elements together.

The 2 pages below are part of my childhood memories altered book. It incorporates a page from a cookbook I had when I was little, pictures of me and my cousins and memories of warming up inside after playing out in the cold. It gives me a good feeling to remember those cozy times!

 

 

Bunches are better!

This week's prompt over at Studio Friday is "Multiples"

I love to collect things so I'm all about multiples! - If one is good . . . then BUNCHES ARE BETTER! The first thing (or should I say things) I thought of was my duckie heads - I found these for 10 cents ea. at my favorite thrift store -don't ask me what I'll do with them but they were too fun to pass up (now you know why my studio looks like it does!)

I also like to keep multiples of the same thing in jars - they remind me of the penny candy I loved to pick out when I was a kid - YUM!

Before . . .

Studio Friday's prompt is the "Color Wheel "-

I attempted to find something in my studio to suitably interpret this theme. What I found  when I opened the door was a dizzying array of colors in a tangled mess of projects and supplies.

You see, my "studio" is a 1972 Airstream parked outside my kitchen door. A few years ago, when I lost my original studio to my daughter who wanted her own room, it seemed like the perfect space - so I painted the inside, put up curtains and outfitted it with all my supplies. What I did not plan on though, was the summertime temps super-heating my studio and making it all but impossible to work in! Over the years I've settled for using it as storage space in the summer months and work space in the winter. By the end of the hot months though, it looks like a jungle of unfinished projects and thrift store finds waiting to be used! The weather is just getting cool enough here for me to get out there and give it a good clean-out. I've decided to post my "before" photos as a late entry in this week's SF : the Color Wheel. I hope to post "after" photos soon!

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Materials

Tine over at Studio Friday was good enough to choose my suggestion for this week's prompt - Materials : Show us what you use

Here's a few of mine!

Here you can see the birdies are getting a little anxious to see what brothers or sisters they may have coming! Notice their little skinny bodies before feathers or clothing - I'd be too embarassed to walk around making a fuss looking like that - but not them - they jumped right out of their can - no shame I guess!

Success

The creative prompt for this week over at Studio Friday is "Success"

This is a hard one for me!

Success is so elusive.

It's not like you can land yourself in success and stay there. It's not like you can pitch your tent in the success campground and hang out without constantly refining and repitching your tent! It takes vigilance to reposition and even redesign your tent in order to stay there.

And then who even decides what success means?

For me it's one thing - for you, another.

I think maybe that success is not a destination but rather one of many tools we can use to arrive at our ultimate goal - Happiness.

To pursue success in and of itself is alot like striving to catch the wind - who can possess it for more than just the briefest of moments?!

I can only take success in small doses!

All this thinking is making my head hurt . . . I shall go lay down now . . .

Deadline

Tine at Studio Friday asks :

What would you regret not

having created before you die?

"Deadline"

I am so very grateful for each  piece that I am able to complete.

Sometimes it seems as if they tumble out easily - other times they must be coaxed or even dragged out.

I don't know that I have any special talent but I have been given the gift of time by my kind, hard-working husband Joe - time to practice and play and hone skills.

Really my artwork is just the frosting on my cupcake of life!

If I have any regrets I know that they would have to center around my two lovelies - Chloe and Camille.

Sometimes I think that I don't take enough time with them. It's such a balancing act - I know I need time for me but I must take time with them - to teach and play and make happy memories before they grow up. My time with them, as little girls, is QUICKLY flying by - already they are 15 and 11! No project that I create in my studio could ever come close (in importance) to the art of being a good MOM. I hope and pray that I am able to complete these most precious pieces of all!

This is the one . . .

This weeks' Studio Friday theme is "This is the one..." the assignment was to pick the one item you would save if a disaster was to hit your studio/creative space -

At first I thought of some essential art tool that I'd want if I could only have one thing to make art but then I said whoa! - we're talking disaster and destruction! - you can replace those!

My choice if I could only save one art related item would have to be the very first altered art project I started (and still haven't finished) when I took my Altered Book class from the wonderful Jacquie Fort. Through that class Jacquie gave me wings! She showed me how acrylic medium can bring all your bits and pieces, fragments from the past and treasured papers together to form a single miraculous page of ART! On top of it, as my topic for that project, I chose to dive into long forgotten childhood memories - the result is a book that is very dear to me. I would most definitely have to rescue it from a disaster (I actually have evacuated for hurricanes a few times with this treasure in tow!) Here is a snippet from my book . . .

The Beginning...

I've just discovered Studio Friday and wanted to contribute to this week's theme - The Beginning...

I made this little puppy girl when I was about 12 (that makes her over 30 yrs. old!). I used shells and oil paint - I can still remember waiting forever for the paint to dry!!

I am so grateful that I've kept her all these years . . . a little glimpse back at my beginning. Looking at her - I remember the little unsure artist, I remember painfully moody and lonely times, I remember a wild and wonderful imagination, I remember my fascination with nature and a love of small pretty things. I remember choosing these polished pieces of shell because their shapes formed a face, a boot, a dress in my mind. It is amazing to see that then, as now, I saw faces in ordinary objects!

Thank you Tine Wiggins for the invitation to go back and remember The Beginning...