A few weeks ago I received a letter via snail mail from a dear friend who I haven't seen in years. We've been semi-in-touch via the internet recently, but for many years after "teh art skoolz" we were both busy with stuff. One of the fabulous things about Jess is how she will just drop me a letter or a card out of the blue, and reading it makes me feel as if we've never missed a day out of our friendship. I confess I am awfully flaky about writing back, but she sticks around and is always cheering for me.

Hi Jessums! Art Day is about you today : )

Jess asked if I wanted to try exchanging ACEO's (Art Cards, Editions & Originals) in order to help get her creative mojo flowing. Basically an art card is a  little bitty 2.5" x 3.5" artwork (like a trading or baseball card) done on some kind of sturdy stock, and it's an easy way to make original art accessible to anyone.  I've done small artworks and paintings before, so it should be a piece of cake.mmm, cake. om nom nom.Anyhow, Jess wrote to say that she needs an art-card buddy (and she seems to think I don't need a kick in the ass, hahaha). This is actually something I've wanted to work on for some time, and have been awfully lazy about following through with it.

So yeah Jess! Let's do it!

And just for fun, if anybody else wants to play along, just lemme know.

ACEO's can be made from just about anything, so I've hauled out the usual suspects from among my favorite supplies: paint, sharpies, scrap paper, ribbon, buts of fabric, etc.

To see more, check out my [NEW AND IMPROVED] art blog at www.moontreestudios.com .......

Art Day! Come see me make something creative at www.moontreestudios.com.

This week, I thought it was about time to make a new set of my special Artisan Paper Beads, since it's been months since I made the last batch.

You may have seen (or made) paper beads before; usually they are created from scrap paper or magazines which have been cut up into long strips and wound to form bead shapes. Mine begin with a large sheet of handpainted paper which i paint with bright colors and designs, which I then slice up into long tapering strips and and roll into beads. After that I add layers of other papers and also my hand-drawn illustrations. Finally, I coat them in a thick layer of resin to protect them from moisture and wear.

So come have fun and see me get silly and painty. : )

And as usual, there will be plenty of madcap misadventures.

www.moontreestudios.com

In the spirit of spring I am taking a break from my sharpie markers and instead pulling out my hoard of baubles and buttons.

Today I am going to make a "Fascinator", a very vintage  throwback to more glamorous times. I'm armed with my glue gun, some beautiful buttons, rhinestones, feathers, ribbon, and fake flowers, and ready to rock!

I'll be posting hourly updates, mini tutorials, and assorted goofiness throughout the day on my new blog, www.moontreestudios.com

Come on by! I welcome comments, suggestions, sass and snark. The more the merrier!

Well, I was planning on putting this a little more eloquently, but I guess the jig is up. I have returned..... sort of.

I don't really like being a drama llama, so I'll do this as succinctly and quietly as possible. Yes, I just sort of up and left with no warning. Yes, I barely acknowledged a bunch of people who were really supportive of my projects here. Yes, I didn't even bother responding to a bunch of messages and emails I got wanting to know what the heck happened. No, I didn't suddenly up and die, nor did I forget you.  I neatly packed up all of my xanga projects, tucked them in a box, and put it away. If i'd suddenly decided i hated you or Xanga did me some terrible wrong oh boy would you have heard about it, or i would have just chucked the whole damn thing away!

In truth,, i spent a great deal of the past six months thinking about what i started here, and missing it pretty badly. And i do apologize, to each and every one of you who cheered me on, participated in a project, or just goofed off in the comments, because i couldn't have done that without you.

So here is the story, and there are some of you who might have already heard about it. Last summer in late August, my mother suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. I had already lost my dad two years prior to that, so her departure was a tough pill to swallow. She had been sick for a long time with severe lung disease, and towards the end of her life she couldn't go out at all and was becoming increasingly dependent on me to be her caretaker.

That's why we ultimately decided to buy a house in Maine together, so I would be right there if she needed anything. She was really excited and happy about starting a whole new life, but sadly she never lived long enough to see the new house. Kinda heartbreaking.

After that, I had funerals, family, lawyers, accountants, estate advisors, and all manner of crazy practicalities to cope with, and a steep learning curve to tackle. It became clear that making art had to go by the wayside while I dealt with the whirlwind of burdens placed on me. And once the brunt of it was over, my manic grief turned into a deep seated and pervasive depression, which i didn't emerge from until about a month ago.

I didn't make a damn thing. Not even a doodle. I just couldn't.

I really neglected this blog because my mother wasn't here anymore. I realize this is probably unfair to everyone else who liked reading about my art, but without her i had no heart for it. At least not on Xanga. Like i said, she didn't get out at all, and i loved the fact that she would go online on Monday and watch me make something or act all silly, and it would cheer her up. At the end of the day I'd get a phone call from her, all raspy and breathless, saying how excited she was about something i made. And after she died i couldn't come back to this art blog, knowing that at the end of the day the phone wasn't going to ring.

I mean, fark, I still go on big crying jags because I can't call her up and tell her I got into a gallery show last month, or that I'm going to paint a mural in our new house, or that i just really love her and miss her like hell, and I do all of this because i want her to be proud of her flaky artist daughter.

But no more tears for now, my lovelies, because Art, like love, is as perennial as the grass.  The ice began to thaw here in Maine about a month or so ago, and i came down to my new studio, turned on the lights, and began to draw. I have made many things in the past few weeks, and i suppose have been waiting for the right time to tell the world again.

I started a new blog on WordPress, partly because it's a little more versatile than Xanga, and also because there are some old memories which are part of this blog, and I feel ready to finally leave them behind. I would like it if you guys would come to see me there, and I have been working on a new way to update Xanga remotely from another site, which allows me to post updates to a bunch of places at once. (that Etsy pulse was me fiddling with the controls..... i actually didn't realize it had posted here until i heard a hullabaloo from this end, ha!) That way, when I update the wordpress blog, I can post an update here on Xanga which notifies you that I've posted something there if you want to come visit. The juicy stuff will be on WordPress now, but you can still comment or email me or message me however you like, here or there. Or EVERYWHERE!

You can either get there through the link above, or just go to www.MoontreeStudios.com

Anyways, I will be posting a project tomorrow on the WordPress site, which is a big deal because it's in my new studio! and it's for a gallery show I'm doing in April. I told them about Art Day and they thought it would be cool to see how I incorporate spontaneous-making-stuff with participation from my readers.

So that's about it. Again, I'm really sorry for being gone so long, but here's to an abundance of creativity from here n in!

12:00 NOON

look what showed up in the mail!

if you don't see yours here, and you know you sent it, give me a holler. Sometimes i am not the most organized Fairy Godmother.

Also check out these stamps, courtesy of DiDi in Japan. Thanks D!

Ok, lemme go dig out my wand, and then we'll get crackin'. back in a few!

2:00 PM

So if you're going to be a professional Fairy Godmother- or "Kismet Consultant", as it's known in the field- it's more than just having a the wand. Any old thing will do for a wand, and of course my tool of choice is a paintbrush.

Rearranging fortune is a complex process, and requires proper footwear.

On top of that, you have to understand complex desire-energy flow dynamics. It boils down to this: stuff ain't gonna happen unless you put it out there. Whether you're a tenacious go-getter or you tend more towards tucking your dreams away, the first step in making a wish come true is some kind of action. It can be simpler than you think, such as writing it down on a slip of paper and mailing it to somebody; your desire then begins to make its way out into the world, and also leaves a pathway back to you. It also helps to invest in kind gestures, that kind of thing attracts all kinds of positive energy. Hah. Airy fairy enough for you yet?

At any rate, a well-trained kismet consultant can help direct that output in creative, positive ways and redistribute it, ensuring that something good comes of your initial wish-gesture.

So without further adieu, shall we see what's in these envelopes??

3:00 PM

Oh, if wishes were fishes......

I'd rather have stars.

A wish from

(me, too)

And a wish for inspiration:

And this one has

Oh, neat!


Some pretty beads and confetti and golden hearts and a really good wish.

I'll have to work hard on that one, haha.

A wish from far away:

with bunnies!

And a wish for time inside.....

I have to say, you guys are really good wishers. And i know a good wish when i see it!

3:30 PM

basic wishmixing supplies:

• wishes
• blank canvas boards
• paint
• paintbrush aka "magic wand"
• pretty paper
• bottle of Heliotropic Elixr # 288, which is regulated as a section 93-a Classified Substance in the F.G. Karmic Rulebook. This basically means it's a prety kickass lucky charm.
• Some pennies in my pocket.

4:00 PM

we begin painting the canvases (there's 4, one for each wish i received), which doesn't take long since they're 3x5".

But don't get paint on the dress!

and i have to wait for the paint to dry for a couple minutes.....

4:30 PM

acrylic medium is useful stuff; it makes great glue and it dries clear and seals in collages.

but sometimes you find dried acrylic boogers in the jar.

First you paint some onto the area where you'll be sticking the paper.

Then you put the paper where you want it, and smooth it out.

Then paint another coat of acrylic medium on top to seal it in.

5:00PM

As you can see, i cut up bits and pieces of everybody's wishes. Like i always say, a little destruction has to happen before creation can take root.

I begin to arrange some selected pieces on the little canvas...

until i get something i like.

But the edges of the paper bits seem a little harsh to me, so i take a little paint and go over the edges, or paint thin translucent letters to blur the words.

A collage of wishes from all over the world.

Once the paint dries I'll add some of my own drawings (in sharpie!), and then complete the other three canvases. I'll post them here once they are all finished.

Where's the magic spell? Each finished artwork will be mailed to one of the people who sent me an original wish, so in essence a part of each wish I received is artistically transformed, and then sent back out into the world and into someone else's care. That kind of energy travels well, thus increasing the likelihood that said wish will come true.

Plus it's fun to get all painty and make art for people, so i kind of get my wish, too.

   So sorry for laming out on Art Day, guys. Art Day is serious business, no doubt. I woke up super early yesterday morning and went down to the bodega to pick up some AA batteries for the camera, and then I went over to Dunkin Donuts for some coffee, and then I came home to contemplate what I would create.

Yeah, I ended up just prowling around the internet or most of the day.

See, the thing is, I've mostly resolved myself to write less about life here and more about art, because, let's face it, most of life is pretty much boring-ass drivel. Drivelous? Drivelosity? Anyways, that life stuff got all up in my business and completely distracted me from making shit like I was supposed to be doing, and apparently some of you got nervous, so I apologize.

The big news is- and I don't want to go leaping or getting way too excited- but Matt and I are probably most very likely hopefully oh please yes please please please be buying a house in the somewhat-near future. Things are still a little vague, however, and since the arrangement is a tad bit complicated we haven't got a plan 100% in place yet, but! Yes! It's likely I will be relocating to the Maine seacoast before winter sets in. Bye bye Boston, hello pretty ocean! So I've been spending the past few days attempting to get my duckies all in a row, signing up for first-ime homebuyer classes, figuring out finances, and doing some preliminary scout-outs for potential homes.

I think I have scrutinizedt about 1000 house listings since Saturday. Seriously. 

And it's not even like the old days, where you got a single one inch blurry greyscale photo listing with a barrage of archaic abbreviations in the caption (EIK?!); you can go on whole visual tours of some of these places and find out what the cost of electricity was for the past winter or in what year the roof was redone, and they'll help you figure out your mortgage payments and even give you names of local inspectors. Holy shamolie. So I feel I have been able to significantly narrow down some more promising options, and I have already scheduled a couple appointments this weekend with realtors. Huzzah!

So less like art, and more like life; but this house feels a little like both (it might be love), so keep your fingers crossed for me.....

Front of the house, pretty blue door and sun porch

the side of the house.... you can see the stairs to the deck and some full windows letting air, light & access into the basement

the kitchen is kind of quaint, but it has a gas range which makes me happy. Would probably paint something cheerier n the walls.

Pretty sure there's 2 bedrooms upstairs... one to sleep in, one to be a guest room or studio

The basement appears to be newly refinished, and there's another bedroom down there. This would be converted into an apartment for my mum to live in. It's got some good sized windows, too.

the view of the big backyard. There's a willow tree, a garage, a new deck, and a HOT TUB.

Pretty sunroom.

The living area, with pretty maple wood built in shelves, and a fireplace!!

Announcement:  in two weeks I have big plans for Art Day (that'll be Monday, August 4), and you're all invited to participate!

I'm going to be playing Fairy Godmother to all you Cinder-Sluts out there, so if you want to take part, you gotta send me your fondest wish. Write it down on an index card (or a similar-size piece of paper)- you don't even have to put your name on it- and stick it in an envelope. Make sure the return address is really clear, and mail it to the address I'm about to post in the next protected entry.

(I might be a certified Fairy Godmother, but I'm not a dumb one, and I ain't gonna broadcast my address for all the creepos of the universe to see..... you feel me?)

And just in case you were wondering, yes, I am a licensed and certified F.G., as we like to refer to it in the field.

Bippity boppity boo, etc. Yo.

If you're not on the protected list, drop me a xanga message / email requesting my info. Email isn't gonna fly: in order for the spell to work, I have to have a physical piece of paper with your handwriting on it. Use a crayon, pencil, sharpie, pen, whatever. Draw me a pretty picture, if you like.

All of the wishes I recieve by August 4th will be included in a creative project which I'll blog about on Art Day. The next part is a surprise. I wouldn't be a very good F.G. if i told you all the good secrets, now would I??

   
12:00 NOON

This week I need your help!

Last night I posted a little pulse asking for some suggestions for people's favorite animals. Me, I have an affinity for owls and squirrels (couldn't you have guessed??), but I am pretty much a big fan of all critters, large and small. And that includes the crawly bitey ones as well as the fluffy snuggly ones.

When I was a teacher, I used to keep a copy of the Macmillan Illustrated Animal Encyclopedia in my classroom (it was my favorite book as a kid, and is now hard to find; it has beautiful drawings representing just about every vertebrate on the planet, and a facing page full of facts on every one), and I used to challenge my students to try and draw their favorite animals. As a treat, we also played a game where the kids would try to stump me by naming any animal and seeing if I was able to draw it from memory.

So if you love animals, name your favorite, and we'll see if i can draw it. (I promise not to peek in my encyclopedia too much.)

At the end of this project there will be a special surprise.....

Well, that seriously sucked. Had a wee bit of technical difficulty, but everything seems to be working smoothly again. I've been painting and taking pictures in the meantime!

First, a shot of the workspace and some of my supplies.

• My animal encyclopedia
• two sheets of transparent Polyshrink paper
• Fine grit sandpaper
• Sharpies!!!
• Watercolor paintbrushes
• tempera paint
• watercolor pencils
• iridescent watercolor medium; I've had this bottle for ages but have rarely played with it.
• Brush tip markers

1:00 PM

I'm going to start by sanding the sheets of shrink paper, first in horizontal strokes and then vertical strokes. This gives the surface a little "tooth" so it will absorb color.

You can see the scratchy texture on it now.

If you don't sand it first, water will just bead on the surface.

But when sanded, the water & pigment have something to cling to.

Now I'm ready to add color and drawings; here are some of my drawing and painting supplies.

I'm so bad, I really love using kiddie art supplies, especially poster paints and crayons. The colors are always really bright and cleanup is way easier! Plus people think it's really funny when you tell them what you use to draw with, haha.

I'm going to begin with some blue tempera. i get my brush wet and pick up a bit of color.....

And then I lay on a light wash. It's really watery and doesn't soak into the surface very much, so the brushstrokes stay fluid and sort of meld together.

I finished this page, using mainly cool colors.....

And then started a bolder, warm colored wash on the other sheet.

2:00 PM

After letting the first washes dry for a bit, i went in and played with some detail effects. If you get your brush really wet- with just clear water, or pick up a little paint- you can override the wash color and paint in detailed designs.

 here, i'm making dapples using drops of water. The water spreads out from the drop and pushes the color outwards.

3:00 PM

I've got a lot of effects going on this page. Drips, dribbles, dapples, etc.

This is the other page, after the wash dried. I haven't messed with this at all, but check out that weird line effect where the brushstrokes meet. I kinda like it.

I thought i might try my drip technique on the plastic sheet.

It kind of made mud. Pretty mud, though!

4:00 PM

After waiting for the watercolor to dry ( i have to be patient, since the surface is plastic), i went in with the felt-tip caligraphy marker and added some details.

Since I will be adding animals in the next step, I started to think about this background as being a kind of ecosystem for them to inhabit.

I'm not a big proponent of Creationism by any means, but it is interesting to think of building my own little watercolor planets.

Perhaps....... I am a wrathful and avenging art-creator goddess!

.......Or maybe just a messy goddess.

......or one that is a freaking slob and has to do laundry this week.

Did i mention i like to use washable kid paint? yep yep.

Here's a list of all the suggested animals so far. Lots of kitties and fishies, hehe.

An Elephant, in honor of Mister Matt, who single-handedly saved Art Day today!

And an unlikely aquarium starts to take shape........

Well, i've almost finished the fishy page!

say hello to Mister Octopus. Did you know they are highly intelligent invertebrates, and will kill and eat sharks??

I thought i might take the iridescent medium for a test drive.....

I liked it okay, but mostly it just pushed the paint around and made things only slightly shimmery. Feh.

Okay, i've drawn most of the animals.

Turns out? Stuff like aardvarks and lemurs i can draw straight from memory. But kitty cats? I freaking have no clue.

I guess i just don't pay attention to them, ha! But this one turned out okay. This is a requested kitty.

it's a freaking zoo!

I took a ruler and started drawing lines on the back of the drawing, dividing it up into rectangles.

I tried to make each rectangle contain [most of] an animal......

I'm just going to post this picture of this pair of scissors, and let everybody freak out for a few minutes.

because, yes, i am going to CUT IT INTO PIECES!!! muahaha.

(don't worry, i took pictures of the original )

I hope you don't hate me now : )

I cut the animals into regular rectangles, and the fish are sort of amorphous shapes.

Time to pre-heat the oven! (275 degrees Fahrenheit)

But first, the hole puncher!

Before i put the pieces in the oven, i want to put holes in them so I can use them as pendants. It's a lot easier to do this before they're uh, hard....and, uhh, thick. So I'll take care of that while the oven is heating up.

I laid them all out on a piece of cardboard, and put that on a cookie sheet. They will stick to metal and it leaves marks on the backs of the shrunken pieces; sometimes i put additional pieces of cardboard on top of them to keep them from curling or rolling around in there.

See? When they hit the 275 degree mark, they start to undulate around and become curly as heck. This is when i start to get nervous; but really, you just have to be patient. Once the plastic softens they start to flatten out. The whole process takes less than ten minutes, but i like to sit in front of the oven and watch the progression.

9:00 PM.

Then i took them out of the oven and let them cool down;they're still a little soft so i gently pushed on the curved ones to flatten them. Later i will put a clear gloss on the surface of each one to protect the design. The colors & designs are really intense, because basically they've been concentrated on the surface of the plastic.

Let's see what we've got:

Here's the whole set:


I'm going to put a little varnish on each one, and then affix a loop through the holes i made and put them on ribbons.

Soooo..... i dunno if you remember, but at the beginning of this post I promised a surprise. Since you were all so helpful in suggesting animals for me to draw, I thought it would be only fair that you should each receive a piece of this artwork, if you so desire. Even if you didn't mention an animal, I'll still send you a piece if you would like one. One per person!

Of course quantity is limited (I've got about 28 good ones), and although I'll do my best to send you the animal you named,  i can't really fulfill specific requests. As you can probably see, it's kind of a jumble.

(And i already have dibs on the octopus and the turtle, because they are special-made for another project!)

For those of you on xanga, send me a message with your mailing address and I'll send you a piece. Or you can send me an email (moontree.studios@gmail.com , subject line: "Zoology") and send me your address that way.

Thanks for hanging out with me in my blog studio today!

    12:00 PM

I like a little bit of process. Today we're going to start with a couple things, and see how many times I can change it.

Now i'm not just talking about, "paint over that shiznit!"; what I'm talking about is an equal amount of creation, transformation, and destruction, and then...... probably more creation. It's a good lesson if you're an artist, since it broadens your concept and keeps you from getting too precious or uptight about what you're making.

First, i am setting myself some standards:

• I will create three new elements;
• I will destroy something i have already created;
• I will incorporate all of this into one artwork;
• I will drastically change the original form somehow;
• The resulting piece will be functional;
• You will be able to see the process in it.

I have a feeling this is going to be a chaotic afternoon, heh.

Sorry for the delay; i realized my camera ran out of juice, so i had to go hunt around for batteries. File this under: "Destroy".

hey, look. A big sheet of paper!

Ugmoe the rabbit volunteers to help destroy it, or at least destroy it a little around the edges.

He's not interested in painting, however.

But that's okay, because we all know that i do : )

Ready to rock!

first glob on some paint.....

then, start laying it down.

It looks like an underwater cavern. I like it, just as it is.

But see, that's the thing, i don't want to get attached. Ultimately, it's going to get it changed, and then destroyed.

hey look, i am a painting!

And my shoes are the same color as my creativity : )

I added some purple paint. Nuthin' wrong with purple paint.

Oh, eff. Except when you drip it on yourself, because acrylic paint doesn't come off!

Also notice my awesome manicure. You can just call me Slob Girl now. I gotta wash this off.

You know what? Screw it, life is messy.

Let's celebrate by dripping copper paint all over the place.

Oh, yeah.

But you know what? It needs something.... different.

So i'm gonna pick the whole thing up and flip it upside down.

That's better.

Annie, Annie, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

Straight up marker fumes, that's how.

A sign of things to come.....

A few of you have specifically requested that i do a dancey-dance.

Check out my "Shake that Spraypaint" dance.

Results of spraypainting:

I also added in some white highlights.

(you can see that the rabbit already got to it)

I spraypainted it gold. Oh yes, yes i did.

Ok, ok, i'm just kidding around. It wasn't an ORIGINAL drawing. (That owl is my favorite, are you crazy?!!) It was just a print on vellum that i made the other day.

Let's put this on the floor where we can see it.

i always know a painting is ready to be shredded up when i get that little wishful twinge, like i'd rather just hang it on the wall.

But that's not what i'm doing today.

ha! this used to be a painting!

Now what?!

I went through the cut up paper and sliced it further, into long, tapering strips of paper of different sizes. They're really pretty because some of the designs i drew are still visible, and the gold makes some parts almost look iridescent.

Then i did the same thing to the owl print that i just spraypainted. It looks so cool all remixed, hehe.

Ok, so i sorted all of the tapered paper strips by size, so i can see what i have.

With all this paper on the floor, i have to be careful. The rabbit usually snoozes under the table until matt gets home, so i better check to see if he's waking up.....

nope, still snoozling!

Ok, good to go.

I has a stik! and some glue.

And a long strip of painted paper.

First, i'm going to start winding the wide end of the paper around the stick.

I continue winding the paper around itself, adding layer upon layer of paper.
Since the paper is tapered, the new form starts to take on a tapered shape, too.

When i get to the end, i glue the last couple of inches down.

Et voila, the start of a large paper bead.

But what about the owl  print?
I take one of the strips i made and measure the width against the shape of the bead.

Then i choose a 2 inch section i like, and wind it around the bead.

A transformation bead, with owl feather patterning.

Later, and after i've made a few more, i will coat these in a clear resin, and create a piece of jewelry from them.

Here's the thing: it was a painting on paper. Paper doesn't hold up very well in the long run, so you can't be getting all attached to it. I'm sure i could have framed it or put it on stretcher bars, but really, there will be other paintings on other days. I promise. They will be pretty, too.

In the meantime, I took quite a few photos of the painting just before it was transformed. I always do this, for reference, comparison, and so I can make prints or digital photos later if I need to. Nothing is forever, and everything changes: let's celebrate that!  Every bead i make from it represents a part of the original, which can now be worn. I think that's a pretty interesting concept, i mean, if you think about it.

So i've got a few beads made so far, and it's getting to be dinner time. i'm going to work on these tonight, and then this week I will finish the process.

Keep an eye out for goofy photos of me, rocking my newly created transformation piece : )

Witness: the man I love, at his finest.