non-obligatory blogging

. Thought someone might like to see the original photo that I took on Socorro, NM plaza on 12-07-07. Wish I could make a print that looked like the photo. :)

These are my prints for the wetcanvas Christmas card print exchange that I participated in. Both were less than what I'd hoped for but there was no time to redo. I had already missed the deadline by 6 days when I sent them out on Friday. When they were sent out, the bag on the left contained one of the prints done on the black lokta paper and the message (shown at the top - if you click on the top image it should be large enough to read the printing details.) I had hoped that the printed bag would show the image lit from behind when used as a luminaria but alas it didn't work as I had hoped. The print quality on the lunch bags wasn't consistent and so most of the bags didn't print as dark as I had hoped. Oh well. The black lokta print was a bit of an experiment. I was shooting for a glowing nighttime photo look but of course I wasn't quite happy with the results of this one either. It actually looked much better when I framed it in the metallic bronze frame. Sorta ...

. I can't believe it's been so long but it really has. Busyness has overtaken me again. Too much to tell about. No one would really want to wade through it anyway. :) Above you can see a creative something that I squeezed in sometime during the past month or so. A soldered ornament with a feather sandwiched between microscope slides and wire/beadwork dangle-doodads that I learned how to do. Fun! It actually sold at the gallery last week. Cool! I've been planning on making more but haven't found the time. I joined a printmaking exchange and have been trying to get those finished and in the mail. I'll try to add those in a day or so.

. I love polyester plates! Oh, yeah, I said that already. They are so flippin' useful! The photo shows some of the hanging copper whachamacallits that we (our friend Glenn Bigelow and I) etched today for the wind chimes that I'm making for the Santa Fe Recycle show coming up this weekend. (they are supposed to look "distressed", just in case you wondered). We printed the plates with the words on a laser printer, inked them up with oil-based ink, printed them on the copper, embossed them and then put them in ferric chloride to etch them. After 1.5 hours (!) I removed them from the mordant and scrubbed off the resist, heated them on the stove to give them a patina, rubbed black shoe polish into the etched word and ta-dah (a la Katie, little fists raised to the sky) etched-dangle-doo-dads for the wind chimes.

. My husband is convinced I'm nuts but for some reason he still supports me in almost every crazy thing I involve myself in. It is far more than, "sure sweetie, go ahead." His support comes with a friendly, amused, helpful attitude most of the time and he gets in there and ends up working harder than me if that's what is required. Amazing. (Although, he has put his foot down about ever getting involved in the food service industry again and he did make me quit loading glass on the trailer before I'd gotten all the free glass the Freecycle folks were offering.) Above on the left you can see my latest insanity and there's about three times as much under the tarp. That's glass, just in case it is unidentifiable. On the right is the first thing I've made from it -- wind chimes (just in case they also cannot be identified). My friend Yvonne is ball-of-fire, production-mode artist. She can crank out more great art faster than anyone I know. And just about an...

. I was working on something earlier this fall and thought I'd scan some fall weeds/grass and possibly use it in a piece I was working on. I ended up not using it but on closer examination I discovered more than I bargained for. I'm not sure you'll be able to see it very well because of the resolution but if you zoom into the area inside the white circle you will see some sort of critter. I have no brilliant insight or revelation about this -- no deeper meaning. It was a fun discovery though.

. I really don't normally do weird southwestern or Mayan looking, abstract sorta art but trying a new method of doodling produced something quite unlike my usual little daisy flowers and tiny semi-stick people doodles. I found zentangles online one day and thought they were pretty cool looking doodles. Their site describes them as, " Zentangle is an easy to learn and relaxing method of creating beautiful images from repetitive patterns." I don't think I love them enough to order the kit they sell for $49. plus shipping so one can learn to doodle in the purist zentangle way and use only the absolute best quality paper and pen which are provided in the kit. I also don't care to find a zentangle class to take so I can understand what they are all about and have a corporate, zentangling community experience and produce genuine, authentic zentangle doodles but I do like the concept of therapeutic doodling and they looked interesting so, I tried my uneducated version a...

. Ok. So I'm blogging. I still say who cares? I really wonder. I also wonder what I have to say that hasn't already been said. Somewhere. By someone else. Before I even thought to say it. There's nothing new under the sun as someone before me has so wisely said. For instance take the above example. I had tumbled the antique purple Glass Graveyard find (aka dump glass) in my brand new rock tumbler overnight with water and sand to simulate a frosted sea glass look. Today I (being afraid even of miniature power tools) took my brand new $10 off, cordless, bargain Dremel tool and actually, successfully drilled a hole in the glass. (First try!) Jump rings were then inserted successfully into the hole by this non-jewelry maker. I printed the image of the flowers on the glass by a printmaking technique called polyester plate lithography and then embossed the image in silver, inserted the ribbon and ta-dah . . . a necklace. I thought maybe no one else had ever thought to d...